A Solid Link Building Strategy

Gaining Google’s trust and your SERP ranking through a solid link building strategy

Recently, I’ve had some questions on linking and link building strategies come up. And it’s no wonder why. By getting pages to link back to your website and it’s pages or posts is one way to prove to Google that you are an authority on your selected topic. But there are nuances to creating a solid link building strategy and like any good thing, there is such a thing as too much.

What is a link building strategy?

If you aren’t a well known website, or have a large network of industry experts willing to link to your site, it might sound getting a series of links back to your site is impossible. It’s not, it just takes a bit of strategy.

Step 1: Research

Identify experts or professionals in your field or industry that are not direct competitors. These are people and sites to whom you feel comfortable linking.

Step 2: Link to them

By linking to them and helping them build the number of links back to their site, you are helping them which in turn may make them more likely or willing to help you out. Do this strategically. If you are writing a post on a certain theme, look for a similar post or a post that explains a term or recommendation you’ve made further.

Step 3: Send the Invitation

There are number of ways that you can invite these experts to engage with your website that can generate links.

Quotes: Have a piece of content written, that focuses on something about which they’ve recently spoken or written, and ask them to comment. If you feature them as an expert in a published piece of content they will be likely to share it as it makes them look good. You can also provide them with the link once it’s published to further encourage them to share.

Guest Blog Posts: reach out and invite them to guest author a post on your blog. Have a topic or theme picked out, that leans on their expertise. This will make them more likely to write the post.

Co-Authored Articles: These are a bit more intensive as they are longer, more factual/research based pieces, but they also have a larger payoff. When you involve someone in a piece like this, which has more staying power than say, a blog post, they are likely to link to it more often and share it more often.

Step 4: Share a resource with them

Sometimes you might be in the perfect position to help another professional create a piece of content, saving them the time and effort to write it. Create a solid piece of content written, find and connect with the targeted professional. Make sure you follow their accounts, and those of their company or website. If you don’t appear to be invested or interested in them, why should they be so in you?

While this might seem counter productive, you will most likely be listed as the author of the piece of content, with a link back to your site as part of that short author bio.

How much link building is too much?

Your link building strategy is important, but it is and should remain, one piece of your overall content marketing strategy. For every guest post you have on your site, you should write at least one to two pieces of content in between. If you are doing a series of these posts back to back, make sure it’s only for a short period of time, a week to a couple of weeks based on your posting schedule. (This will make sure that your content throughout the rest of the months balances out the guest posts).

Your customers want and need to see content from you, from your brand. You’re working on building their trust after all. Showing them that you know what you’re talking about, providing content that helps them, and shows them your brand’s personality all is vital when gaining their trust.