Definition
Outreach is the cornerstone of most link building strategies. It involves identifying and contacting website owners, bloggers, journalists, or influencers to propose a collaboration resulting in a backlink. Outreach can take many forms: guest post proposals, link insertion requests, content promotion (infographics, studies), broken link alerts, or partnership proposals. Outreach success depends on message personalization, proposal relevance, and value offered to the recipient. Tools like Hunter.io, Pitchbox, BuzzStream, and Mailshake facilitate prospecting and campaign management at scale.
Key Points
- Personalization is the most critical factor for response rates
- Outreach must provide clear value to the recipient
- Automation tools (Pitchbox, BuzzStream) manage campaigns at scale
Practical Examples
Successful outreach email
A personalized email that mentions a specific article from the blogger, explains how your content complements theirs, and proposes a relevant mutual link. No generic templates.
Large-scale campaign
Using Pitchbox, an agency identifies 500 relevant sites, personalizes emails with dynamic variables, and manages automated follow-ups. Response rate: 12%, conversion rate: 4%.
Frequently Asked Questions
A 5-15% response rate is considered good, with a conversion rate (link acquisition) of 1-5%. Personalization, relevance, and proposal quality are the key factors.
To avoid spam filters, limit yourself to 30-50 emails per day per address. Use a dedicated domain for outreach, warm up the address progressively, and maintain a good replies-to-sends ratio.
Go Further with LemmiLink
Discover how LemmiLink can help you put these SEO concepts into practice.
Last updated: 2026-02-07