I’ve Just Received This Email - How Much Should I Charge?

byParthaB

4.2K followers

2 years ago

Hey everyone,

Okay, this is simply a blog post in response to Andrew’s recent blog post.

As usual, I was going to reply directly to Andrew, but clearly I went overboard! LOL.

I also feel there’s a fair few leaning points here for everyone.

Anyway, here’s Andrew’s blog post.

https://my.wealthyaffiliate.co...

And here’s the email he’s received.

"Hi Andrew,

My apologies for bothering you on the

off chance that this isn't something you offer at Healthy Wealthy Happy

And Wise. However, would you be able to give me a price for having an

article placed on your site at Healthy Wealthy Happy And Wise.

We are UK based so the article would be written by one of our writers.

I'm sorry if you have had one of these messages before, I'm simply pursuing up last details to get prices from individuals we have not spoken yet at this point.

It would also be great if you could let me know how much it costs to have a

link inserted into any existing articles on your website.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Vanessa

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Origin OR Specialists

accepts that the use of email is a valuable business tool. However,

misuse of this facility can have a negative impact upon employee

productivity and the reputation of the business.

In addition, all

of the company's email resources are provided for business purposes.

Therefore, the company maintains the right to examine any systems and

inspect any data recorded in those systems.

In order to ensure

compliance with this policy, the company also reserves the right to use

monitoring software in order to check upon the use and content of

emails. Such monitoring is for legitimate purposes only and will be

undertaken in accordance with a procedure agreed with employees."

Let's Take a Closer Look

Okay, the first couple of points that I note is that the email comes from a company called

Origin OR Specialists

I’m going to take a wild guess and say that OR stands for Outreach.

Therefore, this is a specific company or agency that emails bloggers, on behalf of others, in order to obtain backlinks.

So, this company has already charged another party for a backlink service.

They then email a variety of relevant niche bloggers to see how much they charge for a backlink.

Obviously, the company doing “outreach” wants to make a profit.

So, as an example, if they have ALREADY charged their client $100 for a backlink (which Andrew WON’T KNOW), and then Andrew replies that the charge is $100, the company will clearly decline his offer, i.e. no profit.

Now, the email sent by “Vanessa” has asked about the price of having an article placed on his website and ALSO for simply having a link placed.

In other words, she wants to know the price for a Guest Blog Post (one of our writer’s will write a relevant blog post, which contains a link to another website, and we wish to place this article on your website).

Plus, she also wants to know the price for a Niche Edit (can you place a link on one of YOUR ALREADY WRITTEN articles).

The likelihood is that this company will charge MORE for a guest post than a niche edit.

Basically, a guest post requires the company to have a completely new article written and then have this article placed on Andrew’s website.

So, for the Guest Blog Post, they have to figure in the cost of writing an article and how much Andrew may potentially charge to then place this article on his website.

Therefore, as an example, they may charge their client $150 for a Guest Post backlink.

They then pay one of their writers, say $30, for the article, and pay Andrew, say $60, for placing this article on HIS website, they then keep the difference as profit.

For the niche edit, all they require is for Andrew to place the link within one of his already written articles, so obviously the costs to their client (and their profit margin) is going to be less.

What Are My Thoughts About This Email?

Okay, for me, there’s a lot of alarm bells going off about this email, but probably NOT in the way that you think.

The first thing that springs to mind (and no offence Andrew, you know I love ya man!! LOL) is that Andrew’s website has a Domain Authority of 10.

So, it’s clearly not a new website, but it’s definitely not tipping the “authority” scale yet (remember my keyword research methods say to look for websites with DA20 or below in order to find “easy ranking keywords”).

Personally, when looking for backlinks, the higher the Domain authority of the website the better.

And I would rarely contact a website owner who doesn’t at least have a DA30 website (DA50 and above is what I love to aim for).

So, for me, this outreach company is using a scattergun approach, i.e. sending out 100s of emails hoping for at least a few “bites”.

Next, the actual outreach email is pretty poor (if I was the person who had paid this company for this service I’d want my money back).

Realistically, when performing outreach you should be “buttering” the website owner up a little.

Okay, clearly I’m not talking about, “Hey, you're so good-looking, funny, and smart, and I love your website.” LOL

But, as humans we love talking about ourselves and we love when people appear to show a GENUINE interest in us.

Such narcissists us humans, aren’t we? LOL.

So, a great outreach email (if you’re ever considering doing this yourself to obtain backlinks) will typically focus on one specific article, rather than the website as a whole.

This way, the company contacting Andrew will have shown that they have actually read at least one of Andrew’s articles, and that it is relevant to the site they wish to obtain the backlink for.

“I absolutely loved your article about using quick 5-minute meditations to calm your mind. I feel that many people think that meditation is a long-drawn out process, and something that requires hours of practice a day. But, as your video quite rightly points out…blah, blah, blah…”

SEE

Buttering Andrew Up. Hahaha!!

Now if “Vanessa” asks for a backlink, Andrew’s head is swelling with pride (bighead!!! Hahaha!!) and he is more likely to hear Vanessa out.

By the way, is this not the whole point of sales and marketing, which many people seem to forget?

You’re dealing with HUMANS, so questions like “How many words”, “How many links”, “What SEO score”, “How many articles”, etc. all need to GO AWAY.

You’re dealing with HUMANS, there is NO perfect single response that will satisfy ALL 8 billion inhabitants of this planet, so STOP looking for the PERFECT NUMBER of anything.

Did I just go off on a tangent?

Dammit!!!!!!!!

Anyway, my point is that the outreach email is poor.

So, if a company who’s specific MAIN TASK is to perform outreach, and their outreach emails are poor, what does that tell you about this company?

To me it says, this company works on QUANTITY and not QUALITY.

They know they’re going to get rejections (this is how outreach works, you’re going to get far more people rejecting you than accepting), so they just go with this scattergun approach.

Do Your Due Diligence

Now, you would think from everything I’ve said so far that I would advise Andrew to reject this offer, but NO.

Always do your homework first.

Realistically, one of the best ways to get ahead in online business is by building relationships with others.

But obviously, you can build good relationships or bad relationships.

Firstly, I’d like to find out more about Vanessa’s company.

From the information in the email that Andrew has provided I can’t actually find anything.

So, immediately this tells me they aren’t a BIG company.

But, once Andrew is aware of their website, co check it out, what does it look like, what do they offer, WHAT PRICES ARE THEY CHARGING FOR THEIR SERVICES (a good way to give them a price for that backlink that falls within their “budget”)?

Secondly, I’d like to know the exact url of the website that they want me (Andrew) to provide a backlink to.

Once you have this, once again, go and check out the website in question, read a few articles, check out who THEY are linking to.

Is this a website you’d like to be associated with?

Next, put the url into Ahrefs Backlink Checker.

Check out some of the websites ALREADY linking to this website.

Are they websites similar to yours?

Would you be happy to be associated with these websites?

Don’t forget, if a “poor”/”bad” website links TO YOU or if YOU LINK TO a “poor”/”bad” website, this can affect how the search engines view YOUR website.

If you’re hanging out with the bad boys, you too will be viewed as a bad boy!! Bye bye rankings, traffic, and money.

How Much to Charge if Everything’s “Okay”?

There is NO specific price point that you should charge for either a guest post or niche edit (remember, I’m trying to get you all to forget about “EXACTS”, we’re humans, we don’t do everything exactly the same ALL THE TIME).

However, I have had a look at the prices for individual links from a company that I use for backlinks.

BUT

This is a hugely successful company, who are fantastic at outreach, and also securing some of the best backlinks you will find.

Their charge for DA30+ Guest Post is $150.

Their charge for a DA30+ Niche Edit is $110.

Now, remember the company I use is the equivalent of “Vanessa”, so they have to make a profit.

Plus, this company is far more “elite” than Vanessa’s company, so I don’t think her company will be charging anywhere near as much.

Furthermore, the prices I’ve mentioned above are for backlinks from a DA30 website, Andrew’s website is a DA10.

So, simply looking at these figures, I guess I would charge approximately one-third of the price.

HOWEVER

We obviously don’t know how much Vanessa’s company charges for this service (which is why I’ve said, go and check out their website and look for their prices).

So, while I would say that charging this company $50 for a Guest Blog Post or $40 for a Niche Edit is fine, if these prices are greater than what the company charges their client, then Andrew is obviously going to get a knock-back.

Most of all, do your homework on both the company contacting you and also on the website they wish you to link to.

If everything seems fine, and you can potentially earn more money from placing an article or a link on YOUR website, go for it.

But remember, you want to be associated with the websites that are the “good girls” and NOT that are the “bad boys”.

Thank You For Reading

Partha

p.s. @ Kyle/Carson - Today's ISSUE (Hahaha, you hate me, don't you? LOL. The hyperlink icon doesn't appear to work, although I've also had the same issue with Bold/Italics, double-spacing bewteen sentences etc. I am writing in Google Docs and then pasting into WA.