How to Build Links with Email Marketing

Quality links to your website remain one of the strongest contributors to high organic rankings in search engines. Plus, a link from a popular website could bring you increased traffic and brand recognition. All you email marketers out there may not realize the potential role you could play in generating links to your organization’s website. Link building is difficult in part because it requires you to start and cultivate relationships with people who care about issues relevant to your organization. You’ve already established this relationship with your list, making them an excellent potential source for links!

Note that the ideas here are not likely to net you “high profile” links from major news sites, but rather start and continue a steady flow of grass-roots and social media links that give increase in rankings over time.

Understanding the Linkers in Your List
Understanding the profile of a person who is likely to link increases your email marketing’s contribution to link building. In order for your list members to link to you, they have to have the ability to publish to the web in some capacity or other. Here are some examples of where your list’s linkers may publish:

• personal or business blogs
• personal or business websites
• forums
• social networks
• social news sites
• comment sections of favorite websites/blogs

Those of you sending B2C emails are more likely to have potential linkers on your list than those sending to B2B lists. There are B2B sectors that do have enormous numbers of linkers though – the one I know of is the online marketing sector, for which almost every website has its accompanying blog and there’s massive participation in forums. That said, at this point you’d be hard pressed to find an industry that’s NOT covered by at least one blog.

You must also understand that linkers are often folks who are opinionated and experienced subject matter experts or enthusiasts. Often times they are “influencers” who others trust to be curators of interesting or useful information. Understanding this will help you set the bar at the appropriate levels when you begin dreaming up your link incentives or casting about for incentives you’ve already developed.
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