The page with a backlink to my clients side has gone. The publication in question seems to gone out of business and therefore my entire example is now invalid. Typical. 🙂 I will update asap with a new example, feel free to ask me any questions via Twitter etc.
Here’s my quick, easy to follow guide on how to reverse link build using mentions:
1) Set up an “alert*” for your business, product, service, or brand
2) Check these every day
3) If you get featured, email them
That is actually all there is to it. I Googled this, and the guides on it are massive, and a bit crazy. This will always be specific to you. Rather than create a boring guide, I’m going to give you a straight up, transparent example:
Winning example #1
- I already have alerts set up, one morning I get notified of this article. It wasn’t a surprise, as I had previously spoken to one of the people at the publication. The article mentioned us, but did not link to us.
- I fired up my email, and wrote this to the relevant person:
She replied:
Voila! I got a link! Unfortunately, it wasn’t the one I asked for, they just added it to the bottom, but that’s fine, because you should be in the mindset of letting people link however they like.
Example #2 – Even Pros Fail
I get a notification of this article.
Wow. I was using a HARO (Help A Reporter Out) type service AGES ago, and I provided the quote from my client. This isn’t even the publication I was speaking to, so I have no idea how my quote managed to get to this site. Nonetheless, I fired up my emails:
This time, no reply. Maybe I’m better with women than men, I can’t say for sure, however the point I’d like to make here is your success rate isn’t always going to be 100% – and that’s okay. Forget it, move on. I have a million and one things to keep up with, if somebody chooses not to link to me, so be it. Just move on, don’t pester them – it’s annoying, and if they didn’t think your first email was useful, they will certainly bin your next one.
I hope this extremely basic guide was useful. If you have any questions, as always email me, and I will reply. Just remember:
- Monitor your web mentions!
- Don’t be scared to ask for a link
- Don’t pester people more than once, twice at a maximum
*I personally use www.mention.com – it seems better at picking up LTKWs and lesser known brand phrases compared to Google Alerts & the SEMrush ones I use. But I may be wrong about that as I’m basing that just off my experience.