You need two things before you gather the needed information of your link prospects:

• List of identified link building goals in your notepad/word document with corresponding actionable tactics to achieve each goal.
• Spreadsheet of qualified link prospects (approved by your SEO manager/link building specialist).

When you now have these two lists, proceed to information gathering. Information gathering is simply the process of finding the important contact details of the must-pitch/approved link target.

Below are the details that you need to look for each link prospect:

• First name (with credentials such as Dr. to address the person ethically)
• Email address (methods to find this will be discussed later)
• Company position of the link prospect (optional)

If you come across with a website that has only one website owner, it is easy for you to see his contact details by simply looking at the About Me page. However, for several owners/persons of one website, you have several contact details to choose from. In this case, you need only to select one or two from the list and have his/her contact info placed on your spreadsheet. But how?

Go back to your link building tactics list and identify the person you need to contact to for each link building tactic.

• Guest posts ­- blog/content manager
• Product reviews - content manager
• Interviews - specific staff member or site owner (if not available, find the closest person of your interviewee and just ask him if he can direct you to your target person)
• Round-up posts - blog manager
• Get people to see your content - blog manager, social media manager
• Contest - page creator (when there's a page for event inquiries)
• Event resources - event manager, support system person,
• Discounts/coupons - content manager
• Broken link building - page creator, original webmaster,

If you can't find the right person to pitch for your link building activity, look for the last resort - support system manager. Commonly his email address would beinfo@domain.comor support@domain.com. Make sure you ask for permission/request to him to help you connect with your prospect.

Now that you have identified the right person to get in touch with, you can now find all the important details of that person.