1,130 editors, one at a time: editorial outreach for a medical education platform

One-line summary: Two rounds of one-to-one editorial outreach for a global medical education platform, in 2024 and 2026, with every count taken from the trackers, including the parts that didn't work.

The situation

The client is a global medical and nursing education platform. It teaches exam prep for medical students, nursing students and physician assistants, and it publishes a large blog of study guides. The blog had good pages and few editorial links pointing at them.

Two things made this harder than a normal outreach job. The audience is narrow (people studying for licensing exams), and the category is crowded with well-funded competitors. Any site that already sells exam prep wasn't going to link to us, and we weren't going to ask.

The play

We ran two rounds, and they worked differently.

2024: page-to-page interlinking. Between 18 April and 19 November 2024 we tracked 26 conversations in an outreach log. Every pitch named one specific article on the prospect's site and one matching article on the client's blog. The ask was always the same: link to each other where it helps the reader. If they didn't want that, we offered to write something for their blog instead.

2026: an exchange programme with a weekly cadence. The 2026 prospect sheet holds 1,535 rows. Where a date is recorded, the rows run from 22 January to 7 October 2026. Each row is a real blog post matched to a client page. The sheet's own workflow is six steps: find a relevant post, copy the sentence where our page fits, match the right client page, pick a template, check the personalised opening line and the contact email, then tick the box that sends it. Nothing goes out without that tick.

Both rounds had the same test for a link: would it make sense to a reader of the page it sits on?

Three real outreach emails

Names, sites and quoted article titles are removed. The structure and tone are as sent.

1. The 2024 first touch

Hi [first name],

[Name] from [the platform] here. I noticed your insightful article on [their topic] and felt it perfectly complements our own piece titled [our title] on our blog.

Would you be interested in interlinking our articles? I believe it would provide both our audiences with a more comprehensive view of [shared subject].

We'd love to collaborate for mutual benefit!

If interlinking is not an option, we can also contribute quality content to your blog. Happy to share samples/topics if you're interested.

Best, [Name]

The original also had a line claiming our writers had appeared in well-known medical publications. We left it out here because we can't back it from the files.

2. The follow-up that makes the swap concrete

Once someone said yes, the next message did the work for them. This is from a thread with a medical-equipment retailer's blog.

Thanks for the prompt reply! From our end, we have a post on great graduation gifts for nurses. It already contains a recommendation for a personalized [product], and I think your range would be a great addition there. We can add a paragraph something like: "Looking for something a bit different? These stylish options could make for a great gift for a nurse who enjoys spicing up her day-to-day clinical life with a bit of color," with a link placed on "these stylish options" in your post.

On your blog, I found a buying guide that recommends which medical devices are needed for physical exams. At the end, there is a section on neurological assessments. The post does not go in any depth about how to do these exams, but we have a great resource that details the how-to. Could the post link to our resource as a source for further reading? From your end, we'd like a link on "neurological exam", so people who want to learn more can come to our blog.

Let me know if this works for you!

We wrote the exact sentence, the exact anchor and the exact spot on both pages. Editors who are busy say yes more easily when there's nothing left to design.

3. The 2026 personalised opener

The full 2026 template isn't in the files we have. The personalised opening line is, because it sits in its own column. Two of them, lightly tidied:

I really liked your breakdown of medical productivity apps, especially the explanation of how spaced repetition helps students retain complex information.

I found your study guide very helpful, particularly the tip about using active recall to commit concepts to memory without peeking at notes.

Each one points at a real passage in the prospect's post. A human checks the line before the send box is ticked.

What editors replied

The replies are the useful part. Here are the objections, and what happened next. Where we say "drafted", the tracker holds the reply we wrote for that thread but doesn't confirm it was sent.

"We don't really do inter-linking and get many requests each month for this." A stress-management site, June 2024. We didn't push. The reply we drafted offered three article topics we could write for them, on impostor syndrome, handling an aggressive job environment and exam stress, which moves the conversation from a swap to a contribution. The tracker doesn't record how it ended.

"The Page You suggested has very less traffic. Please Suggest us some more pages with good traffic." A mental-wellness blog, April 2024. This is a fair objection, and the reply we drafted answered it with a number. It offered a post of ours that gets about 400 visitors a month and added that our top pages by traffic are very medical or nursing specific. It didn't pretend otherwise.

"Our policy is usually not to edit an article after it has been published." An AI study-tool company, July 2024. They offered three newer articles of theirs instead, and said they'd add us to the one we'd asked about only if none of those suited. The log shows it as in discussion.

A way around reciprocal linking. A nurse-staffing company, August 2024. They proposed a three-way shape: they link to us from one article, we link to a different article of theirs from another page. We agreed. It's a cleaner pattern than a direct swap.

A plain yes, with a promise. A productivity blogger, July 2024: "I'd definitely be open to a collaboration!" The blogger was refreshing older posts, offered to add our link to one of them and said they'd email us when it was done. It was logged as won.

"Can you please explain your concern?" A support inbox, February 2026. We read it as confusion, logged it as unclear and didn't press.

A different ask. A teacher-tools site, May 2026, replied with a counter-proposal involving a third-party site. The client's content lead confirmed on 19 May that we'd stay with the swap, and we told them so on 21 May. The swap went ahead anyway and is now live both ways.

The results

2024 (18 April to 19 November):

• 26 conversations in the outreach log. 14 marked won, 5 marked "got a reply", 3 in discussion, 3 "almost there", 1 with a reply logged and no status.
• The 2024 link tracker holds 21 links from this round. All 21 were live when logged. The recorded DA ranges from 15 to 58, with an average of 38.3.

2026 (22 January to 7 October):

• 1,535 rows in the prospect sheet. 1,130 prospects contacted all-time, according to the sheet's own snapshot, with 196 qualified and waiting, and a send rate of 7 to 15 new prospects a week.
• Of those, 3 exchanges are complete, with both links live. 1 is half-placed (our link is live, theirs isn't). 4 are pending with the partner, 2 are in a nurture hold. The snapshot is dated 10 September 2026.
• One exchange partner, a pre-med guide site, shows "removed": after its own site rebuild, our check on 24 September found no link back.

So from 1,130 contacted to 3 complete swaps. That's a low rate and we'd rather say it than hide it. We haven't calculated a reply rate because the replies log only holds threads that got an answer, so it can't give us a denominator. It does list 18 distinct prospect sites with a real or form reply, plus 13 auto-responders.

What we'd do again

1. Write the sentence for them. The thread where we drafted both paragraphs, exact anchors included, moved fastest.
2. Always bring a reason on our side. Every pitch had a page of ours that genuinely covered their topic, and we linked to them first when we could.
3. Offer a second route. "If interlinking is not an option, we can also contribute quality content" gave us something to say when an editor refused a swap: the drafted answer was three article topics.
4. Keep the competitors out. The client's block list names 21 competing exam-prep, flashcard and question-bank brands, and they're excluded from outreach.

What we'd change: the 2024 log has no column for the prospect's traffic, which is why that low-traffic objection surprised us. The 2026 sheet adds a High, Medium or Low priority tag to 934 rows (125 High, 728 Medium, 81 Low), which is a better filter but still not traffic.

Receipt box

Five links from this campaign. Category, DA as recorded in the tracker, live status, anchor type. No URLs.

Site category	DA	Live status	Anchor type
Medical-school advice blog	49	Live (2024 tracker)	Descriptive phrase
Counselling practice blog	50	Live (2024 tracker)	Descriptive phrase
Project-management software blog	46	Live (2024 tracker)	Descriptive phrase
Nurse-staffing company blog	32	Live (2024 tracker)	Descriptive phrase
Teacher-tools blog (2026 exchange)	not recorded	Live, verified 24 Sep 2026; we link to them too, so the exchange is complete	Descriptive phrase

How we vetted these sites

In 2024 each prospect was chosen by topic fit with a specific client article, and the tracker records DA but not traffic. In 2026 the 21-brand competitor block list applies, 934 rows carry a High, Medium or Low priority tag, and the log shows prospects we turned away: one closed as not relevant, one closed for brand safety, and one whose pitch read like a link farm. We don't have a traffic figure for these sites, so we aren't claiming one.