Creative Link Building Techniques For A Sustainable Link Building Strategy
Search Engine Optimisation is not the same game it was two years ago
and evolves at rapid pace. Without the knowledge, skills and drive to
keep informed and up-to-date, SEO’s can quickly become behind with the
times.
Arguably one of the biggest changes
we’ve seen in SEO is the way we build links. In fact, the very idea of
“building links” is becoming out of date as Google crashes down on
unnatural link profiles. Think about it; if you’ve built a link, it is
unlikely to be a “natural” backlink. However, there are ways we can
actively improve link profiles with quality backlinks and still fall
within Google guidelines by using creative link building techniques.
In this post I will discuss creative ways to build high quality,
natural backlinks as part of a sustainable link building strategy.
Monitor Brand Mentions
With Google Trends and other similar tools, you can easily monitor
each time you brand name is mentioned across the web. You can also set
up email or browser notifications to find out whenever your chosen
keyword (in this instance, your brand) is mentioned and when you find a
new mention, go and check it out.
If the site is discussing your brand and has a good PageRank, check
whether they link to you somewhere on the page. More often than not you
will find that they already are which is great and you can try and build
a strong relationship with them in the future for further links. You
can also review the anchor text and see if it could be improved. If
they’re not linking to you, contact the site owners and politely request
that they make your brand name an anchor to your site or suggest they
link to a piece of your content that further builds on their article.
Internal Broken Link Building
Fixing broken links on your site is an essential part of site
maintenance but can also be a great technique for regaining lost
backlinks.
Start by analysing your backlink profile using a link analysis tool
such as Majestic SEO, Screaming Frog or Open Site Explorer. Using tools
like these and with a bit of manual exporting, filtering and analysis
you can find links to broken pages on your site. You’re looking for
pages with a 404 or similar error. Be sure to check any broken links
manually though: no tool is 100% accurate 100% of the time.
When you have a definitive list of backlinks which point to old
broken pages, you have a number of options to resolve. You may just need
to fix the broken page if it isn’t meant to be broken, or 301 the
broken page to a relevant live page, however ensure that the link will
still be relevant if doing so. Alternatively if the links come from
other website, you can contact the sites linking back to you and request
that they change their link to the relevant live page. Whichever way
you resolve the issue, you will end up with an old link revitalised and
current once more.
This technique can take time and doesn’t usually provide a wealth of
new link juice, but is a great way of keeping your link profile current
and clean, as well as identifying issues with your pages that you may
not have otherwise been aware of.
External Broken Link Building
This variation on “broken link building” involves looking for broken
links to your competitors’ sites or other sites in your industry. In the
same way as internal broken link building, you can look for these
opportunities by running your chosen relevant sites through link
analysis tools and looking for broken links. You can also use the Broken
Link Checker plugin for Chrome and carry out some basic checks on-page.
Once you have identified a potential opportunity, contact the site
owner to let them know they have a broken link. Sites generally want to
know if they have broken links as it is in their interest to resolve
them, which means you can get their attention and are offering them
something beneficial to them. This is also a good chance to suggest a
page on your website that might be relevant to their website and worth a
link.
You won’t always get a link through this technique, sometimes the
site owners will just fix the link and be done with you, but if you can
get a link out of it you will likely also build a relationship with the
site owner, meaning more potential opportunities in the future.
Get Interviewed
One
great way to get a natural backlink is to find someone to interview you
or provide a quote for a blog post or news article on a relevant
industry site. This might sound difficult to achieve, but in reality you
are an expert in what you do (or should be) and your opinion is
valuable to the right person.
To begin this process, look for high quality sites which discuss
topics relevant to your business. See what sort of content they have
written before, looking at style, quality and target audience.
When you identify a potential interview opportunity, send the site a
polite email or message and pitch the idea. If you get a positive
response, find out what sort of questions they want to ask and you can
begin compiling some responses.
When you provide your answers or quote for the interviewer, make sure
you remain neutral and unbiased. Avoid talking about your company or
brand (unless it’s directly relevant to the post) and concentrate on
providing genuinely interesting or useful insight. No-one wants to read
your opinion on how wonderful your company is, but they may be
interested in what you have to say on a relevant topic.
Run Competitions
Competitions are a proven technique for increasing social engagement
and followers, but they can also be good for generating quality links.
With the right promotion and a great incentive to enter, competitions
are often linked from other sites across the web. Gaz Copeland put together a great post on the topic here.
Refresh Old Content
Sometimes, great content on the web that is still read and ranks well
is actually several years old and may even be mildly out of date in
terms of content. Equally, sometimes great content becomes so out of
date that it is no longer read or listed in rankings and no-one rewrites
it.
If you can find content like this that is relevant to your industry
it provides you with a fantastic opportunity to recreate the content,
pitch your idea to the original site and supply them with a link to your
site.
The best way to find this sort of content is to search Google for
terms related to your business and add words like “definitive guide”,
“complete guide” or “whitepaper”. Browse through the results and look
for old or out-of-date content. Then think about how you could improve
it.
When you’ve got a target site and idea, contact the site owner with
your proposition. If the original page has a lot of backlinks and/or
good search engine ranking, you could really win big with a high-quality
link.
Embeddable Resources = Link Bait
Spending the time and/or money into creating a quality, shareable
resource can be a worthwhile investment. However, by adding embed code
at the bottom you can transform a quality resource from interesting and
potentially shareable to solid gold* link bait.
The perfect example of a site doing this well is YouTube. With embed
codes on every single video and people all over the world embedding
videos on their own sites daily, their link profile will never stop
growing.
There are many different types of resource which can be embedded, including:
- Infographics
- Videos
- Photos
- Widgets
Remember to include a call-to-action with your embed code as well as
social share buttons to encourage engagement. For more information, see
this great guide to creating viral linkbait and infographics from Distilled.
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