Chapter 4:Linkbuilding
The more quality links your page gets, the higher your rankings will become.
Once you have some content that's worthy of getting backlinks, you can start getting links by using the countless methods below. You'll learn practically every linkbuilding technique that exists or has existed. Also, don't worry – these linkbuilding techniques won't get your site penalized.
78. Linkbuilding Is Essential
Links are the currency of search engines. Linkbuilding is not dead. It never will be. Getting links show trust to Google, and give you a boost in PageRank. Aim for PR 2-4 links, as they provide the most value.
In short, links will raise your ranking in Google and get you to a higher spot for the keywords you are targeting.
Guest Posting Your Way To Fame And Success On The Web
79. What is guest posting?
Guest posting involves you writing a blog post for someone else who will publish this post on their blog. Instead of posting that content on your blog, it goes on someone else’s blog or website and you do it for free. So what’s the big deal? The positive with this tactic is that you can link to your site at least twice in the post. Guest posting is probably the easiest way to gain backlinks because it is simple to find blogs which are happy to publish your content.
The advantages of guest posting include the fact that:
On high authority blogs, your site will get a ton of new readers who will get to know your brand/business/website or blog
Your rankings on Google will increase
More PageRank (especially from PR4-7 sites)
Opportunities to work with bloggers in the future
80. There Are Two Types of Guest Posting, Watch Out
There are two kinds of guest posting which each make a huge impact on your blog. The first kind of guest posting is “guest posting for backlinks”. Your focus is to get at least two high PR backlinks from this post and you don’t care about actually getting any referral traffic from that site.
The second type is guest posting for promotion. Your aim here is not to get high PR backlinks but exposure. By writing on high power websites with huge audiences, your blog will get some exposure.
81. Find Blogs To Post On With Google Search
Believe it or not, you can actually search for blogs to write on without joining any guest blogging directories. It’s simple. Identify whatever niche your blog focuses on, but keep it broad. Eg: fitness, science, cooking, machinery, DIY, children etc.
Then, perform the following Google searches. Fill in the [niche] with your own one. So, if my niche was technology, a search I would enter into Google is “technology write for us”.
“[niche] write for us”
“[niche] guest posting”
“[niche] guest blog”
Alternatively, you can put in the name of a well-known person in your niche and find out where they have been guest posting.
“[person] guest post”
82. AllTop: Another Way To Find Blogs
Created by former Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, this site showcases some of the best blogs in your niche. Simply go to www.alltop.com and select your niche from the dropdown menu. You will see a list of the most popular blogs in its category. Make note of these and search for all of them. Check whether or not these blogs allow guest posts or just contact them. See the template below for securing that guest post.
83. Find More Guest Posting Opportunities With MyBlogGuest MyBlogGuest (www.myblogguest.com) allows you to find blogs that allow guest posting. You'll get all the specs and stats too, which is always handy. Sign up for an account and click into the category that your website belongs in. You will find multiple websites/blogs which allow guest posts. They will specify what PageRank their website is (most of the time) as well as good reasons why you should write for them. All kinds of specifications such as max. number of backlinks, word count, imagery and more are included along with the description.
This is a very useful resource for all website owners and bloggers because you get complete access to literally hundreds of domains that want guest posts. They are not only domains that accept guest posts but want them so they will be very grateful to have you!
It’s like the Facebook of blogs and websites.
84. Check The Blog You Want To Post On First
The biggest mistake you could make when guest posting is writing on a blog that just isn’t worth the time. There are millions out there to choose from so this means that you have all the leverage in this situation. When you start finding blogs to write on, remember to check the following factors:
PageRank – A low PR (0-2) blog isn’t worth it. There are thousands of high PR blogs to choose from, so don’t go for the low PR blog.
Two Links – How many links can you get? One link is too little, for all that effort. Two links is sufficient, and won’t overpromote your website. Check with the blog/website owner before you submit your post to see how many links are allowed. Make sure that the links allowed are “do follow” (Google will take this link into consideration when ranking) instead of “nofollow” (Link will not be counted as a backlink to your site).
85. Find Blogs That Pay You To Write For Them
Some blogs even pay you to write for them. It's a great way to get some promotion for your website, write about what you love and earn some cash in the process. Prices start from about $15 per blog post and can range up to $300 in some cases. Some blogs may not allow you to place a link in the post since they've paid you and expect no "promotion" in the article. Others may allow you to post a link in the Author Bio of your blog post. Keep an eye out for blogs that pay, because most of the time, you'll find it very difficult to actually place a link in your post.
86. Send Bloggers An Email
When contacting a blog for a guest post opportunity, you can use the template below if you wish.
Dear [Blog Owner Name],
I am a blogger who writes on [website URL] in the [your niche] area and I am a great fan of your blog. What useful resources for [blog’s target audience]! I have written a blog post about [topic] and I would be thrilled if you could post it on your blog.
My blog post deals with [topic] and explores key ideas such as [topic]. As an online writer and social media expert, I think it will be a hit with your readers!
Let me know if you are interested and I will send the post to you.
Thanks,
[Your Name]
87. How To Increase Your Chances Of Securing That Guest Post
There are several things you can do to make sure that you are accepted for a blog post. I've contacted tens of blogs every year for guest posts and found that the following strategies work:
Personalize Your Email
Have A Nice Sounding Email Address – Nothing signals spam more than a nonsensical email address filled with numbers, silly sounding words and other gibberish. If your email address is something like,
198gardeninginphoenix56@email.com you're going to have a hard time getting any replies back. For example, email such as
phoenixgardencentre@email.com or tim@gardencenter.com is a lot more professional sounding than the one above.
Have A Sample Of Your Writing Ready – The best way to show them that you can write is by having a sample of your writing ready. Attach it to the email.
Be professional and witty at the same time
Give an outline of what the post would cover
Give a few reasons why your suited to the job
Mention any social media profiles you have, any reports/books you've written or anything else that will help establish your credibility
88. Offer To Write Them A Sequel To One of Their Posts
Are there any blog posts which have done extremely well on their blog? Try and see if you can make a sequel to that blog post. Since the blog post was very successful, there is no reason why your sequel shouldn't be equally as successful, if not better. It's foolproof. By rejecting you, they just lost a boatload of traffic which they could have got for free. They're saying no to free traffic.
It can be difficult to think of a sequel, but get your creative juices flowing. For example, the sequel after "How To Make Drizzled Lemon Cake" could be "3
Lemon Cake Recipes With A Unique Twist". Basically, advance from the last post by coming with a USP/unique selling point (I know it's a business term, but it works for SEO too. Right?) and advancing the idea further on.
89. Use The "Blank Post" Technique – Rarely, it's better not to mention the titles you want to write about such as if you get a rejection from them or can't think of any titles. You can use the "blank post" technique instead. This means that in your email, you should ask them if there is anything that they are thinking of writing, or any specific post they want written. If a blogger turns down your titles or ideas, try the blank post technique instead.
For example this snippet would be included in your email, "Before I start mentioning titles, I just wanted to know if there is any topics you'd like more content on or if there's any ideas you thought would work. Let me know, and I'll write those blog posts for you."
Who'd turn you down with a strong offer like that?
Getting Links On Resource/Sales Pages
90. Testimonials
Enjoy a product or service? Most companies offer you with the chance to provide a comment or personal experience on their “Testimonials” page. It’s even better when you have a website (which you do) so at least you have some authority. Companies love linking back to the person who gave the testimonial because it gives more “reality” or realism to the actual comments. A headshot of yourself should also be included, but that is optional.
91. Join The “What the Press Say” Page
You will see that on many company websites, they will have a “What the Press Say” page. This is different from a testimonials page because the reviews come from websites, review sites and the blogging community rather than everyday people who don’t have websites.
You can find out if there are any companies in your niche who have these pages by searching the following strings on Google:
“[niche] what the press say”
“[company] press”
You should find a couple of websites with these pages that are in your niche.
Write an in-depth and high quality review of your favorite product by this company and post it on your blog. Then, head over to the company’s contact page and send them an email saying that you have written a review about their products and you would appreciate if it was put on their press page.
Most companies are happy to put your review on their page since the more positive reviews they have, the more customers will buy. However, others can be a little strict on what they allow. They may only consider your website should it have an audience, search traffic and about fifty to one hundred posts. To avoid this, build up your blog with plenty of in-depth posts and make them social media friendly (more on this in coming chapters) before approaching high end companies.
Build up your brand by guest blogging in your niche and having an active social media profile.
92. Link Requests
Sounds desperate right?
Think about it: Your aim as a website or blog is to create content which people will enjoy. Let’s say a fellow writer says they read your article on X and they also wrote something related to X. You check out their content and it blew your socks off. You realize how much value it would provide to your reader.
Wouldn’t you link to it?
Most bloggers receive countless link requests and by now, they are probably tired of anything to do with links. But send them a request and you might get lucky.
93. Library Resource Pages
Libraries have resource pages on their websites which link to all kinds of articles, guides, tools and apps. They are always on the lookout for new guides to list on their resource pages, so if you have a resource such as an ultimate guide, short ebook or a research article, contact the library and you could get lucky. The links from a library's resource page are worth a lot and are considered of a very high quality.
"library [local area] resources"
"resources [name of library in your area]"
94. How To Get .edu Links
One link from a university website (eg: www.harvard.edu) and your website is set for life. University or faculty websites have a PageRank of 7, 8 and 9.
Getting onto Harvard’s homepage is pretty much impossible. Getting onto any of their pages is pretty much impossible, too.
However, most university websites have resource pages or “Further Links/References” pages which give internet links, documents and other kinds of goodies to students. They can read more about a topic, get more information on a certain aspect of the course or check out learning materials available on the web.
These pages have a PR of 4, 5 and 6 so getting your content on it will prove lifechanging in terms of link juice.
Getting links from university websites doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to write on “academic” subjects such as the sciences, literature or health. To find these resource pages, type the following search strings in to Google: “site:.edu [your niche] resources”
“site:.edu [your niche] further reading”
“site:.edu [your niche] web links”
Take a look at some of the pages and see what kind of resources they link to. Are these pages high quality, with original imagery or are they mediocre? Can you do better?
If you can create a very useful resource page with at least 10 original images, personal experiences and some statistics, you can really appeal to a faculty.
Simply head over to the contact page of that specific department or get the contact email of the professor in that department. You can send them an email asking them to include your link on their page as it would greatly help students in their learning. If they are a local university and you live in their vicinity, your response rate will be even higher. Or, if you know a student going to university, you can ask them to recommend your resource (and that it greatly aided them in their studies!) to their professor who edits the department website.
Simple But Extremely Effective Tactics To Get High Value Links
From Fellow Bloggers and Niche Influencers
95. Contact The Right Person For Outreach
Remember that when you are sending an outreach email (link requests, guest posts or broken link building), you need to send it to the right email. Many companies have a general email (eg: help@company.com) where you have to send an email to that address. However, make sure you contact the right person for outreach. Do some digging around the site before you just go and contact the general email. Look for the person's email that’s in charge of the blog, or a special email for guest post submissions. A simple thing like this could really speed up the time it takes to reach the right person, and make sure it actually gets read.
96. If You Have A Service/Online Course/Product/Ebook, Give To Bloggers For Free – Bloggers LOVE receiving a free product from a company, because it gives them some content to write about and also, they get a very valuable product for free. Many bloggers have a huge audience or email list and so, getting a review from them will result in a lot of exposure. Some bloggers focus on products only whilst others focus on specific niches such as cooking or technology.
97. Try Tomoson To Get Links From Bloggers
Tomoson (www.tomoson.com) is a service which connects bloggers with companies who offer products for free, in exchange for a review of their product (and a link). If you have any products you'd like to offer them, you can create a promotion on Tomoson. As soon as you post it, you'll get bloggers along with their stats all vying to review the product. You can check their blogs PageRank, Domain Authority before you select them to receive the product. Since multiple bloggers will apply for the product, you'll get multiple links from credible sources at the same time.
98. Did Your Email Get Opened?
When you start contacting tens of people every day, for linkbuilding or PR or whatever, you need to be in the know on whether they opened your email or not.
That way, you can see if your emails are working or are just getting sent into their Spam/Junk inbox. You need the power to know that, since you're sending emails at such a large scale. That's why you should use BananaTag (www.bananatag.com) , which is an email tracking system. It works for Gmail and Outlook, and is free for up to five emails a day that you want to track.
It also gives you the option to send emails at specific times automatically. If you write five emails in one go, and want them to be sent on a Tuesday in the
afternoon (most likely time to be opened), you can schedule that with
BananaTag.
99. Build Relationships With Your Niche's Key Influencers
Building and maintaining a great relationship with some of your niche's key influencers will give you a lot of leverage in the years to come. The best way to get key influencers to know you is to use social media and become an active commenter on their blog.
When they post a personal status update, comment back. For example, if they achieved something, congratulate them.
On Twitter, retweet some of their tweets and then, start commenting on their tweets too. Be smart in your comments and always add a personalized touch.
You could also tweet something like, "My favourite blog is @SomeBlog'sHandle. I love the fact that it answers every question I have about #random_hashtag.". Make sure to use their Twitter handle (username, with the @ in front) so that they get notified of their mentioning.
Comment on a few of their blog posts and give praise. This lets them know that you are a great fan of theirs and enjoy reading about that niche. It shows that you are a real person with an interest (and a great website, may I add!), not just an anonymous 'botface'.
100. How To Find Influencers on Twitter
With a new tool called SocialBro (www.socialbro.com), you can identify influencers on Twitter who are following you. Because they are following you, you might find it easier to contact them since they have made some sort connection with you before.
Sign up for a free account and you can start finding people to both share your content and link to it, quickly and easily. This tool can also filter the number of followers people have, how long they were on the site, how influential they are and so on. This allows you to narrow down your list in a short time.
101. See Who Mentions You On Social Media, And Ask Them For A Link If you or your brand gets mentioned on social media, you should approach that person and see if they've got a website. If they do, you can ask them for a link.
But, make sure that their website is in the same niche as yours!
102. Monitor Your Social Media Mentioning At A Larger Scale
If your brand gets mentioned more than a few times a day on social media, you'll need to automate the process of recording the people who mentioned your brand.
For larger scale social media monitoring, you will need to use a free tool called RowFeeder (www.rowfeeder.com). This tracks and records all the social media posts from Twitter and Facebook which contains your name or username and your website's hashtag or keyword. All the reporting is done in Excel, allowing you to track who's talking about you, and what they're saying. This list in Excel will continue to grow, meaning that you will get a list of potential people for
outreach. If they mentioned you on social media, they're more than likely going
to mention you on their website!
103. Mention Key Influencers In A Blog Post, And They'll Link Back
If you mention some of the main key influencers in your niche, in a blog post,
they are more than likely going to share your post on social media because of
their ego. It's a quick way to get a lot of social media traffic to your site and in
turn, a lot more exposure. Since these influencers have tens of thousands of
social media followers, a lot of people will get to know your site and may even
link back to it, if they like what the website or service has to offer.
To avail of this strategy, make a post called something like these; "5 [Your
Niche] Rising Stars You Need To Watch" , "7 [Your Niche] Experts That
Provide The Best Advice Every Time", "4 [Your Niche] [People] We Can't Help
But Love" or "Top 5 [People] Making A Massive Stamp On [Niche]. Write
about their life story, their achievements and their path to success.
Send them a quick email saying that you featured them in an article you've just
written and give the link to the article.
Chances are, they'll probably share it on social media to the thousands and link
to it on their own website.
Viral Linkbuilding With Infographics
104. Get Linkbuilding (and Go Viral) With Infographics
Infographics combine the best of graphic design and information, ie: displaying
information such as statistics and facts using graphics, images and colour
making it easy to digest. Infographics are all in the range right now, you see
them on Pinterest, on Facebook and all over the most popular blogs and news
websites. Infographics are quick to create, when you consider the amount of
traffic that will be arriving to your website after seeing the infographic.
No one really knows why infographics rose to fame in the way that they did. But
all I know is that if you want to have a chance of competing online, you need to
start producing viral-worthy infographics.
And it's a lot easier than you think. Learn how to make infographics in Chapter
10.
105. Refresh An Old Infographic
For example, let’s say I have found an infographic about social media statistics
for 2013. That year is in the past, it’s boring and it’s no longer relevant to us. An
infographic on 2015 or 2016 is so much more appealing than one made a couple
of years ago. Sound appetizing? Here’s how to give it a go.
Firstly, search for some real old infographics using the following search strings:
“infographic” [your niche]
“infographic” [your niche] 2013
“infographic” [your niche] stats 2013
“infographic” [your niche] facts 2013
You should find at least five minimum, all the way up to twenty. Check out
some of the infographics which you suspect may be out of date. The best way to
find out is to see if they have a year in their title, description or in the search
result itself.
1) Select an infographic you think is ideal and copy its URL. This link will be
used later on.
Since these are in your niche, I’m sure you can create an infographic of your
own that covers the same topics as the out of date ones you saw in Google’s
results. You don’t need to hire anyone, it is very easy to do it yourself.
2) Make the infographic by following the tips in Chapter 10, or else – hire a
freelance designer on Elance to do it for you. Keep the statistics fresh and up to
date. Make the design more appealing than the old infographic.
3) Get the URL of the infographic that is out of date.
Next, you will need to find out who exactly is linking to this particular
infographic. Tapping into their backlinks is easy. Head over to www.ahrefs.com
and create a free account by subscribing to their website. This web tool allows
you to see how many backlinks a URL has – and where those backlinks are.
4) Input the link of the infographic you would like to check and the tool will
track down how many backlinks that link has. Click on “Outgoing Links” in the
horizontal bar and then “Links” which is in the dropdown menu. You will then
be given a list of all the websites that link to that specific page.
Visit these linking pages and contact them saying that the infographic they were
linking to is out of date and that you have a recent infographic with fresh and up
to date facts and statistics.
106. Send This Template To The Blogger To Replace The Old Infographic
Link
Here is a template you can use:
Hi [Blogger/Website Owner’s Name],
I recently came across your page on [whatever category]. Here is the URL,
[URL of page]. Great stuff! I just want to let you know that there is a link to an
infographic by [Company/Website]. Here is the URL: [link]
As you can see, this infographic is out of date and provides little value to your
readers. I have produced a new and up to date infographic which provides the
same purpose as the one you are currently linking to. If you are willing to check
it out, here it is: [your infographic URL].
As suiting the needs of the reader, I think that an up to date infographic will
keep readers coming back to your website! Well done on that article, by the way
and keep up the great work!
Thanks a whole lot!
[Your Name]
With a pitch like this, I think you can garner some pretty high PR backlinks from
one image. Again, it takes time, work and a whole heap of effort but a template
like the above takes a minute to paste in and send.
107. Infographic Guest Posting
Bloggers love free stuff and anything they can post onto their website without
any work is golden. That’s why you can write to bloggers telling them that
you’ve created an infographic and that they can post it on their site free of
charge.
This method is the same as guest posting only that instead of submitting an
article to a blog, you submit an infographic instead. Create your infographic (or
use the one you may have created from the last section) and make a list of all the
blogs or websites that are similar to your website niche. Next, contact them with
the following template which should give a pretty impressive response!
Hi [Blog Owner],
I recently came across your website on [topic]. What a fantastic place for
[website’s target audience]! I am the website owner of [Your URL] and I
recently created an infographic about [topic]. I usually charge $[Price] for this
infographic but I would love to give it to you for free since I am such a fan of
your website! All I ask is that you provide a link to my website (where the
infographic was first published) at the bottom of the infographic.
Oh, I nearly forgot! I will also write a unique and original introduction for the
infographic too.
Let me know if you are interested.
Thanks a bunch!
[Your Name]
Try this out with a few websites and you should get some positive responses.
You don’t really charge anything for the infographic, but when they see that
there is a price tag associated with it, that means value.
108. Make Sure You Have An Original Introduction To Your Infographic
Make sure that the introduction to each infographic is original and not used on
the other websites you've submitted your infographic to. Always check that it is
not published on other websites because Google will find out that you are not
doing original backlinking and you will get caught out!
109. Submit To Infographic Submission Sites
As well as publishing on other websites, you can also submit your infographics
to hundreds of infographic submission sites. Many of these sites have a high
PageRank (we’re talking 5, 6 and 7) so getting links on these is super beneficial.
They also promote your infographic to their readers and email subscribers, so
that will result in a lot of promotion to your brand!
Look for infographic submission sites with the following search strings:
"submit your infographic"
"infographic submissions"
110. Submit Your Infographic To Visual.ly (PageRank 8)
If you sign up for an account, you can submit an infographic to the site. If it is
very appealing and informative, your infographic could be promoted on the
homepage. I’ve seen infographics on visual.ly that got 30,000 views and higher.
Since you are allowed a link back to your site, imagine all THAT traffic clicking
in! From a Google-minded, backlinking perspective…you should get a hefty
amount of link juice from that page too.
111. More Infographic Sites Include…
Other infographic submission sites include:
www.infographick.com – Free – PR 1
www.nfogfx.com – Free – PR 2
www.submitinfographics.com – Free – DA 53
www.infographicsite.com – Free – DA 29
www.coolinfographics.com – Free – DA 68
www.infographicpost.com – Free – DA 31
112. Create HTML Snippets Of Your Infographics
Make it easy for people to embed your infographic on their blogs. With a simple
HTML snippet, bloggers can simply paste the code into their website and have
another great infographic ready to publish! To generate a HTML snippet for
your infographic, simply use the generator at SiegeMedia.
(http://www.siegemedia.com/embed-code-generator)
Linkbuilding With Content
113. Make A Web App
If you have or develop a nifty online tool that'll solve a common problem
internet users face, you've just got yourself a winner both for linkbuilding and
exposure. You'll also develop a lot of brand awareness as a result. Tools such as
calculators and converters but with an extra twist can really kick off online and
spark a lot of media attention. For example, I've seen a web app which converted
the number of alcohol units into food. For two units, it would be five burgers or
one unit, it would be three donuts. It became very popular on social media and
even got a mention from some major news websites and tech blogs!
Another advantage of web apps is that people will constantly link to it. For
example, I just mentioned an infographic HTML snippet generator in the tip
above. It's simple but effective and results in a lot of direct traffic to the site.
114. Make It Super Easy To Link To You
If your audience is less tech savvy, they mightn't know how to link to your
content or embed anchor text on their blog. You can make it super easy for them
to link to your page by generating a HTML snippet.
This is completely dependent on your niche though. If you're in a less tech savvy
niche such as construction, pet grooming or gardening, your audience might
want to copy the HTML snippet rather than link to your page with anchor text
also.
Even for your readers who are complete tech geeks, a HTML snippet would
speed up things for them too.
115. Rewriting An Out of Date Article
You don’t need to use infographics for the “out of date” method. You need to
find out of date articles in your niche. Try searching the following strings in
Google:
[your niche] 2013
[your niche] 2012
Alternatively, try searching for old articles by websites such as Buzzfeed or
Mashable.
These websites write articles on trending content and their information goes out
of date very quickly. Today’s viral article is next week’s piece of internet
history. You can take advantage of this. Try searching the following search
strings into Google.
[your niche] Buzzfeed 2013
[your niche] Mashable 2012
The good thing is that these websites’ articles get a TON of backlinks because
they go viral every time. That means more backlinks for you to utilize, and more
quality places to change the backlink to your content.
You can write an article which has updated and fresh information that contains
all the essential facts for your year. For example, let’s say you saw an article
about the latest statistics on gender equality in the workplace. But that was
written in 2012 and times have changed since then.
You can then see who is linking to this article through www.ahrefs.com and
contact them saying your article contains statistics for 2015 or 2016.
Rinse and repeat as many times as you want, and collect your links!
116. SlideShare Links
This PR 8 website with over 140 million views is a fantastic place to add a
backlink. This website allows you to upload PowerPoint presentations and gain
readers for them. It’s basically a user generated content website for slide decks.
You could repackage one of your blog posts into a SlideShare deck and upload
it.
The advantage of using SlideShare is that you can gain thousands of readers, all
to one deck! The audience on SlideShare is huge and provided you create a good
thumbnail and title, you could be on the road to viral. A well placed backlink
will bring back hundreds to your site.
The only downside of placing backlinks is that they are “nofollow” meaning
Google don’t take any notice of them, and no PageRank will flow to your site.
However, SlideShare is still perfect for bringing thousands of potential
customers to your site, even if you get no PageRank flowing to your site.
117. Written A News Post? Submit It To Google News
News sites have received more than 1 billion clicks, thanks to being listed on
Google News. Getting one of your articles listed on Google News is huge. It can
drive thousands of visitors to your site each day, if not more.
However, getting listed is not for the faint hearted.
Unless you publish at least once a day, you have no chance of being listed. Since
"news sites" publish more than a few times a day, it is already assumed that your
blog is publishing content on a daily basis. Also, your blog posts have to be
written more like news articles, which provide facts, the inverted pyramid and no
opinion.
However, if you meet the criteria of publishing news articles more than once a
day, you can be listed on Google News along with a few other criteria.
Build up a constant supply of news articles every day, and after a few months –
it's time to submit your website to Google News! Submit it at
http://bit.ly/1aqAde4
118. Scoop.it Links Are Golden
Scoop.it is a curated content website which allows you to paste your favorite
links across the web into a “scrapbook”-like page. Similar to Pinterest (where
you Pin images onto subject specific boards), it allows you to create a collage of
links about specific topics, eg: internet security or Spanish cooking. You can use
Scoop.it to not only create your own boards but to suggest your article links to
owners of other Scoop.it pages.
The advantage of getting links on Scoop.it pages is that they have a high PR (3
and 4) and an extremely large audience. There are literally thousands of pages
which have garnered more than 20,000 views. Even tapping into a little of that
audience would result in hundreds of views and excellent good link juice!
Set up an account with Scoop.it and head over to the arrow on the dropdown
menu. You will find tens of Scoop.it pages related to your niche. You can then
hit the “Suggest” button on these pages to suggest your links.
You can also create your own boards too over time. Make sure that you provide
variety and a good mix of all the tutorials, articles and content related to your
niche. Include some of yours too, but keep it to a minimum. Only linking to
helpful and five star content will establish trust with your audience on Scoop.it
and will gain traction once people start enjoying the content you link to.
119. Create A Free Icon Set And Get Links From Design Blogs
Design blogs are always linking to pages that offer free giveaways such as icon
sets, website backgrounds, buttons and public domain images. Go to Fiverr and
ask a graphic designer to create about ten icons that are about your niche. For
example, if you run a technology blog, you can create icons of laptops, mouse
cursors, smartphones and so on. These icons need to be compiled into a "free
giveaway" and then, you can contact design blogs about your free icon set.
120. Been Snapping? Compile Your Images Into A Giveaway
Take a scroll through your images either on your camera or mobile phone, and
see if you have any non-personal images that could really brighten up a blog
post or website. For example, if you have any city, nature, landscape, food,
technology or clothes shots, those would be perfect to be packaged into an
"image giveaway". Basically, you give away these images for free provided you
get attribution back to them. This is super effective for two reasons:
1) If you contact design blogs, and let them know you have a free giveaway of
images – they'll go pretty crazy over it and will link back to your giveaway page
whilst also promoting it non-stop on social media. These design blogs have a lot
of followers both on email lists and on social media. That means more traffic
and more potential leads to your website.
2) The people that want to use your images will have to provide attribution back
to your website, leading to more backlinks and more link juice pointing back to
your website. Of course, if those bloggers are not linking back to your photo,
you can use the Google Reverse Image search method to find those neglected
images.
Get Links From Journalists and Famous Bloggers
121. Join Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
This is by far one of my favourite linkbuilding strategies because of the exposure
your website can get and the quality of links in return (PR 5, 6, 7, you name it).
Help A Reporter Out (HARO) allows journalists, members of the media and
online writers to search for people that can answer questions they have in
relation to a subject they know little about. They simply post their query on the
HARO website and this query gets sent to 85,000 “sources” (everyday people
who may have a deep knowledge or experience of a particular subject) by email
each day.
Major news channels such as CNN, Fox News and The Huffington Post use
HARO every day and there is a good chance you will find something you can be
featured on. Over 50 queries are sent as one big email and delivered to your
inbox every day.
You can scroll through the queries and see which websites are querying. This
allows you to check their PageRank (through www.prchecker.info) and see if it’s
worth making a pitch to them. Most websites have a high PageRank and this
allows you to get an extremely powerful backlink. Plus, your website will be
featured on a website with an audience of thousands or millions.
To sign up, go to www.helpareporter.com and sign up for a free account. You
can then fill in details about your brand such as your website URL or the name
of your business (optional). Tick the boxes for the categories of HARO you
would like to receive. The General HARO sums up what can be found in all the
various HARO categories but if you want to be niche specific, you can sign up
for Tech, Business or Lifestyle.
122. Use The "HARO Contributor Hack"
The dream of many: Gaining backlinks or referrals from industry experts...what
could be better? Just imagine 50 experts/famous people in your field all linking
to your content/website. You’d be famous)!
But how do you get people to share and link to your content?
The best way to do this is to do what I call the “Contributor Hack”. All you have
to do is send a query on HARO asking experts what their #1 trick is for …. (you
fill in the blank).
Mention that their pitch can be from 50 – 200 words and that they will receive a
backlink to their website. Since the question is so straightforward and relatively
simple, you will get tons of responses from experts in your niche all vying for a
backlink on your website. You might even get some new ideas you haven't heard
of before.
Once you collect your responses, you can compile all of these into an expert
roundup with the title such as “50 [Niche] Experts Give Their #1 [Whatever]
Trick For Success”. eg: “50 SEO Experts Give Their #1 Linkbuilding Strategy
For Success”
When you publish your article, you can respond to all the pitches by saying that
their contribution was included in the article and send them over the link.
Since each and every one of the contributors helped in some way, they want to
make it a success. They want all their followers, friends and family to see their
contribution. This means that they will share it on social media, generating
hundreds of indirect backlinks and may link to it on their own articles.
The advantage is that you can multiply the effect by 50 and the more
contributors you have, the merrier. This little hack should really bring a huge
amount of exposure to your website and leave 50 people do all the backlinking
and promotion for you (with virtually no cost required).
Doing even two to three of these a year can mega boost your backlinks and bring
back a TON of exposure to your site.
123. Tips For Making A HARO Pitch
I've used HARO many times, receiving hundreds of pitches when you count
them all up. I've went through enough pitches for a lifetime, but certain pitches
got onto the accepted list whilst a lot of them were thrown in the thrash. Here are
the things you should keep in mind when pitching a journalist.
Be Personalized – Use flattery. Say that you've read their articles before.
Do whatever you can to sweeten those 'dead serious' writers up a little.
Don't Get Too Pushy – Do not start rambling on about your website or
company and the great things it does in the middle of your pitch. You can
add that at the end of the pitch, where the journalist can go for more
information on your website/company if they need it. Also, don't list out
requirements for the journalist to use your pitch. I received something like
this at the end of a pitch before, "If you want to use my pitch, please include
my name, what I do, my company, my website and a link to my website too
(for SEO purposes)."
Open and Close The Pitch – Open the pitch by introducing who you are
and why you would like to be a part of their article. Close the pitch by
wishing them good luck with their article, and say thanks for them giving
you the opportunity. It's simple but can really make your pitch stand out
from the crowd.
Use Grammar and Correct Spelling – Poor grammar and wrong spelling
kills any chance you might have straight away. Type your pitch into a word
processor and get it spell checked before you send it.
124. Contact A Local Journalist
Yes, journalists may have extremely busy lives and the chances a journalist will
cover your story is slim – but do it right and you have a solid chance.
I find that the best journalists to contact are the local journalists that write for
your local newspaper (which is also online). Since there's less competition in
your local area than in a national newspaper, you have a fairly good chance of
getting a story done.
Also, since your local, you can also meet them in person for an interview which
is always another incentive for journalists to write about your story.
If your company just launched, achieved an award or got a certain amount of
sales – a journalist can easily turn this into an interesting story.
However, you need an interesting twist to make it a newsworthy story. It might
be the fact that you're the only company in the country that sells that product or
that you have the most customers in the region, within that niche.
125. Find Journalists With "Muck Rack"
Muck Rack (www.muckrack.com) allows you to find journalists related to your
niche. By simply searching for your niche, you can find journalists which cover
that topic. The free account gives you very limited access to search results, and
you can only get a handful of journalists with each search. However, by
purchasing a paid account (in the region of about $200 monthly), you can get
full access to most of their features.
I have found this to be useful when trying to get "interesting" start up websites
off the ground, and to get extremely high PR links back to a website. However, I
wouldn't recommend using Mud Rack if you don't have a newsworthy story to
share with them. Journalists are very choosey on what stories they want to cover,
so the decision of contacting them is completely up to you.
126. Find British Journalists You Can Contact
If you're finding it difficult to locate niche specific journalists, you can find them
all at www.journalisted.com. This site only covers journalists in the UK, and
media outlets such as the Guardian and the BBC. There are over 30,000 British
journalists at this site, so you are sure to find the perfect journalist to cover your
story.
127. Sign Up To ProfNet, For More Media Opportunities
This is very similar to HARO, where you can sign up as an expert and receive
queries from journalists or bloggers who want information or tips on a certain
topic. Sign up to this, and you'll get queries to your inbox every day that are all
related to your niche. You can sign up to both HARO and this, if you want to
amplify your chances of receiving the perfect query.
It’s completely free, and you can sign up as an expert at
www.prnewswire.com/profnet
128. Personalize Your Email
Get them seriously thinking about covering you. The only way to do that is to
personalize your email. Ask them a question about their latest project or event,
eg: how their latest journalists' conference in Denver went. Give them
compliments such as how much you enjoyed reading their feature about
whatever.
"The world revolves around me. Me, me, me. My favorite person: Me.
I don’t want email from you. I don’t want junk mail from you. I want me-mail."
— Seth Godin
You'll be surprised at how a little flattery can work.
When I asked SEO experts to send contributions, I got a lot which said "Hi
there" or even worse, "Hi Sir". Ahem. #Facepalm
These emails were all about them, about their company, about their
achievements and so on. It looked like their latest PR stunt. They were riding the
gravy train, wanting to get a feature in a book.
Compare these with marketers who said "Hi Silvia", "Wow, I like the sound of
your book!" and "I'm looking forward to reading your book, good luck with it!".
These contributions were featured (well, obviously the good ones were featured,
I didn't pick them based on personalization, but as you can see – it still buttered
me up), and now you can see why a little personalization will always guarantee
success.
No matter what you do, always add some personalization. You'll be surprised at
the results.
129. Common Outreach Email Mistakes
Here are a few things to never do when you're sending outreach emails to get
links, guest posts or just for some plain simple promotion.
Being Blunt Hurts – Don't make plans such as "I want to write a guest post
for you. Please send me your response in 24 hours" or "I want two links to
my blog in the guest post." Let them accept you first, and then you can start
bargaining.
Super Long Email Signatures – Avoid attaching a super long, ugly mess
of an email signature including practically every little thing you've done in
your life and every social media site you've ever joined. All you need is
your name, company, personal website and a few social media channels. No
more.
Sending Late In The Week – Avoid sending your email on a Friday
evening, or even on a Thursday. Chances are, it'll get drowned in an
unfaltering mass of weekend email. Also, avoid sending emails on a
Monday too. They'll be working on getting through all that weekend email,
and your email could get ignored.
Blathering On About Your Company – The email isn't a press release,
always keep that in mind. Mention your company's/website's slogan or tell
them what it does in a sentence.
130. Don't Email Multiple Journalists At Once
If you're trying to contact more than one journalist at a time just to "quicken
things up", you're only wasting your time. It'll hit the trash pile quicker than you
think. Always send a separate email to each journalist.
131. Give Journalists Everything They Need (Photos, Facts, Figures and a
Press Release)
Don’t give them a couple of sentences about what your story is about. Instead,
give them photos, facts, statistics and even a press release if you have one.
Journalists lead busy lives and the easier it is to write a story without contacting
you for further information, the more you increase your chance of getting written
about.
Getting Links For Stolen Content
132. Build Links Through Getting Your Content Scraped/Copied
Your content is bound to be copied at some stage, and for some webmasters –
they find that their content has been copied hundreds or even thousands of times.
Even if you get the content taken down, there will always be another site that'll
resurrect the copied content once more. A common problem for many, but get
creative and you'll see that getting content copied can become a linkbuilding
strategy.
In your content, add links to other blog posts you've written and add a note at the
end of your article, as described below.
133. Add A Note At The End Of Your Article
Include a note like this at the end of your article:
"This article was written by Susan Wells on BlogName.com, on the 17th
December 2015."
Add a link to the note by hyperlinking one of the words, back to the original
article. That way, if your content gets copied or scraped, the note with the link
will get copied too.
134. Image Attribution Links
After a couple of months, your site should start receiving daily traffic. This
means that more and more people will be viewing it and checking out your
content and images. If you have some steal-worthy images, that will lead to
jealous bloggers and they may use your image on their blogs without any
attribution. You have two options; leave them alone or get a link back to your
site as attribution.
The best way to find out if other people have been stealing your images is to use
Google Images reverse search feature. You can upload your images that you
want to check and search for them. Google will then show you all the places this
image is used online.
If any blogs or websites show up that aren’t yours, your image has been stolen.
However, this can be easily attended to. Since you caught out the person who did
it (and using others’ images is an offence), they have no option but to do as you
say. Otherwise, you could report them for copyright infringement.
The following image will explain exactly how to use Google’s Reverse Image
Search to find stolen images. Professionals and stock image companies use this
method all the time to find images that weren’t attributed or paid for.
If you have found any images that aren’t attributed or correctly following your
license terms, it’s time to make justice done (and get a backlink)!
Contact the webmaster with the following template:
Dear [Name],
I recently came across your content, [URL].
Great stuff! However, I noticed that the [number, eg: third] image you used of
the [object] is my own work and has been used without attribution. Could you
please link back to my website as attribution for the image? You can either link
the image to my website or provide the link at the end of your article in the
image credits section. Otherwise, I will have to take further action.
Thank you,
[Your Name]
This email will scare the webmaster severely. Further action could mean losing
an AdSense account, losing their indexing on Google, losing their website
hosting or just the complete shutting down of their website. The response rate for
getting that backlink is extremely high since they want to avoid any trouble.
135. Send A Follow Up Email If You Don't Hear Anything Back
Sometimes, the person you're trying to reach made a simple mistake by
forgetting to reply to your email, or fix the broken link or give attribution to your
images. If you don't hear back from them after two weeks, it's time to follow up.
You can add a reminder to your email
Or, you can use Boomerang Email (www.boomerangemail.com) which is a free
email app that sends a follow up to that person, if they don’t reply back within a
certain time period. It also has a built-in function to give you reminders, such as
if you need to contact someone later on or get a follow up. If outreach is a hefty
part of your day, you will need this app for sure!
Broken Linkbuilding and Dead Content Linkbuilding
136. Broken Link Building
This tactic involves finding blogs that have broken links (links that point to
pages that no longer exist, or content that was taken down) and then asking the
webmaster if you can replace the broken link with your content. Follow these
steps to find broken links on blogs in your niche:
1) Get a list of blogs in your niche. About five is plenty.
2) Input the links of these blogs into Buzzstream's list builder. This takes the
links found on their blogroll and inserts them back into the list.
3) Download the results as a CSV and open it up in Excel. Copy and paste the
links into the tool (which takes a max of 50 links) at
www.seoautomatic.com/unique. This will check if any of the websites in the list
show up as a 404 (no longer available). Make sure you the links include the
HTTP header, ie: http://www.seoautomatic.com and not
www.seoautomatic.com.
4) Copy the URLs of the websites which are no longer on the web, and enter
them into www.ahrefs.com. This tool will show you which blogs and websites
are linking to the website (which is a broken link for them).
5) Go to these websites and contact them with this template:
Hi [Name of Webmaster],
I'm a huge fan of your website/blog! I have noticed that you are linking to the
website, www.disappeared-website.com and it is a broken link.
Since that website is no longer available, I was wondering if you wanted to link
to this website [URL of your website] instead which focuses on [state aim of
your website].
Thanks so much!
Kind Regards,
[Your Name]
137. Dead Content Broken Linkbuilding
That's quite a mouthful, isn't it? In reality, it's actually a simple strategy that you
can use to build links.
1) Get the list of the 404 websites which are no longer available. Check the
content on their blogs and make a list of their blog posts.
2) Plug these links into www.ahrefs.com and see which pages are linking to their
content.
3) Take a visit to these websites and contact them with this template:
Hi [Name of Webmaster],
You've got some super helpful posts on your blog, and I'm an avid reader of
them. I have noticed that you are linking to this piece of content which is a 404:
www.disppeared.com/zero-nada and it is a broken link.
Since that page is no longer available, I was wondering if you wanted to link to
my piece of content instead which is very similar to the old one. Let me know
what you think.
Thanks so much!
Kind Regards,
[Your Name]
138. Find A Resource Page and Look For Broken Links
Get a resource page in your niche by entering the following search strings into
Google:
"[your niche] + resources"
"[your niche] + best blog posts"
Download the "Check My Links" browser extension for Chrome and check the
page for any broken links. Since it's a resource page and has tens of links, at least
one or two of them should point to a no longer existing page.
139. Decide Which Websites To Get Broken Links From
When you notice that a website is linking to a 404 page that's gone off the web,
you need to decide whether contacting that website is worth your time. Check
for the following when you are deciding to get a broken link from that website:
More Than Twenty Links? – Since the PageRank flows to all the links,
you will get little PageRank (or link juice, as the experts like to call it) or
barely any at all.
Spam Links – If they are linking to spam sites such as "payday loan" sites,
you don't exactly want your link beside theirs. It looks very dodgy and
could get you penalized by Google.
Poor Quality Content – If the content isn't of a high quality, you risk
getting a low quality, spam link back to your site. Only get backlinks from
websites that have high quality content which get a high PageRank as a
result (from all the pages linking to them).
A Poor Quality Website Overall – Use your own judgement on this. If the
website has little or no authority in your niche, there's not much point in
getting a backlink from them.
140. Don't Use Full URLs In Your Emails
If you have an extra-long link to a page of yours or theirs, you'd be better off
hyperlinking a word instead. Super long links could trigger the spam filters of
their email.
141. Give Them A Phone Call
I've tried this a few times, and it works. A full conversation converts so much
better than an email. It’s quick, it's instant and it'll hopefully help develop a
relationship with that webmaster who might link to your website in future content of theirs or share your blog posts on Twitter.
142. Found An Old Website? Send This Template Instead
When on the hunt for links and fixing broken links, send the following email to websites that look like they were last updated in the 90s. Since the owner probably isn't maintaining the website anymore, you need to write a very quick and short email just to see if they are still maintaining the website.
Hi there, Are you still updating your website, [Website URL]? I found a broken link that
I'd like to point out to you.
Thanks,
[Your Name]
143. Get Wikipedia Backlinks
Wikipedia offer you the chance to add references at the end of their articles, allowing you the chance to submit your link.
The links in the References box are "nofollow" (no PageRank will flow to your site), but you can get a huge amount of referral traffic from their articles, since millions of people land on Wikipedia every day. Also, when citing their sources, people will link to your page. That's two major benefits, and you know what's even better? It isn't too difficult to get a backlink from Wikipedia. Here's a step by step guide:
1. Sign up for a free account at www.wikipedia.org
2. Build up some history, showing you're a responsible person by editing a few articles and fixing some broken links by linking to other people's
content.
3. Go to www.wikigrabber.com and search for your niche. This tool basically tells
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If you have any Misunderstanding Please let me know