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.