Link building can be an extremely arduous task.
But it’s a necessary one.
It’s one of the most effective ways to improve the authority of your website and ultimately keyword positioning, but it’s also a lot of work.
Link building involves:
- Reaching out to other website creators and business owners to network.
- Guest posting.
- Research.
- Constant communication.
- And much more.
The underlying theme of link building is that it requires human effort.
While you can, and many businesses do, automate their link building efforts by sending out robotic scripts via email or hiring offshore link building companies, this is not the best way to improve your online credibility.
People don’t respond well to robots; they respond to other people.
If your link building is struggling but you’re unsure how to scale a process that requires individual human effort, check out the following tips.
1. Consider Your Workflow
The first thing you should do is write down your link building process.
Which element takes up the most time? Which feels the most tedious?
That’s where you want to start streamlining.
Link building shouldn’t feel like a chore; if it does, you probably need to cut out a few steps whenever possible. Consider your workflow.
How do you get from point A, to point B, to point C?
Are there any steps that can be cut out?
Using an efficient workflow program could be a good way to save time and scale your link building efforts.
This article by Search Engine Journal lists five different kinds of email automation workflows you can use to help save time.
2. Network
Thinking back to what we said earlier about human effort being a key asset to link building, one thing you can do to scale the process is to work hard at building relationships with other professionals in the business.
Seek out:
- Business owners.
- Digital marketers.
- Social media managers.
- Bloggers.
Establish a valuable relationship based on trust, respect, and mutual need.
It’s much easier to ask someone for a favor when you already have a relationship with them as opposed to reaching out to a stranger.
Offer to guest post on their websites and let them do the same on yours.
The more networking opportunities you make for yourself, the quicker and easier it will be to gain backlinks in the future when you need them.
3. Focus on Producing Quality Content
Something else you can do is focus less on link building and more on quality content creation.
Content is the foundation of link building.
If you aren’t producing valuable content, it will be much harder to get backlinks, no matter how much time you spend trying.
It may sound basic, but building a repertoire of quality content is the first step you should take before investing in link building, and many businesses make the mistake of glossing over this.
Check out this article by Search Engine Journal on how to combine content and social media to aid your link building efforts.
4. Redesign the Presentation of Your Content
Create titles that are clear and engaging.
Include eye-catching photographs, especially for your thumbnail.
Never skip the description! This is your first chance to catch the eye of your audience – you don’t want Google pulling random sentences from your post that won’t make sense to a reader.
The better your content looks, the more passive links you’ll receive. And embracing passive link building is a major way to scale your strategy that business owners often overlook.
5. Use Templates
This isn’t the same as sending out robotic emails; your templates should be well-thought-out, creative, and personable. But they’re still a template and can be adapted to various requests and businesses.
The “meat” of the template can be the same, but add in some personal details like a blog post the person has written that you like, or ask them questions about a topic you plan on writing about for your own website.
There are various types of link building strategy templates you can create: “mention” templates, “broken link” templates, and guest blogging templates, among others.
See the examples below:
‘Broken Link’ Template
This type of template has a high rate of success. All you have to do is go on the website where you want to receive a backlink and identify a broken link.
Then, create a resource that can be used to replace the broken link, and email the user with it. Your email could look something like this:
‘Mention’ Template
You can use this template if you’ve recently featured someone’s work on your website and want to let them know in hopes that they’ll share your post. It can look a little something like this:
Guest Blogging Template
One way to streamline the process of creating and adapting templates s to utilize this next suggestion…
6. Build a Team
Build a link building team isn’t possible for everyone.
But if it is possible for your business, you should definitely take advantage of it.
Train your employees to write quality content and then seek out backlinks. They should know how to monitor your site’s SEO progress and be creative about coming up with new linking strategies.
Even spending 20 minutes a week on technical SEO can put you leaps and bounds ahead of the competition. Think about how much more you can accomplish with 2 or 3 people working on link building as opposed to one.
Even if your budget is tight, consider allocating some money from another area to build a team; it will pay dividends in the end if you select the right people and train them properly.
7. Broaden Your Market
The more people your content appeals to, the more shares and backlinks you’ll receive. It’s a simple game of numbers.
If your content isn’t being shared the way you want now, think about widening your audience.
You can do this by searching social media to see what topics are trending in specific groups, and then adapt your target to appeal to those people.
Make the effort to join the conversation, and reap the benefits in SEO.
Summary
Link building is hard. It takes a lot of time, energy, and patience.
You have to try new things, fail, and then try again.
But if you stick with it ultimately you’ll get to a point where it’s possible to scale your link building strategies and spend more time on other aspects of your website’s SEO.
If you’re just getting started with a link building campaign, learn the fundamentals of link building and how to create a sustainable link building campaign.
Now get out there and start networking!
Image Credits
Featured Image: Paulo Bobita
All screenshots taken by author
