Once, I picked up the phone to ask for a link.
No, it’s not a joke: I’m an SEO consultant and, instead of sending an email, instead of contacting someone using the network of networks… I called him on the phone.
I dialed the number on the screen, had a little chat with the person on the other end, and 30 minutes later, had gotten a link from an interesting and relevant website, from the same sector as my project. The telephone link building works. You just have to know how to do it.
Leaving aside the comfort of email and making a call to get a link is complicated, but it is not impossible. You dare?
Why use the phone?
And why not? Surely you have sent hundreds, maybe thousands of emails, which have not come to anything. And you pressed F5. And you have sent a reminder email. And you have pressed F5 again. And nothing.
If you want different results, you have to do different things (yes, I “borrowed” this quote). So why not try?
Characteristics of a good telephone link builder
You will have to fully use your rhetorical skills, gain the trust of the person on the other end of the phone and, above all, adequately explain what you want.
Because, let’s be honest: Most people outside of the SEO world don’t know what link building is..
- The important thing is to be completely honestexplain who we are (SEO manager, marketing manager, business owner…) how does seo work and what do you have to do.
- I insist: explain to him what he has to do. Literally. Tell him that where it says “My Brand” there must be a link to mimarca.com and that it must be clickable. Well, if you’re playing in the e-Learning sector, maybe you already know what a link is, but… think that there are other worlds where it’s still easy to find little managers online.
- In the same way, we can also explain what he gains by linking to us: for example, that your readers will have an additional source of information about the subject of your article, among other reasons (and, to prove that I believe in outbound links, to other domains, I’ll leave it there).
- Another basic characteristic of a good telephone link builder is… be able to talk on the phone. Surprise!
- On the one hand, it is necessary that the person who is going to apply this technique has the ability to make the telephone speak. That is, if you have some degree of deafness or do not know the language in which your interlocutor communicates, it is better that you delegate to another person.
- In the same way, the attitude before the phone call is important. Do you have a colleague in the office who gets on his nerves every time he has to make a phone call? Do you need at least half an hour to prepare before you can make a call to a customer? Does talking to strangers make you nervous? In these cases, it is better that you delegate to someone with people skills, with the soul of a salesperson or who has, precisely, training as a salesperson.
Turning mentions into links over the phone
Mentions without a link are possibly the best scenario you can find to use the telephone link building. In other words: it is where, from what experience tells me, the results are best.
The scene is as follows: Someone, a corporate blog, for example, has talked about your brand. Perhaps you have participated in an event and someone is chronicling it, but it has not occurred to them to link to you.
What do we do? Shall we send you an email?
Nope! Wait!
First of all, check their website and look for your phone. Then, identify the ease with which they will listen to you and put the link you ask for, in order to manage our expectations (we have to be realistic!). We start from the basis that we do not know the person on the other side of the line (because, if we know them, everything is much simpler and more direct).
This is important: How difficult is it for us to get a link?
Well, it depends on the nature of the site where we go to ask for it. As I said before, it is important to set realistic goals. Look at these examples:
Large media, multinational or national company: high difficulty. Maybe you should make friends with a journalist, directly, or with his communication director. You can try, but don’t get your hopes up…
personal blog: medium difficulty. You probably don’t have your phone connected to the internet. But if it does, you can put it in the following bag:
Corporate blog, especially medium and small companies, associations or foundations, charities, etc.: This is the good one! Pick up the phone (mobile or landline, do you remember landlines existed?) and give them a call. If you explain well why you are taking minutes away from work, it is a winning call.
The speech or pitch
We return to what we said before: one of the approaches to link building is to use one hundred percent sincerity and explain what you want.
Below, you can read an actual conversation I had (I didn’t record it and some details will change, but hey, essentially this is what happened) to give you an idea of how things might turn out.
The first thing I did was, as I say, find the phone number of the place where they were mentioning my client. In this case, it was a local association in the education sector. They had talked about my client on the occasion of an event that had taken place.
LinkBuilder:
Association: Yes?
LinkBuilder: Good morning, shall I speak with the Association In Question?
Association: That’s right, this is the Association In Question. Tell me.
LB:Hi how are things? MMy name is Víctor Martín and I am responsible for online marketing at Mi Cliente. He knows him, right?
A: Ah, of course, My Client, of course I know him.
LB: Great. Could I speak to the person in charge of your website? It is because of a doubt that has arisen and I think that the right person to help me would be the one who handles this part.
A: Well, you can talk to me.
LB: Well thank you very much. Checking the news, he found an article on the blog of the Association In Question where they mention My Client, right? It is the article Name of the Post / Page Where the Brand is Mentioned.
A: Yes, we have published that article. We organized an event with firms from the sector and we have now told about it on our blog.
LB: It’s very interesting, really. Many times it is difficult to find chronicles of this type of event in the general media and you have to search blogs, right? Look, within the online marketing campaign that we are developing, we ask the associations or foundations that mention My Client to also include a link to the official website of My Client. In this way, we help readers to find more information if they need it. Could you do it?
A: Link to My Client’s website from the article we have published?
LB: That is, where it says “My Client”, a link to the official website of My Client should be added. It is useful for those who come to the article and want to know more about the different companies that have participated in this event.
A: Well, I have to check with the IT guy.
LB: Well if you can do it that would be great, I think it could be very interesting.
A: Okay, I’ll take a look at it. Hello.
LB: Good morning, thank you for your time.
Within 30 minutes, the IT guy had updated the page, with a link to our brand.
What did I learn from all this? What to try I don’t know what would have happened if I had sent an email to the association, but I didn’t need to find out because I spent 5 minutes of conversation on it. Ok, I was a little uncertain until I checked that they had put it… but, otherwise, it was faster than many links we ask for via email.
By the way! The conversation was real, yes… with all its faults. I am sure that many people who know about this would tell me that it is better to ask for their name to generate trust and closeness instead of calling them yours. That should encourage you to try this tactic: if I succeeded, surely you, who know more than me, can do better.
In fact… why don’t you leave a comment on the post sharing your experience? So, we all learn 🙂
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