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FAIL: An Email From Macy’s About Anchor Text

Macy's

Reaching out to bloggers and webmasters isn’t that difficult. Generally they are happy to hear from manufacturers and retailers, and if you ask correctly, they will grant your favor. There is however a wrong way to reach out. Here’s one such example sent from a large marketing agency which apparently handles Search Engine Optimization for Macys.com:

Title: URGENT REQUEST – Incorrect link to Macys.com

Body: I’m contacting you on behalf of Macy’s, Inc. We completed a recent analysis that indicates your blog is linking to Macys.com, which we greatly appreciate. Per Macy’s guidelines, we are requesting you make updates to the hyperlink text when you link to Macy’s. Providing clearer anchor text will give your visitors a better user experience.
Please respond at your earliest convenience, so we can discuss the changes.

Thank you,

xxxxxx

Now maybe I’m overreacting, but as both an experienced Webmaster and fellow SEO Strategist I can’t help but be bothered by this email. I’m glad that they appreciate the link, and reaching out is always worth a try, but the request simply doesn’t feel genuine and use of the phrase “Per Macy’s guidelines” is something I don’t like to hear. I don’t work for Macy’s.

Merriam-Webster definition of guideline:

an indication or outline of policy or conduct

Certainly there’s a better way to word their email.

  • First - Don’t come at me, a niche blogger with absolutely zero agenda within my post, pushing corporate policies.
  • Second - If you want more specific anchor text for SEO purposes just come out and say it. Don’t claim that my visitors will have a “better experience” because of it. In this case they honestly wouldn’t.
  • Third - Don’t be so damn robotic about the whole thing.

What was the anchor text in question? It was in a blog post from 2007 mentioning a new clothing brand. Macy’s was the anchor text (it could be much, much worse). Macy’s… consider your link removed.

/rant off

3 Reasons Why You Should Subscribe To Your Competitor’s Email Lists

Subscribing to your competitors’ (yes, all of them) email lists and newsletters can be extremely useful for several key reasons.

  1. Stay on top of any sales, coupons, or specials they might be running. This is probably the most obvious reason. By knowing exactly when competitors are running sales, you can effectively counter them with your own.
  2. Learn about new brands and products that you may have missed. If you’re like me, you receive a lot of email and unfortunately new brands and products are sometimes missed. Or perhaps you were on the fence about picking up a new brand and wanted to see how it would play out in your niche market first.
  3.  Keep up to date about competitors’ new website features. It can be time consuming to surf your competitor’s sites to compare features and flow. Marketer’s love to brag so by subscribing to their lists many times you’ll also be able to stay up to date on new features and design changes.
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