Why it works
You lead with help. Telling an editor that a link on their page goes to a 404 is useful whether or not they use your replacement, so the email isn't only a request. Editors who care about their pages tend to reply.
How to do it, step by step
- Find a dead page in your topic: a tool that shut down, a guide that was deleted, a resource that moved.
- Use a backlink tool to list the pages that still link to it.
- Check what the dead page covered with the Wayback Machine, and make sure your page covers the same thing well.
- Email each linking site: name the page, the broken link and where it sits, then suggest your page as one option.
- Follow up once, then stop. The broken link email template is a starting point.
Where it fits
It works best for guides, templates and free tools, not product pages, because the dead link was usually to a resource. It's also slower to prospect than outreach to existing lists and comparisons. Treat it as one tactic next to others in how to get backlinks. If the broken link was yours, that's link reclamation instead.
Example
A literature-review guide links to a citation-tracking tutorial from a tool that closed. Margin's guide covers the same steps, so Margin suggests it as the replacement.
Putting it into practice
Where to use it: Broken link email template and Link reclamation email template.