By Beau van ‘t Oever · Link building specialist at Seeders · Updated October 2026
Outreach is emailing site owners and editors to ask for a link, a guest post or a mention. Most outreach emails are ignored because they’re obviously templates. Here’s what gets replies.
Before you email
- Make sure you have something worth linking to.
- Find the right person: editor, author or owner, not info@.
- Read a few of their recent articles. You’ll need it for the first line.
The email
- Subject: short and specific, e.g. “Your guide to garden lighting”.
- First line: something that proves you read their site.
- The ask: one clear request, with the URL.
- Why it helps them: better resource, fixed broken link, fresh data.
- Length: under 120 words.
Follow-up
One polite follow-up after 4–7 days is fine. A third email is usually spam.
What reply rates to expect
For cold outreach, 3–10% replies is normal; relationships and good assets push it higher. If you’d rather skip the emailing, buying guest posts on sites that already accept them is the shortcut.
Written by Beau van ‘t Oever
Link building specialist at Seeders. Beau works on link building campaigns at Seeders every day: finding sites, judging whether they’re worth a link, and getting the links placed.