2. Learning objective
Gain insight into the possibilities of earning backlinks using
the Digital PR strategy.
S M A R T
Zoom in on the
online resources
and tactics to
create valuable
backlinks for your
brand websites.
Use link building
metrics to see if
link building
campaigns are
effective.
We will talk
about the basics
of link building.
These should be
quite easy to
implement.
Link building is a
key component
of online
marketing. When
done well, the
results are
significant. If
done in the
wrong way the
consequences are
painful.
You should be
able to
implement this
very easily after
reading these
slides by creating
a campaign based
on a strategic
plan.
2
3. Agenda – 3 parts
1. Chapter 1: What Is Link Building & Why Is It Important?
2. Chapter 2: Good and Bad Links
3. Chapter 3: How to Start a Link Building Campaign
4. Chapter 4: Link Building Tactics
5. Chapter 5: Link Building Metrics
4. Chapter 1:Chapter 1:
What is link building and why is itWhat is link building and why is it
important?important?
5. What is link
building?
The process of acquiring
hyperlinks from other
websites to your own to
improve SEO strength.
Why is it
important?
Search engines take into
consideration the quality
and number of links
pointing to your page
when they decide
whether to show it in
results and how high.
PAGE RANK
9. Good and bad links
Natural editorial links
Editorially given by
other website owners.
Manual outreach links
Involves manually
contacting:
•Website owners
•Bloggers
Self-created, non-
editorial links
•Blog comments that are not moderated
•Press releases with optimized anchor text
•Article directories
•Guest post signatures
•Advertorials
•Embeddable widgets
•Infographic embeds
•User profile pages
•Guest books
•Forum signatures
•Directories that are not moderated
11. How to start a link buildingHow to start a link building
campaigncampaign
• Structuring a campaign
• Outreach
• Following up
• How long before results?
13. Set goals
• Link building is a big part of online marketing, and you should start
with goals. It will ensure that you create a strategy that gives you the
best possible chance of success.
• Your link building campaign must be in sync with the overall goals of
your business.
Build 10 links Increase organic traffic in order to drive more sales
14. Find your assets
What asset(s) are you going to use in order to earn links? This is the
hook that will entice web owners to link to your site:
Buying links Using your own assets to earn links
Content ProductsData Service
15. Assess the types of links you need
An essential part of creating your strategy is defining what types of
links you need to get :
To homepage
Containing brand name
To deep pages
Containing Keywords
16. Assess the types of links you need
Use Link Explorer for free to
evaluate the links you already
have and compare to those
of the competition:
17. Find link targets
Who do you think will care
about what you are doing
and how can you contact
them?
Will they care enough to
link to it? If so why?
What is your hook for
making people care? Have
you incorporated it into the
content?
Have you thought of an
angle for the content
before reaching out?
Create content Find the angle Do outreach Follow up
News
Funny
Controversial
Data visualisation
Competition
Ego-bait
Long-form, detailed
content
Hooks
18. Find link targets
Start with a brainstorm.
Create a list based on the
target sorts identified and
just Google it.
Use
Domain Authority Checker
or Open Site Explorer to
see if a website is worth
chasing after.
Identify websites that you
would like to feature on.
Bloggers
Influencers
Industry expert sites
Forum admins
Targets
20. Please remember
Start with your high-level targets
Not only can they get you good
results if they respond well, but
you can then use them as social
proof later on when you reach out
to smaller websites.
You’re contacting a real person
This person probably gets lots of
outreach emails if they have a
popular blog. They deserve to
have a bit of your time to make
them realize you're not just
another spammer or automated
email program.
21. Crafting your message
Tell them why they should care about
you and your content. You established
this in an earlier stage.
Personalize
Pay attention to
detail
Do your research
Don’t suck up
Be specific
Be flexible
Offer value
Be gracious
Behaviour
Tip: take a look through their
recent blog posts and, if possible,
relate these to the reason you
think they should care.
Tell them what action you want them to
take. Take into consideration the weight
of the task; it should not put them off.
Tip: other actions you could
request are:
•Post on their social network
•Embedding your infographic
•Accepting you to guest post
•Reviewing your content piece
22. Show that you are not a spambot
Use their name Use a good subject line Mention specifics Use a proper email
signature
It can truly make the
difference as many do not
bother doing so.
•Check the about page
•Check the author name under
blog posts
•Click through to their social
media accounts to see if their
name is listed on there
•Never use Hi webmaster or Hi
blogger as these have
traditionally been used by mass
email spammers
Before they have even
opened your email, the
blogger will see the subject
line.
•Keep it short and to the point
•Mention the name of the
website
•Avoid overuse of capital letters
•Avoid things like "link exchange"
or "link request"
Mentioning something specific
about the blogger show them
you‘re not just sending templated
chain mail.
•Read topics their recent blog posts
•Look at their recent tweets
•Look at the comments they've made
on blog posts
•Look at their about page for personal
interests
•Look at their bio on their Twitter page
They can then check out
your website, your social
activity or even give you a
call.
•Your full name
•Your job title
•The URL of the website you
represent
•Your phone number
•Your social media accounts
(if work related)
23. Good
or
bad?
Hello,
My name is _____ and I recently began working with a food
supplement retailer who is attempting to increase their online
presence.
I came across your site (supplementos.com) and think it would be a
great fit for my client.
I am interested in guest blogging opportunities, but would love to
know what else is available. Please let me know if you have any
information on guest blogging that I need to be aware of.
Thanks so much! I look forward to hearing back from you!
Sincerely,
24. Good
or
bad?
Hi Dana,
How are you?
I’m writing on behalf of Manchurian fashion brand and I wonder if you would be interested in being sponsored to write a
post on your blog for us? I’ve been looking at your blog, I see that you’ve featured us several times already, and think you
would be perfect.
It would be awesome if you created a post in your own style about our brand and we’ll compensate you for the time
you’ve taken to do this. You can choose whatever you want as long as it fits one of the following categories:
•Shirts
•Jeans
•Skirts
On top of that, you do have creative freedom to use whatever angle you wish– the only thing that we require is that we
approve of the post, and that you link to maccu.com
If this sounds like something you would like to go forward with, let me know. Or, if you have any other ideas as to how
you can partner with us, I’d love to hear them!
I look forward to hearing from you,
26. Get organized and keep records
Image source
When you are starting out, a simple excel sheet as shown below will do just
fine.
You should also use Boomerang – a free Gmail plugin. When sending an email,
you can tell Boomerang to send the email back to you if you don't get a reply
within a set period of time.
27. Sending out the follow up email
Hey John,
I just wanted to follow up on the email I sent a few days ago (pasted below)
regarding the ultimate guide to hitchhiking that my team and I put together. It
would be great to get your feedback, if possible, and see if this is something
you'd like to share with your audience on your blog.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thanks!
Jackie
28. Dealing with negative replies
Always reply; don't ignore the
email
Get as much feedback as you can
Ignoring the reply means that you're
damaging your chances of ever
building a good relationship with
that person. They may not like the
current work you've done, but what
about the next piece you do?
When replying to someone, try to
get some feedback on why they're
not interested in linking to you. If
you're promoting a piece of content,
ask them for their opinion on what
would make the content better.
30. Several factors come in to play
• The competitiveness of your industry
• The competitiveness of the target keywords
• The activities of your competitors
• The types of links you’re building
• The history and strength of your domain
Several days to several months
34. Hooks and assets
Create content Find the angle Do outreach Follow up
Infographic
Data visualization
White paper
How-to guide
Image gallery
Book review
Case study
Asset
s
News
Funny
Controversial
Data visualisation
Competition
Ego-bait
Long-form, detailed
content
Hooks
Over time, you aim to reach a point
at which you don't need to ask for
each and every link that you receive.
Instead, you should be able to seed
the content with a few key
influencers in your community who
can help spread the word on your
behalf.
35. Guest blogging
Beware of
•using low quality content
•linking low quality sites
•over-optimized anchor text
Hello,
My name is _____ and I recently began working
with an upscale clothing retailer who is attempting
to increase their online presence.
I came across your site (what-the-frock.com) and
think it would be a great fit for my client.
I am particularly interested in sponsored posts, but
would love to hear what else is available. Please let
me know if you have any information on your
sponsored post rates.
Thanks so much! I look forward to hearing back
from you!
Sincerely,
36. Ego bait
Research targets Write content Do outreach Follow up
Hi Karate Mama,
I just wanted to let you know that you've been featured in
our list of the top 100 karate bloggers of 2019 –
fakekarateblog/top100.com
You were included because the awesome ‘how-to’ videos
you post, as well as the advice you give to beginners; it’s
amazing, and you deserve recognition for it.
Feel free to take a look and make sure I've got all of your
details correct. I'd really appreciate any feedback you
have, as well. If you would also like to share it on Twitter
or feature it on your blog somewhere, that would be
amazing.
Thanks!
Chan
Blogger’s pic
Link to website
Link to Twitter profile
Why they are
mentioned
What makes them
unique
Includ
e
38. Broken link building campaign
Research broken
links
Research contact Do outreach Follow up
You are being helpful by kindly
reaching out to the webmaster to
point out the broken links, and
helpfully suggest your newer and up-
to-date resource as an alternative.
The webmaster then links to your
dairy resource page.
Tip: Broken Link Finder uses
keywords you choose to find
broken links on quality websites.
39. Link reclamation campaign
Research non-link Research contact Do outreach Follow up
Links that point to pages on your website that no
longer exist. Tools: Link Explorer404s
Non-linking brand
mentions
Non-linking images
Variants
Websites that write about you without linking. Half the
work has been done. Tools: mention
Websites that post your images without attribution
Tools: TinEye
41. Metric Explanation Use Tools
Domain strength The cumulative value of an entire
domain. Displayed as Domain Authority it runs on
a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the highest. It
predicts how well a domain will perform in search
results.
Find out if a domain is worth
pursuing for a link. Aim for DA20
minimum.
MozBar for measuring
Domain Authority
Page strength The value of a page displayed as Page
Authority.
Find out if a page is worth
pursuing for a link. Aim for PA20
minimum.
MozBar for measuring Page
Authority
Anchor text Keyword based text with hyperlink to your
website.
This tells Google that the page
being linked should be
considered for higher ranking for
that keyword and its variants.
Open Site Explorer
(click on the "anchor text"
tab)
Number of links How many links do you have and how do you
compare to competitors.
The raw number of links pointing
to your website is a strong
ranking signal.
Open Site Explorer
Linking root
domains
The actual number of unique root domains
( not pages or subdomains)linking to you.
An even stronger ranking signal
than the number of links
Open Site Explorer
Outreach can help you build long-term relationships with key influencers in your industry, and these relationships can mean that your business becomes highly regarded and trusted.
A good link from a highly-visited website can lead to an increase in traffic, too.
The avid followers of a single blog were far more likely to take the advice of the blogger than (for example) viewers were to pay attention to the anchor on CNN, even if the latter group outnumbered the former.
Link building techniques, such as content creation, can show people the expertise of your company, and this can go a long way toward building your brand.
Natural editorial links: This type of link is the holy grail for SEOs. Essentially, these are the links that you didn't even have to ask for because they are editorially given by other website owners.
Manual outreach link buidling;: It involves manually contacting website owners and bloggers, asking them to link to you.
Self-created non-editorial: Due to these links not being editorially given, they inherently carry less weight than the other types of links.
"build 10 links"
Increase organic search traffic in order to drive more sales.
"build 10 links"
Increase organic search traffic in order to drive more sales.
Links to your homepage
Links to "deep" pages (such as product or category pages)
Links containing your brand / company name
Links containing the keywords you're targeting
The analysis will show you opportunities for improvement. For example, you may see that you're not ranking for one of your main keywords. After doing some link analysis, you find that you have no links pointing to your website that contain this keyword, or, you find that the most relevant deep page has no links at all pointing at it.
Investigate the websites linking to your competitor. They are most likely to feature you on their site too.
The analysis will show you opportunities for improvement. For example, you may see that you're not ranking for one of your main keywords. After doing some link analysis, you find that you have no links pointing to your website that contain this keyword, or, you find that the most relevant deep page has no links at all pointing at it.
Investigate on social media the kind of links that are being shared and contemplate why.
DA is that statistical measure which is used to find out the reputation of a particular website which is provided by SEOmoz or better known as Moz. It is a statistical number from 0 – 100 which was developed by Moz in order to determine how does a domain rank in results of Google search engine. However, it is not the same thing as that of page authority. The difference between page authority and domain authority is rather significant as page authority is the ranking potential of a single web page whereas domain authority tells us about the overall ranking potential of the entire domain or subdomains.
Now we need to actually take the plunge and start telling people about our great content or campaign. You should start with your high-level targets because they can not only get you good results if they respond well, but you can then use them as social proof later on when you outreach to smaller websites.
Remember that the bloggers that you're contacting are probably very busy people, even more so if they run popular blogs with big followings. Your message needs to be detailed enough to explain why they should care, while being short enough for them to read everything and not get bored or delete the message.
What they did wrong:
It’s not personalized. She could’ve taken 30 seconds to find my name – it’s only in the footer of every single post on my blog, as well as on my about page. And she used my URL instead of my blog name in the post, which is an obvious clue that this is a form email.
She didn’t tell me upfront who the brand is. This is no good for two reasons: First, It requires an additional step in communication. If I was interested in this opportunity, I’d have to respond by asking her who the brand was, and await her reply. Second, It’s a trust issue. Does she not trust me enough to tell me what the brand is? Or is she trying to pull a bait and switch by telling me that it’s an upscale brand, only to reveal that it’s something low-quality or otherwise shady?
What they did right:
It’s brief, to the point, and seems to be a relevant brand to pitch to a fashion blogger.
What they did right:
They researched ahead of time and found that I’d already written about their brand several times. Good prospecting!
Their email was clear and to the point.
They made it clear that they’re open to hearing any partnership ideas that I may have.
In order to follow up properly, you need to keep your outreach as organised as possible and record the replies that you get. The last thing you want is to follow up with someone who has already linked to you!
Also don’t forget, these are very busy people and might need a nudge; this is also a confirmation that are not a spambot.
In terms of exactly how to follow up with people, my advice is to keep the email short and to the point. You've already emailed them once and outlined all the details they need, so you don't need to repeat it all over again.
After one follow up move on…
At some point, you're probably going to get negative replies to your outreach. This is normal and something that you shouldn't worry about. In fact, it can be a great opportunity to engage with a blogger and get further feedback from them.
At some point, you're probably going to get negative replies to your outreach. This is normal and something that you shouldn't worry about. In fact, it can be a great opportunity to engage with a blogger and get further feedback from them.
The analysis will show you opportunities for improvement. For example, you may see that you're not ranking for one of your main keywords. After doing some link analysis, you find that you have no links pointing to your website that contain this keyword, or, you find that the most relevant deep page has no links at all pointing at it.
Investigate on social media the kind of links that are being shared and contemplate why.
As guest blogging became an increasingly common tactic, it became increasingly automated and the quality of the posts declined considerably. Google noticed.
If you can produce high enough quality content, many reputable sites will still gladly accept guest posts (Moz is one of them). That said, it shouldn't be used solely in order to build links, as Google has gotten very, very good at finding and devaluing links built in this way.
Ego bait is a piece of content that plays on the egos of the people who are featured within that content. The hope is that, by being included, these people feel better about and are more inclined to share the content with a link. While this can be a good way of getting high-quality links and traffic to your website, it is unlikely to get you huge volumes of links, because the content is usually quite targeted toward a few high-profile people or websites.
Try not to build too many links that have the exact same anchor text in them, particularly if the links are not of the highest quality, such as links that are from low-quality domains, non-editorial sitewide links, or links that have too much anchor text.
In order to distribute and promote content efficiently, we need to know the background from where we create it.