Having battled the SEO war on all fronts (for myself, for clients, for a firm, and most recently, in-house), I’ve learned a lot over the years when it comes to link campaigning. Although I am completely FOR generating content that will get linked to naturally, often time this is easier said than done. If you’re not a link baiting aficionado or if you’re limited by what you’re authorized to do, then you’ll need to get links the old fashioned way and simply ask for them.
Do I want this link? How can I get this link? What anchor text should I target for this link? Is this link actually attainable? Does this link have value? These are all questions I ask myself when looking for suitable link candidates. Answering these questions helps me decide which approach I’ll take (if any) and how far I’ll go to get the link.
Everyone’s best advice is to start by doing an in-depth analysis of your competitors' backlinks. This is exactly where I start my digging, but it’s important to keep track of everything within an excel or word doc; otherwise, what’s the point? Not only will this keep you organized, but you’ll be creating a link map of your entire industry as you go along. Soon enough, you’ll have collected a large list of related websites. These will be your link prospects.
Note: I also use - https://*.domain.com - to get a broad view of where my competitors are being mentioned (utilize absolutely every tool you can).
As you visit the sites your competition is linked from, keep a sharp eye out for “add url” or “recommend a site” links. Sometimes it’s as easy as filling out a form and clicking send. Other times, you’ll have to do some creative digging. For example, there was a educational research page I wanted to get my site listed on but there wasn’t any contact info or an “add url” sort of link…that I could readily see, that is. As it turned out, the “add url” link was buried within the list of research links on the page. I was only able to locate it after utilizing “find:addurl.” This approach also works on some online contact forms. Rather than using the form to send your link request, you can search for an email address by “viewing source” and then using the “find:@” command.
Organization is Key
Once you’ve got a healthy list going, stay organized by grouping your list of link prospects into different sections.
These can include:
- Authority links (.edu, .gov, etc)
- Directory links
- Blog links
- Newsgroup links
- Social Media links
- Forum links
- etc
Depending on the industry, your list can even be further categorized. For example, if you’re an “energy” related site (like me!) you can have headings such as:
- Oil and gas sites
- Petroleum sites
- Alternative energy sites
- Solar energy sites
- Energy stock sites
- etc
Organizing your list this way helps determine which anchor text you’ll be targeting. Presumably, you’ll be using your “oil/gas” keywords for the oil and gas sites, your petrol keywords for the petroleum sites, your energy keywords for the energy sites, etc. This also helps you determine which page you’d like them to link to. Perhaps you have an inner page that is more suited to their specific content than your homepage. Having backlinks that point to your inner pages are just as important and often are harder to get. Keep your eyes open for opportunities to do so.
Once you’re organized, you’re ready to roll.
But wait! The biggest mistake you could make at this stage is to contact every single site on your list all at once. It’s important to first come up with an approach and try it out a couple of times before you decide it’s a keeper. If you email 5 sites and get less than a glowing response, you’ll know that your approach could be better. In that case, you can brainstorm something else and email another 5 prospects. Doing it this way, you’ll eventually generate an approach that works and you won’t have wasted your entire list of link prospects on one bad pitch. Keep in mind that what works for some, won't work for all. An approach that works for ecommerce sites won’t necessarily work for blogs, and an approach that works for .edu sites won’t necessarily work for obtaining .gov links, etc.
Being “Sneaky” is Sometimes Required
Once I’m ready to begin actively campaigning, one of the most common problems I run into is lack of contact information. This can make opening up the lines of communication extremely difficult. For this reason, sneaky tactics are sometimes (often?) necessary, both in finding the info you need AND getting that link.
For example, there is a prominent blog that I was salivating for a link from. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate a single shred of contact info…anywhere. Since the blog owner’s name is published after each post, I Googled it and found him on LinkedIn. From there I invited him to join my network, telling him I was a big fan. (A fan of getting a link, that is! Shhhh!) It took roughly 2 weeks, but he finally obliged. After a few emails back and forth, he included my site within a related blog post. Mission accomplished! Even better is that I now have the ear (and personal email) of someone who is an icon within my industry. He’s actually emailed me a few times requesting verification about data he was about to post!
Another time, I was tracking a blog and patiently waiting for my chance when the blog owner posted about basically “disliking” my entire industry (news/media). She felt very strongly that the news wasn’t worth watching anymore because it all had a negative spin. Where most would see a lost cause, I immediately saw opportunity. My approach included contacting her regarding her thoughts and, for the most part, agreeing with her opinions. I then asked if she might have a look at our site and offer a review of how we could improve our coverage. I didn’t ask her to post the review to her blog, but she did anyway (everyone needs fresh content). Once again, mission accomplished.
My point is, if you’re comfortable with being somewhat sneaky and sometimes having to “stretch” the truth, do it. As long as no one’s getting hurt in the process.
Keep track of your progress.
Once you start getting responses, try color coding your results (such as green for “link obtained," red for “no such luck,” purple for “email was returned,” blue for “no response,” etc) as you record them. Keeping impeccable track of your linking progress not only helps you determine your rate of success and helps with tactics, it also serves as something tangible for you to show your boss!
Be sure and record the date you contacted the link prospect, how you contacted them (email, online contact form, comments post, etc), what approach you used, and any other relevant info you can think of.
After a few days your list will presumably look something like below (this is only a wee portion of my latest campaign):
Oil and Gas:
oilweek.com/ - emailed Oct 18 – pitched the oil rally video. NO RESPONSE.
oillinks.ie/html/links.html -- emailed Oct 25. LINK OBTAINED.
survivingpeakoil.com/links.php - emailed Oct 25. EMAIL RETURNED.
Oilfield Companies:
kalpub.com/industrylinks.html - requested via OCF Oct 17. NO RESPONSE.
claymorefieldservices.com/ - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED.
mostardirectional.com/industrylinks.html - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED.
Organizations:
davidsuzuki.org/Links/ - emailed Oct 16. LINK DENIED.
climategroundzero.org/ - emailed Nov 13 through OCF using a version of Rand's link request email template. LINK OBTAINED. (Thanks Rand!)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_energy_topics – Oct 16. LINK ADDED and sticking. (Note: nofollow means don’t follow, not don’t count!)
News/Media:
fortmcmurraytoday.com/ - requested via OCF Oct 18. Plugged “oil rally” video. NO RESPONSE.
topix.com – Applied to become editor oil/gas & energy cat. Oct 25. LINKS OBTAINED.
mediamag.ca/index.php?option=com_magazine&Itemid=419 – emailed Oct.13. LINK OBTAINED.
Canadian:
choa.ab.ca/links.html - emailed Oct 19. LINK DENIED.
vivelecanada.ca – emailed Oct 19. Plugged our “Alberta oil rally” video. LINK OBTAINED.
petro-canada.ca – emailed re: Petro-Can President interview video Oct 30. NO RESPONSE.
aeri.ab.ca/sec/links/links_001_1.cfm - emailed Oct 30. Pitched video interview with Stelmach - LINK OBTAINED.
landsolutions.ca/links.html - emailed Oct 27. LINK OBTAINED.
My actual list of link prospects runs 8 pages long and my success rate, although not stellar, is definitely improving. I also add to the list whenever I come across a page or site that’s related to mine. And being an editor of related categories at various directories helps me stay informed of up-and-coming sites within my industry. My list therefore keeps growing….and growing…and growing. Pretty soon, I’ll be able to publish my very own directory!
There are plenty of different ways to embark on a link campaign, and I’m sure everyone has their own different style. I realize, to some of you, this may seem a little like "Link Campaigning 101," but I sincerely hope a few of you find the opinions and strategies expressed within this post to be of some use. Best of luck in your linking endeavors!
P.S. If I don’t get booed off the proverbial stage, I plan to post more about specific link request strategies that have worked for me. Maybe they’ll work for you too.
Life is a search engine. We are the content.
Thank you so much for this post. For awhile, I was feeling like top names in the industry scorned link-building in this manner. Why bother trying to get links one at a time if you can just launch some really great linkbait and get a thousand links in one fell swoop?
However, not only is linkbait sometimes tough to come by (and there's no guarantee it will be successful), but it doesn't result in the specific links you might want or need for rankings as well as traffic.
I really like your suggestions!
Crash,
I thoroughly enjoyed your post. You laid out an articulate and methodical approach to link campaigning that is also sprinkled with nuggets of insight and creative tactics used to achieve your desired result. You take a strategic approach that I suspect is very rewarding when you capture a big target.
I don't consider your tactics in any way sneaky, although it sounds as though you relish the challenge of uncovering all of the stones necessary to capture your unsuspecting prey!!!
Like yourself, I'm a believer that most targeted links are good links. Just because a link may not follow - who's to say the traffic it sends won't convert - and that's a good thing.
While I focus my efforts starting from the top in terms of juice passing potential, more often than not, if I spot a no-follow "low hanging fruit link", that's easy to capture and will likely deliver some targeted traffic, I'll invest the few minutes or so it takes to get it.
While some of the systems and processes I personally use are quite a bit more automated, what I liked most about your post is that you gave the beginner, novice and even experienced folks that may not approach things methodically, a good overview as to how they can effectively manage their campaign via a simple spreadsheet.
This community serves a wide range of professionals and is well served by articles as thoughtful as you've presented here. I appreciate the insight. Keep 'em coming!
Thank you seanmag! I'm sincerely glad you enjoyed it. I admire your work and I always find your comments to be incredibly insightful :)
You're definitely right in that I relish the thrill of the link chase. Some of my tactics may be a bit *ahem*, unconventional at times, but they usually get the job done and no one's getting hurt. The harder you work for it, or the more creativity you put into it, the bigger the pay off in the end. My family and I have even been known to uncork the champagne when I've obtained a big link I was after. It's great to have that kind of support!
You're welcome Crash - and thank you for the kind words as well. Glad to see your post was so well received. Clearly you've helped alot of people. That's champagne worthy!
On big tip I have found very usefull is to do follow-ups. I always thank the person when I get the link AND for the better sites I'll email them a few months and sometimes even a year later and give them a follow up. The follow ups really, really help because often i'll get more or even better links in the process. Just quick little notes back to them like, 'I wanted to thank you again for your link. It's been a one of my top refferals , etc. etc., thank you, thank you" kind of thing.
Thanking the incoming link and giving them postive feedback can often open up a whole new postive dialog between them that will get you even more links or help keep yours put should they decide to do some housekeeping.
jeff
Has anyone done link requesting with the telephone? I have.
It's the best way to get edu and gov links if you're not getting a response first through email.
One target took me me almost 1 year and many phone calls, but I got a link from the Library of Congress by making phone calls to cut through the government red tape. It was an ancient PR6 page with only about 12 outbound links. The link was instant GOLD.
jeff
I'm glad you mentioned this! On occasion, I have been very tempted to pick up the phone and dial-a-link however, seeing as I'm usually found lurking within my dark corner, hunched over my keyboard, I'm not entirely comfortable with "in person" contact (I know... I need to get out more lol). Plus, I'm in the same room with the entire IT department so privacy is an issue.
I was also unsure of the response I would get... I imagined the chances of the person on the other end of the phone, even knowing what the hell I was talking about, would be slim!
Now that I know it has payed off for you though, I am willing to give it a try. Thanks for sharing!
oh it totally works - the more bureaucratic the better. It's all social engineering too. Talk to someone on the inside and they'll give you the name of the person who runs the webpage.
I'll second that TireyTV - just get a rough script together and keep it sociable and light, not heavy and intense. Works a treat for government, coporate and public sector linkees.
I'm currently going after a few of our competitors to gain some inbounds from sites other than deal sites (though we love our deal site affiliates).
I found this tool in my quest . . . Rand you need to make one of these and if you have one, let me know replacing the following link with yours (if it's free and this comprehensive).
https://www.webuildpages.com/neat-o/
I quickly had a list of 5 thousand sites to target. A quick copy and paste, another copy and paste special values, a pivot table or two with some DCOUNT formulas sprinkled around, a few CTRL + H, some more copy and paste, and I was set in no time. Then, I used the Alexa Web Service with DMOZ to download all the top sites in our industry (it's cake) from the DMOZ directory, complete with Alexa ranking (though Alexa is so worthless nowadays, I still use them--Google launch an equivilent service PLEASE!!). I did a quick VLOOKUP function from the Pivot Table to the Alexa data and I populated in their traffic rank, site descriptions, company names, etc. Pretty cool system. I should patent it. ;-)
I am really tempted to blanket all of them with a webmaster@ and a mail merge between Word, Excel, and Outlook but I am resisting the urge, for now. ;-)
Brent David Payne
Wow, excellent strategy. I see that automating some of my tasks would really save me some time.
Definitely resist that urge you spoke of though!
What tool or how do I research what my competition links from? Do I just use google toolbar? I am new to SEO and hate to ask the obvious dumb questions, but currently I don't have budget to hire someone to SEO for my site.
Thanks!
You don't need too big a budget.
After trying a dozen of tools, I stick up to SEO SpyGlass. It's simple yet all-in-one. You enter your competitor's url and it finds all its backlinks.
Then it makes an SEO guide so you can do everything yourself.
Jim's tools are as elegant as his techniques. simple and effective.
I must confess I've never been much of a link ninja. Thanks for the insight into your linkbuilding tactics - especially the advanced stalker skills with Google/LinkedIn :)
I would be interested in hearing more about your link request strategies.
Quality link building is very time consuming! It’s also very difficult to explain the value of link building to clients. Most of the clients I work with don’t think things are getting done if their site doesn’t change. I’ve been working on setting expectation up front and educating clients, but I need help! Is there a tool out there that streamlines link building for multiple clients? I’ve been looking at a few products, but it seems the tools out there do a little of everything and nothing really well….
Exactly..it's the same question I would link to ask crash...how to manage my link building campaign the link bait way..hot to keep track on it and at the same time show some thing to my client that -'yes I am doing something that is better than begging links'; its hard to convince every one though. I hope crash can give some useful inputs on the same.
Anne,
I have some thoughts on this for you as I've used a variety of tools outside of the excellent stuff here on SEOmoz (which I highyl recommend). Some of it is free and others paid applications, but rather than "bore the board", so to speak, if you're interested shoot me an email and I'll respond to you directly. You can find my email on my profile.
Sean
"Note: nofollow means don’t follow, not don’t count!"
Why do you say that? Nofollow means don't pass pagerank:
https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html
They might still count it in some way, but it's certainly does more than simplify preventing it from being followed. No?
All I really meant by that was passing PR isn't my only guage for determining if a link has value. Just because the link is a "nofollow" doesn't mean I won't try for it. For example the wiki link... had I not gone for it, I wouldn't be getting the 30+ visits per day from it that I am. I notice now that the wiki page is also showing up in my "similar sites". Hmmmm.
IMHO nofollow means don't follow.... not don't COUNT.
I would definately believe that no followed links from Wikipedia are still useful - see https://www.searchenginejournal.com/how-google-yahoo-askcom-treat-the-no-follow-link-attribute/4801/ for example. Although google treats the link as a no - go territory, Yahoo actually lets the page get indexed, but just doesnt pass on juice.
ASK doesnt even support the tag...
Great Post! I recently started in-house at a company as well and my link building strategy follows closely inline with your suggestions. Glad to see I'm on the right track!
Thats great! I recently got myself into a mess by not keeping track of my goals/accomplishments. Now I have to rely on Google and Yahoo so I can try to get back on track.
Great post.
I don't color code my link requests (I hate excel actually, and color coding is kinda girly) but I totally identify with what you're saying, specially when you can't find contact info... :-(
Three questions that maybe you can address next time: How do you feel about comment link building, when it's done in a "white hat" way? How do you plan your linking campaign so it "feels natural" to Google over time? How do you deal with sites that only do link exchange?
Kudos for mentioning link building, which I think is not discussed enough. (maybe because googlers get to read what we say.... :-D)
Great questions!
re: Comment link building: I've done it a few times and it HAS served it's purpose (getting the link) however it's not my favourite tactic because its too obvious. If I was going to leave a comment, I would most likely direct it to the blog owner and ask a bunch of questions about his post in order to open up the lines of communication and compel him to respond. Making friends with the blog owner, because you have a common passion, never hurts.
re: Natural link building: Honestly, I've never given this too much thought. Too me, a webmaster promoting his/her site, by reaching out to others and bringing their content to other's attention, IS doing it naturally. I definitely wouldn't do anything to jeopardize this such as buying obvious links or engaging in dodgey cross linking schemes.
re: Link Exchanges: Since I'm not authorized to add links to the site (and I don't want to), I generally steer clear of reciprocals. That's not to say I wouldn't still try for the link though, if it was worth it. I guess I would do my homework and offer to give them some targeted content in exchange for a link. If the content was compelling enough... how could they refuse??
Crash,
Several months on this is still an excellent post. I read it a while back and bookmarked it and find myself coming back now that I am looking at my linkbuilding strategy - very useful and easy to follow tips.
Can I just ask- what happened to this:
Well considering the overwhelmingly kick-arse response (i refuse to say 'ass', sorry people!) with no hint of booing, are you still planning to write this post? I for one would love to read it!
Great post and honest about the sneakyness :)
I also run my link strategy from spreadsheets, and keep track of replies and contact info that way - I can't imagine how anyone can manage a link strategy from their head or post-it notes!
The one area where we differ is that I use colour-coding for the quality and type of link they use:
Blue: no link obtained yet (prospect)
Green: Good link (spiderable and not hidden too deep)
Orange: Bad link (unspiderable or way too deep)
Red: Broken link (404!)
What this allows me to do is first and foremost fix the broken inbound links - their webbys don't want broken links on their page either... a nice email saying "did you realise that this link is broken. Worry not...it's an easy job to fix..." does the job wonderfully. This is especially effective when the site you are contacting is affiliated in some way (such as vendors or suppliers of what your client sells) - in this case you can literally say "hey, did you realise we are both losing potential sales!"
Unspiderable links are the most difficult to fix up. If a site is linking to you but via a complicated formy, ajaxy or javascripty method, chances are this is how they operate on the rest of their website and it's difficult to justify to their webbys why your link should be clean HTML.
Blues (link prospects) have been expertly covered by Crash.
Greens are good and it's important to nuture a relationship once you've got a link; spending a little bit of time - and I mean a little as we're all very busy people - via email or a mention on your site can really help to ensure a temporary link becomes a permanent feature.
What I don't currently do is keep record of anchor text... something that I will start doing from today :)
Great post! Well articulated and well thought out. I like you style :-)
Good tip about searching for your competitors domain name as well - this doesn't just bring up links but also brings up the places where they are mentioned prominently (and this can actually bring up places where they're talked about but not linked to!)
Looking forward to you sharing more!
Great article, thanks. I'm in the process of starting a new link building campaign. I usually do the same, knowing that different sources of links have different values and gives my link campaign a more natural pattern.
I completely agree with you about the nofollow. They do seem to have value regardless. It would be cool if SEOmoz did an experiment for a site with all nofollow links to see how it affects it.
My thoughts exactly. I'll never disregard a link simply because of a link condom.
Well, safe sex is better than no sex at all ;)
First of all - exceptional post. I love it!
I am in the process of bringing someone on board and getting links will be part of their strategy. Instead of writing out a process document - I'm just going to send them this whole post (and all the great comments)!
I've given you all the thumbs I can - great job!
Really glad I could help! Thanks for all the thumbs ;)
Sometimes you can get lucky with finding contact information on https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp. It doesn't always work but sometimes, sometimes it does work!
It always works if you act like you forgot your login information.
Go to: https://www.networksolutions.com/manage-it/forget-login.jsp
Type in a domain name that you know is registered with NetSol (i.e. Amazon.com). Click GO.
Select the bottom Radio Button (I am not one of the above . . .). Click GO.
Copy their NIC Handle and insert it into the appropriate place of this URL:
https://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?nichandle=[putNIChandlehere]
Poof . . . done, everytime. So private registration only stops the lazy spammers. The funny part is that no captchas occur through the whole process . . . so Rand . . . another script opportunity. LOL, J/K I think we are getting into grey hat if not black hat at this point. ;-)
Brent David Payne
If I was a search engine, I would now be analyzing every single thing TheOneCallGuy does on the web. If he's this "sneaky" - he's bound to be up to no good.
LOL!!! Not at all. Just because you are capable of doing something doesn't mean you will.
I have been called the HumanComputerVirus though. ;-) But that was back in the day when I automated the creation of thousands of Amazon So You'd Like To, Listmania Lists, and later even product reviews. I can still do it but I consider it a conflict of interest now that I am at OneCall. I used to be a Top 500 reviewer and when I lost that badge . . . it hurt, really hurt.
Here's my Amazon profile: https://www.amazon.com/gp/pdp/profile/A25HBO5V8S8SEA
It started off with me controlling internal link flow within Amazon to the pages I wanted to be seen as the authority pages within the site (this was about 3 - 5 years ago mind you). I noticed that when I launched SYLTs and Listmanias that appeared on related items within Amazon which were linked to the Viking (and later SimpleTech) products on Amazon.com that I could control the SERPs. I only had to launch about 500 or so SYLTs and Listmanias to accomplish it. I snagged the list of items from Amazon's Web Services, wrote helpful SYLTs and Listmanias (most of which have now been removed--Amazon Communities Team had me on a watch list for a while) so I wouldn't get community backlash, and controlled link flow on the largest ecommerce site on the internet. I crushed the likes of SanDisk and Lexar eventhough Viking was an unknown brand for flash memory. I had over 80% marketshare and booked $1.4M a month in flash memory with Amazon. I was 40% of Viking's division revenue when I left the company for SimpleTech. Viking's numbers spiralled to less than $500K per month in a matter of a few months once I joined SimpleTech. But destruction of an empire I created for the previous several years at Viking was something I HATED doing and I soon left to work for Targus where my focus was less on Amazon and more on getting the online catalogs of Walmart.com, Bestbuy.com, Staples.com, etc. on-par with their brick and mortar offerings.
So, those were really fun times. I made a ton of money (peaked at $287K in one year) and pretty much destroyed my marriage (a major regret) by working literally 15 - 18 hours a day trying to get a larger and larger commission check each month (paid on percentage of gross profit dollar generation).
I don't do anything crazy anymore other than try to remove the oodles of duplicate content, keep up with the 10+ iterations of the OneCall site that people still link to (URL structure changes is what I am trying to say), and develop an affiliate network that is one of the most powerful networks built by an in-house person and program. SEO is my secondary concern but the part of my job that gets me excited. If I could do it full time for a decent company and make as much as I do now . . . I'd take it because it is what I enjoy the most in online marketing.
P.S. The sneakiest thing I do is 301 redirect a lot on our site to keep our URLs clean and keep affiliate tracking codes out of the URL so Google doesn't penalize me for my affiliate links. I think penalizing because an inlink is an affiliate is silly. It's still a vote of confidence because if their visitor has a poor experience with us, they get pissed off at them. I know this for a fact because Viking was very slow to pay mail-in-rebates. The customers got pissed at FatWallet.com just as much as they got pissed at Viking--if not more so.
Here's my resume:
https://www.brentdavidpayne.com
What a fun thread!! ;-)
Great post! Thanks for sharing. The bottom line is quality link building is hard work. If you are in a competitive niche you need a multi faceted strategy and you need to invest some serious time or direct your team accordingly.
Great article. I can picture your energy. I particularly like your tip about targeting your competitor's backlinks - Excellent.
This is a great post, Crash. I do the same thing when I take on a link building campaign--keep track of my progress in a spreadsheet and color coordinate my results. I thought I was being crazy and anal retentive, but I'm glad to see you're encouraging it and recommending it as an efficient strategy!
Thanks Rebecca! I literally HAVE to keep track of my progress... the older I get the less I remember things! I'm glad to hear its a habit of yours as well.
I scored 2 great links from the Canadian National Energy Board this morning AND was published to the main seomoz blog. It's turing out to be a really stellar day!
Thanks for reading everyone ;)
Loving this post, just like the other million people who read it!
I colour-code as well, and set up nice word documents but it happens that i lose motivation after a while. Knowing that others do it like this as well will help me persevere.
Thanks heaps, you made my day! Love the *domain.com trick I didn't know it!
It's great to see this article still being read and the tips within being utilized. Thanks for all the awesome comments ;)
Here's a link to the follow up article... "Link Request Strategies for Blogs, Edu's & Gov's: Respect My Authoritah!"
Cheers!
Really first rate !!!!
wow crash this is a really great post thanks heaps! I have read so many link building articles and yours is one of the best I have read.
looking forward to your next installments :)
I loved this post. I look forward to your posts about other link request strategies. Come back onto the proverbial stage!
Very helpful article. Thanks for the https://*domain.com search and organizational tips!
Over a month and a half later, this post is still as relevant as ever. Thanks for the great tips. Its nice to have someone sum it all up.
Thanks for posting such a great article. Link building is where I am at now. Your point "Organizing the Links" - gives an very good impact in my part of work. kudos.
Right the spread sheet and coloured pens are coming out!
3 years hence and this still is a great article! Thanks Crash!
Hi great comments on here.
I have been doing marketing now for over 10 years and this is the best site I have ever found
I honestly don't know how I missed it before :-(
Still better late than never
Thanks nice post......
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Thanks for excelent tips. Instead of Excel, I am using Google spreadheet to keep track of backlinks - it is always easily accessible and there is only one copy of the document to work with.
Crash that was a great article. I've been tracking all of my link building requests on excel and it has helped with charting progress or in some cases lack there of. One thing I should do is chart how many times I actually emailed a particular site...if you ask for a link 3+ times you know you're probably not going to get it unless you do something drastic/creative. Lesson here is that it takes a lot of work to be organized and keep track but it will help exponentially throughout the life of your link campaigns.
Hi
Just read the article and found it really useful.Can you explain more fully how to do this technique you mentioned?Note: I also use - https://*.domain.com - to get a broad view of where my competitors are being mentioned (utilize absolutely every tool you can).
ThanksDonald
Excellent Article Crash
Great article. There was a lot of head-slapping over your recommendations as to what I should be tracking. You've inspired me to create an Omnioutliner worksheet for my link building.
For all you Mac-geeks and fanboys out there I'd recommend it over a spreadsheet for the organizational abilities. (and I don't even work for them!)
Organization is everything.
People are kind of down on Excel, but you don't have to hate it (or love it) to use it.
If you are going to have a full timer person and you want to run reports or something, then a simple app would be easy enough. Oh, wait, they will have to have a VPN to work when they work from home. Oh, wait, someone has to write and maintain it.
You get the point.
We run a lot of stuff with spreadsheets - organization is all. Also extracting the three or four key management statistics and having those seperate is a lifesaver. That way, as the work changes, the spreadsheet can change, but the Big Boss still gets the major stats the same way: Links asked, links got, average PR, traffic change from links. (Or whatever).
-OT
Really nice post.
I have been looking for a starter point for my in-house work and I think you have given me the basics of a strategy here with just enough specifics for me to see past the initial hurdles.
Many thanks for showing your hit rate with some examples. In my head I kinda still have this picture of link building experts getting 20 links a day on a 90% success rate or something. Seeing a realistic example set has made the task seem less daunting.
And I think your tip to start with a few until you refine your strategy is a gem. I nominate it to go into the premium tips section.
I do have a question though. You mention the 'oil rally' video a few times but give the impression you have not used it every time. I presume this is a quality piece of industry related news you are using to attract some of these links but not all. Why?
Also, any tips for sites that don't or cannot use juicy linkbait?
@carfeu
Embrace your inner girly and go for some nice pale yellow and blue backgrounds on your next spreadsheet. It may seem bizarre but sometimes when I add the "Light yellow" to my sheets they give me a positive vibe when I use them :) Especially if you use positive colours on your good numbers e.g. sales, revenue etc :)
The "oil rally" video was specifically targeted to sites which had content about a) oil and B) Alberta. It was a special on-location report we filmed from the Edmonton Legislative Grounds. The oil workers were hoping mad and were protesting a hike in royalties. I actively campaigned this video to sites which I believed would have an interest. I do this for most of the reports we do.
In fact, we covered a big oil conference recently and did a bunch of interviews with oil executives and bigwigs in the oil industry. Since everyone loves to be on the news, my next step is to email all the interviewees a link to their "exclusive" interviews. If they've got a website, they're almost guaranteed to link to it.
I liked the part how you organize your research. I do similar things and recently I also take advantage of online Excel versions (like Google spreadsheets) to let other people edit or watch the progress. It works great, when one person collects data, other person from the company sends emails and edits the status ("letter sent", "email replied", etc) and the end customer can login daily and watch how we move.
thanks for that - using the wildcard to find out who's talking about your competitors is a useful tip!
I think a lot of us get caught up in the theory of SEO, so it's great to get a simple step-by-step guide of how to put it into practise...
Just what i needed to read in terms of linking strategy. Building up in-bound links is a bit of an enigma to me. Your piece gave me practical view of how I can go about it. excellent thanks!
I look forward to part 2! ;) I would be interested to know how you bait in-bound links? What incentives you create for people to link to you if you are not using compelling copy.
That's often where the being sneaky part comes in. If I'm campaigning an educational site, I'll push the fact that we are an excellent learning resource for students and an authorative teaching resource for faculty and staff. I might even go on to give a few examples of situations where our material might benefit them. If another .edu site already links to me, I make sure and let them know that as well.
In fact, that's one tactic that often works for me. When I campaign a .gov site, I let them know that we are already endorsed by the (for example) Alberta Energy Research Institute. I would even give them a link to the page we are listed on. Usually, if one .gov sites already links to you, other .gov's will feel more comfortable linking to you as well.
As we say in the news biz... spin baby spin!
Sphunn! lol . https://sphinn.com/story/15757
Hahaha!
Nice post Crash ! Indeed its the most ideal way of managing your link building campaign and very much like how we do it (becauce its following - KISS rule). Anyway I am still wondering, what would be the most ideal way to manage my link building campaign if I am doing it the natural way - link baiting. I would be really glad if you could throw some some light on it too. Cheers !!
I'm no expert but I do think that a link baiting campaign can be managed in much the same way. Build up a list of sites, blogs etc you'd like to get a link from. Organize them on a list and group them into categories of subject or focus. After that, it should be easier to target each group of sites with a specific piece of content. You know what kind of content to target them with because you've visited the site and done your homework. After that you'd keep track of what content you baited them with, the date you baited, their response etc. If you're lucky, your LB campaign will spread like wildfire which will make it almost impossible to track anyways!
hmm, by that do you mean - we prepare industry specific viral content and then contacting our target sites from our contact list briefing them about the bait content and then asking if they would like to link to it or simply post the content and wait for a spark form somewhere to light up the wildfire to spread all over...? I would love to see a post from you explaining the same!!
Anyway thanks for your generous reply ! Cheers ! :)
Way to pound it out!
I like that you don't obsess on PR - we get a lot of traffice from a link or two that are on nofollow sites. We also have a site with three (!!) links from a PR7 site's front page near the top. Never had a click, though it is probably passing good google love.
I like the traffic better - they buy stuff.
-OT
Great post! Thanks you.
Looks like you do good work Crash!
great example of how to, *err* build your link building funnel!
Very informative.
Looking forward to your next post on the specific link request strategies, thanks!
Nice work Crash. I'm definitely going to use your formula next time.
Does anyone have any secrets on how to get your clients to sign up for all the link building work.? Once I get done designing and building their new site, clients rarely want to spend anymore money on link building. They don't seem to understand that it is one of the most important aspects no matter how much i stress the importance.
I agree that it can be difficult to get clients to sign on to link building work. What's even more challenging though is getting a client to agree that it needs to be done over and over, month after month. Link building isn't a one-time get-traffic-fast-and-stop type of task.
Awesome post, very informative.
Thanks.... great post!
Instead of using an Excel file tokeep track of your progress, anybody knows of an online tool that does the same thing?
Bundle that with a link checker that lets you monitor your obtained links and that would be an excellent tool for link building.
Just as a side note:
I hate using excel cause I am lazy - I got one of my devs to set up a WP a/c on a local server and use that to track progress.
e.g: Imagine I have 10 sites links are being sourced - I treat each one as a category.
Then I identify the classifications of type of links - either by target anchor text, PR, anchor text. And then add these in the categories.
Then I use four more Status categories - Potential (not targeted yet), WIP (in progress), Result (gained link) and Fail (obvious).
Next every site I target, goes off as a post, with the URL as the title , and commentry on the site follows, with every action taken added on - so lets say for example I identified SEOMoz as a target, I would add a post with the title SEOMOZ/whateverpageurl, then add my comments below. and then add it to the categories in terms of site for which the link is being generated, what the PR of the page is, what anchor text I am aiming for, and what the status is.
Everytime I edit the page (when a new action has occured) I change the details on the page with notes (e.g if I am using sneaky tactics, at least the full description is on that page and I dont mess up ;-), and maybe move the categories if necessary.
That way I can filter down by the diff categories as and when I want to see WIP, and when the last actions took place. Once the link is gained, I wait a month or so, check it, and then move it to an external spreadsheet.
Oh, and I use the blogroll to maintain a list of directories...
Useful? Works for me, but might not for others...
Great post, Crash. I also don't think that there are enough discussions around link building. Creative ideas like these are really helpful. I've never tried that command in Google before either, and I just scored a ton of helpful information in the past few minutes. Thank you for the tips!
Thanks Crash. Even though for some this is elementary, I found it a good way to get organized with links. IN previous efforts I would go all out with no tracking and monitoring, and had no idea what would stick, which links were working and who even copntacted me back. Worse than that was the people O contacted on more than one occasion due to the fact that I couldn't remember if I sent then the request in the first place. I espicially like the sneaky approach, although I see the need for the requests in that relam to be genuine as well. Looking forward to more link strategies!!
This is a great post - thanks Crash. Duncan wrote something about doing the basics well (and researching things as well - a slightly different subject) on our blog the other day. It can sometimes seem like all anyone is doing is linkbaiting, but the building is important, like you say. Thanks for contributing.
Hi again
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