Free link exchanges: one inbox pitch, taken apart
We wrote a typical swap email, the kind that lands twice a week, and marked it up. It is an invented example, but every line in it is common.
"Hi! Love your blog about slow-cooker dinners. I run a site on home and garden and DR 41. Would you accept a guest post from us with 2 dofollow links, and we do the same for you? We can send the article today. Thanks, Jamie"
Line by line
| Line | What it says | How we read it |
|---|---|---|
| "Love your blog" | Praise with no detail | Template. Real fans name a post. |
| "home and garden" | A different topic from yours | Weak relevance. Slow-cooker readers do not shop for patio chairs. |
| "DR 41" | A number from Ahrefs | Fine to quote, easy to inflate. Open the site and check traffic yourself. |
| "2 dofollow links" | The link is the product | The word dofollow in a first email tells you the topic is secondary. |
| "we do the same for you" | A reciprocal trade | This is the pattern behind excessive link exchanges. Once is fine, every month is not. |
| "article today" | Ready-made text | Speed means it was sent to many blogs. Ask who wrote it. |
What to do with an offer like this
Do not delete it. Ask one question back, and let the answer sort the sender.
Ask which of your posts they read. Ask which of their own posts they would send your readers to, and why. A real blogger answers in two lines, usually with a link, and often with a small complaint about Semrush or WordPress. A broker goes quiet or sends the same email again.
If the answer is good, pick one link, make it editorial, and drop the reciprocal part. A guest post on your blog does not require you to receive one on theirs, and the cleanest swaps are the ones where nobody keeps score.
The same pitch, rewritten
A better version fits in five lines. It names a post, says why, and asks first.
"Hi, I read your piece on cast-iron skillets and tried the oven-seasoning trick on my own pan, which is why I would like to send you a guest post on seasoning mistakes; no link back is expected, and I will send an outline first."
Notice what is missing: a metric, a promise of dofollow, a deadline. Editors on busy blogs reply to this sort of note because it reads like a person, and persons are who swaps were meant for in the first place.
Three replies you can copy in spirit
Keep them short. Here are the shapes.
If you are interested, ask for an outline and a post of yours they liked. If you are not sure, ask where the article has appeared before and who edits it, which brokers dislike answering.
If you decline, say it kindly and leave the door open for a different topic, because a polite no costs nothing and sometimes brings a better offer three months later. Check Ahrefs yourself before you reply.
Reply checklist before you accept
- I read three of their posts, not the About page
- The topic overlaps with mine in at least one real way
- They link out to fewer than a handful of unrelated sites per post
- One link, with an anchor I chose or approved
- No promise of a return link written anywhere
- I logged the date, URL and anchor in my sheet
When the answer is no
Plenty of good pitches fail the topic test. That is allowed.
If you still want a link in that space, a paid placement is the honest version: the price is stated, the donor shows its Domain Rating and traffic before you pay, and nobody pretends friendship. The budget page shows what a few of those cost.
Keep the swap channel for blogs you would visit anyway, and read our red-flag list before the next round.
Verdict on the pitch
Reply once, then decide
Jamie's email is not evil, only lazy. One question back costs thirty seconds and tells you more than any metric.
- Relevance beats Domain Rating
- Reciprocity is the red part
- Quiet senders are brokers