Creating high-quality content can enhance your business branding and drive conversions, but it won’t be effective if your audience never sees it. Link building is a strategy that can improve your content’s visibility through other websites and search results.
Michael Johnson, Sales Manager at Page One Power, shared insights on creating and utilizing linkable assets, identifying suitable linking opportunities, and effectively communicating with site owners to secure links to your content. He also discussed strategies for after a link is obtained during his presentation at SMX Next last week.
Create Audience-Focused, Linkable Assets
“Your links will be as good as your content,” Johnson noted, highlighting that the value of your content to your target audience increases the likelihood of attracting links.
Johnson advises against seeking links for low-value promotional content or product pages as they may appear as paid links, which can deter users from engaging.
Identify Relevant, Valued, and Trusted Sites for Links
Johnson uses several criteria to determine the appropriateness of sites for a link-building campaign.
- Relevance: Ensure your link is relevant to the page’s context and the audience it serves.
- User Value: Target pages that receive traffic and offer value to an audience. The anchor text should also align with user expectations upon click-through.
- Trust and Authority: Review the backlink profile of the potential site. If it frequently links to spam or hosts low-quality content, it’s a red flag.
- Tools and Metrics: Johnson recommends using metrics like Ahref’s Domain Rating, Moz’s Domain Authority, and Majestic’s Trust Flow and Citation Flow to gauge site authority. However, he cautions against focusing solely on these, as they are not used by Google and could divert from valuable opportunities.
- Vetting Every Site: Investigate each prospective site thoroughly. Johnson poses the question, “In a world without Google, would I still want this link?” If the answer is no, reconsider pursuing that link.
Get Creative with Your Link Building Outreach
“Sites don’t link, people link,” Johnson emphasized, pointing out the people-oriented nature of the link-building process. Personalizing your outreach can make communications more memorable, increasing the chance of forming beneficial connections with other sites. Consider engaging with site owners through social media or direct calls, in addition to email.
Communicate to site owners the benefits of linking to your content for them and their users. Johnson stressed that having informative, audience-focused content is crucial: “Without great content, building that connection becomes difficult, and requests for payment are likely, which we want to avoid.”
“You can also learn from not getting responses,” said Julie Joyce, owner of Link Fish Media. She advises analyzing email subject lines that received responses compared to those that didn’t to gain insights.
Keep the Momentum After the Link
After securing a link, follow up with a thank-you note to the site owner. Johnson explained, “A thank you fosters goodwill between your brand and theirs.”
It’s also advisable to track acquired links to monitor their status. “It’s reasonable to follow up if a link is removed, to inquire and possibly regain it,” Johnson stated. This can indicate whether an update to your content is necessary.
Johnson further suggested paying attention to the internal linking of pages with strong backlink profiles to support conversion-based pages, which typically don’t receive as many backlinks independently, effectively aiding in funneling link equity.
