Much of my work involves qualifying web sites that our relevant to our clients, and persuading them to consider linking to our clients’ sites.  This requires me to make contact with the site owner or whoever would be best suited to address my request.  In this blog post, I’ll be discussing how to identify the proper contact for your link requests.

There are several types of sites across the web.  You have blogs, online magazines, niche online stores, personal sites, and miscellaneous sites.  Each site can often have a unique hierarchy of staff in charge of organizing the site and its content.  As a link builder, I am often faced with the challenge of deciphering this organization.  Deciding who to contact is absolutely critical in achieving your goal of acquiring a link.

In remaining consistent with my dog site examples, we’ll take a look at The Bark, a popular dog magazine site.  If we scroll over to the Contact Us page, we see a list of several contacts here:

If we were to send our link request to Cameron Woo, the advertising contact listed, we can be pretty certain that one of a few things will happen

1.) He/She will ignore the email. (Link request emails often get ignored and a link request email to someone who doesn’t necessarily fit the job description of managing the site’s content is going to further increase this outcome).
2.) He/She will respond and most likely engage in a conversation that will take much more time than necessary.
3.) He/She will forward the email to the contact they think is a proper fit.

None of these outcomes are desirable.  They all take more time than necessary and increase the chances of leading to an outcome that doesn’t involve getting a link.  It would make things much easier if we do a little more research and evaluation to determine the proper outcome.

Let’s evaluate the type of site we’re looking at.  This is the site for a dog magazine.  Getting a link will not be as simple as contacting the site owner and requesting a sidebar link.  This is a magazine organization. Magazines typically have writers, editors, chief editors, sales, advertising representatives, and other miscellaneous staff. Editors review content and approve what gets published. Additionally, in this example, the site even specifies that to submit articles or ideas, contact the editor.  So now we’ve identified who we should send our link request to.

Additionally, in this example, the site even specifies that to submit articles or ideas, contact the editor.  So now we’ve identified who we should send our link request to.

Let’s say we run into a dog blog like The Poodle and Dog Blog.  As we scroll down the blog and view the right sidebar for any information that may lead to a contact, we find quickly find that at the top right there is an “Email Me” link.  We found an easy one here!

You’ll often find with blogs that contact information may or may not be listed.  But in the cases in which contact information is provided, you’ll find that it’s very easy to find the proper contact for your link request.

Key Takeaway

Taking the time to find the right contact will surely help in your link outreach efforts.  Being lazy and just sending your link requests to any email address or contact form on the site will frequently end in another email hitting the trash can!

Bobby is one of our illustrious Search Team members and is a link building expert. He came to Intrapromote in 2008 with several years of experience already under his belt and ready to share the wealth of knowledge he had.

With a diversified background in client focus, Bobby has been able to assist with developing best practice link building protocols and teaching other team members the ropes. Plus, he has amazing hair. He’s the full package!

Bobby blogs about link building topics and is quick to lend a helping hand in anything search-related. He’s a basketball fan (to put it mildly) and he looks forward to March Madness on an annual basis.

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