Here's How India Can Be Good for Your Links

So Eric Enge does a post over on Search Engine Land, riffing on my Dot EDU link hunting presentation from SMX Advanced in Seattle (Hey Eric, where's a fucking link to my blog? Thanks for nothing, Pthhhhh! LOL). It's a very good post and I recommend you head over and read it, although he should have linked to my blog from my name like everyone else does, but that's a different story. :)

His post was rolling along fine then he makes this statement:

In addition, don't let a team of people in India do the emailing work for you. While there are many exceptional resources available in India, they don't know what you are really trying to do, or about your business, or the subtleties of a successful pitch strategy.

I respect Eric, but I have to respectfully disagree (and not just because he didn't give me a fucking link to my blog Pthhhhh! LOL). Handing over your entire link building project and telling them to bill you once they get to a thousand inbound links is not recommended. Paying an Indian link building service for one way inbound links without hearing an explanation of how they're going to accomplish it is asking for the astroglide treatment. But that's not what Eric is talking about. Eric is talking about sending an email. What's so hard about that? Nothing. Indian outsourcing is the right solution for any grinding chore that is repetitive and soul sucking. It's difficult to find someone who can power through these difficult assignments as well as an Indian outsourcer. And I'm going to show you the how and the why.

1. You should never hand off your email chores to an outsource firm unless someone is getting BCC'd on every email sent.

2. You should always dictate what sites they are going to target for obtaining links. You provide the searches, lists, whatever. The outsourcers job for link building is not to think. Their job is to grind out those emails according to your specifications.

3. Give them specifications. Give them the template to use. What to put in the subject line, how to personalize each email, etc. In short, make it so it's all ready for them, so they don't have to think.

4. Hitting the Send button is A-OK. Hitting the REPLY button is not. Never let them interact with a link target. Closing the deal is your job, or your trusted link builder's job. It is not the job of the outsourcer for all the reasons Eric Enge listed.

5. Specify what kind of sites they should NOT target. This shouldn't be a problem if you are handing them decent search targets and lists.

While I agree with Eric (thanks for nothing, Pthhhhh! LOL) that Indians may not be in touch with the cultural and business subtleties, I have to disagree that they need to be in touch with our cultural subtleties to hit the send button. From my personal experience, they're quite good at it.

P.S. I'm just kidding about the Pthhhhh!