Outreach Guide for Broken Link Building

The broken link building strategy

When you’re trying to increase your site’s search engine optimization, you may want to implement broken link building. This involves finding broken external links on other websites within your niche, then engaging with the link owners and offering your own content as a replacement.

We have a dedicated use case for broken link building which you can use to scale your link-building strategy.

Once you’ve compiled your list of relevant broken link-building opportunities, you should have a spreadsheet full of them with their location and content.
But your work isn’t done yet; you still need to reach out and build those links and that involves email outreach.
The good news is that link-building outreach isn’t rocket science 😅.

3 basic tips for effective broken link building outreach

The basic procedure is as follows:
🔎 Find the contact information for the site you’re contacting first.
📧 Then, send them an email informing them of the broken link on their website (and suggest your link as a replacement in the process).
Isn’t it rather straightforward?
However, like with any type of email outreach, there is a narrow line between outreach and “spam reach.”

The most important step is to draft an optimal outreach email based on your content. In your opinion, what kind of substitute link would best fill the broken link? Asking for a substitute link idea is just as important as providing one.

1. Focus on reaching out to the right person

Many people fail at broken link building because they do not contact the right person.
You must ensure that you are approaching the relevant person behind the link!

For example, you should contact the business’s owner only if the founder actively administers a small corporate blog or is an individual blogger.
Otherwise, it would make far more sense to contact the blog’s administrators, who are more likely to be concerned about broken links on the site.

Tips 😉 : When searching for contact information, you’ll see that Linkub is an excellent resource because it has email and social media (LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) addresses of people behind the links.

2. Be relevant and straight to the point

Your copy should follow those rules :

1. always address the recipient by name
2. pinpoint precisely the broken link URL
3. suggest a relevant substitute and explain why it’s appropriate
4. keep it short and don’t be too salesy

The tone of voice is also essential. You should just notify them of a broken link and provide a replacement. Never say anything like, “Please replace the broken link with my link,” or “You must replace the broken link with this one because it’s the best source on here and your viewers will prefer it.” Nobody likes being told what they should do!

Always ensure that your replacement link recommendation is indeed a good substitute for the broken link. If you do this, your chances of success will skyrocket.

Tips 😉 : Use the Linkub Broken Link Detector tool to identify broken links that are truly relevant to your content and your industry.

3. Send follow-ups

Have you received a response to your initial outreach email?
If no, send a follow-up email.
Don’t be pushy; simply remind the recipient of the problem.

Knowing if and when your email has been read allows you to time your follow-ups to perfection. This in turn will lead to more responses to your link outreach. 

In fact, follow-ups can be surprisingly effective. Sending follow-up emails frequently generates more links than the original outreach email.
However, do not follow up more than 1–2 times. That is a surefire way to get your email address (or the entire domain) reported as spam and blacklisted.

Templates for link building email outreach

We provide those templates as examples of email outreach for broken link building. To increase your chances of reaching out, always add your own flair and customization to what you find on the internet.