Link Building Strategies: Strategize, Build, and Succeed

Building high-quality backlinks is crucial for SEO success. As Backlinko reports, over 90% of the top ranking web pages on Google have at least one external link pointing to them.

I am Vijay Kanth, a link building specialist. This comprehensive guide will explore the most effective link-building techniques to help improve your website's authority, organic rankings, and traffic.

Link Building Fundamentals

Before delving into strategies, let's review some link-building basics:

The Role of Backlinks in SEO

• Backlinks signal to Google that other reputable sites find your content valuable enough to link to, boosting your site's authority.
• ?Sites with higher authority linking to you pass more link equity, improving organic rankings.

Importance of Quality over Quantity

• Websites with fewer but higher quality backlinks tend to see more domain authority growth - 77.8% according to Ahrefs data.
• Quality signals include relevant linking content, contextual links, and a mix of dofollow/nofollow links.

Understanding Link Authority and Relevance

• Links from high authority sites like .edu domains can boost rankings significantly.
• Relevant, contextual links aligning with your industry pass more equity.

Having covered the building blocks, let's delve into practical link-building strategies and techniques.

Strategic Outreach

Securing high quality links starts with targeted outreach to ensure relevance.

Identifying Link Prospects

• Utilize advanced search queries - find sites linking to competitors but not you.
• Analyze competitor links - assess sites in your space to obtain authoritative links.

Personalized Outreach

Campaign Monitor reports 26% higher open rates for personalized subject lines.

• Craft compelling emails - focus on relevance, and tell a story.
• Leverage social media - for a layered relationship building approach.

Content-Led Link Building

Creating high-quality, link-worthy assets should be core to your strategy.

Optimizing and Promoting Assets

According to Jeff Bullas, content with images receives 94% more views. Some proven linkable asset formats include:

• Infographics
• Data-driven guides/reports
• Tools and interactives

Once created, actively promote and distribute assets through email, social media ads, and collaborations with influencers.

Measuring Content Performance

When assessing content for link building, analyze the following:

• Social engagement
• Backlinks driven
• Traffic referred

Guest Posting & Content Promotion

Publishing articles in authoritative industry publications helps drive high quality links, while increasing domain authority.

Optimizing Guest Posts

As OptinMonster reports, sites publishing over 16 guest posts monthly obtain 3.5X more traffic.

When crafting guest articles follow these best practices for earning high quality links:

• Create truly unique, engaging content - 62% of consumers see brands more positively according to Demand Metric.
• Include visual assets like images, charts and videos.
• Insert contextual, relevant links back to the site sparingly.
• Promote content on social media channels.

Broken Link Building

While more time intensive, broken link building can yield links from extremely high-authority sites in some cases.

Identifying Broken Links

Leverage tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush to uncover:

• Pages linking out to now removed pages (HTTP 404 errors).
• Mentions of products or services with no link.

Outreach Strategy

Creating custom outreach focused on helping remediate their broken links or provide relevant recommendations. Be sure to provide a link to related content on your site (where applicable) in exchange.

Link Reclamation

Similar to broken links, prioritizing brand mentions without a link offers another opportunity.

Monitor through Google Alerts + Mentions and reach out suggesting adding a link, providing helpful, relevant recommendations related to your content.

The same outreach best practices apply for both broken link and link reclamation outreach.

Public Relations (PR)

PR and link building have powerful synergies when leveraged together. Media publicity drives links from extremely authoritative newspaper domains.

Cultivating Media Relationships

Build lasting connections with journalists/outlets monitoring your space through:

• Personalized story pitches
• Contributed articles
• Aggregated data reports
• Thought leadership

Promoting Content

PR pairs perfectly with a content-powered link building approach. Promote visual assets, data driven guides and timely reports through media partnerships first for guaranteed placements and links.

Monitoring Link Building Performance

To continually fuel more links, closely analyze efforts through analytics platforms and reports.

Link Tracking Metrics

Tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush and Moz provide data on:

• Referring domains
• Referring pages
• Social shares

Rank Tracking

Services like Search Console and Sistrix spotlight ranking improvements, assisting in quantifying link equity gains.

A continuous analytics review helps guide future link prospects and outreach strategies for sustaining long term growth.

FAQs

How long does it take to see results from link building?

Depending on the methods used 2-4 months is fairly average before seeing significant momentum in building links from outreach. Over 6-12 months authority gains, rankings and traffic should reflect your increased domain power.

What is the ideal balance between dofollow and nofollow links?

40% dofollow and 60% nofollow links are a fairly even mix allowing good authority gains while appearing natural.

How do you handle link building in heavily regulated industries?

Focus efforts on brand mentions, guest posting opportunities and influencer marketing which provide compliant promotional options that likely link back. Prioritize context over placement.

Conclusion

As explored in this guide, modern link building expands far beyond just spam outreach. By focusing on high-quality referral traffic drivers such as data assets and PR, relevancy becomes easier to justify - yielding links that truly align with your brand.

Hopefully this comprehensive overview provides a blueprint for proven link building techniques that warrant dedicated testing. Approach it not as a short term tactic, but a long term brand visibility strategy powering continual growth and SEO success.

The future of rankings indeed sits at the intersection of high-authority editorial links and properly-optimized technical SEO.