Link Building is a vital part of improving your website’s SEO and driving traffic to your pages. It is still a tactic SEOs use today but over time as Google updates its search ranking algorithm, how you build links has changed dramatically and is still changing.
The perfect link for Google is an organic link within a website’s content that has high traffic and authority, these links are going to make a difference to your website’s SEO. By organic, this link has not been paid for, which was a method SEO’s used to do and with a lot of success but Google has since updated and SEOs had evolved alongside it.
With each update of Google’s search algorithm, the perfect link evolves and good, innovative SEO companies keep up with the times, their ears the the ground and a finger on the pulse, changing and updating their tactics in pursuing organic links.
In this blog post, we look at 5 link building tactic you should be using but probably aren’t. These are link building opportunities that you could be missing out on.
Reverse Image Search
A simple and effective tool for businesses that publish lots of images onto their website or social media. Essentially, you drag an image into Google search and it’ll shown you everywhere that it’s been posted. Going through the list of sites that published your image, check their trust flow through Majestic SEO and then approach these sites for a credit, linking back to your site.
From a legal perspective, unless you’ve declared otherwise, they need to give credit to you or take down the image but I would not approach them in this manner. Simply email them, saying you’re happy that they enjoy your images and ask for a link, crediting you for the work.
Again, if you produce a large number of images, this can be a very productive use of your time.
Unlinked Brand Mentions
Unlinked brand mentions can be a opportunity that you’re missing out on, they are simply times when your company or business is mentioned on a website, news site or blog but doesn’t have a link back to your site.
This is easy to do. You can search your brand through Google news search or, for a better search result, search though Buzzsumo, where you can also set up brand mention Alerts. When you find these mentions, again, check them through Majestic SEO and find the highest ranking sites. With that information, you can then approach those sites for link.
Setting up alerts through sites such as Buzzsumo or Talk Walker are a great way to keep updated on any unlinked brand mentions as well as, if you’re expecting any PR or features written about you, it keeps you updated when that goes live.
Competitor Analysis
No doubt, you would have spent time analysing your competitor’s business or website, so why don’t you check their backlinks?
Finding out where your competitors are getting links can very useful for your own link building strategy. This gives you a better idea of where your competitors are outreaching too, giving you new trade papers or sites you can then go an outreach your news to or approach for links. Your competitors could be using a completely new and different tactic to yours and you would never have known.
The best way of conducting this analysis is using tools like Majestic SEO, you enter your competitor’s site into the search. It will provide you with an immense amount of data. Looking at their referral links, you can see all the sites with links referring to your competitor’s website. With this information, you can look at what kind of sites are writing or referring to them, can you get them to write about your business? What are they offering these sites? And can you offer something better?
Buzzsumo and Talk Walker are other tools you can use to monitor your competitor’s activities as their alerts on any content they’re published or any brand mentions, keeping you on top of who are they outreaching to.
Broken Link building
Searching for broken backlinks is one of the most effective and neglected strategies for link building but what is it?
A broken link is a link on a page which goes nowhere, clicking on it would result in a 404 page and no business or web master wants a broken link on their site. It is like a road that ends with a dead end.
Broken link building is where you approach a website which as broken link on their site and you recommend one or more alternatives, ideally yours. Like when you’re performing your competitor’s backlink research,
Obviously approach sites within your field and recommend links to sites that is relevant. Sometimes it doesn’t even have to be a broken link but a spammy link to a site of low authority. Simply bring this up with them and put forward your content.
Becoming a Source
A great tactic to building links is becoming a source. Using content tools like Buzzsumo, you can find articles and post about your industry where you can approach them. This is a brilliant tactic if you work in an niche industry which is rarely in the news.
For example, if you’re a small automotive parts manufacturer and you find a news piece on investment or decline in the automotive industry in your region or city on a news site. You could simply approach them offering your insight in the industry and could give them a quote for their article. This a great tactic as you’re offering them a valuable service, giving their article more depth and value, which improves the chances get a response.
With so many interesting link building opportunities available, even the most niche of industries can build a strong backlink profile. If you’re interested in PPC or SEO services and advice from Ricemedia then please get in touch.
