My Top 3 SEO Link Building Strategies
Building high-quality backlinks is one of the most challenging things to do in SEO because, for the most part, it is out of your hands.
You have to convince a webmaster that your content is worth linking to.
I’ve tried lots of link building strategies to boost my SEO over the last few years to build links to me my first online venture, Reco.
In this post, I go through the 3 strategies that I’ve had the most success with and I have a mini case study for each.
A bit of context about Reco - it’s an ecommerce store in the eco-friendly/plastic free/zero waste market.
The Skyscraper Technique
What is it?
Made famous by Brian Dean of www.backlinko.com
The idea behind this backlink strategy is to make the most complete piece of content out there that webmasters just simply can’t resist linking to.
How to execute
- Start by looking for a high-ranking, and highly linked to, piece of content in your niche. Analyse it for weaknesses and make a note of them. Does it include images? If it’s a listicle, how many items are in it? How much detail do they go into each point? etc.
- Once you’ve identified the shortfall of the existing content, exploit them. Does the listicle have 20 items? make yours 40. Make a piece of content that is more up to date, in depth and engaging.
- Contact the webmasters that linked to the other content and get them to replace it with a backlink your own.
Mini case study
One of the first pieces of content I made for Reco was a list of eco-friendly apps. I noticed that most sites had around 5-10 apps on their list with little detail, few images and no links to download the apps.
I did my research and pulled together a list of over 20 apps. I made sure to add more data points to make the listicle more user friendly including links to the app website and links to the Google/Apple app stores so it was easy to download them.
For every listing I had a profile image and a short run through of how each app worked. A table of contents enabled the reader to quickly jump between each app.
Since I first published the post, someone has Skyscrapered me! with 35+ apps on their list.
With hindsight, building backlinks has been difficult because there is little appetite for this particular niche.
However, if you search for “eco apps” or “green apps” in Google, my article should rank at position 1 or 2. So from a passive point of view, if someone ever was looking to link to an article in this niche, there's a very good chance that they would choose to link to me.
Answering Journo Requests
What is it?
A Journo Request is a public shout out made by a journalist who is seeking expert insight, personal stories, interviewees etc.
If you can answer the journalists request you’ll get featured in their article. It’s the perfect way to secure a valuable, relevant and authoritative backlink to your site.
The process
It’s pretty simple and goes like this.
A journalist will make a request via a platform like HARO, post a tweet and add #JournoRequest etc.
You then keep an eye for these requests, when you find one that you can provide any insight for, get in contact with the journalist.
If you can provide the information they are looking for you should get featured in their article!
Some downsides of the Journo Request strategy:
There is lots of competition - #JournoRequest on Twitter, for example, is actively monitored by hundreds of people ready to jump on relevant requests, which leads into the next downside
You have to be quick - Journalists work to tight deadlines. When they post a request they are looking for a timely response. Also, the majority of requests expire within a couple of hours anyway because a journalist will receive so many answers.
Mini case study
Reco has been featured in a number of publications after I responded to Journo Requests. Here is a selection of the backlinks gained:
You can see how big and authoritative these publications are, giving a massive boost of link juice!
If you want even more evidence of how lucaractive answering Joruno Requests can be, check out how Amy used Sourcee to secure a backlink in OK! Magazine (DR 74) after only a few weeks.
Fixing broken links
What is it?
Reaching out to webmasters and letting them know that a link on their site points to a 404 (a dead page). Present them with a suitable alternative (in this case yours!) and more often than not you’ll get the link.
This technique is great as you are giving something genuinely valuable back to the webmaster, a notification letting them know that a link is broken and an easy fix.
Mini case study
As mentioned, Reco operates in the zero waste sector. I noticed that a directory to help the public find zero waste stores in the UK had recently shut down.
I built a simple replacement in a few days, and hosted it on a Reco subdomain.
I analysed the backlinks of the now defunct directory and made a list of contacts for each one.
I drafted a short outreach email explaining the current situation, pointing to the the broken link and highlighting my new tool, explaining that it was the perfect replacement.
Example outreach email
Zero Waste Store Locator was now ready for launch!
I sent 25 emails and got 5 backlinks, including high authority sites like Friends of the Earth and local government directories. A 20% conversion rate, not a bad return for a single mailshot! With follow up I could easily increase the conversion rate.
Conclusion
These are the SEO backlink building strategies that I have found most effective.
If I had to pick my favourite, it would be answering Journo Requests.
With a tool like Sourcee you can just wait for a relevant requests come to you, give a quick answer and land a 90+ DR link, you can’t really beat that.
But, I’d be interested to hear what your favourite techniques are, contact me on Twitter or LinkedIn and let me know.