How do you put together a link building strategy?
-
I know after all the Google changes link building is different than it used to be. How do I put a link building strategy together that I can understand and follow?
I have fixed most of the crawl errors and my site is still low on the search for most of my targeted keywords. Is link building the answer? Or are there other options I'm missing?
-
If you are asking that question, the best way to get started is to look at what your competitors are doing. Find every backlink they have in Open Site Explorer (group by domain, external links only). Usually you can find a lot of gold, like awards and sponsorships you weren't aware of, that your business can apply for. Do this for every competitor.
Beyond that, link building is often done through link baiting. You can get some traction through a small amount of comment link building and directory listings at some of the major directories. Guest posting is probably the most actionable form of white-hat link building you can do.
Once you feel comfortable enough, you can start contacting related websites about adding a link to your website. This might come about as an incentive (a discount in your store, if you have one, as an example) or be paid outright. You can get these for free, I've found, if you engage the website owner in conversation first.
Here is a good post on contacting website owners:
http://www.seomoz.org/blog/outreach-letters-for-link-building-real-examples-14902
-
When you look at the other pages in the top 10, can you honestly justify why your page deserves to rank there? Once you get your content to this level, link building becomes a whole lot easier because you have created a linkable asset.
I agree with this 100%... and when I have that type of content that compares very favorably to the best on the web, I spend zero time building links and 100% of my time making more content. My pages get off to a very slow start compared to those that get linkbuilding, however, all of my time is spent creating highly linkable assets that over time will defeat lower grade content unless it has a big investment in offpage SEO.
-
Hi,
If your site is crawlable and the on-page optimization is spot-on, link building might be the answer.
First, make sure your content is fantastic. When you look at the other pages in the top 10, can you honestly justify why your page deserves to rank there? Once you get your content to this level, link building becomes a whole lot easier because you have created a linkable asset.
As for link building strategies or plans, I recommend taking a link at these two links.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link Building Recommendations Please
Hi - I am responsible for a small but growing number of websites for companies that serve the elderly population. I need help with link building for these websites and I'm looking for suggestions on finding one or two professionals to whom I can outsource that work. 1. Can you recommend anyone for this need, someone I can contact who you know to be qualified and professional? 2. Can you give me an idea of what such services should cost? Thanks!
Link Building | | tcolling0 -
Exchange online link for offline publication? A good linkbuilding strategy?
Lets say I own a company that sells bakery-supplies. I would want links from websites with "bakery" as their main topic. So it seems obvious to try and gain links from local backeries. Next step is: How do I convince them to link me? What is their benefit? I can't link them back because it would weaken the linkpower. Therefor I was thinking about publicating an offline "Backery Guide" which includes all backeries in the area. Backeries which link us, would get more visibiliy and company information. That would be their benefit and we would get a 1-way link. Is this an idea which could work? Any remarks are welcome!
Link Building | | wellnesswooz0 -
How long does it take for spam link building to take effect?
I saw a recent surge of a low quality website to the top of SERPS, and looking at the link profile is almost 5,000 newly acquired linking RD's, with a total of over 49,000 links. I looked at a bunch of the links and they are super spammy (foreign language, way unrelated and out of context, spam sites with garbage content, pages of paid links to the websites subpages, etc). My question is, how long does it take for Google to recognize this and penalize this shady site?
Link Building | | Joes_Ideas0 -
Looking to outsource some of our link building...
Hi Everyone, We are a small online marketing firm in the UK and we are starting to hit a bit of a bottleneck in terms of the resources that we have that can be devoted to link building. As a result, we need to outsource the link building for some of our clients (around 10). Obviously, we only want ethical, white hat link building to take place and it really is a focus on quality rather than quantity. As you can imagine, being a fairly small firm, we also have a very limited budget! We would ideally like to work with UK link builders but would definitely look at overseas partnerships if it worked out more cost effective and the standard of the link building meets our standards. Just so that I'm not wasting anyone's time, we have a budget of around £200-300 for this (I know, its a very limited budget!). I understand that with this budget comes limitations so we would be more than willing at looking at some stripped down packages (for example, we already have in-house bloggers, so we wouldn't need that). Let me know if you are interested or if you would be able to recommend anyone to me. It would be a great help. Matt
Link Building | | MatthewBarby
Wow Internet
matt@wowinternet.net0 -
Suggestions needed on link building campaign...
Getting links has become very difficult task for me. Recently i have started a website on Depression and Anxiety. My campaign steps: 1)Hired a doctor to write stuff on my website. 2)After that we did 100 more articles for article marketing. 3)Submitted content to top article directories.. All links to only 1 anchor (domainname.com). I haven't promoted my domain with main anchor anywhere. DONT KNOW WHAT TO DO 😞 Can anyone suggest me some link building methods so that i can do Good SEO for my new site?
Link Building | | artemmin0 -
Link building / baiting in the Google zoo
I work for a consultancy, and in the past most of our links have been acquired by giving away privacy statements etc for websites, including a link back in the body of the document, and making it a licensing requirement that the link be kept. We're launchinga new site. We want this one to be whiter-than-white, and would appreciate some advice on the following options. Option 1: no links Remove the links from the documents, and don't require links for the use of the documents. Leave a non-linking credit in the documents. Perhaps ask nicely for links from other pages. Option 2: links on other pages Remove the links from the documents, but make it a licensing requirement that users will link to our site from another page on their site. I appreciate that most won't, but some will. Option 3: retain the links Keep the links in the document, using domain name (with and without http and www) and business name anchor text. Option 4: script the links Use scripts to generate randomized links in the documents, so that no two are the same, but with relevant linking text for the most part. We're risk-adverse with the new site, and it will pick up some links "naturally". We're therefore tending toward option 1, on the basis that it may well generate as many links as option 2. Which of these options would you choose? Are there any other options we should be considering?
Link Building | | seqal0 -
Any good link building companies out there
Hi Guys, Does anyone know or can recommend any really good link building companies out there? There are lots and lots of link building companies but which ones can really do the job! Any recommendations much appreciated Thanks
Link Building | | GAZ09
Gareth0 -
Link building by inviting bloggers
Hi everyone, I'm relatively new to SEO, and I have a question on a link building strategy for a holiday resort I am working on. The resort has a paintball arena and zorbing facilities at their premises. I want to use this in the link building strategy and the owners have agreed to have an open day for bloggers. Basically the resort will invite 20 local bloggers for a day to their resort. They get to play paintball, zorbing and get to see the resort in exchange for an honest write up about their day at the resort. I am looking at asking the bloggers to write about the event twice (Once before, and once after they visit the resort) with a minimum of 4 links to the website. I want to know how I can identify the top bloggers? What factors should I consider while making a list of 20 bloggers, and how do I measure these factors? Also, is this a good strategy for link building? And please feel free to add anything else you think I am missing out on, or will help in the link building. Cheers! Arjun
Link Building | | ArjunRajkumar0