Link Building: A Search Engine Optimization Strategy
What is Link Building?
In the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there are many different strategies for driving organic traffic to a webpage through search engine results. One of these strategies is Link Building. Link Building is the process of obtaining hyperlinks from other websites to your own website. The more links a website has from other trustworthy websites, the higher it ranks in the eyes of search engines, and thus the higher it appears in search engine results.
Think of a link as a recommendation. The more times a website is recommended, the better and more trustworthy it looks to potential customers. Not all recommendations are created equal, though. People are much more likely to listen to a recommendation from a well trusted source than someone they don’t know. Therefore, larger and more well-known websites carry more weight when linking a website than if a small blog were to do the same. The more links from high quality websites you have, the higher your rank among search results will be.
What Makes a Strong Link?
Different links have different values, so it’s important to understand what kind of links to strive for in your link building efforts. What factors contribute to a link’s value?
Authority: Links from websites with more authority have higher value than links from smaller, lesser-known websites. For example, a link from CNN will hold a lot higher value than a link from a small blog.
Relevance: Links from websites with content that is related to your own have higher value than links from websites with content that is unrelated. Link relevance shows you are trusted by others in your field.
Link Placement: The more prominent a link is displayed on a website, the higher value it is. For example, links at the top of a page or in the main body are of much higher value than links in footers.
Anchor Texts: These are text links that appear as clickable, linked text embedded within pages. These links have high value because they give clear indication to both the reader and the search engine what the linked page is about.
Risky Link Building Practices to Avoid
There are some risky practices that may be tempting to use in link building to cut corners. Search engines have teams that constantly police websites to ensure their guidelines are followed; therefore, the potential perks of risky practices are not worth the risk. Here are some risky practices to avoid:
Buying Links: Never pay a website to implement your links on their platform. Google and other search engines will recognize that it’s paid for and will not count it towards your value. Additionally, paid links violate Google’s link spam guidelines, and both your website and the host website can be penalized.
Overusing Anchor Text: Do not overuse anchor texts with exact match keywords. As stated before, anchor text links are valuable to link building, but if you overuse them without good context, they appear manipulative and of low quality. Instead, use a variety of anchor texts with a mix of keywords that are relevant and provide good context to your content.
Injecting Hidden Links: Do not try to embed hidden links within another website. There are different ways to do this, including using white text on white backgrounds, hiding texts behind images, etc. While users may not notice, Google’s web crawlers use patented technology to accurately distinguish hidden links from regular links. If Google catches you violating their policies, you will be penalized with a lower search visibility.
These strategies will never work in your favor. If you take the risk and try implementing them, search engines will find out and your traffic and rankings could drop overnight. Instead of cutting corners, follow the Google Search Essentials (formerly the Webmaster Guidelines) and focus on tactics that drive long term results. Earning links is a lot more valuable than creating them yourself. It may be frustrating when you want immediate results, but following the rules and focusing on creating quality content will always prove better results in the long run.
Elements of a Successful Link Building Campaign
It’s important to understand why building a successful link building campaign matters to your brand or organization. Large businesses don’t always have to rely on SEO practices like link building, because they can rely on their reputation and the media to link consumers to their webpages. For example, when a new Apple product is launched, news sources and blogs rush to write about it, building thousands of links for Apple without them lifting a finger. Newer and smaller businesses that are launching new products or services don’t have the same luxuries. This is why it’s important to implement a link building campaign with the appropriate goals and tactics. Competitors in your industry may be receiving links for free or using link building strategies to boost their rankings, and you must do the same in order to keep up with the big dogs and stay at the top of search results.
Goals
As mentioned above, long term goals are much more important than short term goals when it comes to link building. Results don’t happen overnight—it can take days to months to see improvements, depending on factors such as industry competitiveness, keyword difficulty, competitor link-building efforts, domain strength, and more. When it comes to setting goals for your link building campaign, start by assessing what you have with these steps:
Run a backlink audit using this tool from Semrush to gather data about what links you currently have, and then run this audit every month to keep track of new and lost links.
Determine what links you are missing and make a list of the kind of links you need. Some include: links to your homepage, links to deeper pages, links with your brand name, and links with your targeted keywords.
Take note of your assets and which ones are of the most value to your link building.
Tactics
Content Based Link Building
In content based link building, you create an asset or use an asset you already have as a piece of content and reach out to people who may be interested in sharing it on their webpage. The best and most useful assets may include: infographics, how-to guides, data visualizations, image galleries, tools, studies/reports, etc. In order for these assets to be successful, it’s important to create them while thinking through the lens of consumers. You want to create content that is interesting, funny, relevant, or informative enough for viewers to click on it. This circles back to the central idea that long-term goals and quality content are the foundation of link building campaigns.
Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is the process of reaching out to other websites and seeing if they’ll publish your writing on their page. This must be done strategically, because it’s a tactic that has been over-used by people creating high-volume, low-quality content. Google has cracked down on this over the years, and if you opt into creating and sharing spam-like content, it will not be helpful to your link building efforts. Instead, be strategic by creating quality content and posting it on pages and forums you know your audience is consistently browsing. This strategy can add significant value to your link building efforts when done correctly.
Broken Link Building
Broken link building is the process of finding links that no longer work and having them replaced with links to your site. To find broken links, use a tool such as Semrush that allows you to search for competitor’s links and see which ones no longer work. Once you find the links you want to replace, find the contact information for the website publisher and reach out with a proposal to replace the broken link with your own (we’ll discuss outreach to publishers in the final section). This tactic is more effective than you might think. No one wants to send their users to links that are broken, and you are coming to them offering a solution to a problem they may not have even known they had.
Analyzing Competitor Links
Analyzing your competitors’ links is a great way to stay above the competition in your field. By doing this, you can see which domains are linking to your competitors and what type of content they are linking to. You can use the same Semrush tool to run a report showing a list of all the websites linking to a competitor. Analyze the list and look for patterns in the top-performing content. Use your analysis to replicate similar tactics that work for you and your website.
Outreach
In order to start conducting outreach, you must first create your list of prospectable websites. To create this list, start by:
Analyzing your competitors' links (as mentioned above). This will help you understand where the traffic within your niche is happening. Find the most popular websites your competitors are linked to and find where there may be gaps in your field.
Use Google advanced search operators: use the tools intitle:keyword and inurl:keyword to show all the pages in search results that have your keyword in their title or URL. Use a SERP scraping tool such as Apify to analyze the search results.
Use a link-building outreach tool such as: Ahrefs, Semrush, Respona, or Pitchbox
Things to Consider When Making Your List:
Domain Ranking - This indicates the quality/strength of the links that come from the site. The higher the domain ranking, the more powerful a link from it is.
Organic Traffic - Is Google ranking the site high enough that it’s getting enough organic traffic?
Traffic Source/Location - Is the traffic coming through this website relevant enough to the audience that you're targeting? Make sure the traffic location is where you’re targeting your audience.
Inbound/Outbound Link Ratio - make sure the website is not a link farm - aka - a site linking out to a large number of websites compared to links they have earned. Checking the inbound/outbound link ratio will ensure your links have power behind them.
When you are ready to start reaching out to the list of potential website prospects, there are two things to keep in mind. First, start with your high priority prospects. This is important because if you secure a link from a popular website, you can then use this as proof of your legitimacy to smaller websites, and they may be more willing to give you a link. Second, remember that you are reaching out to a real person. It’s important to be authentic and real in order to increase your chances of a response.
When reaching out to prospects, your email should tell them:
Why they should care about you
Implement your linkbait/hooks. Show why your content is worth linking to and rely on what makes it unique, whether it’s newsworthy, detailed information, controversial, funny, etc.
What action you would like them to take
Make sure that you understand the more you’re asking for, the better your content needs to be. Start with a big ask, and if they say no, come back and ask for something smaller and they may be more likely to say yes. For example, if you ask a blogger to post a guest-blog of yours on their page and they say no, come back and ask them to share your page on their social media, and they may say yes.
You’re genuine and not a spammer
Make sure each email that you send is personalized and custom to each prospect. Use their name, a good subject line, mention something specific about their work, use a proper email signature, and remember that you’re writing to a real person.
Tips for Following Up
It’s important to remember that people are very busy and bloggers can get a lot of emails that are reaching out for the same reasons as you. If you do not receive a response, send a follow up email that’s short and to the point. This will remind the person of you and also reinforce that you are not a robot, increasing the chances of a response. Even if you receive a response saying no, make sure that you always reply. You don’t want to damage your chances of them ever providing a link to you in the future.