So, what actually works? This is what I do when I want a link from a site that matters:<\/p>\n
Why so much link building outreach dies on arrival<\/h3>\n
There’s two reasons: The list is wrong, or the email is lazy.<\/p>\n
Plenty of people still run outreach like it\u2019s 2015. Scrape a thousand URLs, drop them in a tool, send the same template to all of them with {FirstName} swapped in. Editors clock that a mile off. They get dozens a week and bin the obvious ones in a few seconds.<\/p>\n
And chasing raw numbers doesn\u2019t pay the way people assume. John Mueller from Google said it clearly<\/a> in a 2021 Search hangout: \u201cthe total number of links doesn\u2019t matter at all,\u201d and \u201cthe total number essentially is completely irrelevant.\u201d One strong, relevant link<\/a> can do more than fifty weak ones. So outreach was always about landing the few that count.<\/p>\n Before I write a single email, I cut the list hard. The test is one question: would a real reader of this site actually care about the page I\u2019m pitching?<\/p>\n If a parenting blog links to my client\u2019s industrial flooring guide, that link looks odd to everyone, Google included. If a trade magazine your buyers already read links to it, that\u2019s the one worth chasing.<\/p>\n So I sort prospects by relevance first, authority second. A mid-size site that\u2019s bang on topic beats a big generalist site every time. Fewer targets, better fit, more effort per email. That\u2019s the trade.<\/p>\n Dropping someone\u2019s first name into a template is a mail merge, and editors read it as one.<\/p>\n Real personalisation means you\u2019ve read the thing you\u2019re emailing about. You reference the specific article, the broken link<\/a> on page 4, the stat they\u2019re using that\u2019s three years old. It takes longer. It also works. Backlinko\u2019s study of 12 million outreach emails found that personalising the message body lifted responses by 32.7%<\/a>. That\u2019s not a rounding error.<\/p>\n “I\u2019d rather send 15 emails I\u2019ve actually thought about than 150 I haven\u2019t. The 15 get replies because the editor can tell I read their site. The 150 get marked as spam and wreck your sender reputation for the next campaign.\u201d Becky Halls, Strategist at 3Way.Social<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n A quick way in: open the page you want a link from, find one concrete detail, and make that detail the first line of your email. Prove you\u2019re a person who looked.<\/p>\n Nobody links to you as a favour – They link because it makes their page better!<\/p>\n So the thing you\u2019re pitching has to earn it. A stat their readers would want. A tool that saves them time. A guide that\u2019s more useful than the dead link you spotted. If you\u2019re doing broken link building<\/a>, your replacement has to be at least as good as what used to sit there, ideally better.<\/p>\n When I can\u2019t honestly say my page is worth the link, I don\u2019t send the email. That sounds obvious – Most outreach ignores it completely.<\/p>\n Keep it short. Four or five lines, tops. The shape I use:<\/p>\n One line on who you are. One line on why you\u2019re emailing them specifically, with the detail that proves you read their site. One or two lines on the thing and why it helps their readers. Then an easy, low-pressure ask.<\/p>\n Something like:<\/p>\n \u201cHi Sam, I run content for [client]. Spotted that your warehouse safety guide links out to a HSE page that now 404s (the one under \u2018flooring standards\u2019). We published an updated breakdown of the 2026 rules last month covering the same ground. Happy to send it over if it\u2019s useful. No worries either way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n That\u2019s it! No flattery, no 300-word life story, no five competing calls to action. Make saying yes easy!<\/p>\n Most replies come after a nudge, so one follow-up is worth sending. Backlinko found a single follow-up increased replies by 65.8%<\/a>. One. Not five.<\/p>\n After that, stop. Chasing someone four times doesn\u2019t win the link, it just annoys a person you might want to pitch again next year. Move on and spend the time on a better prospect.<\/p>\n Google finished its September 2026 spam update<\/a> over October, and the weeks since have been choppy, with unconfirmed ranking volatility and a lot of chatter<\/a> while the industry waits on a core update that feels overdue. When things wobble like this, the risky patterns are the first to get burned: bulk marketplace links, exact-match anchors at scale, anything that looks bought.<\/p>\n The links that hold through all of it are the boring, relevant, earned ones. A handful of those beats a spreadsheet of 200 you\u2019d be nervous to show anyone.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time an update rolls through, the people who panic are the ones who built on shortcuts. If your links are relevant and you earned them honestly, a core update is a quiet week. Build the kind of link you\u2019d be happy to explain to a Google engineer.\u201d Ian Naylor, Founder of 3Way.Social<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n So send fewer emails, and make each one count. It\u2019s slower, and it\u2019s the version that still works when the algorithm gets twitchy.<\/p>\n Fewer than you think. I\u2019d take 20 well-researched, relevant pitches over 200 generic ones. Reply rates on cold email are low enough that volume alone won\u2019t save a bad list.<\/p>\n The broad cold-email average is around 3.43%, so a tight, relevant, personalised campaign should beat that comfortably. I aim for well into double figures when the targeting is right. If you\u2019re below the average, the problem is almost always the list or the template.<\/p>\n Automate the admin. Keep a human on the thinking. Tools are fine for finding prospects, tracking replies and scheduling a single follow-up. The email itself still needs someone who read the site. Fully automated, fully templated outreach is what\u2019s dragging reply rates down.<\/p>\n Yes, if it\u2019s a real editorial placement on a relevant site, pitched properly. The paid, templated, \u201cwe accept guest posts\u201d version is exactly what the spam updates keep catching. Same rules apply: relevance, a reason to say yes, a short honest pitch.<\/p>\n Three to five working days. Long enough that you\u2019re not nagging, short enough that your first email is still near the top of their inbox. One follow-up, then leave it.<\/p>\n Let the site owner choose the wording, or suggest something natural like your brand or the page title. Asking for an exact-match keyword anchor is a flag, and after this autumn\u2019s volatility it\u2019s a flag I wouldn\u2019t wave.<\/p>\n By Becky Halls, Strategist at 3way.social. I spend my weeks pitching links for clients and deleting bad pitches from my own inbox, which is a useful way to learn what works.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most of your link building outreach is getting deleted before anyone reads past line one… I say that as someone who sends link outreach for a\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4503,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-link-building","category-seo"],"modified_by":"Becky Halls","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4502"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4505,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4502\/revisions\/4505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"one](\"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/outreach.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nPick fewer sites, and pick the right ones<\/h3>\n
Personalisation past the first name<\/h3>\n
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Give them a reason to say yes<\/h3>\n
The pitch, in plain terms<\/h3>\n
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Follow up once. Then let it go.<\/h3>\n
Why relevance matters even more right now<\/h3>\n
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Link building outreach FAQ<\/h3>\n
How many outreach emails should I send?<\/h4>\n
What\u2019s a good reply rate for link outreach?<\/h4>\n
Should I automate outreach?<\/h4>\n
Is guest posting still part of this?<\/h4>\n
How long should I wait before following up?<\/h4>\n
What about anchor text in outreach links?<\/h4>\n