The Top 5 Link Building Strategies
Link building is a one of search engine optimization practice. In the past years, quantity of the links cause for giving ranks to sites. Which means if you have used many links, you would be able to get a higher rank. But now quantity of links can not give you a higher rank. Because Google consider about link’s quality also. Further you need to provide valuable content and find relevant sites to backlink. This process can not be done easily. You have to put your time, thoughts and energy to make it successful. In this tutorial we’re going to discuss about link building strategies that can be helped.
How To Create Link Building Strategies
As we said before this process really needs some time and energy. You need to consider below steps in order to use link building strategies.
- Analyze your site : It’s important to knowing what your site do and what it’s doesn’t do first of all. You may need either focusing on backlink or keyword research. You may want both. Then you can decide which sites to be linked and how many links do need.
- Determine target audience : Understanding your target audience is another important thing. Then you can create a list of sites they like. You can start it by looking at demographics, interests and behaviors. And also you can find what your audience likes that related to your business or service and the way they search for get answers.
- Audit existing content : You need to search for web pages and blog posts that other websites would want to link to. Many website owners avoid linking to product pages because it appears spammy and commercial. Therefore you can search for educational top-funnel pages instead. Next look at the content of your competitors. If there is any content gap, take your time to create them.
- Create a list of target sites: Your target sites should complement with your content, target audience and business / service. Sort the websites according to their importance and authority to make sure you start with the most important ones. This link building processes takes time. Therefore you need to add long term goals to your strategy. Then you would be able to see process.
Link Building Strategies and Tactics
Before learning link building strategies, it’s better to knowing the difference between link building strategies and tactics. They are two different things. But both of them are closely related. Therefore many people get misunderstanding about both are the same thing.
Link building strategies or any strategies are action plans. It has long term goals. The way you are using to achieve those goals is called strategy. For example, if you want to increase organic traffic in your site, you can increase your social media presence. This is a strategy not a tactic. Increasing social media presence is not the end goal. We can use it to meet the end goal.
A tactic is the step to achieving your strategy. Tactics have certain purposes. And the timeline which tactics used is shorter than strategies. For example, in your increasing social media presence strategy that we talked above, you can use tactics like post four times a week on a specific social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram. You can also create social videos. It is also a tactic. Now you must get a clear idea what are link building strategies and what are tactics.
Link Building Strategies
There are numerous link building strategies. We’re going to discuss about 5 most valuable strategies among them. Before going to use these strategies, remember to build them with your end goal. And also all they need your effort, time and patience.
1. Publish Link-Worthy Content
Your content needs to be worthy. These contents are informational and educational. You may answer to common questions and problems that your audience have. And do it in a unique way. Such a content is a worthy content. Keep remember to create your content as the way it suits to your audience. Because many editors like to link pages that are relevant to their audience. If you create a worthy content which means you have got a higher chance to be linked. Some examples for link worthy content are given below.
- How-to articles.
- Data and trends.
- Research that benefits your industry.
- Educational content
- Entertainment
- Inspirational content
- Evergreen content
To make a link worthy content, firstly audit your existing content. Then try to find the gaps it has. Now you can get a idea which content needs to be improved and how much it needs. Then use any tactics which suits to make it worthy.
2. Outreach
It is the process of asking a site to a backlink. After creating a worthy content, you can share it with other sites that would benefit you. If you can get a backlink from a high-authority sites, it would be great. Because you can tell Google that your content is worthy. They act as “votes of confidence”. It also helps to expend your audience. It will bring new visitors to your website. To get these benefits, your SEO specialist need to send articles to the site editor and explain why they would benefit from your article. It helps to improve professional relationships between SEO specialist and site editors also.
There are many tactics you can use. Some of them are given below.
- Press releases in order to obtain links from the relevant sites.
- Promote new content.
- Seek links in the current content.
- Fix unlinked mentions
Outreach looks like great. But there are many things you shouldn’t do also.
- Personalize your outreach. Generic messages won’t be sent.
- Keep email short and to the point. Site editors are busy and they don’t have much time for long emails.
- Explain why linking to your article or your website is beneficial for them.
- Provide the anchor text. If you can make it easier on them, it would be better.
3. Do News-Worthy Things
You can have many benefits from get backlink from news sites. Because they have large audience. You can improve traffic to your site by them. And also many publications have authorities in their space. But to get all these benefits, you need to create your site news worthy. Find what relevant for both you and target publication. You can follow below tactics to do so.
- Host an event
- Create a new product or solution
- Donate to a cause
- Launch a nonprofit
- Offer a scholarship
- Announce a new partnership
After create a news worthy content, pitch your idea to publications, contributors and other relevant media contacts. You can tell them why your page / story is essential to both them and their audience.
4. Technical SEO
It’s important to do a audit on backlinks. Because links can be broken, pages can be gone down, site editors might don’t aware of that links to your site have stopped working. Therefore you can do a backlink analysis and find how your backlinks are working. You can use below tactics in order to,
- Find broken links: You might email the site editor with the correct link, saying the value that links adds to their site.
- Fixing 404s: A brand new link may have provided to a similar page.
- Removing redirects: You need to make sure whether any redirects are linking to the destination. You need to remove redirect chains.
- HTTP vs. HTTPS: If you recently switched to HTTPS, all links are need to be updated from HTTP.
If you fix these issues it will help you to re-establish the connection from a site to other site. Link to 404 pages have no value. Therefore it’s better to reclaim them. Then you would be able to get more traffic to your site. And also fixing these links help bots to crawl and index the site.
5. Thought Leadership
A thought leader is a expert in the industry. They always publish new content and bring new ideas to their industry. Many people are tend to believe them and use their content as a proof. If you ca be a though leader in your industry, it would give you many benefits. It also help you to get better ranking in SERPs. Because as much as people tend to believe you as a resource, Google would start to look at you as an authority. You can follow below tactics in order to become a successful thought leader.
- Creating online classes or certifications
- Guest blogging on relevant sites
- Posting answers on Q+A sites
- Creating content on social media
- Hosting a webinar or a podcast
- Updating readers on the news in the industry
You cannot start thought leadership that much easily. You need to do original research, keeping up-to-date on industry news and build a solid presence.
Link Building Strategy To Avoid
It’s important to knowing link building standards that you shouldn’t do, as much as important of knowing link building strategies that you should. If you use those strategies, Google might see them as spammy practices. If yes, there is a chance your site to be penalized. You shouldn’t try to get all the links that you can. Because they won’t improve organic traffic or sustainable. You shouldn’t use below link building strategies,
- Buying links
- Bribing others for links
- Spamming links in comment fields
- Link schemes
- Misleading redirects
You might think if you use more links, it will benefit you most. But remember, Google needs they to be relevant each other. Therefore try to find relevant and authoritative links to your site. Link building strategies are not “set and forget” tasks. Therefore give it some time and be patient. If you use above tactics and link building standards correctly, you will be earn many backlinks.