How do you scale your link building team?

1 Define your link building process

Before you hire more people or outsource your link building tasks, you need to have a well-defined and documented link building process to standardize your methods, avoid mistakes, and measure your results. This process should begin with keyword research to identify the keywords you want to rank for and analyze the competition and search intent. Then, produce high-quality, relevant, and engaging content that matches the keywords and provides value to your audience. Afterward, find potential link opportunities based on your niche, authority, and relevance using tools like Ahrefs, Moz, or SEMrush. Next, contact the prospects and pitch your content with personalized and persuasive emails that highlight the benefits of linking to you. Additionally, track your outreach responses and follow up with those who haven't replied or agreed to link to you using tools like Mailshake, Buzzstream, or Pitchbox. Finally, monitor and analyze your link building performance and ROI by using tools like Google Analytics, Google Search Console, or Linkody to track your metrics and KPIs.

2 Hire the right people

Scaling your link building team requires hiring individuals who can execute your link building process with effectiveness and efficiency. It is essential to seek out people who possess SEO knowledge, content writing abilities, communication skills, research aptitude, and organizational talent. For example, they should understand the basics of SEO and how link building works, be able to write compelling and relevant content that matches your keywords and audience's needs, communicate professionally with prospects while building rapport and trust, conduct thorough research on prospects and their sites, find and verify contact information, manage time, tasks, and resources efficiently, follow your link building process, and report progress and results regularly.

3 Train and support your team

Once you have hired the right people, you need to train and support them in order to ensure they are in line with your link building goals and expectations. To do this, provide clear instructions and guidelines on the process, tools, and best practices. Give feedback and coaching on their work and performance, recognizing their achievements and addressing their challenges. Additionally, encourage collaboration and communication within the team, creating a culture of learning and sharing. Make sure to provide the necessary resources and tools for them to do their job well, investing in software, hardware, and subscriptions. Lastly, reward them for their results and contributions with incentives, bonuses, or recognition.

4 Automate and outsource what you can

Scaling your link building team also means automating and outsourcing certain tasks that are repetitive, low-value, or beyond your capacity. To do this, you can use tools and software to automate parts of the link building process, such as finding prospects, sending outreach emails, following up, tracking responses, and reporting. Additionally, you may want to outsource tasks that require specialized skills or expertise such as content writing, graphic design, video production, or web development. Hiring freelancers, agencies, or platforms can provide you with quality content and assets for your link building campaigns. Furthermore, if the tasks are too time-consuming or tedious, you can hire virtual assistants, data entry specialists, or link checkers to handle them for you.

5 Evaluate and optimize your link building strategy

Scaling your link building team is an ongoing process that requires constant evaluation and optimization. You should review your link building process to identify what is working and what is not, as well as look for gaps, bottlenecks, or inefficiencies that you can improve or eliminate. Additionally, you should assess the performance and satisfaction of your link building team, and review your link building results to compare them with your goals and benchmarks. This will help you identify trends, patterns, or insights that you can use to optimize your strategy and tactics. Scaling your link building team is a difficult but rewarding endeavor. By following these tips, you can grow your link building efforts and more quickly meet your SEO goals.