Anyone considering, or involved in, SEO will know the importance of backlinks. So we asked some expert SEO consultants to put together a basic process for beginners just starting out on the task of link-building. Here it is:
UNDERSTAND WHAT CONSTITUTES SEO VALUE
These are the attributes every link
prospect should have:
·
High Domain Authority - DA
30+, TF 20+ and DR 20+
·
Unique Class C IP Address
·
More than 2 years old
·
Relevant to the target industry
sector OR a well-known general domain such as a business or news website
·
Allow “dofollow” links
1.
IDENTIFY COMPETITOR LINK
PROSPECTS
Use one of the many SEO tools to generate
a list of competitors’ linking domains and review them based on the value
attributes listed above to eliminate any poor quality link prospects.
These can be sub-divided into 3
categories:
·
Outreach Link Prospects – contact via an email outreach campaign
·
Contributor Opportunities – apply for an author/contributor account
·
Directory Listings – submit your business to be listed but note that many directory
listings have no SEO value so check how your website will be listed and
especially how many other links will appear on the same page.
2.
IDENTIFY RELATED BUT
NON-COMPETING WEBSITES
Produce a list of related but non-competing
websites via online research which might be useful for mutually beneficial
collaboration.
3. DISCOVER UNLINKED MENTIONS
Do an online search for your
brand/business name and where there are mentions but no backlink, simply get in
touch and request a link is added.
4. USE REAL-LIFE CONTACTS
Talk to existing business contacts to see
if there could be opportunities to collaborate for generating links – but try
to avoid reciprocal links.
5. START AN OUTREACH CAMPAIGN
Find specific contact details
Don’t send your outreach emails to a
generic email address such as [email protected]
as it is less likely to be read by the right person.
Identify relevant topics to pitch
What sort of content is already published
in terms of style and length? Is the site missing good content on a certain
relevant topic?
Use personalised emails
Make your email stand out from the masses
by making it highly personalised and showing you know their website. Never use
email template as they are easy to spot.
Think carefully about email title
Many cold emails will never be opened so
also make the title stand out from the masses.
6. CREATE CONTENT TO SUPPORT LINK-BUILDING
Once you have started outreach you will
need to create the actual content that will be used as a guest post, article,
press release etc. or that will be published on your own website as a guide,
white paper, opinion piece etc. If you don’t have good writing skills yourself
then employ a good copywriter as the quality of the content will impact the
success of the link-building
campaign.
7. MONITOR BACKLINK PROFILE
It is important to monitor the backlinks
generated to make sure they still exist and are still adding value to your SEO
campaign. It is often easier to rectify issues with existing links than to gain
new ones so this is an essential part of your process. Use your preferred SEO
software to check the following:
·
Lost links i.e. links that did
exist at one time but have now been removed from a website. Get in touch with the
site owner and request the link is reinstated.
·
Links that have been changed
from dofollow to nofollow. Again ask the site owner if the link can be changed back
to dofollow.
· Pages that contained your link which have now been removed from the website or renamed without a permanent redirect being put in place.