Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors have given SEO’s and Search Marketers alike a new perspective on what really matters. Optimization is only beneficial when you’re optimizing for the right things and Moz’s Local Search Ranking Factors show us what is most important.
Among these key ranking factors are link signals. Earning links from trustworthy, high domain authority sites show Google that your website is worthy of linking to. Sounds easy enough, right?
Not exactly. Link building is one of the most important pieces of Search Engine Optimization and is likewise one of the hardest because there are seldom “quick wins” in links (here are some tips for creating a strategy). We’ve detailed the steps to creating a scalable and sustainable link-building strategy below.
Identify Linking Prospects
Whether you’re searching the Internet for sites on which to publish guest posts or whether you’ve found potential anchor text that could become a link back to your site, identifying those prospects is the first step of the process.
Tracking brand mentions is a great way to see where your site is already getting links from. This can lead to finding mentions of you on this site and other similar sites that might link back to you. I tend to use organic search, too, to see if our name or any client’s names have been mentioned that tools don’t pick up as a brand mention.
Establish Contact
After you’ve created a good list of URL’s and email addresses for those prospects you found before, it’s important to reach out and establish contact. I have created a template email I tend to use when link building. One important note: don’t use the word “link.” Most links we’ve earned for clients have come from emails that mention a “partnership” or a something similar. “Links” makes those contacts you’ve found think you’re only after a link and uninterested in the great content they’ve already produced or the reputability they’ve established over their years of hard work.
Create Content
If you’re only searching for already existing anchor text to place a link within, you can skip past this part. But, if you’re like many of us link builders who’ve learned the importance of a guest post, you’ll want to work closely with your content team to create some strong, punchy content to publish as guest posts on the sites you previously identified. You can use that contact you reached out to, as well, for inspiration or at least approval of your guest post topic before spending too many hours on writing that content.
Content varies, of course, but it’s important to make sure it’s relevant not just to your brand, but to the site you’re publishing on.
At Uptick, we create tailored link-building strategies for our clients. Our goal is to try and fill in the gaps in the SEO profile by building links that will, in turn, build domain authority and (in a perfect world) ranking keywords. Contact us today for more information about our link building strategies.
