So, you’ve recently wrote an unbelievable blog post full of awesome content that’ll keep your audience reading, good stuff! But, why is that post not driving traffic? You have added all the right content you need with great information, infographics, videos, outbound links, and more to get people to read and stay engaged, but your still not getting traffic you expected. *Psst*, have you forgotten link building?
Link building is the process of sharing your content with other websites in aims to get a link back to your own site. When you build high quality link, your website authority improves. This tells search engines like Google that this content rocks and needs to be read by more people, thus ranking the content higher in search engine results.
But you don’t want just any link, you want high quality links from sites that are like yours or are in your specific industry. The question is, how do you start building new links to your site? Do you just email someone with your link in the email and say “hey, here’s my content, it’s better than yours you should link to me?” Absolutely not. There are multiple ways to effectively reach out to potential link prospects to improve your link building strategy. In this post, we will focus on 3 methods to improve your link building strategies for 2019.
Pre Reach-Out Approach
The Pre-Reach Out approach is a link building method used by some SEO professionals who find great websites that are continuously pumping out content and then actually reach out to the site admins without any link or piece of content prepared. However, you are making the author aware that there is content in the making and that it could be a great fit for their site.
This link building approach is much more genuine as it does not directly mention linking to your content. Letting people know that you are an avid reader of their content and that their content is providing value to you makes the author feel proud and accomplished as well. This all comes back to people wanting to be treated with respect and that you’re not just looking for a link, but you’re actually looking to have an actual conversation with the author before providing any offer whatsoever. One thing to always remember with this method is to follow up with dates for the site admin to let him or her know when the content will be complete. Like anything, if people are left waiting too long, they’ll just move on so make sure that site admins or authors are aware of when they can expect the content.
Broken Link Building
The broken link building strategy is an excellent way to not only inform people of an error on their site, but also to capitalize on an opportunity to obtain a new link. To analyze broken links, we use a Chrome extension called Check my Links. This is an excellent tool for finding broken links as it automatically analyzes the page and highlights whatever links are broken.
In the above example, you can once again see how I express my interest in the author’s content and how it has provided me value. By letting the author know that there is a broken link on the page, not only provides him or her valuable information, but by also offering up your content to fill in for the link saves him quite a lot of time.
To find content in your niche you can use the following search query in Google
[keyword] + INURL:Links
Ie. Link building +INURL:Links
Link Round-Ups
The final link building strategy, and likely the most important is finding and using link round ups. Link Roundups, as defined by the authors at QuickSprout.com are simply weekly (or sometimes daily) curations of your industry’s best content. And if you can get your link in a roundup, it can provide a contextual link and referral traffic for you.
To find a link round up in your space you can use one of the following search queries in Google:
- [keyword] + weekly link roundups
- [keyword] + monthly link roundups
- [keyword] + daily link roundups
- [keyword] + Friday link round ups
- [keyword + link roundups
- For example: cookie recipes” + link roundups.
One thing to keep in mind when you are performing your searches for link roundups is to make sure that you check to make sure that the roundup is still active. To do this click the tools button in Google and set the time to one month.
Another great way to find link roundups is to use search queries that contain the following:
~keyword + link roundups
~keyword + best articles of the week
~best articles of the month
Another great way to find link roundups are to use search queries that contain the following:
- ~keyword +link roundups
- ~keyword + best articles of the week
- ~best articles of the month
By using the “~” sign, you are telling Google to find synonyms of the keyword which could further maximize your link building efforts through link roundups. Also, using terms like “best articles of the week” will help you find link roundups from people who do not label their content as a roundup.
Once you find that perfect link roundup for your content, you need to figure out how you’re going to reach out to the author. This email can be a little more direct including your link in the email itself where the author is likely receiving multiple links daily. Therefore, your once again saving the author time by offering links to you instead of he/she is looking for the content for her roundups.
There you have it, 3 link building strategies for 2019. Please note that link building really takes time and effort. If you don’t get an answer after the first or second email you send to authors just move on and try to find another link. Link building can be a long process, but it’s totally worth it in the end when you begin to build quality links to your site and watch the traffic grow.
If you have any questions about link building or SEO in general, please be sure to contact one of our SEO professionals and they will gladly assist you!
