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How to successfully reach out to large publishers for links?
Posted by on January 4, 2021 at 5:25 pmI’ve never done much link outreach before, and I’m not an SEO. I’m doing some other marketing and affiliate management work, which includes doing some outreach to get us included in comparison articles where our competitors are listed, but we’re not.
I’m having a lot of success with bloggers and small publishers, but getting nowhere with bigger outlets. That’s not unexpected, but I could use some help finding the right angle.
An example is an article on Cnet. They have an article that compares our main competitors, but doesn’t include us. They also use affiliate links within their article, and they regularly update the article with new info.
We have some clear advantages over our competitors, and we also have an affiliate program with similar commissions to our competitors. Seems we’d be a great fit, and they’re a good target. But I can’t get anyone to give me the time of day. Doesn’t seem to matter who I reach out to (article author, section editor, advertising dept., someone random, etc.) or what angle I take, I just hit a brick wall. No replies at all. Not even a “no.”
We have a budget, so I always bring up the opportunity to work out payment, but that doesn’t get any replies either.
Anyone here had luck getting through to someone at bigger publishers?
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4 Replies
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Think about their goals. What can you offer them that they actually care about?
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I would like to know this as well.
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Cnet shows affiliate links (ads) you say. People don’t trust such content. At least I don’t .Probably the links are labeled as sponsored / nofollow and therefore have limited SEO value.
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In terms of pitching, if you’re emailing a journalist about SEO, they won’t give you the time of day, you don’t have anything for them. You’ll need to speak to the sales department of you want to talk about money changing hands.
Writers from large publications get 100s of pitches a day so you’ve got to really stand out just to be seen.
If you can’t get through to anyone, you’ll need to rethink how you’re pitching. Just because you’ve had some success with smaller sites doesn’t mean it’ll work for everyone.
What are your subject lines? How are you finding email addresses? How long is your email? How is it formatted? Font size? Tone? Are you including images? Are you using links? How are you coming across in your emails? Have you had any feedback from your pitches?
Research ‘Digital PR’. That’s the art of pitching to press, you’ll probably have greater success learning from those guys than anyone else.
Hope this helps.
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