Link building has consistently been a fundamental aspect of search engine optimization (SEO). However, over the past 23 years of Google’s existence, link building strategies have undergone significant transformations, becoming more sophisticated. Initially, the emphasis was on the number of links. The more links a website acquired, the higher it would rank on search engine results pages (SERPs).
However, Google’s approach has evolved, and it now prioritizes the quality of links over their quantity. This shift ensures that websites offering valuable content are given higher rankings. Consequently, link building has become a crucial but time-consuming process. Websites now require high-quality links to improve their rankings, but simply acquiring links without careful consideration is no longer effective.
Modern link builders must dedicate their efforts to identifying relevant websites for backlinks and producing valuable content that caters to their target audience.
Building sustainable link building strategies requires a substantial investment of time, thoughtful planning, and energy. These efforts are necessary to enhance website rankings on SERPs.
How To Create Link Building Strategy
Creating an effective link building strategy requires some initial effort, but once you have established the foundation, you pave the way for significant success. To develop your link building strategy, it is recommended to follow these steps.
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Analyze Your Website
Prior to deciding which websites to target or how many links to acquire, it is essential to assess the strengths and weaknesses of your own site.
Evaluate whether your focus should be on acquiring backlinks or conducting keyword research, or perhaps both. By identifying the areas where your site falls short, you can develop valuable assets to support your overall strategy.
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Determine Target Audience
Gaining an understanding of your audience enables you to compile a list of websites that they are likely to visit. Begin by examining the demographics, behaviors, and interests of your target audience.
What topics are important to your audience? How do they typically search for information or solutions? What specific areas of interest are relevant to your product or services?
By answering these questions, you can identify websites that align with your audience’s preferences and interests.
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Audit Existing Content
Seek out blog posts and other webpages that are likely to attract links from other sites. Keep in mind that most website owners are hesitant to link directly to product pages, as it can come across as overly promotional and spam-like. Instead, focus on identifying top-of-the-funnel pages that provide educational and informative content.
Additionally, examine the content produced by your competitors. Are there any areas where they have gaps in their content? If so, invest time and effort in creating pages that fill these gaps, allowing you to compete more effectively in search engine rankings.
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Create a List of Target Websites
Ensure that the websites you target for link building align with your content, business, and target audience. It’s important to prioritize these sites based on their relevance and authority, ensuring that you prioritize the most important ones first.
Remember that link building is a time-consuming process, so it’s crucial to approach it with a long-term perspective. Your strategy should include setting long-term goals to measure and track your progress over time.
Tactics vs. Link Building Strategies
Before delving into link building strategies, it is crucial to understand the distinction between tactics and strategies. While they are closely related, they have their own unique characteristics.
A strategy is an action plan that outlines how you will achieve a long-term goal. It provides a roadmap for reaching the desired outcome. For instance, if your company’s objective is to increase organic traffic to the website, one strategy could be to enhance your social media presence. The strategy itself is not the ultimate goal, but rather a means to achieve it.
On the other hand, a tactic refers to the specific steps taken to implement a strategy. Tactics have shorter timelines and serve specific purposes. In the case of the social media strategy mentioned earlier, a tactic could involve posting three times a week on specific social media platforms. Another tactic might be creating more social videos to boost engagement.
Now that the distinction between strategy and tactics has been clarified, let’s explore various link building strategies.
Effective Link Building Strategies
When constructing a link building strategy, it is vital to keep your ultimate goal in mind. Link building is a process that demands time, effort, and patience. As your campaign progresses, it is crucial to regularly assess and re-evaluate your strategies to determine their effectiveness.
Outlined below are some link building strategies that you can immediately implement:
- Guest Blogging: Contribute high-quality content to relevant and authoritative websites in your industry, including a link back to your site in the author bio or within the content.
- Broken Link Building: Identify broken links on other websites and reach out to the site owners, suggesting your relevant content as a replacement.
- Influencer Outreach: Establish connections with influential individuals in your niche and collaborate on content creation or request them to share your content with their audience.
- Content Promotion: Actively promote your high-quality content through social media, email newsletters, and outreach to industry influencers to increase its visibility and potential for gaining backlinks.
- Resource Link Building: Create valuable resources such as comprehensive guides, tools, or industry reports that others in your field will find useful, increasing the likelihood of them linking to your resource.
By implementing these strategies, you can enhance your link building efforts and drive positive results for your website.
Publish High-Quality Content
To attract links, it is crucial to create content that people genuinely desire to link to. Link-worthy content typically appeals to a wide audience and is often positioned at the top of the marketing funnel. Editors and website owners are more inclined to link to pages that are relevant to their audience. Therefore, the more your page aligns with their audience’s interests and needs, the higher the probability of receiving backlinks.
Link-worthy content is also characterized by its educational and informational value. It addresses common problems or provides answers to frequently asked questions that the target audience may have.
However, in order to truly build high-quality content, it is not enough to simply address common queries. It must be done in a unique and distinctive manner. This means that in order to gain backlinks, your content should not only provide answers and solutions but also present them in an innovative and original way.
Link-worthy content can take various forms, such as:
- How-to articles: Step-by-step guides or tutorials that provide valuable instructions and guidance.
- Data and Trends: Research-backed content that presents industry statistics, trends, or insights.
- Research that benefits your industry: Conducting and sharing original research findings that offer valuable insights to your industry.
- Educational Content: Informative and educational resources that teach your audience about specific topics or concepts.
- Entertainment: Engaging and captivating content that entertains and captures the interest of your audience.
- Inspirational Content: Motivational and uplifting content that resonates with your audience and inspires them.
- Evergreen Content: Timeless and enduring content that remains relevant and valuable over an extended period.
If your strategy involves creating more link-worthy content, you can start by conducting an audit of your existing content to identify any gaps. This assessment will help you understand which areas need improvement or additional content.
By utilizing the tactics mentioned above and aligning them with your goals, you can plan the type of content to prioritize and determine the quantity required to fulfil your link-building strategy.
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Blogging Outreach
Outreach involves reaching out to other websites and requesting a backlink to your content. When you create link-worthy content, it is important to proactively share it with websites that could benefit from featuring it.
Obtaining backlinks from high-authority websites signals to Google that your site is an authority on the subject. These backlinks serve as “votes of confidence” from one site to another. Moreover, backlinks from diverse sites can help expand your target audience, attracting potential customers to your website.
Outreach typically involves SEO specialists sending articles to site editors, explaining why featuring their content would be beneficial. However, outreach encompasses various tactics, including:
- Press releases to secure links from relevant sites.
- Promotion of new content.
- Seeking links in existing content.
- Rectifying unlinked mentions.
Outreach helps foster professional relationships between SEOs and site editors. While it may appear straightforward, there are best practices to keep in mind:
- Personalize your outreach messages to avoid sending generic requests.
- Keep your messages concise and to the point, as site editors have limited time.
- Clearly explain the benefits of linking to your site or article for the recipient.
- Provide the desired anchor text, making it easier for site editors to incorporate the backlink.
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Do Press Release
Earning links from news sites can yield numerous benefits, despite the strategy’s seemingly vague nature. Firstly, news publications often boast a substantial audience, and when they link to your site, it can drive traffic and exposure to your business.
Moreover, news sites are often regarded as authoritative sources, and acquiring a backlink from them can significantly impact your site’s credibility in the eyes of search engines like Google.
While it may be tempting to assume that anything your company does could be considered newsworthy, it is crucial to consider what is relevant and valuable to your business and the target publication you’re aiming for.
To execute this strategy effectively, consider implementing the following tactics:
- Host an event.
- Make donations to a cause.
- Launch a nonprofit organization.
- Introduce a new product or solution.
- Announce a new partnership.
- Offer a scholarship program.
Once you have determined which tactics align with your business objectives, you need to pitch your ideas to contributors, publications, and other relevant media contacts.
To convince them of the significance of your story, emphasize why it is relevant to their audience and how it can provide value to them. This personalized approach increases the chances of your news-worthy story being picked up and shared by the media.
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Technical SEO
A method to acquire links is to conduct a technical audit of your backlinks. Occasionally, links can break or pages may become unavailable, and site editors might be unaware of these issues, resulting in non-functional links to your site.
By performing a backlink analysis, you can proactively monitor the functionality of your backlinks. Here are some tactics within this strategy:
- Identifying Broken Links: Reach out to the site editor, informing them of the correct link and emphasizing the value it adds to their site.
- Resolving 404 errors: Provide an alternative link to a similar page to replace the broken link.
- Removing Redirects: Ensure that any redirects in place are directed to the final destination. Whenever possible, eliminate redirect chains.
- Transitioning from HTTP to HTTPS: If you recently migrated to HTTPS, update all links from HTTP to ensure consistency.
By addressing these issues, you can reestablish the connection between websites and maximize the value of the backlinks. A redirect link or a link to a 404 page holds minimal value, so reclaiming and fixing these links is crucial for boosting organic traffic to your site.
Furthermore, resolving these issues enhances the crawlability and indexing of your site by search engine bots, thereby improving your overall search engine visibility.
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The Leadership
A thought leader is an individual within an industry who is widely recognized as an expert. They consistently produce new content and introduce innovative ideas that shape their industry.
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Being a thought leader offers several benefits. Due to their expertise and credibility, thought leaders gain the trust of many people who perceive their content as reliable and authoritative. Additionally, thought leadership can positively impact rankings in search engines like Google. When numerous individuals reference your content as a valuable resource, Google recognizes you as an authority in your field.
Google’s objective is to provide users with helpful and relevant content and thought leadership aligns perfectly with that goal.
To establish yourself as a successful thought leader, consider implementing the following tactics:
- Guest blogging on relevant sites: Contribute insightful articles to authoritative websites in your industry.
- Providing answers on Q&A platforms: Share your expertise by responding to industry-related questions on platforms like Quora or Stack Exchange.
- Creating content on social media: Share valuable insights, tips, and industry updates through your social media channels.
- Developing online classes or certifications: Share your knowledge through online courses or certifications, establishing yourself as an educational resource.
- Keeping readers informed about industry news: Regularly update your audience with the latest news and developments in your industry.
- Hosting webinars or podcasts: Engage with your audience through interactive webinars or informative podcast episodes.
Remember, thought leadership begins with original research, building a strong online presence, and staying updated on industry news and trends. By consistently demonstrating expertise and providing valuable insights, you can establish yourself as a respected thought leader in your industry.
Some Link Building Strategy To Avoid
When discussing effective link building strategies, it’s crucial to touch upon the link building strategy that should be avoided. Attempting to acquire as many links as possible without considering their quality and relevance is neither sustainable nor organic. Using such tactics is deemed spammy by Google, and utilizing them can result in penalties for your site.
These black hat tactics include:
- Buying links: Paying for links to artificially boost your site’s backlink profile.
- Bribing for links: Offering incentives or rewards in exchange for backlinks.
- Spamming links in comment fields: Placing irrelevant or excessive links in comment sections of websites.
- Link schemes: Participating in schemes that manipulate the link building process, such as excessive reciprocal linking.
- Misleading redirects: Using deceptive techniques to redirect users to unrelated or irrelevant pages.
While the notion of “the more links, the better” may seem tempting, it’s essential to remember that Google places greater importance on the relevance and quality of links. Instead of focusing on the number of links, prioritize seeking authoritative and relevant links that align with your site’s content and industry.
As mentioned above, link building requires time and patience; it is not a one-time task. However, by crafting a well-thought-out strategy and implementing the tactics discussed above, your site can gradually earn a substantial number of high-quality backlinks in the months to come.
If you need assistance or have any questions regarding link building strategy for your website, don’t hesitate to reach out. As an SEO marketing company, we are always happy to assist fellow business owners. Contact us today to learn more about our Link Building services.
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