As Google and all major search engines keep updating their algorithms, it’s hard to track what works in SEO.
In the last few updates, Google has been emphasizing more on UI and trying to put backlinks on the back.
The reason is obvious: to crack down on low-quality content ranking solely based on PBNs, etc.
So, the question is.
Do backlinks still work?
Let’s send a backlinking campaign using Optinplus.co and see the results.
We will not send a guest posting campaign as it requires more resources. In this case study, we will send an outreach campaign to try getting mentions in a related resource.
The page we want to outreach for is https://www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/photoeditor, but we can also collaborate with prospects on a different page for the same website thecanvasprints.co.uk
This is a photo editor on an e-commerce website selling canvas prints. As you can understand, photos are printed on canvas, so photo editing is vital to printing.
However, this tool can also be used to promote as a free photo editor to gain valuable backlinks and get mentions in resources and best of pages.
We will also send another campaign just to get some more links related to the canvas printing niche and promote this content https://www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/best-photos-for-canvas-prints
Bear in mind that some industries are very competitive and don’t give links for free; they ask for payment for their time to check and mention the link.
Let’s find our prospects
The first step is to build a prospects spreadsheet and fill it with prospect url, name, and contact email.
The best way to find prospects is to search for the keyword you wish to rank for or the keyword of the blog post you wish to promote.
Then, go through Google search results individually and find websites linking to these results.
The people linking to these URLs are your prospects.
Let’s take this example.
To promote https://www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/photoeditor
Go to google.com or, in this case, google.co.uk to get UK results, as the site is UK-related.
Type “photo editor”.
The first result for me is https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/editor
Now go to your favourite SEO tool—mine is Ubersuggest—and look for the backlinks to the above URL.
I can see there are 2414 domains linking to it, so let's just choose the best 250 posts related closely to the printing or photo niche. If we are able to get a few related links, it will boost not only the photo editor page but also the overall website.
I am only choosing 250 for this campaign as an example. Typically, I would send an email to every related prospect I find linking to the top 10 Google results.
The key here is to choose the posts related closely to canvas printing or your keyword. If you choose a wider niche, your website will start ranking for those niches more.
So, I chose around 250 prospects (I will write a separate post about choosing prospects) and put them in a spreadsheet. Here is the sheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/18vnPUBwtjqy_ELqDzLJG9wkcbbVahH_QDzUYZsk83VA/edit?usp=sharing
I normally write URL, first name, last name, and page title, which is enough to write a good outreach email.
Create an Outreach Campaign
Now we have the sheet, we just need to create a campaign and send it to all the prospects.
Go to Optinplus.co and log in. After you are logged in, go to Dashboard -> Campaigns and create a new campaign.
Before you create a campaign, please make sure you have connected your email account in Dashboard -> Email Accounts.
This email account will be used to send emails and receive replies, so please make sure it is not in everyday use and is exclusively used for outreach.
I would typically use a new email account and warm it up by sending 10 emails per day for the first five days and then increasing the limit.
Nowadays, many emails go to spam, so it's vital to use a good email server to send emails from.
I use Gsuite because it has good credibility and a good open rate.
Now we have our email account set up, let’s setup the campaign.
Go to Campaign -> Create a new campaign and give it a name. Then, Select your outreach email and the timezone you wish to send emails in.
Since thecanvasprints.co.uk is based in the UK, we will use UK time zone.
Click next, and upload your prospects spreadsheet, match all the columns so the system knows what column belongs to what personalization tag.
Upload the sheet and click next.
Write a good outreach email with a professional signature at the end. This post has some templates available.
Here is the screenshot of my email;
You can use tags like {{firstname}}, {{lastname}}, {{Custom1}} etc to personalize data. {{firstname}} will be replaced by the actual first name of the prospect from the sheet you uploaded.
{{Custom1}} is personalization, so you can match {{custom1}} with prospect url and use it in the email template.
The actual email template would look like this
[[ if (FirstName != '') { Hi #=firstname#, } else { Hi there,} ]]
I hope you are well. I was checking resources on canvas photography when I came across your page {{Custom1}}
I got some inspiration from your article and published some of my ideas here https://www.thecanvasprints.co.uk/best-photos-for-canvas-prints, so thought I would get your feedback on it :) and suggest the link for your page.
I think it will make an excellent addition to your page.
Looking forward to your response :)
You can get our help writing templates until you understand the process yourself.
With each campaign, I would set up two follow-ups five days apart. So if no one responded, the first follow-up would go after five days of the previous email, and the second follow-up would go after five days of the previous follow-up email.
This gives the best results as it doesn’t spam people with too many emails, and if you reach out after five days, many will reply.
Adding follow-ups is easy. You just click the + Follow-up email button, which will add a follow-up, and you can write your template in it.
Here is a sample follow-up email.
Now everything is set, and all we have to do is click Next to process the campaign.
The system will generate all the emails and start sending them one by one during your selected time zone.
My timezone is London, and email sending time is between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., so the system will follow this and send emails accordingly.
See the screenshot below. My campaign got 147 opens and 56 replies out of 250 prospects.
That is an open rate of 58.8% and a response rate of 22.4%, which is pretty good for an email outreach campaign.
So once the campaign is processed and all emails are sent, you will typically get replies immediately.
To check replies, go to Inbox.
The system will show you all the replies, and most of the replies will be automatically attached to the campaign you sent.
Here is the screenshot for the inbox.
Open each email, and if the lead is interesting, reply to it and select Outreach Status as Follow-up.
This way, all the follow-ups will stay in the Follow-Up link under Inbox.
Once you have a lead, you can change the Outreach status to “Success,” which will put it in the Leads link.
This is just to organize it better.
Ok, so let's look at the results.
I was able to get around 11 quality links, 5 of which were sponsored posts. The links are on websites related to the interior design niche that often write about canvas prints.
And here are the rankings after getting the links.
There is certainly a boost in rankings for all competitive keywords, and if we keep going, we will hit the first page soon.
Conclusion
The answer to our question is, “Yes if you get quality backlinks, your rankings will increase”.
But there are rules to everything.
The rules here are
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Don’t compromise on prospects. Find authority prospects closely related to your niche and the content you pitch for.
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Try to find as many details about prospects as possible, such as first name, last name, email, and the prospect's URL, at least.
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Pitch them with a personalized email that looks like it’s sent only to them.
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You will get a lot of replies, and you will have to choose the links you want. I would normally look at the links using Ubersuggest Traffic overview, see which websites' traffic is consistent or on the rise, and only try to get link placement on those websites.
I hope this case study will help you in your next outreach campaign.
If you need our help with outreach process, please contact us here.
