How To Get Backlinks With Gmail: 10 Easy Ways To Use Email Link Building
When I first wrote this, we were using Gmail a lot, so the examples here use that. At Factory, we work on different stacks now, but the principles apply whether you live in Outlook, Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho or anything else.
You may have already noticed by now that we are obsessed with SEO.
But our digital marketing love doesn’t stop at keywords, meta tags and optimised copywriting. And link building, one of our favourite SEO hacks, is not just for blog posts and website pages.
Building high-quality links includes generating internal links, external links and fixing broken backlinks to improve the path between what you put out into the world and the end goal of conversion.
Link-building tactics can be easily applied to get the most out of email marketing, increasing reach, engagement, and conversion in a flash, in a way that makes better use of time and tools you’re already paying for, rather than throwing more budget at ads.
Sound good? Keep on reading this backlink creation guide to discover how to get backlinks using the humble email.
Quick reality check before we get carried away. Links inside emails don’t count as SEO backlinks. Google can’t see your inbox. What email does brilliantly is get real humans to the good stuff on your site and start actual conversations. That’s where proper backlinks happen: when someone chooses to link to your content from their own website.
What is Link building?
When most of us think about a link-building strategy, we’re referring to the use of hyperlinks within a page or post that link inward or outward from our website. When building links to improve Google search results, we essentially include internal links to an existing blog post or encourage other websites to add external links back to us.
The aim is to earn backlinks from relevant, credible sites and use clean internal links to help people and search engines navigate your content without getting lost. Link building creates an online reciprocal partnership that signals to search engines like Google that we know our stuff.
(Recent surveys still show around 40–50% of SEO marketers think link building is the hardest part of SEO).
In addition to increasing your search engine traffic, building your brand, and improving your authority, high-quality backlinks associate you with respected peers, generating links and serious brand kudos.
Want to know more about how to build links for SEO success? Take a peek at our guide to SEO link building for the full lowdown.
So, what’s email link building?
When I say “email link building”, I mean using email to get your content seen by the right humans, start conversations, and earn backlinks the slow, honest way. No spammy mass blasts. No link rings.
Just in the same thread that on-page link building is about building trust, increasing engagement, and, ultimately, increasing conversion, email link building is about creating strategic quality links that optimise digital tools to keep your audience on your side of town.
Email Backlinking fully utilises all the available free tools and, used properly, can give your response rates and link opportunities a nudge in the right direction.
For this email backlinking guide, I will stick with the most popular and arguably most dynamic email platform: Gmail.
For example, I’m writing about Gmail here because it’s still one of the most widely used email platforms on the planet, especially for small businesses. These ideas translate just fine if you’re living in Outlook, Apple Mail or whatever your IT team signed you up to. We actually run on Outlook these days, but the screenshots in my brain are still Gmail, so that’s what I’m describing here.
How to Get Backlinks with Email
Google photo
Let’s start with the easiest link-building tip of all. Research suggests that putting a face in front of your marketing increases conversion. In a world full of big brands and faceless corporations, we are more likely to trust those we can see. Who are you?
This is even more so when it comes to email marketing. Unsolicited, faceless emails either end up in the spam folder or never reach the inbox—site owners who are approachable and accessible are more likely to build trust faster.
How do you change your Google profile photo? Simply:
Google Account > Personal Info > Photo
You can use a professional headshot, a natural-action shot, or even your logo. Make sure you’ve seen them in their inbox to increase email conversion instantly.
One thing to watch now: anything that looks scammy or inconsistent with your domain will set off people’s scam radar immediately. Make sure the name, photo and email address all look like the same actual person or team, not a burner account.
Email Signature
AAnother easy email conversion tip that takes less than 5 minutes to implement is to include a branded email signature. Again, link-building is all about professionalism and trust. The bigger picture, psychology, makes us instantly engage with a person or brand.
Many websites and apps now offer email signature generators to create a professional signature. We like:
Don’t go overboard with images and logos here. Keep your signature simple, include all the essential contact info, and, if you have a free offering or event coming up, consider promoting timely offerings here.
I’d also make sure your signature isn’t a deliverability nightmare. Keep images small, avoid twenty social icons in a row, and include your real business name and physical address. It reassures humans and calms spam filters.
Subject line
ASide note for 2026: You can absolutely let AI pitch you subject line ideas, but pretty much everyone else is doing the same. If it sounds like every other “Quick question about your business” in your inbox, bin it. Keep the human weirdness. That’s what cuts through now that open rates are half-fake thanks to privacy protection.
A little pop quiz for you. An email lands in your inbox at 11 pm, just before you drift off to sleep, from someone called MaxPowerBargains654@hotmail.com – the subject line simply reads: “SALE!! 50% Great Deals NOW”.
Do you:
a) Dive straight in and order whatever he’s selling
b) Slide his email straight into the trash
The subject line is critical in email marketing. One wrong word or emoji can set you apart or part you for good from your audience.
There is an art to email subject line writing, but there are plenty of tools to help you with your email backlinking success.
External platforms like Mailchimp offer simple, straightforward feedback as you’re writing your eye-catching conversation starter, but honestly, much of it includes common sense and a bit of foresight.
Things to consider include:
- Length (50 characters or less)
- Maximum number of punctuation and emojis
- A minimum number of predictable words like: ‘sale’, ‘limited time’, ‘update’ or ‘newsletter.’
- Including a nod to what’s included, but adding some curiosity
- Add personalisation
- Time-sensitive or urgent call to action
- Don’t be afraid of humour or the odd pun.
- Consider doing an A/B test to compare approaches.
- Know your audience
I could go on for another blog post about the best practices for email subject lines (another blog for another day, my friends), but I hope you get the picture for now. Subject lines and preview text are vital to great email backlinking.
Spelling and grammar
Gmail’s moved beyond red squiggles now. Smart Compose and grammar suggestions will quietly rewrite clunky phrases and catch a lot of the stuff your brain skips over at 11pm.
A simple one that ALL your digital marketing should adhere to is good old-fashioned spelling and grammar. It doesn’t matter how kick-ass an engagement or conversion email is if you failed to differentiate your whether from your weather.
Whatever few seconds you have captured someone with a short and charming email subject line is instantly lost when your punctuation is everywhere.
There is no excuse for using Gmail for your marketing, as it comes with an inbuilt automatic spell checker AND an advanced spell-checking mode.
Key things this extra tool will pick up on include:
- Capitalisation
- Complex misspellings
We are also big fans of Grammarly, which works as a stand-alone app, is embedded in Microsoft Word, and is a browser spelling plugin, so it can check your email as you write it.
Grammarly will identify the following:
- Duplicate words
- “Waffle” words
- Run-on sentences
- Incorrect punctuation
Branded email addresses
Even worse for your rep, an uncapitalised London is sending an email from the address davelovescrazygolf87654@gmail.com – I mean, are you even legit?
If you want your business and your proposal to be taken seriously, make sure you have a professional, branded and logically named email address.
Research suggests that 75% of people believe an email that matches your website builds trust.
Once you’ve got your domain, set up a proper business mailbox with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Zoho, or your hosting provider. Yes, it costs a few quid a month now. The trade-off is better deliverability, security and a login that doesn’t scream “this is my teenage Hotmail account”.
If you live in Google land, you can hook your domain into Google Workspace and manage Gmail, Docs, Calendar and Drive in one place.
That way, not only do you have a professional email address, but you can effortlessly manage all areas of your business in one place.
Plan and schedule emails
Gmail already lets you schedule emails and will nudge you when threads go cold. If you want more control, Boomerang is a neat add-on for Gmail that layers on send-later, reminders, read receipts and click tracking.
Do you want all the best bits from an email campaign builder, safely nestled in your everyday Gmail account? If left unchecked, your Gmail inbox can become a dark hole of unread emails, messages waiting for responses, or worse, no reply from that message you sent last week.
When looking for backlinking hacks for Gmail, you can’t get much better than a free tool that can not only plan and schedule your emails but also manage the way you receive responses.
Boomerang is a pretty neat scheduling app for Gmail that has the following features.
- Reads receipts
- No reply to reminders
- Click tracking
- Respondable tool
Just don’t be creepy with the tracking. Use it to time a sensible follow-up, not to send “I saw you opened this three times” energy.
Sounds good? I’ll be digging more into using these email hacks for backlinking in a moment, so keep reading!
Find the right lead.
So far, we have been talking about improving backlinking through email from your Gmail account and the beautifully crafted email you’re about to send. But who are you sending your email to?
Before you even put your finger on the keyboard, a meaningful way to improve your response rate is to make sure you’re emailing the right person to begin with.
Taking a targeted approach will prevent a blanket email to many people and mean you are homing in on precisely the right person for you.
Taking time to research your contacts on a platform like LinkedIn can help, but we also like the sound of FindThatLead, which leads you to a webmaster’s contact details.
In no time, you could find out:
- Their email contact
- The estimated response rate
Quick note: if you’re scraping or guessing email addresses, make sure what you’re doing aligns with GDPR and PECR. Legit business interest is one thing. Spraying half the internet with AI-generated pitches is another.
Test your template
If you’re not sure it works, there is no use in widening your net and sending the same email to more people.
Though creating a link-building email template can speed up the process, it’s wise to test and refine it regularly.
These days, I care much less about fonts and much more about the offer and the follow-up. Test things like: how specific the ask is, how tailored the intro is to their site, and how soon you follow up. Then look at replies and actual links earned, not just opens.
Use a CRM or spreadsheet system to track who got what, and click-tracking data to analyse how each performed.
Identify the common thread.
I mentioned earlier that a crucial part of link building for SEO is building reciprocal trust? A great way to I mentioned earlier that a crucial part of link building for SEO is building reciprocal trust. A great way to follow this approach with your emails is to include any common ground you share with your recipient.
Consider mentioning:
- Industry links
- Common contacts
- Relevant offerings
- Why did you choose them?
It seems simple, but adding a short, personalised paragraph to your template approach could increase engagement and response rate.
Mentioning reputable brands you are affiliated with also gives you a much-needed trust factor for strangers.
The bar is higher now because everyone’s inbox is full of “I loved your recent article [merge field].” If you haven’t actually read their stuff, don’t pretend. One sincere line about why this person and this page beat five paragraphs of AI flattery.
Read Receipts & Click Tracking.
Remember earlier. We mentioned the Boomerang extras that helped you power up your backlinking? Let’s look at the pros of using email apps to increase productivity. How does scheduling emails improve backlinking?
Well, one of the flashy things worth exploring is click tracking.
One caveat: privacy features mean opens are noisy now, especially on Apple devices. Clicks are still a solid signal, replies are gold, and actual backlinks on someone’s site are the only thing that moves SEO. Use tracking to prioritise humans to talk to, not as a vanity scoreboard.
Nothing is more disheartening than sending an email out and then watching tumbleweeds slowly drift across your inbox. Did they read it? Are they parking it for later or for the end of the world?
Click tracking shows you exactly how a recipient responded to your email campaign. It will highlight what links they clicked, how many times, and when.
You can also set up read receipts to be notified the moment they open your email. That way, you can implement your timely, thoughtful and grammatically correct follow-up email once they have had a day or two to brew on it.
