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Want to know what a Link Building campaign is but were afraid to ask?
Well, read on as we lay it out nice and simple!
So, the key thing to understand is that Link building campaigns in SEO are designed to increase the number of links pointing to a website. These backlinks can point to your homepage, service pages, specific articles, and so on.
Google and most other search engines consider backlinks as “votes of confidence” from one website to another. This explains why the more links you acquire, the more likely your website will appear trustworthy and authoritative in the eyes of search engines.
This helps you:
We get asked this a lot, so, a link builder is someone who is responsible for acquiring backlinks for a website. This can be done through a variety of means, such as reaching out to other websites and asking them to link to a specific page on your site, or creating content that is interesting or valuable enough that other websites will want to link to it naturally. That being said, link building is not always a numbers game. In most cases, it doesn't matter how many backlinks you have acquired for your website but the quality and relevancy of those links.
In this simplified guide, we’ll show you how to put together a successful link building strategy that drives customers to your business on autopilot. Without much ado, let’s get right into it!
There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the strategy will vary depending on your industry and competitors. However, there are a few basic ones that you should never overlook.Â
For starters, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity, always. Getting backlinks from high-quality websites that are relevant to your niche is much more effective than linking from low-quality websites in large numbers.
Additionally, strive to build genuine relationships with other website owners and influencers in your industry — this will pay off in the long run as they are more likely to link back to your website if they know and trust you.
That said, the following are what we consider the foundations of a successful link building strategy.
Every successful link building strategy starts with resource evaluation. Remember, this is not a one-off job and requires plenty of time and money to cater for research, software, content and outreach needs.
So first and foremost, how much money are you willing to spend? An average link building outreach campaign can cost anywhere between $500 and $10,000 or even more per month depending on the business model, industry competition and needs.
Secondly, how much time can you spare? Building backlinks is time-consuming because it involves a lot of strategic thinking and manual labor.
Before you start building backlinks, think about the amount of resources you have for the task ahead of you.
Link opportunities vary based on industry. But generally, it’s important to have an idea of who to target and can link to you. Otherwise, you won’t get any quality backlinks and your campaign will fall flat on your face.
To begin with, figure out who your ideal categories of linking candidates are. Think bloggers, niche-focused web directories, trade organizations, etc. Then, identify which of these websites are suitable for your business.
As a general rule of thumb, don’t waste time trying to get links from websites competing for the same keywords as your business. No one will want to offer a helping hand to a direct competitor.
Your linkable assets could be information-packed blog posts, industry reports, infographics, research presentations, white papers, and more.
Even so, for an asset to truly qualify as link-worthy, it needs to set your brand apart in some way. For example, you can include original research and surveys into your content to create hooks or connection points to external anchor texts.
If you have no idea about what people are raving about in your industry, try brainstorming ideas using SEO tools such as SEMrush and Ahrefs.
Based on your findings and the information you have in your hands, you can then create useful assets that attract links and shares.
Link building can only be truly effective if it’s aligned with other business goals. This helps to ensure that alongside acquiring links, you also accomplish other business or marketing objectives in the end.
For example, let’s say you run a plumbing blog and want to promote yourself as the best plumber in your area. In that case, you can reach out to local real estate bloggers for reviews of your service.
By doing so, you’ll earn a backlink for every review and also get your brand name out there as a result of the publicity you get. Talk of hitting two birds with one stone!
A site’s relevance and authority matter a great deal when it comes to link building. Links are more valuable when they come from websites with content closely related to the topic of your page.
Contextual links promote a seamless transition from the current page to the one being linked, as well as ensure a good reader experience. This is what Google loves and will reward you accordingly.
Another useful aspect to consider is the Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) of the site that hosts your backlink. Again, Google places more weight on links that come from authoritative websites.
High authority sites pass link equity or “link juice'' to the linked page which then causes a boost in the page’s ranking.
So you want to build backlinks for your online business? We won’t lie; the process can be exhausting but as with anything, every journey begins with a single step.
Here at Profit Engine, we focus on three main approaches as follows:
For this method, you first get a list of the websites you’d want to get linked from. The goal is to reach out to the owners asking for guest blogging or link insertions opportunities.
Outreaching can take a lot of time and effort but when done right, the reward is worth the hassle.
Before jumping right into contacting websites and requesting for links, it’s important to keep these things in mind:
If everything checks out, you can contact site owners through email or social media.
Manual link building is where you add links yourself. You can place your links in a blog comment section, share links on social media or web 2.0 properties, or through press release platforms.
This form of building links gives you more control over how many backlinks you can build, unlike when you rely on third-parties to link to your site.
However, a word of caution here is that Google perceives most of these links to be generally manipulative, hence you’ll likely not get much results from them. Worse still, if overdone, they could land you in big problems.
So if you’re going to use this method, it’s important to play safe and only add your links sparingly on platforms that Google deems safe.
Link earning is when you create original, high-quality content that other sites can’t help but link back to. This method allows you to earn editorially placed links that competitors struggle to replicate.
Link earning gives the highest reward but also requires a great amount of effort. You must be prepared to invest time and resources to develop top-quality content that naturally attracts links from strangers on the internet.
The idea here is to make sure the content you produce is a cut above every other post existing online.
Link building is a fundamental part of any SEO strategy, but it's also one of the most difficult and time-consuming aspects of the job. While the concept behind it appears fairly straightforward, executing a real campaign can be quite a complex thing.
The reason why good link building is difficult is because it’s a manual process with very little room for automations and shortcuts. For example, you’ll need to find relevant sites with high DA and PA, spend a lot of time on outreach, create amazing content, and do plenty more.
Worse, many website owners will often ignore you if you reach out to them with a generic message, not mentioning that almost all of them now ask for payments for link placements.
So yes, link building is no child play and it can get pretty expensive if you don’t know your way around.
As long as your links were acquired naturally without violating Google’s guidelines, then yes, link building is ethical.
Ethical link building can be achieved in several ways, including high quality guest posting, link insertions that add value, journalistic content creation, among others.
On the other hand, building backlinks through spamming and other black hat SEO techniques is unethical. It’s also the surest way to have your site penalized or de-indexed so keep off no matter how tempting it looks.
Link building can be a tough nut to crack, but with the right strategy in place (and some help), it can yield some serious results.
If you want to run a successful link building campaign, make sure to focus on quality over quantity, target high-authority sites, and mix up your link types.
Finally, consider hiring a reputable agency that specializes in this type of work. This helps you avoid many of the common mistakes made when attempting to build links on your own.
Plus, an experienced agency will have established relationships with high-quality websites, which will make it easier to get your links placed on these sites.
If you need the backing of a strategic marketing partner with proven results, then we’d love to speak with you. Get in touch with us now and let’s build a bespoke backlinking strategy that skyrockets your brand and profits using SEO.
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