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This is a guest post by Brandon Hopkins

When I first got the email from “Sandra Bullok” I was excited. Did she want me opinion on Jesse James? Was she looking for a movie recommendation? Did she want my opinion on Beiber??

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the real Sandra Bullock, just a spammer. However, for the record I think Beiber gets a bad rap!

Just like anyone who owns a website, I get emails from “professional” link building companies every day. As we all know, they’re scraping email addresses, filling out comment forms and generally spamming in any way possible. Since it’s obvious that these emails are completely spam, we can use them to as a “What Not To Do When Building Links” guide. Here are some observations about building links through email.

1. Don’t be Generic.

If you don’t use my name, I won’t be reading your email. You will earn extra points and probably even a contact back if you use some other personal piece of information beside just my first name or email address. All you would have to do is read the “About Me” page to find that piece of info. Anything from a hobby to children would work.

Sandra’s Email Fail: Dear Webmaster,

2. Use a Company Name.

“SEO Company” isn’t actually a company. Instead use either your own name or a company name to make your email a little unique.

Sandra’s Email Fail: I am Sandra from SEO Company

3. Use Correct Capitalization and Punctuation.

Certain words, no matter how important they are, should be capitalized. Here is an easy to understand guide of capitalization instructions.

Sandra’s Email Fail: We are looking as a long term Link Exchange Partner with your team of link builders.

4. Features and Benefits

Since you’re essentially “selling” yourself and your website, you should know something about the sales process. One of the strongest sales tactics is showing the features then benefits of your product or service. In this case, the feature would be “You will be providing your website visitors with a website that will help them with XYZ.” The benefit would be “This will help them remember that your website gave them exactly what they were looking for, so they’re more likely to remember your website in the future”.

Sandra’s Email Feature Fail: I am excited to offer you a very good back link (no site or page was listed, we all know it’s going to be on a links.html page buried on some junk .info site registered yesterday)

Sandra’s Email Benefit Fail: none.

So how do you write a good email asking to either buy a link, or get a free link? Here is a template you can follow.

Hey Brandon, (never use “Dear Brandon,” or “Dear Mr. Hopkins,” or “Sir”, only spammers use those terms)

I wanted to let you know that I really liked your latest post about Twitter. I really liked the part about building a strong twitter following. That’s much more important that the total number of followers.

The reason I was emailing you was to see if you wanted to sell some advertising on the page, http://www.example.com. I have a website that would fit nicely and give your readers some additional information about Twitter resources.

My budget is fairly small, I’m just a guy with a website .

Let me know what you think.

Thanks!

Alexander Dombroff (don’t use a celeb’s name…)

p.s. your daughter is really cute! How old is she in that picture on your site? My daughter just turned 3 last week, they look about the same age.

There is a reason that buying links under the radar is so expensive, it takes a lot of time! All of this doesn’t include the actual cost of paying for the link, which is generally $20-$50 depending on the site. That is the same reason that people don’t mind spending money on a few high quality web directories like BOTW, Ezilon, and Yahoo! Directory.

Brandon Hopkins runs a team of freelance link builders with the one goal of getting your website to rank #1 for your terms. Contact Brandon at brandonchopkins@gmail.com to discuss link building!

Related articles

• Link Building – Creating Encyclopedic Content (wolf-howl.com)
• Simple Link Building Mistakes You Should Avoid (pctechmojo.com)

Okay, now I know that I could do research and find a spam free contact form or something along those lines. But it involves a lesson that took me a long time to learn. Chasing every bug and plugging every hole as it comes up will send me off track. I have to step back take a breath and look at the whole picture every once in a while, make a list and check it consistently. If I am not doing something on the list, I need to put myself back on course. I will be investigating hiring out soon so that some of these lists won’t be my job.

I put up a contact form so that people could contact me without leaving a comment. I didn’t want to put an email address out there just for it to become a spam magnet. I have an email address for that. I have had it for at least 5 years. I have used it on every form possible. I have signed up for so many things that I never start by registering a site. I start by testing my email address. I just found out I have a tumblr account through Google. I Google myself every once and while. I helps with the ego and it helps to know which sites that pick up my feeds have the most link juice. The end result in that email account is that gets over 1000 messages a day. I filter this down to about 100 messages a day which I only scan the titles of before hitting delete. People I haven’t heard from in 5 years reach me through this address.

So the contact form is set up on my Gmail account and it has been fun to watch what comes in through it.

For one, there must be spam software out there that can’t tell the difference between the contact form and the comment form. I get about 4 or 5 of these a day. Long lists of urls.

But sometimes I get long lists of keywords that seem to be people thinking it’s a keyword tool like the one I just got as I was typing this sentence:

handbag
gucci
gucci
sunglasses
with
handbag
watches
gucci
gucci
vuitton
gucci
gucci
replica
gucci
gucci
gucci
replica
gucci
bags
lyrics
gucci
handbags
gucci
wallets
gucci
perfume
watches
eyeglasses
2008
gucci
1
designer
gucci
air
boots
mens
layouts
cologne
gucci
gucci
gucci
original
gucci
gucci
medium
gucci
lunette
envy
gucci
wholesale
watches
wholesale
watch
waist
glasses
belts
gucci
gucci
gucci
eclipse
jewellery
location
glasses
designer
gucci
gucci
gucci
gucci
prada
gucci
timberland
the
custom
watches
handbags
gucci
nobile
mens
gucci
frames
sun
the
gucci
gucci
hats
gucci
gucci
mane
kong
gucci
paolo
gucci
discount
gucci
gucci
gucci
storess
gucci
hangbags
watch
italy
speedy
gucci
handbag
gucci
vintage
totes
one
bags
cologn
what
handbags
gucci
hologram
gucci
about
gucci
eyeglass
rss
baseball
icy
cruise
abput
of
cellphone
belt
handbags
watch
black
stallion
women
and
outlet
handbag
frames
gucci
gucci
prada
discounted
gucci
baldinini
pony
scully
for
gucci
belt
shoes
bags
gucci
gucci
vintage
girl
gucci
necklace
logo
gucci
discounted
guccio
evening
loafer
black
and
gucci
city
watch
tag
gucci
dress
locations
gucci
diamond
titus
gucci
kong
gucci
cap
gucci
jolicoeur
gucci
gucci
shoes
indy
gucci
knockoffs
2548
signature
gucci
wallet
1900l
gucci
watch
gucci
bags
gucci
paolo
gucci
belt
7200
gucci
shirts
gucci
gucci
gucci
same
bowling
cheap
saddle
prescription
gucci
mens
gucci
gucci
gucci
gucci
gucci
gucci
clothes
fragrances
heels
sun
saddle
gucci
clothes
gucci
gucci
repair
watches
zealand
hobo
gucci
collection
gucci
group
diaper
gucci
gucci

Yes, that’s the complete message.

Sometimes I get messages that need a translator.

But for the most part I am not sure how to say no or have a problem gauging how much I have on plate. One way to tell if an advertiser contacting is legit is to take a line from the email and search for it in Google. This has saved me 3 or 4 times so far. You usually will find someone posting about it if it’s spam.

I don’t know if I am taking the term "legit" too far, but the way I see it: If you use a form letter, you don’t give a crap if your ad is on my site or someone else’s site. Please go elsewhere.

Another, I have pretty much taken paid reviews off the plate. I don’t like them. Too many rules. If I was going to be someone’s bitch, I wouldn’t be attempting to completely and totally work for myself. I like affiliate programs and I usually can find more than one good product that does similar things. I like giving choices and I like products with trial periods. Devoting a post to a product would have to mean it was the "God" of that niche. Which is why I recommend Fruitful Time Manager, because you have time to see for yourself if it will work for you and I promise to get to a post on software that helps with productivity.

I don’t think I have the depth of knowledge on blogging yet to give an adequate site review. I can throw out a few pointers. I can recognize intensity and transparency like Mirjam, a great analytical mind in Tim but I want to learn more about applying SEO tactics to WordPress from Andy Beard before I even think I have the right. Plus I have gaping holes in this blog that would only make me a hyprocrite. But I would love to do it once I myself consider this site bullet proof, because I have found a few diamonds in the rough that will give me a run for the money if given the right direction. Not that I am that quick at building traffic. I am slow but stable. I was waiting for my old knack at putting ideas to words to lubricate a little.

And this has had side effects. Yesterday I had the epiphany that I am a complete idiot. I have been looking for ways to get things done quicker. One way is to pry the padlock off of my wallet or at least redirect some advertising dollars to things that will make my job easier like paying for a theme. But I will be turning that into a new twist on a contest. Speaking of contest, check out Tim’s site. The list of prizes is longer than this post and has more variety than it’s sharp tangents.

Outsourcing will help a lot I think. I told the only client I ever had to try ScriptLance. I never tried it, but I heard good things. He would come back with complete sites built for $500. It would take months, but it took me months to create the theme for this site. Speaking of that, he is looking for a Drupal developer to finish up a social network. If you are one, leave a comment. It will probably be worth your while.

A post like this is what happens when your to do box explodes all over the place. It’s not that I have a problem with organization. The problem is with "no". On one side, I can be a push over. On the other, I just want to see if I can pull it all off.

A few things done that I wanted to get to in one fail swoop and too finish off with the last curse of a comment box: this is normal for me. The post isn’t but the things I have in lists everywhere is.