Many of us trained in the ways of classical SEO are familiar with the link building process:
Step 1: Find relevant sites from which to get a link.
Step 2: Search for contact information (email or phone number).
Step 3: Get in touch and find a way to make the link happen (sell them on great content, do a trade in-kind, plant a seed and hope, etc.)
If you've ever done this (for the first 2 years of my SEO career, it's practically all I did), you know how much it sucks. Conversion rates are low. Time/link is high. The ROI is there, but it's a painful, boring, awkward slog.
I've got some good news. There's a better way.
Try this instead:
Step 1: Find relevant human beings (bloggers, journalists, forum participants, members of online communities, active social networkers, people in media, PR, or simply the well-connected).
Step 2: Follow their contributions to the web world and engage (in blog comments, over Twitter, via LinkedIn, through Q+A sites and forums, or directly over email). Ask for nothing.
Step 3: Build something highly relevant and useful to them. If you've truly built that connection and gotten to "know them," even if it's just virtually, you will know what they need/want/will appreciate.
Step 4: Let them know about it. This can be over Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, in a blog comment, or whatever medium makes sense.
There's huge advantages to this method, including:
- More Scalable Link Building: Content plays can approach dozens of folks who may influence, write for or control multiple properties leading to a much higher ROI for each successful contact.
- People Like People: People who answer [email protected] don't particularly like link requests.
- Authenticity: Rather than simply begging for a link to help your SEO, you're actually forming connections that can help with every form of marketing - greater brand awareness, attention from influencers, social sharing, etc.
- Future Proof: No matter what signals engines evolve to measure or what forms of discovery become popular, your work carries value. If Facebook sharing takes over the web, it's not a problem because that's how people will share your links. If some new platform wins, you can rest assured that your content will make its way there.
- Better Web Content: Since you're producing material that fill a need, you're helping to make the web a better place - there's nothing more deserving of a link or rankings than that.
Admittedly, the hardest part is Step 1: "Finding the Right People." Allow Google to assist:
Pictured above is a Google "profile" search. You can search Google's public user profiles with search query strings like this https://www.google.com/search?q=travel+blogger&tbs=prfl:e or by appending &tbs=prfl:e onto any search URL.
It's also easy to use tools like FollowerWonk and LinkedIn Search to supplement these results. Armed with these tools and this process, I'm bullish that any SEO with the passion to invest time and the freedom to build quality resources can earn great links, mentions and social metrics from real people across the web.
Good luck out there link builders. I'll have my fingers crossed that this process can reduce friction and pain for people on both sides of the link equation. If you've got any additional recommendations, tools or methods to share, feel free to do so in the comments!
"invest time and the freedom to build quality resources" and theres the rub. Thats a tough goal in Agency life.
Or for a one man band... Even though it is a tactic I practiced for my own site with good results.
I agree it's difficult to find the time, but it's certainly more useful/efficient to spend what little time you have available forming meaningful relationships (participating in discussions, having conversations, offering advice where you can), than spending it sending out anonymous requests asking for links.
I still receive a lot of these unsolicited mails and they end up in my spam folder, whereas I frequently link to useful content from knowledgeable/respected community members (including this post from Rand, which I've linked to from my blog).
One thing I think we sometimes forget (especially when we've got a lot of outside pressure to succeed) is that it doesn't have to be all-or-none. It's tough but certainly possible to invest in some longer-term efforts while we do the short-term stuff that's necessary to survive.
I coudln't agree more. Day to day duties include longer term strategies that may come to fruition over the next few months. Combine that with quick wins that can be implemented straight away is a win-win situation.
It would be very interesting to see someone who isn't particularly 'known' in any web industry compare cold-emailing to developing resources and see which created the better results. Not only do you have to come up with ideas for great resources, you then have to develop them and market them. We build resources for usefulness, and the links are a secondary benefit. I'm not sure the links could ever be a primary reason, unless your resources/content are simple PDFs.
surtout du temps especially Time ;)
@Stephen - I agree it does take sometime to build strong relationships with those active in the community. You have to really stand out to them, and in many cases even get noticed you must produce a considerable amount of content. But once you've actually created that relationship, from what I've experienced, the links you recieve from those contributors have a greater authority/impact. From what I've found, as long as you keep that relationship with that contributor, in a lot of cases you will end up seeing even more than one powerful link. I like to look at this like a snow ball effect. Building that relationship can take some time but the links recieved from it can serve you ten fold.
I think this technique is something that we would all like to be able to do, but it is probably more time consuming than the 'old-school' method even if it is ultimately more rewarding. The problem is that we're in an age where people want results FAST, which is one of the reasons that it's still difficult to sell social media to clients - they can't instantly see the ROI.
"Follow their contributions to the web world and engage (in blog comments, over Twitter, via LinkedIn, through Q+A sites and forums, or directly over email). Ask for nothing."
As much as I can see the value of this, I'm not sure that my boss or clients would understand how I was helping their SEO by doing the above. I try to connect with the SEO community, which helps with my own site but I'm not sure that anyone other than the very largest agencies could replicate this strategy for their clients.
Not so scaleable perhaps, but if you can take relationship building offline, you're on an even higher ground. Getting someone away from a computer to spend time with you is significant, and unlike online relationships, you can't fake it:
- you can browse multiple different tabs whilst coming up with an email response, but you can't multitask when someone's talking to you across a table
- you can't be a douchbag in real life; you're forced to make something real instead.
- getting off you backside and meeting someone in person show's you really care. Because it isn't scaleable, you've had to have singled them out. They feel special, hence the propensity to link might go up.
The best "links I've bought" have all been train tickets ;)
Hi Rand,
your "smashing tip #20" is surely a great one.
The reason is in the human nature that exists behind every "link building contact". Let me explain with a logical chain:
And apart the links you're going to receive, you're creating a network of "professional" friends (and sometimes something more).
What's the problem? It is not a fast tactic. As you say it is needed time because or you are already an influencer, or you work for an appreciated brand... or you will need first to create your own reputation and brand image.
That is why, this tactic (that I suggest to plan in order that SEO and Social Media work in coordination, for obvious reasons) is something that has to be established since the really beginning of an SEO campaign, first of all with instructing very well the people who are going to take care of it about one thing: psychology.
But don't rely just on this tactic, because you won't see results before many months... don't forget all the others and especially persist in creating inbound marketing opportunities, as they are what you will build your reputation with.
I can recommond this the most!It's so much easier and more powerful than spamming random bloggers (and risk getting flammed).The bonus is that your competitors has no clue about how to get these link and will perhaps spam them, to get them, without luck.The reason these links are worth chasing is because of relevance, authority, difficult-to-copy and it's natural. (As natural as link building gets).Oh and do you have a newsletter? It's help to pay the friendly blogger back with a shout-out in your mails.
I'd offer an extension to Step 1. Once you visit the big bloggers in your niche, read those comments and follow the most insightful comments to the small/mid-size blogs. You're much more likely to build relationships on a blog that gets a handful of comments, and those blogs are often eager for guest-posts. Prove your value on the mid-size blogs, and you'll find yourself talking to the influencers soon enough.
Smart Pete - love it.
I am currently going through this process for a travel client.
While we have always undertaken the relationship approach to link building in terms of bloggers and such, the hardest nut to crack in this sector are the journalists.
Especially so in the UK online media, journalists seem to be lazy and regularly link out to the same sites over and over again. It is as if they are using a database of known operators and will select a website to link to from this rather than put the effort in to find a more related source.
Unfortunately our client does not appear to be listed in any of these databases. Therefore we are currently undertaking extensive outreach to the necessary journalists and starting conversations to try and overcome this.
Not an easy task and defiantly very time consuming, however if the goal is achieved, the relationship will result in practically self-propagating links on a regular basis.
Fingers crossed!
Awesome post Rand, thank you for sharing your link building ideas and a very useful query string (&tbs=prfl:e). Much appreciated.
This kind of 'oh-my-god-it-really-should-be-that-easy' advice often comes from useful resources like SEOmoz, in my belief this happens for these reasons:
Rest assured I am not slamming SEOMoz or Rand for that matter, but it is somewhat on a par with that scene from Wayne's World when Jim Morrison tells wayne to "book them and they will come", although this time he's telling a the owner of a small time bar, and lets be honest... they're never coming.
I wholeheartedly agree with this method. I moved my team to this sort of approach over a year ago - it works so much better, you get much better links on the whole, and my linkbuilders get more job satisfaction thanks to the human touch.
Linkbuilding is all about building leverage, and using that to get links.
we must provide useful content if we do this ,do we get links via the human beings offer to us??
The "normal" link building process is painful, boring, awkward slog ... I agree.
Try instead to find relevant human beings --> I do agree, too.
But I think this is just as time consuming as the "old-fashined" way - but definitifely the better one.
Yes, this is true but we can enjoy our work by connecting similar industy people.
Both are time consuming. So true! The second is more rewarding all around, but it still takes a lot of time.
I think if you are a big brand and you find websites where all your competitors are listed but you are not point one works. But most of the time people are not going to be willing to give links away if you do not provide value for them.
I saw a good post today about how a guy sent some choclate brownies to a few blogs and the small gift got his site featured on a bunch of blogs, simple and cost effective.
Think about something which is going to get people motived my advice (sweets as a gift and some great content on your site) people will listen.
I agree about connecting with people and getting links too but really it can take ages and ages to bild top relation ships with people, sure in specific niches it is hard but if you have an insurance site you need to really think outside the box.
Theres areas where this really works and others where its a lot of work.
Im doing a startup in London. Im interested in startups and go to all the stratup events (there are more events than I can possibly go to) - getting out and meeting people and making great contacts is super easy and I will get a ton of links - its a virtuous circle
If Im making a living from fashion blogs and im living in Tehran - getting out and meeting people is not going to happen in the same way, and I need other ways to create links - its an uphill grind
Just have to find the right strategy for your particular business and know theres no "one size fits all" solution
This is great information, thanks everyone. But honestly, the link building strategy totally depends on the industry that you are targeting. I work in the B2B industrial space, and I can assure you that a lot of the industry is still stuck in the web 90's. We have some amazing content on our site and only a hand full have times has anyone in the industry linked to it... it's just the way it is.
Despite a 32 billion US market, there is very little social media or blogging activity.
The only way we get links is through the trade pubs and asking site owners for them. Fortunately for us, the success rate for this is still worth the time.
I feel your pain. I worked as the chief editor/electronic media for a huge multinational trade publishing corporation in the late 90's.
At the time, The B2B manufacturing sector was several years behind of the world in terms of web savvy. Sounds like that's still the case.
I agree on the trade pub strategy. It is still a trusted source. And plenty of execs still wait for the magazines to arrive in the mail to find out what's new.
But all the trade pubs now have a robust web presence, often staffed by a single very junior editor fresh out of school. Make friends with him! It's not hard. He's underpaid, over worked, and desperate for links.
Our agency handles a good bit of B2B work, and while it's hard to find, there are people out there who go crazy about B2B blogs. It's not nearly as large a field of potential links, but on the other hand, you also have a lot less competition. How many companies are there building industrial welding machines, for example?
We've found that a great place to start is the employees. Find out where they are online and what they're doing. Talk to them and ask them what THEY would like to see written. Start at the bottom, because those are going to be the most socially active people online. Make it personal for them (to an extent, of course) and get them to contribute if you can. A great tactic we've used to good effect is a monthly or weekly "Meet the team" feature, where we will actually sit down with a team member and interview them and really build an interesting piece about who they are, what they do outside of work, and why they like what they do. With content like that, you can get their friends, family members, etc. to link to it. With a little bit of SEO coaching, you can get the profiled employee to hook up the links with the right anchor text, and all of a sudden, your network has grown.
A good rule of thumb to remember, and something that I learned in publishing: names sell newspapers (or links in this case).
Connecting with people doesn't have to be so cut-and-dry, either; if you're putting content out there on the web, chances are that you can already think of other people who have similar content to you. If what they're doing is something that you enjoy, you could try chatting with them about your mutual interests and some useful information or help may come up without you even asking.
For example, I'm a musician and wanted to get my work heard by more people online. On a musician's forum, I noticed that there was a small streaming radio station starting up who was asking for submissions. I submitted my work and got a couple of plays, but I also contacted the DJ because he played some of the music that I like, too. After some talking, he revealed that he, too, made music, but was short on samples, so I built him a sample pack from my collection and sent them over. He was grateful and gave me a couple of links and additional air time on his station, and I didn't even ask for them.
Basically, if you have a genuine interest in something, you'll naturally want to see that thing grow, so you'll be likely to help it if you can. And sometimes, that thing will benefit you in return without you necessarily expecting it. If the interest isn't so genuine, it tends to be harder to make this happen.
ahhh, link building! Thanks for always providing positive tips to make (what I find a hassle) things easier.
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Rand!
Absolutely spot on Rand. Even if working on a client site you can still find people in their niche and add them to your own social accounts. I've found being honest that I represent a client in a certain industry is more beneficial than pretending to be another person with a fake account. Also I recommend adding people to different private twitter lists depending on the client they can help, as this makes it easy to keep an eye on the different industry conversations when flipping between clients.
Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you, Rand!
Nice post. It's like anything - trying to get a quick fix or in this case link, just doesn't work. Quality takes time & authenticity. I like your idea of connecting via Social Media especially in this age of being completley bogged down with email. It's one of my top distractiions!
That is so brilliant - because it brings the fun factor back to SEO. And you can make a lot of friends this way. Thanks for the article.
The link building process can be time consuming and frustrating when you do not get the links you applied for, but this blog shed some light on a new tactic I'll be undertaking! looking forward to implementing it. By following these bloggers on twitter and personal blogs one could only increase your knowledge for your future link building activities, plus build valuable relationships! Thanx Rand
Hhhhhm. I like to see alll the diversity in the comments.
Thanks for the post Mr. Rand! I just started doing the link building for the company I am currently working for mostly by the conventional way and you are right, it is really a pain and it takes too long for them to approve and lucky if they even respond to me.
I will be following your suggestions for a certain period to test if there will be any significant change. I hope there are other useful techniques and tools I can utilize for link building (not those auto sending softwares) that you can share with newbies like me. More power!
Some industries are rife with influencers and bloggers who you can form relationships with (and get links further down the line, as Rand points out.) But what about those industries that don't have a tangible human influencer element behind them? Of course, all industries are staffed by humans, but as far as getting links goes, an industry without much mass appeal (like sawmilling - to pick an example at random) might not have the web presence and link attainability that something like travel blogging would have. I think with these kind of less bloggable industries you're mostly stuck with the basics - directory submission and ol' fashioned link begging.
...
It suddenly occurs to me I have no idea if there are any quality sawmilling blogs out there. Checking now.
It doesn't have to relate directly to your business or speciality. Part of that human touch is engaging in other aspects. A dentist who loves fishing could read/comment and form relationships there. I think of this type of engagement more as "digital word of mouth building" rather than link building.
Link buildinf is nowdays more of blogging and forum posting. People need to identify quality links. Article submission with good content will also add better approach. Most of the people believe more on social media as a good medium for SEO. We need to have regular follow ups so that we maintain the network. In short SEO is an art and on going process.
Like your post Rand, I've made an google docs sheet for it :-)
Sheet:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?hl=en_US&hl=en_US&key=taN2u8xohex6XYFqB5AJtNw#gid=0
There seen to have some enconding error in the spreadsheets, do you still have it on your computer?
Hi Portuguese speakers!
There´s a translated version of this post at : https://www.inovacaosoftware.com.br/seo/seomoz/4-Dica-Especial-nro-20-Nao-Peca-Links-aos-Sites-Encontre-Pessoas-e-se-Conecte-a-Elas.html
Marcelo Custódio
Now that is a useful post! I had no idea about that Google Profiles (bit scary too!), but incredibly useful for building long term relationships and learning from great new people - thank you for the time you put into writing this! I can see how with a RSS feed of favourites this could be used for great backlinks in a very positive way
Shell :)
Rand–another great post!
Something else to note is that editors and site owners are much more willing to share a friend with their network than a link builder. Can't tell you how many people I've met through other editors. They're much more willing to share contact information and make an introduction if you treat them like a human being and not a potential link prospect.
I don't want to brag myself and my abilities but that is what I blogged about a long time ago on my SEO blog. We don't ask for a single link people usually just link to us, mainly because we are so involved in our own community.
I couldn't agree more with this. Even though the process could took enormous time or even not getting link in the end, at least you get friends.
Great post, thanks
Yes, this is a very efficient way to get links that are counted. And the connection with others is the fulfillment of the principle of the online community. The essence is to publish very high quality articles, delivering real value to readers. Yes, that it is time consuming, but your get not only links but also online reputation, which counts too :-)
Didn't know about Google profiles. Thanks for the tip! Found some new prospects already.
And yep...linkbuilding is still a slog. Even if you are trying to do viral marketing, how do you get that to work out without planting the seeds and making contact with real people and real networks? IMO when people write about viral marketing, they generally don't emphasize laying the groundwork with initial contacts and participating in communities enough.
i agree with you nice information thanks randfish
Thanks Rand. Will use this..
I think people are vastly over-rating the time comitment required to succesfully aplly this strategy. As an SEO, especially if you are an SEO that is in charge of content creation, you should already be following sources for whatever industry you're writing about. I allocate a period of an hour and a half 3 times a day to check into relevant industry blogs, twitter feeds, facebook pages, and other related forums (Quora, wikipedia, etc.). 4.5 hours, some of it on personal time. It's only an extra couple of minutes to take that time and throw up a useful comment or two.
I also like keeping Twitterfall open in the background all day and add people who seem interesting/interested as well as periodically send out messages and retweets if something catches my eye. If you retweet enough things by a legitimate person, they'll notice, and the odds of you getting a retweet are much higher. Again, minimal time comitment up front.
I've been repeating this for the last few years, and I'm still amazed how some people can't get around to seeing the benefits of connecting with the right people and what type of opportunities that can get them in the future. The best type of connections and also the best type of links I got, I got from the connections made on Twitter and LinkedIn.
This is really good method to find out active people and websites. If we will connect with active people or websites so it will more effective rather than develop links from non updated excel sheet.
(for the first 2 years of my SEO career, it's practically all I did)
I am agree with it. I have similar thing for my website. I am not SEO but PHP web developer but, love to learn SEO for my website. On that time, I just think about SEO... Is this SEO?? To deal with webmasters & asking to create links... What a boring SEO?
Today, I get to know that, due to that practice I learned a lot from various categories, visited too many websites & develop my srong foundation regarding industry understanding.
In this blog post, Rand suggested such a good method to find out 100% accurate guys to the industry. I suppose to deal with it for my website.
Great vision as always sir!
Although the time you spend on finding websites and their contact details and then ask for link is almost the same or may be it takes more time to find niche related people like bloggers and journalists and then create connections with them.
The reason why connecting with real people matters is because the conversion rate is high (if you know how to connect and build relationship) and in my experience connection with journalist is a bit of pain but if successful, will bring a high authority link for your website.
Thank you for putting this together so fast! I will try this.
Time spent in building relationships and connecting may be time consuming but no more so than the old way of sending out link requests, offering to guest blog etc. Also these kind of partnerships are a more solid long term investment and generallty lead to higher quality links.
I use buzzstream apart from open site explorer to find potential linking partners. Buzzstream is like a CRM for link building. It helps in finding and managing potential linking partners, tracking backlinks etc. It has good reporting interface and helps in scaling your link building efforts. Other link building tracking tool i find useful is Raven SEO tool.
Building relationships takes time, but it is certainly worth it in the long run. There is a lot more long-term value in building that connection than just going for the link. Building a relationship with a blogger, for instance, means that you not only get the link, but you might also be able to get them to write a review post about your product or use you as a source.
I love the idea of creating personal relationships through relevant human beings instead of finding relevant sites to get a link from. Heaven forbid we use link building as a way to create connections! Also its not often us link builders hear about scalable link building but as any business owner knows, scalability is key to any kind of success both offline and online. Overall, a refreshing new method that I will definitely try to implement.
The process of finding common ground, giving and receiving quality comments or posts usually brings about natural links through sharing the content via your social media world. I would suggest you have more than one topic of interest as life could get a bit tedious.
Some great tips Rand. Surelyl a headsmacking tip!
The way I see it is that it kills two birds with one stone, it can show conversation on your social media channels as well as building relationships with community members. I tell all my clients, "We need to make your website a community and not a brochure." Great post Rand, keeps me honest, and reminds me why I'm doing what I'm doing.
Rand you always make the life easy for us thank you so much :)
Yes i already doing the same stuff and successfully made some good contacts as well, but i realise there is nothing one handed, if you want to get something you have to pay for this but still this strategy is cool man ;)
Your content is nothing short of amazing. It's been a long time since I read an article so well-written and easy to understand. Keep up the great work. Thank you.
I have another one :
Step 1: produce great useful content
Step 2: find free blogging/micro blogging platforms on which you can produce "valuable" (or not) content.
Step 3: automate the posting using Zenno Poster/Sick Submitter/Imacros/Self-made-tool
Step 4: populate your backlinks and do linkwheels.
Step 5: once your website ranks, securize the whole stuff doing what you say in this article. But as you already rank, people will more likely trust you.
Step 2 > "you can produce valuable (or not) content
and
Step 4 > "populate your backlinks and do linkwheels"
Mmm, are you sure to suggest this tactic in a blog like the SEOmoz one???
Well, I think great content should be on my website, not on my splogs :)
I think link wheels were working more for people back in like 2009, Google has really caught onto people using big link wheels to make links. I think if you stick to the traditional methods which work well it is a long term win.
It's not more about what you think but it's about what you test :p
The focus on link building has never been a good strategy for ensuring the success of an SEO campaign. Even when the PageRank scores mattered people those who went out only on a link building spree not focusing on quality links and quality web presence may have benefitted initially but did face the penalties sooner or later.
Search engines have always been rewarding quality votes and now they have started considering quality and authority opinions over social media which again as quality votes but they are backed by the identity of the people who vouch for the links which sort of act like a validation metric.
Link building should not be the focus. Focus on the metrics that matter https://blog.webpro.in/2011/05/metrics-that-matter-for-seo-and-quality.html and let the quality links get built as a result. Links should get built as a result and in the process of the web journey of your site.
SEO + Social Media + Blogging + Discussions = Quality Web Presence Which Future Proofs Your Search Engine Presence.
No, I am not agree with it. Link building is still working but it will be quality. Without quality we cannot get good rewards in any industry. Rand suggested us to find out people associated to our industry and connect to them with personal manner. It can give us facility to create strong presence in niche market as well as develop chances to get good referring traffic.
You are getting me wrong. Link building as an activity is executed in order to get links right, but instead of focusing on link building as an activity focusing on quality web presence so that you get natural and organic links is more beneficial in the long run is what I am trying to say.
Both ways you get links but the route taken is different.
If we need long term good presence on organic search so we never compromise with single link. It is really difficult to gain natural links in SEO. So, we sit for it and try to gather links for our website.
I have observed that, my competitors' have very good organic presence due to natural links. I also checked external links where competitors' website presence is available. I am not able to create my presence over there because that's natural one. That external website feel good for my competitors' website and done self SEO work.
I am agree with you regarding strong presence on web and active rotation of our link in multiple social media website. Why does I do my business who sleeps 20 hours in a day. Active people, network and websites will be in demand.
If they are active so certain percentage quality will be with them. I am not opposing or cross your comment but just make sure about quality links which we can get from active websites.
BTW: Thanks for your reply & give me clear idea about your comment.
"Link building as an activity is executed in order to get links right, but instead of focusing on link building as an activity focusing on quality web presence so that you get natural and organic links is more beneficial in the long run is what I am trying to say."
Completely disagree here. All online marketing efforts should focus on link building besides their prime objectives (like branding, revenue etc). Enormous web presence is no gaurantee of getting large volume of high quality links unless your social media efforts are not link building centric. A good link builder knows how emails, PPC, Display advertising, web properties, partnership and Social media presence can be capitalised to acquire links. I often come across client (many household brands) with enormous web presence but who still don't have optimal number of high quality links because they either never thought of capitalising their web presence/assets or they don't know how to do that. This is where we inbound marketers come into the picture.
Well, despite all the thumbs down my opinion still remains the same. Your quality content on your website and quality web presence on all the search options, blogs, discussions, social media, etc. will always be rewarded in an increasing manner in the long run by any search engine and will result to inbound targeted traffic.
As we do a fairly good job on SEO and rankings without focusing on link building but in the process educate and train our clients to effectively maintain their blogs, and social media accounts and in the bargain they end up getting quality links and it has worked for us.