But what is actually the concept of this topical authority? And why from many Ranking Systems to EEAT, most updates rollout recommending to focus more on building a topical authority? 

In this blog, we’ll dive deep into the concept of topical authority and learn how it impacts different aspects of Search and why is it equally significant for link building.  So without further adieu, let’s begin! 

What is Topical Authority?

Topical authority can be defined in several ways, for instance:

Topical authority refers to having a certain level of expertise and credibility over a particular subject or in a specific niche. 

This article explains it this way which I personally liked: 

“Topical authority is an SEO concept where a website aims to become the go-to authority on one or more topics.” 

It is also defined as the amount of authority you earn through consistently generating premium quality content. 

In order to have a better idea of it, imagine there are two content pieces on SEO trends written by an industry SEO expert and someone who’s an amateur. You along with all other users are likely to be drawn towards the piece created by a  Subject matter expert. The chances are so slim of anyone picking up the latter first. That’s how exactly the topical authority works.  

The more well-crafted content the audience comes across, the more they trust the website as a trustworthy and authoritative source. And this in return increases the chances of ranking higher in SERPs.

Because Google has this system in place — Topic Authority — that examines the degree of expertise an original source or publication has in a certain area. This Search Central Document says:

“To better surface relevant, expert, and knowledgeable content in Google Search and News, Google developed a system called topic authority that helps determine which expert sources are helpful to someone’s newsy query in certain specialized topic areas, such as health, politics, or finance.”

The whole Google article is related to news-related search queries and news sites. But the concept of it also applies to the general Search as well. You can check out the whole document for more interesting details. 

Therefore, topical authority is super important. It depicts how much a person, business, or organization understands their target audience and makes an effort to cater to what they’re searching for on the internet. 

Topical Authority vs Domain Authority

Note that topical authority is a whole different concept from domain authority. It is simply a search engine ranking score that predicts how likely a website is to rank over its competitors in SERPs. 

Why is it important for SEO? 

When it comes to search engines, topical authority can simply influence the rankings. As a rule of thumb, well-crafted, quality content emanating a good amount of topical authority is likely to rank higher on Google. Because Search Engine Algorithm is a

This way you’re developing a level of trust, both with your target audience and the Search Engine. Truly a win-win situation over here!   

Here’s a little example, if you go to Google and type in ‘Fashion’, Vogue and Fashion Noval will appear in the top 2 spots. This is a testament to Google acknowledging the topical authority of these websites in the fashion niche over all other gazillions of sites out there. So, it just ranks them over others.

How to build Topical Authority 

Okay, so here’s the thing, Building topical authority isn’t some piece of cake. It requires persistent effort, undying enthusiasm, and vigilant attention to the ever-evolving trends and consumer demands. The whole process takes a considerable amount of time depending on the type of quality you’re delivering to users. 

To give you a good starting point, here are some tips to initiate building topical authority in your niche.

Create a Winning Content Strategy

First of all things, you need to have a powerful content strategy designed to cater to your audience specifically. For that, you need to kickstart an in-depth research process. Look out for the ongoing discourse happening in your industry, the hot trends, myths, and ambiguities, and the plethora of questions asked by your target audience. 

You can also look into different social platforms, keyword data from different tools, Google’s People Also Ask, and online tools as well. Simply put, it’s best to use every resource available to you for building a robust content strategy from the ground up. This will help you garner diverse ideas to further work on.     

Keep in mind your content pieces are supposed to outperform other content on the internet, it should be nothing but outstanding!    

Craft Topic Clusters

Topic Clusters are a crucial part of the topical authority map. In case you don’t know, they’re the range of content assets based on the same topic. These content pieces contributed to delivering all relevant and necessary information under the umbrella of every particular topic. This helps your audience find all the answers they’re looking for. 

And as Google actively looks for subtopics, matching phrases and synonyms, and specific topics, topic clusters give out signals that there’s a plethora of information present on your website. Therefore, Google will consider your content more authoritative than the others. 

Take the help of Subject Matter Experts to Craft Content 

Now the major task — creating incredible quality content that is conducive to building your topical authority. There are two ways you can approach this. Either you can build a team of subject matter experts that create exceptional quality content pieces, or, you can ask industry experts to assist your team so that they can produce coveted quality. 

No matter what approach you go for, it will greatly help you produce pieces that provide valuable information, clarify concepts, deliver data, and give users exactly what they’re looking for. And eventually, you’ll brand will start to get noticed and receive more traction.   

Prioritize getting Relevant Links 

Link building is a crucial part of cementing your topical authority. And while getting backlinks to your well-thought-out, incredibly written, authoritative content pieces, one thing that should be prioritized more than anything is topical relevance.  For instance, if you’re creating a stack of content on kito diets, then always look out for getting backlinks from bigger kito diet blogs or websites that cover kito diet specifically. This will not only help you build your authority but also get you streams of new audience, traffic, and coveted visibility. And while making an effort to acquire backlinks in an organic manner, don’t ignore internal links. 

Internal links also help Google to know more about your website and the type of content you roll out. So, it goes without saying that these internal links are also crucial for building authority.  

So what you can do is treat the most in-depth, lengthy piece of content as a pillar page and use internal links to further connect it to every piece of content you have on the same topic. And these supporting pieces can link out to the primary page on which you want to draw in the most attention.  

Final thoughts

Developing topical authority is similar to becoming a prodigy in a particular subject matter. It takes time, effort, and persistent passion, but eventually, you get there. And this is what we’ve learned witnessing the amazing journeys of so many uber-successful experts and businesses. Had they given up, we wouldn’t have any idea about who they are today.   

Hence, prioritize building topical authority in your content, vision, and all interactions. And you’ll start meeting your goals effortlessly.

The post The Significance of Topical Authority appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

As the fashion industry is oversaturated and ever-evolving, how can you ensure that your fashion website draws in the attention, receives the spotlight, and gets noticed? And it’s not just another website in the stream of the internet. So, here’s where link-building — part of fashion SEO — comes into the scene. 

In this blog, we’ll explore the world of link-building in the fashion niche and the right ways to perform it for your own good. But before that, let’s talk a little about the significance of the fashion seo coalition.         

The Significance of Link-building in the Fashion Industry

With every passing day, consumers are growing dependent more on search engines to make purchases. And this applies to both online and offline shopping. According to this comprehensive report, a total of 15% of consumers still look up their desired products on the internet before they make a purchase from the physical store.     

Amid this scenario, link-building and fashion SEO come into play. It gives sites that required edge that helps them get on top spots in SERPs and puts them right in front of their target audience. So, all you have to do is execute SEO for fashion, build quality links directed at your targeted web pages, and gain more traction…… a piece of cake, right? That’s not it!   

There’s much more than what meets the eye. I’m talking about how it is different from conventional link-building, how you decide which sites are apt choices for building links, and how you analyze the ever-evolving nature, interests, and preferences of your consumer base. We’re talking about all that jazz. 

Here are some easy ways you can acquire fashion backlinks to power up your digital showcase. Without further adieu, let’s begin!

Make it to the Big Media and Sites 

The buzz and hype created around any exclusive collection make a huge difference in leads, sales, and traction in its entirety. The right type of promotion in the big media platforms has the potential to completely flip the game for any brand, for good, of course. And speaking of which, the big media platforms include authoritative fashion websites, popular style blogs, active e-zines, and forums. 

And here’s a simple method through which you can land backlinks from these sites with a little effort. 

Find the right news media sites 

First of all, look out for the appropriate media sites in your niche. In case if you’re someone trying to get featured in media sites for the first time, you can start your research by targeting the small, local websites first before reaching out to the bigger ones. Not only will this tactic make it easy to get the backlinks from small, local sites but it will also put you on the radar of the bigger sites for future prospecting. 

Study their existing audience  

Do some research about what fashion lovers love reading about the most, like what makes them tick. Make a list of the existing content pieces that received the majority of engagements and social shares on other platforms too. In addition, don’t forget to analyze other intricate nuances as well, for instance, language, tone, writing style, wow factor, or the oomph factor…(if there are any). 

Create Fashion SEO Content

Next, you have to decide what you want to talk about in your link-building content to make it link-worthy. And when it comes to picking up a certain topic, you can have different approaches to that. You can create a stylish article on your brand’s statement pieces, talk about the new season’s staples that are trending, or highlight new outfit combos that fashion enthusiasts can try out. Moreover, you can check out that site’s most popular pieces to have more topic ideas.   

Send a Powerful Pitch to the Fashion Editor  

Find the email of the relevant editor and craft a powerful pitch to shoot them. Keep it friendly, casual, and as concise as it can be. Apart from your promoting article, you can also highlight your previous features and mentions. But don’t go overboard with it, keep it genuine. It works wonders!  

Get reviewed by Fashion Influencers and Bloggers 

Open Instagram and you’ll see it’s the world of influencers and we’re just living in it. But in all seriousness, indeed, the immense power they hold over socials can’t be denied, as they can literally turn the masses toward your brand with just a single post. Right? 

Therefore, the influencer community plays a crucial role when it comes to link-building for your brand. Even if they go around giving you no-follow links on their socials, that also counts. Because it acts as an enormous positive value signal for their loyal audience and influences their personal buying decisions for different products. And you mustn’t miss out on this sorcery. 

So, buckle up, and get to know the top shots in your fashion and style niche. And don’t forget to also get details about small to medium influencers. You can also make separate lists of fashion bloggers (ones only having a website) and full-blown influencers. Because the social footprints from both sources can incredibly work in your favor in multiple ways. 

In order to get your brand noticed and build a relationship with them, you need to do more than just cold emailing, like trying out these cool tips: 

• Just dropping some meaningful comments on their posts in a nonchalant way
• Participating in an interesting discussion on their channels 
• Sending them messages and emails filled with appreciation every once in a while

Of course, all these efforts of yours won’t go unnoticed and will help you develop friendly relationships shortly. And this means, you’ll get many fashion backlinks effortlessly. 

Get Featured in Crowdsourced Fashion Posts

Crowdsourced fashion posts are high-value think pieces that draw the attention of a wide range of audiences. From clothing connoisseurs to fashion enthusiasts, everyone loves to read style experts’ takes on different topics. And this allows featured individuals to pivot more attention toward their brand or business. So, it is also undoubtedly one of the workable link-building tactics for digital fashion ventures to gain traction.

Note that there are two ways of crafting crowdsourced posts to get backlinks. 

Contribute to a Crowdsourced Post

If you ardently want to be a part of such content, then you start off by garnering data about the fashion websites that actively publish and announce crowdsourced posts. Make a short list of the sites that you want to reach out to. Then bring your A-game in outreaching. Make the editor or site owner see why you deserve a shiny feature in one of their posts. Highlight your knowledge and passion about the subject matter and what value exactly you’re capable of providing. 

It’s up to you if you want to contribute to the existing post or want to appear in the new one. Shoot a couple of emails and follow-ups too, this will increase your chances of getting a response. 

Make your own Crowdsourced Post

It’s also cool if you want to craft your very own crowdsourced post. And it becomes easier to do if you’ve already developed some meaningful relationship with industry experts or eminent individuals in your niche. If not, this can take some time as it requires putting some amount of effort into building connections first. So, slide into professional DMs, shoot some nicely-written emails telling them that you appreciate their work, etc. 

Once you’ve passed that stage then gear up for some research about the trending hot topics in the world of fashion. Pick up an interesting topic and ask them if they’d like to share their opinions and be a part of your blog post. This way you’ll have a variety of takeaways in a single content piece. After you’re done publishing the post, you can politely ask them to share that post on their sites and socials. And voila, you’ve generated a bunch of high-end, premium-quality backlinks.

Get Listed in Fashion Directories

Fashion Directories have all the details about the relevant websites including their links. Being there helps customers and prospects get to know more about different businesses, so it’s better to get listed there. Here’s how you can find all the directories related to your fashion niche:  

Use this search string — [fashion niche] + “directories” + [location]

So, it can be something like, for instance, 

Fashion + “directories”  + USA

Jeans  + “directories”  + Germany 

You can also be more specific in your search by adding more terms, like, custom jewelry, fashion apparel, puffer jackets, footwear designers, etc. 

Have a look at what popped up for the search of fashion apparel directories. 

In conclusion, the camaraderie between fashion SEO and link-building is crucial to amplify your site’s exposure. The collective SEO efforts are incomplete without fashion backlinks, it’s something like the designer outfit is missing from the rails of incredible ensembles. And you can’t afford to lose that, do you? 

Therefore prioritize achieving fashion backlinks, create an eye-catching content collection, and build connections with industry experts, and soon your fashion website will be a showstopper at every glamorous event. 

The post Link building in the Fashion Industry appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

“Links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow. It’s like how do you find a page on the web without some reference to it?”

But my guess is over time, it won’t be such a big factor as sometimes it is today. I think already, that’s something that’s been changing quite a bit.” – John Mueller

Here is the thing about link building, it is challenging! It requires creativity, persistence, and outreach skills to convince other websites to link to your content. 

So, today we decided to share some of the best outreach strategies to build legit links. 

This blog aims to learn how to find relevant prospects, craft personalized emails, follow up effectively, and measure results. By applying these strategies, you will be able to boost your organic traffic, improve your rankings, and grow your online authority.

What is a link building outreach strategy?

Here is a question, why do you ever want to outreach for building your backlink profile? 

Well, if you want to rank higher on search engines and drive more traffic to your website, you need to have a solid link-building strategy. Links are like votes of confidence that tell search engines and users that your content is valuable, relevant, and trustworthy.

And how do you get votes? You reach out to people!

Outreach is the act of reaching out to other website owners, bloggers, influencers, journalists, or anyone who has a relevant audience and can link to your content. Outreach can help you build relationships, increase your brand awareness, generate referral traffic, and ultimately boost your SEO.

How to outreach for Link Building

You know the importance of outreaching out, now is the time we know how to do it! Here are the best outreaching strategies you can do to get some links! 

• Ensure your content is the best!

No pressure, but the first strategy when you set out to outreach is to look into your content. Ensure that your content is EEAT-approved. It needs to be high-quality, rich in details, and very much authoritative. 

Add plenty of media to it, and don’t forget to add your internal links. The topic of interest should cover the maximum authentic information that is the most relevant. 

And when you are sure of this, then you can move forward. 

• The skyscraper technique

The first strategy we will introduce you to is the skyscraper technique. The skyscraper technique allows you to take over your competitor’s backlink providers and make them your own. 

But, how do you do that? Simple! Make your content better than your competitors. Once you have that part nailed, you can simply reach out to the webmaster and request them to replace the content. 

The goal is to encourage and convince the webmaster that you are better. Feel free to add your plus points. Remember that outlinking will give them an advantage too, so ensure you have that part down. 

• Broken link advantage 

Broken Backlinks are terrible for the host webmaster. Hence, you can steal the broken backlinks of your competitors and use them to your advantage. We have talked about this before in this video, check it out here. 

In summary, all you have to do is find out the broken backlinks that your competitors may have. Find out if your competitor’s landing page is the problem. If that is the case, you have already hit the bull’s eye. 

Create a content page, make sure it matches the anchor text, has all relevant details, and more. Ensure maximum optimization, and that’s it! Send an email to the webmaster. You see, the host webmaster knows that providing a broken backlink pushes their domain authority down and their rank down on the SERPs as well. So a smart webmaster will replace the backlink in a jiffy. 

• Guest posting 

Another strategy for outreach is through guest posting. Now you see, guest posting is slightly on the controversial end of SEO. 

Matt Cutts said in 2014 that it is dead! But it wasn’t! Google has strict guidelines against it. Hence, you need to ensure that if you are guest posting, you do not give a crap.

When you reach out to webmasters for a guest posting opportunity, make sure you provide them with double EEAT-approved content. That is the first thing only. 

The next thing you need to do is to ensure you have plenty of knowledge and write on the niche that you excel in and your website’s industry. Don’t go about guest posting here and there without any relevance. 

When you guest post, ensure that you know the reader audience. Even if you and the host website are in the same industry, the target audience may differ. 

Respect the host website by writing in the way their audience likes. Furthermore, add to the respect by answering comments and using the byline to introduce you and your company. 

The goal is to give the host website value so they give you a backlink. 

• Reverse outreach 

Here is something a lot of people will not talk to you about – reverse outreach! 

Yes, that is a thing! Reverse outreach is when the webmasters give you backlinks without any outreach. However, these work in bulk when it comes to journalistic pages only. 

Journalistic pages have stats and data-like information. The pages that journalists need online to validate their claims through data. 

Brian Dead coined the term and showed in his blog how one achieves the reverse outreach process. 

In summary, reverse outreach is a data-rich page validating the information that journalists want and need. 

What outreaching strategies to ignore

There are so many strategies for outreach that you will see on the internet. However, here are a few of them that you will read, and think are fruitful – but you need to ignore them.

1. Exchanging links
   According to Google’s Link Spam Update, exchanging links is a no-no!
   “Excessive link exchanges (“Link to me and I’ll link to you”) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking” should be avoided according to Google.
   Link exchanging comes under black hat practices. ‘Link to me, and I’ll link to you’ manipulates search engines and reduces the chances of organically linked pages to come on top of the SERPs.
   If you are found doing this, then bid adieu to your website.
2. Link barter
   Link barter is like exchanging links, except it is with a product. A lot of bloggers might be guilty of this. ‘Send us a product so we review it and give you a backlink’.
   Once again, this goes against the Google Product Review Update and manipulates the search engine rankings. If you want to do so, then you have to ensure that you specify to Google that this is sponsored through the rel attribute.

Wrap up

To wrap up, outreach strategies for link building are essential for any website that wants to rank higher on search engines and drive more traffic. By following effective outreach strategies, you can earn high-quality backlinks that boost your authority and visibility. Remember always to provide value, be relevant, and follow up politely. Outreaching strategies for link building may take time and effort, but they are worth it in the long run.

The post Link Building Outreach Strategy Guide appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

However, doing link-building in-house is not something that is frowned upon. Even though it could be more difficult based on the size of your brand, it does come with its own pros and cons too. 

In-House Link Building Pros

You Get Full Ownership

When you decide to build links with an in-house team, you get control of the full process. This means that you get full knowledge about every little detail involved. With each and every aspect of your link building under your scrutiny, you can also make sure that any mistakes are minimized.

Adjust KPIs and Strategies to Suit Current Objectives

In-house link building allows you to set and adjust KPIs as you need. For example, at one time you might require higher SERP rankings but at another, you may be focused on getting more organic traffic. We know that different links behave differently, and if you’re doing link building in-house you would know what the effect of acquired backlinks would be. This would mean that your link-building efforts would be focused on achieving your SEO objectives

Create a Powerful Network in Your Niche

One of the best things that you get with in-house link building is that you start establishing your own network in your niche. This means that other than your target audience, you also have the opportunity to establish communication with blog websites as well as journalists in your niche. 

This network can be extremely useful if you’re consistent in your link-building efforts and are ready for the long haul. Over time your network will only grow in potential meaning your SERP position will keep on strengthening.

In-House Expertise

When your link building is done solely in-house, your SEO team gains expertise in link building at every turn. While this might mean that you start slow at first, with learned experience, the team can become adept at building valuable backlinks.

However, keep in mind that even though building links in-house comes with benefits, there are many risks and cons involved in the process.

Cons of In-House Link Building

Getting the Right Team is Difficult and Costly

Finding the experts in link building can be quite a tedious task. The first problem you’ll face is how to gauge if they are an expert. If you’re hiring SEOs who have already worked on your niche, you won’t know for sure until months later when they are already working in your team. 

Another problem with having an in-house team is that these experts will come at a high cost. If you want the best people, you will have to pay them so that they remain with you in the long run too.

Access to the Right SEO Tools can be Hectic and Increase Costs

Even with a winning team, you would need to invest in possibly various SEO tools. You might have a subscription to most of them if you already have an SEO department, but different SEOs often prefer different tools. While one of them might want to work with Ahrefs, the other might want to opt for SEMrush or Moz. You will find that the best SEO tools are always priced quite high, as they enable insights that can’t be found otherwise. 

Your Team will Likely Gain Experience Gradually

Since you’re only starting your link-building efforts with a new team, it will take time to see how your link-building works in your niche. For some niches getting links can be a breeze and there is often high volatility. However, in others, you might struggle to get a single valuable link over a couple of months. Your fresh team would need time to assess how link-building works in your niche and what tips and tricks are actually usable versus tactics that might prove harmful in the long run. 

Scalability can be Difficult

Unless you start with a large team, it would be impossible to send tons of outreach emails in a single day. Moreover, the average response rate on a cold email is just 8.5% so without tonnes of emails, acquiring links at scale will become even more difficult. 

It Takes Time to Establish a Network

If you want to address the previous con, you need a solid network. In other words, your website should be recognized by the major players in your niche. However, creating and maintaining this network will require a lot of time. Unless you’re providing link-worthy content to those websites, they won’t be enthusiastic about providing you with a backlink. Of course, it goes without saying that you can’t pay for backlinks at all.

Only once you have a solid network in your niche, can you hope of getting links consistently.

Why Do Websites Outsource Link Building?

As you can see, while an in-house link-building team can be favorable over the long run, it comes with its own set of challenges. This is one reason why most websites outsource their link-building campaigns rather than have an in-house team. 

Here are a few instances where outsourcing link building becomes a better option than establishing an in-house team for building backlinks.

You want Quick Links

When you order links from a link-building agency you can get backlinks much more quickly as they have an already established network in multiple niches and can quickly arrange a backlink for your website.

You Lack the Budget for an Internal Team

One of the main reasons why websites prefer agencies to internal teams is because they simply don’t have the budget for their SEO department. However, they can order a specific number of backlinks from an agency that is ready to help them up the SERPs.

Websites Want a Streamlined Link Building Process

Websites may want to acquire consistently in order to climb up the SERPs and reach the first position. With a good link-building agency this becomes achievable as websites are able to order links based on DA. The agency then reaches out to blogs of the relevant niche with content and procures the backlink for its clients.

Acquiring Links is Difficult

It is usually quite difficult to start link-building from scratch, especially if your website is relatively unknown. With the help of a link-building agency, this problem is solved as the agency has an established rapport and assures trust from other websites to procure backlinks. 

Benefits of outsourcing Link Building

When it comes to outsourcing link building, there are plenty of perks. The only downside of outsourcing link-building efforts is that you are unable to gain direct knowledge about the link-building process itself.

Faster Results

As link-building agencies already have a large network and are in constant communication with content publishing websites, their emails are answered quickly. A link-building agency can acquire a link much faster than a normal outreach email being sent by a relatively unknown website. 

Considerably Cheaper than Establishing Internal Operations

With an order to a link building agency, you know exactly the type of backlink that you will get. Moreover, with a white label and white hat link building agency, you are also assured that the link you acquire will be valuable for your website’s SEO. 

Where an internal operation may cost thousands of bucks just to find the right websites to outreach to, with the added cost of time in starting communications, a link building agency can provide valuable links for a couple hundred dollars.

Consistent Backlinks without Stress

You won’t have to stress about the response rate of your outreach emails. With a link building agency, you just need to place an order and see your website gain new backlinks.

Agencies Know What Works Best

With a link-building agency, you get the services of experts without having to pay for them on a monthly basis. Instead, the whole process is optimized, from the initial email to the final trickle of link juice. 

Allows Websites to prioritize other tasks

You can allocate time for other projects and operations with link building outsourced. In other words, outsourcing can increase efficiency. This time can also be used to come up with better strategies and ideas to ensure better conversions.

Acquire High-Quality Backlinks and Referral Traffic

Ordering from a link-building agency allows the website to get backlinks exactly how they want it. Your link building agency will guide you on how acquired links will help your SEO. Although the impact on your SERP position is highly dependent on your niche, rest assured that you will see changes in traffic as well as your position on the search results in just a few months. 

The post Why Outsourcing Link Building is a Better Option Than Doing it Internally? appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

Of course, building links isn’t a piece of cake, especially for those who are just starting out, lack experience, or haven’t been around in the industry for much time. Because the link-building realm is challenging with no room for mistakes. Like declining site traffic, a drop in SERP rank, or worse, Google penalizing a site.  

So, it’s essential to know about these common link-building mistakes beforehand. Speaking of which we have you covered in this blog. We’ll talk about common link-building mistakes so you don’t become the unfortunate victim of any of their consequences. So, let’s begin. 

Not focusing on Search Intent and On-page SEO 

Imagine a scenario where a user is landing on your website through a backlink. But what they come across is not very impressive. The content doesn’t satisfy their search intent and there are noticeable on-page SEO issues too. All of these elements contribute to delivering a not-very-impressive user experience to them. And as a result, they back away and jump out of your webpage. Sad, right? 

This is what happens when site owners only focus on building backlinks and not on the power duo of search intent and on-page SEO. And this is one of the most common strategic link-building mistakes. In case you don’t know, this ongoing year, SEOs around the world are prioritizing search intent more than anything. 

In 2022, Statista conducted a survey among SEO professionals around the world to find out their priorities for 2023. It was revealed that 10.4% of respondents stated that search intent was their planned priority for the upcoming 12 months. In addition, on-page factors followed with 9%, while link-building was in the fifth spot with 8.2% of respondents.

Keeping a laser focus on these two foundational things brings so many issues and bottlenecks to the surface. And this saves you from a lot of trouble. For instance, you’re missing out on many keyword opportunities, or your existing content isn’t satisfying the user intent, or you need to do an SEO audit. These issues can collectively affect your effective link-building goals.   

The Fix 

• Perform a comprehensive SEO audit first and resolve the issues you find out. Look out for the missing keyword opportunities and include them in your target pages. 
• Develop a deep understanding of the search intent/keyword intent of your target audience.   
• Check out who’s currently ranking in your niche with the most number of referring domains, analyze their content, and aim to create something better than that.
• Every content piece you create, make sure it reflects your expertise on the subject matter. In case your existing pieces don’t touch the benchmark, it’s time to build a new content strategy. 

Not creating Linkable/Linkworthy Content 

Sites without outstanding content will always struggle to land premium-quality backlinks. It’s a no-brainer that the content piece with a plethora of useful, hard-to-find information will be noticed first in comparison to some mediocre, cliched, and run-of-the-mill content. Your target audience is smart and they won’t keep tabs on you if they figure out your content is nothing special or unique.   

The Fix 

• Always prioritize creating linkable/link-worthy content. It should be of premium quality and exceptionally outstanding that others can’t resist linking to it. 
• Create case studies, industry analyses, statistics pages, reports, guides, and other types of long-form content. 
• Garner information from publically available data and other online sources. Go above and beyond your limits to collect information. 
• Focus on providing unique value to your target audience. 

For more information, you can check out our blog on how to create link-worthy content. 

Buying Links 

There are times when link-building campaigns fail to land a considerable amount of backlinks or any backlinks at all. In times like these, the idea of buying links seems appealing and convenient, and some marketers do end up doing that. But, there’s zero guarantee it will bring back any benefits. On the contrary, not only it will count as using a black hat SEO tactic, but it will also increase the chances of Google penalizing your site. 

The Fix   

• Read the link spam policy of Google, and avoid every practice that involves buying links or exchanging products/services for links. 
• Always prioritize organic link-building and stick to white hat practices. 
• It’s okay to avail the services of link-building agencies and professionals in the industry. They earn backlinks for their clients through organic methodologies and well-written content.  

Building many backlinks via Shady Tactics

Some SEOs only focus on getting hundreds of backlinks in a short period of time. In order to achieve their target, they use manipulative practices to inflate the backlink count as soon as possible. This is downright wrong! 

It is a fact that Google is cool with people building hundreds of backlinks in a few days as long as they’re using the proper methods to achieve them. If that’s not the case, the algorithm will simply ignore those links or penalize them. In this search central video, Mueller said: 

“So it is not so much the number of links and the time you are talking about. It is more the type of links you are building and the type of link building you are doing in general. If you are dropping links on random sites, if you are buying links if you are exchanging links using some weird link network. All of those things would be against our guidelines which would perhaps result in 200 links being built in two days. And since our webmaster guidelines, we try to catch those algorithmically and ignore them. And we do from time to time try to look at these things from a manual point of view and we may take manual action.

So really, it is not the number in the period of time, it is really the type of activity instead.”

The Fix 

• Focus on the quality of links rather than the quantity. 
• Always prioritize keeping the natural backlink profile with all backlinks earned through the right means. 

Ignoring Link Relevancy 

this is also one of the common link-building mistakes. If a tourism website receives backlinks from sites outside its niche, like home decor and gardening, those links will simply be considered irrelevant. These types of links aren’t assigned much weight because Link Relevancy matters to Google. 

Relevant links help Google understand what your content is about, and what your business offers, and discover more of your site’s pages. Simply put, getting links from the topically relevant pages may improve the rankings of the target page for the associated search terms.   

The Fix 

• Seek links from relevant and authoritative sites. Do some research to find out which site is ranking higher for your targeted keywords.
• Analyze the content of these sites to determine if they match the subject matter on your site. 
• Examine your site’s content to figure out if it’ll be useful to users or not. 

Not diversifying Anchor Texts and Sources

Using keyword-rich anchor texts may have worked in the past, but not anymore. So, if today, anyone tries to manipulate the algorithm by overusing the same anchor texts and placing them in the same sources many times, this practice won’t get them anywhere. Google will have a look at this backlink profile having the same anchor texts linking to the same sources and find it unnatural and suspicious for all the right reasons.  Because, it’s simply considered keyword stuffing and link spam which can lead to penalization.   

The Fix 

Here’s what Google says about writing a good anchor text: 

• Use a set of naturally optimized anchor texts and avoid repetition 
• Build your backlinks on different sources, niche-specific sites, blogs, socials, and other platforms. 
• This way you’ll be able to create a natural backlink profile that will be noticed by the algorithm. 

Not performing Outreach in the right way 

Many SEOs in the industry do not pay much attention to writing attention-grabbing outreach emails. They downplay its significance and don’t put much effort into them. Using a cookie-cutter formula, they always write an email like, 

Hey, I found your site, and this is crazy

Your post has a missing link 

So link us, maybe!!

This won’t work. Emails like that will end up in the trash only or simply get ignored. Sad, but true. 

Remember site owners receive a plethora of outreach emails on a daily basis. Only incredibly written, intriguing, and genuine emails catch their eye. 

The Fix 

• Be thoughtful in everything you say and deliver. Be as genuine as you can be. 
• Start with a nice greeting, address by their names, directly get to the point, and highlight what value your content piece offers to them and their audience. End on a nice note. 
• Send follow-ups if you feel like there’s a need but don’t be too insistent in any way. 

Have a look at how Tim Soulo from Ahrefs writes his outreach emails, so cool!

 Here’s another interesting outreach email written to Brian Dean. 

Ignoring Local SEO and Geo-targeted Link-building

When it comes to enhancing local search visibility, local SEO and geo-targeted link-building go hand-in-hand. And still, most companies miss out on it, which is, of course, a grave mistake.  

Combined together, they help you draw the attention of the target audience and acquire more conversions. For instance, if there’s a website for a thrift shop in Seattle, and currently, they’re only delivering to Seattle, in that context, optimizing it for the local search and getting links from other ecommerce stores, review sites, and influencers in Seattle will be beneficial. This will help Google algorithms understand the site’s geo-targeting efforts and rank it for geo-specific niche search queries and general keywords.   

The Fix

• Do an SEO audit of your site and incorporate SEO keywords into your content and landing pages. This will increase your site’s visibility in local search results and get you more leads and conversions.  
• Also, build citations and get listed in all the local directories. 
• Focus on receiving geo-relevant backlinks from local sites, blogs, directories, and listings. 
• In case you’re serving multiple regions, you can simply focus on getting backlinks from more than one region and plan your strategy accordingly.

Building only Do-follow Links

It is a fact that many SEOs still don’t count no-follow links or give them the deserved attention. This demeanor stems from another fact that no-follow links don’t pass the page rank and link value to the target page. However, it doesn’t mean that these no-follows should be completely ignored. Because, Google says:

 “All the link attributes—sponsored, UGC, and nofollow—are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We’ll use these hints—along with other signals—as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.” 

This search central doc released back in 2019 clearly states that the no-follows along with other links are used to discover and crawl sites. 

In addition, according to this report, 69% of the SEOs stated that they do report no-follow links to the stakeholders, while 62% of respondents revealed that “nofollow” is a part of their link target as well. 

Therefore, if these professionals are including no-follows in their work process, then so should you. They matter, so you better not ignore them from now on if you’ve been all this time.

The Fix 

• Include no-follow links in your backlink count. 
• Along with do-follow links, also focus on acquiring no-follows from diverse sources. 
• Having both types of links helps create the right balance, which is crucial for your link-building profile to look and appear natural to algorithms.    

Reaching at the end of our list, we have excessive reciprocal link building.   

Excessive Reciprocal Link-building

Reciprocal link-building is the common phenomenon in which websites link to other websites in their niche and also receive links in return without a formal arrangement or request. The organic process positively impacts the site’s SEO and also elevates its authority. 

Ahrefs performed a study in which 112,440 top-ranking pages were analyzed. And, it was found that almost half of the total pages have some reciprocal links. Then how can it be a mistake?   

Reciprocal link-building isn’t acceptable if it involves manipulation or is done excessively with shady tactics. Like, if someone’s going around reaching out to other website owners saying, “Will you link to me if I link to you?”, this will definitely not work. It can lead to unpleasant consequences like causing detrimental effects on your credibility or receiving a bunch of toxic backlinks. Therefore, it’s recommended never to opt for excessive reciprocal link-building with manipulative practices.   

The Fix 

• Prioritize doing reciprocal link-building in a natural and organic manner. 
• Link out to the authoritative sites having premium-quality content. You can create a personal list and start linking out to them respectively. 
• This will increase your chances of getting noticed by them and you may end up acquiring links from them in the future.   

That was all the stuff on the link-building mistakes from our side. Now, it’s time for the little bonus tip on how to shortlist your link-building prospects.  

Bonus Tip

• Pick one prospect from your list and perform a surface-level backlink audit using Ahrefs or any other tool to make sure it doesn’t contain a toxic backlink profile. Look out for the backlinks from low-quality, spammy, or irrelevant sites. Because, that’s also one of the link-building mistakes. 
• Click on the backlink profile, and scroll to the graph to check if the link profile is declining or has been stagnant for a while. If there’s any activity of that sort, it simply means that the site is not receiving new links to grow its backlink profile. Only prospects with positive backlink velocities should make it to your final list, like this one. 

• Also, check out the incoming traffic data. If you notice a permanent drop in traffic or ranking keywords, it clearly means that some dodgy stuff is going on. 

• Next, check out the type of content a site is publishing. If it is unhelpful or bad quality, erase it from your potential backlink list. Then you can pick the next prospect from your list and do this little audit all over again. 

Key Takeaways 

Let’s now shift to reverse gear and recap the common link-building mistakes we discussed earlier.

• Jumping to building links without improving on-page SEO and understanding search intent. 
• Not crafting link-worthy content.
• Purchasing links to manipulate SERP rankings. 
• Choosing to build many backlinks using manipulative practices. 
• Ignoring link relevancy while building links. 
• Not having a variety of anchor texts and sources. 
• Doing not a very good job at outreaching prospects.
• Avoiding the significance of Local SEO and geo-targeted link-building.
• Only focusing on building do-follows and neglecting no-follows. 
• Opting for excessive reciprocal link-building willingly.

So, that was it from our side. Hope you gained useful insights from this blog and will utilize them to perform quality link-building and get incredible results. 

The post Link Building Mistakes to Avoid: Common Pitfalls and How to Overcome Them appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

Before we dive deep into the effects of broken backlinks, you need to know the role of backlinks in SEO for Google. 

Backlinks are one of the most important factors for Google to rank a page! 

For Google, backlinks are a way to determine the page relevancy to a particular topic or keyword. Once Google knows what your page is about, it is then crawled to understand your content and eventually surface it on the SERPs. 

So, what does Google want to know once it determines the relevancy of the page? It pulls out its EEAT guidelines, which we all know is Expertise, experience, authority, and trust, to see if the content matches its standards. Backlinks help Google get a kickstart. When an established website gives your website a backlink, it tells Google that you are someone to trust. 

Google also uses backlinks to fight off spam. The types, number, ratio, and quality of backlinks on a website helps Google find out the blackhat practices that websites may or may not be doing. This eventually filters out the spammy websites from Google’s index.

An added advantage for you is that according to the AHREFs stats, pages with backlinks have a higher organic traffic than pages that do not!

These are just some of the reasons why having a rich backlink profile is imperative. 

If you are one of those that has a rich backlink profile… hold your horses. You are not off the hook! 

Backlinks Break! 

And broken backlinks are not something you want on your profile!

Don’t you worry! We have everything you need right here! In this comprehensive guide, we will talk about why you should not have broken backlinks, and how you can identify its types and even fix them. 

Why are broken links a problem?

Imagine having a very fair profile with hundreds of backlinks but some of them are broken? Most people do not care much about them. But here is why you should care about them and take necessary steps. 

• Poor user experience
  Here at LinkBuilding HQ, we have said it again and again and we will say it one more time! Google is becoming more democratic every day – of the people, by the people, for the people!When a user redirects to your website using a broken backlink, it gives them the impression that you are not serious about your own website. Moreover, it instantly makes the user lose trust and credibility in your website. You do not want to get rid of your audience, do you?
• SERP rankings drown
  On top of losing your audience, you will lose Google as well as your buddy! Google associates Broken Backlinks as a sign of content that does not meet EEAT standards or content that is absolutely outdated. When Google decides to crawl your website and sees broken backlinks, it simply disregards your credibility and lowers your rankings.Furthermore, link equity from a credible website is lost. So, the run down is, you have no link juice, no credibility, and no link equity. A broken backlink will simply act as the iceberg to your Titanic and your SERP rankings will sink!

• Bounce rate
  The bounce rate of the website is when a user visits and bounces back to some other website without spending time on yours. With a broken backlink, you will naturally develop a higher bounce rate – thus losing your lead!These are just some of the major disadvantages you get with Broken Backlinks!Now, what do you do?Simple! Just like every broken thing in the world needs fixing, your backlinks do too!How? Well…

Types of broken backlinks with their fixes

To fix your broken backlinks, you need to know what they are, what the errors denote, and how to fix them. 

Here is a simple table that will tell you about it! 

BONUS TIP: Use your competitor’s broken backlink to your advantage

Broken Backlinks are not just a problem for your website. A trustable website that gives you a backlink will suffer if the backlink is broken too.

Use this to your advantage. 

Begin by going on AHREFs under the site explorer tab. Enter your competitor’s website and hit enter.

On the left-hand side, click the option ‘broken backlinks’ and you will get a detailed list with all the error codes. 

It will give you a list with all the errors in the backlink profile of your competitors. 

Identify broken backlinks with either 404 or 400 errors. If you have a similar piece of content ready, then move forward. However, if you don’t, then you have to create the content, optimize it, and publish it on your website, and then move forward. 

Contact the host webmaster and tell them how their outbound link is broken. Explain to them how giving a bad backlink is harmful for their website as well. When you have made your point, offer them your replacement. 

Tell them how it has everything that they would benefit from as well. 

Most websites know how giving a broken backlink will tarnish their credibility and might just replace it with their own. 

Wrap up

Having a strong backlink profile is important for you. When link building, remember to find websites that give you ample link juice for maximum gain! Having a backlink profile that has no errors is even more important! A few quick fixes and you are on track! 

Good luck! 

The post Effects of Broken Backlinks [Fixes Included + Free Bonus Tip] appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

What is Link Building?

Link Building is a strategy where a website aims and makes efforts to earn backlinks to its pages from external relevant and authoritative websites. When Google observes authoritative websites backlinking to your website and sees that you’re providing good and helpful content, it starts ranking your pages higher on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). However, this is not an overnight process and you require a substantial amount of backlinks before you can reach the top position on the SERPs. 

If you’re going with a link-building campaign, you will not be paying the websites to have your links placed, but instead outreaching them to have your content placed with an inbound link to your website. Similarly, you could also be writing insightful content on your website such that other relevant and authoritative websites quote your web pages with a backlink.

One of the major reasons why Link Building is such a popular strategy is because Google considers backlinks as one of the most crucial signals to a website’s trustworthiness. 

What is (Pay-Per-Click) PPC?

The focus of Pay-Per-Click is quite apparent. In this marketing method, you effectively bid on certain keywords and pay Google every time someone clicks on your ads. Your ads typically show up on the SERPs like the below image. 

The first result you see which has sponsored written above is showing up because Amazon is running a PPC campaign for the keyword. The results after that are there on the SERPs as a result of SEO and Link Building. 

Pros and Cons of Link Building and PPC

Of course, neither PPC nor Link Building comes without respective pros and cons, but their analysis provides a neat picture of how these strategies work. 

Link Building Pros

1. Your authority lasts longer with a good backlink profile

When you go with link building, you’re acquiring backlinks that signal to Google that your website is a legitimate one and provides solutions that your target audience is looking for. As you continue link building (because link building is usually a lengthy and consistent process), you may acquire plenty of links and these will be indexed by Google. Once you’ve reached the top coveted positions in the SERPs, you’ll likely stay there for a long time, unless penalized by Google.

1. Considerably inexpensive over the long term

When you’re focused on link building, most of your budget will be spent on creating high-quality content, which should bring long-term traffic. Moreover, as you will be creating a lot of content to earn as many links as possible, you will have control over how frequently you publish content. You might need a little budget for research but this is mostly optional. And since link building doesn’t involve ads, you won’t be spending huge sums on getting visibility, but still gain it organically.  

Link Building Cons

1. Can take a long time to show results

Unlike paid ads where you get visibility instantly, there is a likelihood that with link building you may not get a lot of traffic initially. This is because it takes time for your pages to get indexed. It might also take time to acquire meaningful links from high-authority websites.

However, this factor also depends on your niche. For some niches link building can start showing results in just a few weeks, whereas in others you might have to wait for months to see changes in page rankings.

1. Requires unique angles and outreach

If you want websites to link to you then you need exceptional, link-worthy content. This means that your content should be so good that websites in your niche can’t help but link to  you. However, if you have a unique methodology for creating content that is linkable, or are focused on creating evergreen content, then this con will easily turn into an opportunity.

Link building also involves a lot of outreach. You will typically be looking for websites with a good Domain Authority and High Relevance to your niche. A backlink from these websites will qualify as a high-quality link. However, just like you, your competitors will also have outreached them too, so you’ll need a unique approach that gets replies.

PPC Pros

1. Instant results

One of the major reasons marketers provide when advocating for PPC is that these campaigns deliver almost immediate results. As shown in the image above, your ad will appear on the search results at the top which maximizes the chance of the user clicking on your ads. Moreover, you are only charged if the user clicks on your ad, which means every time an amount is spent you get a user on your website.

1. Specific targeting

PPC campaigns can be set specifically based on a number of factors. You can set your audience based on their location, demographics as well as interests among many other factors. This means that if you are aware of your user persona then your PPC can prove quite fruitful in providing you relevant traffic.

1. Allows for experimentation

If you’re running a PPC campaign then there is no doubt that you have a substantial budget. However, this can be a good thing as you can use this budget to run A/B testing to zero in on what works and what doesn’t. For example, if your users respond to a certain keyword then you will likely focus your ads on that keyword. Similarly, if you aren’t getting conversions from a specific demographic then you can opt to change it. 

Cons of PPC

1. Prized keywords can be expensive

When you run a PPC campaign, you bid for every keyword you target. This means that the most prized keywords often turn out quite expensive, and others that may come cheaper may not provide good ROI. 

1. PPC loses its effectiveness ASAP

A major problem with PPC campaigns is that as soon as you stop spending, your landing page stops getting traffic. This means that if you’re solely relying on your PPC campaign to bring conversions, you have to ensure a high ROI at all times.  

1. Extremely budget-intensive

This is the main reason why most websites avoid going for PPC. A PPC campaign is only effective if you have a substantial budget and are able. While you can create content with minimal resources, a PPC campaign is impossible without a budget.

Best Marketing Approach: Link Building or PPC?

Link Building and PPC are both some of the most popular and effective strategies when it comes to digital marketing. However, their effectiveness is highly reliant on your objectives and current circumstances. Here are a few instances where you might opt for one over the other.

When is PPC the better option?

1. You have an innovative idea: 

If you have an innovative product or offering, one that hasn’t been done before, then PPC would definitely be your option. You will be targeting keywords with little or no competition and thus you can place lower bids on prized keywords more easily.

1. You have a one-time product or short-term offer:

If you have a short-term offer and you want instant results then it would be better to go with PPC rather than link building. If you want faster conversions on a tight deadline, the choice between Building Backlinks vs Paying for Clicks becomes quite clear. 

When is Link Building better than PPC?

1. You want people to recognize you as a brand:

If you want to be considered a reliable authority in your niche, and aren’t specifically concerned with conversions then link building becomes the clear winner. Link building will enhance your overall traffic and help establish your website as a reliable online platform. With a plethora of backlinks in your profile, not only Google but your target audience will also be finding your website in their search results increasing the trust factor.

Of course, this would consequently translate into conversions and consistent traffic too.

1. You don’t have a large budget:

Link building will also be your first choice here as for a PPC campaign the first requirement is that of a large ad budget. However, with link building you won’t be spending large amounts on ads but instead strengthening your own backlink profile such that your pages start ranking in the top positions. 

Synergizing Link Building with PPC

Now that we have established the scenarios where link building works over PPC and vice versa, let’s have a look at how both can benefit from the other.

1. Keyword Targeting

While getting a list of keywords is quite easy, you won’t know their true worth immediately with just link building alone. This is where PPC can be of high assistance. A short PPC campaign won’t exhaust your budget and will let you know if the keywords you’re shortlisting actually bring conversions or not. 

1. Link building focuses on Content, and PPC enhances landing pages

While PPC is a great tactic to direct your target audience to your landing pages, there is a chance that your user will check out other pages on your website before placing an order. This is where your link-worthy content becomes immensely helpful. Once your user sees that you really are a trustworthy website, the chances of conversions will significantly increase.

However, this will require you to have internal links on your landing pages too.

Conclusion

Now you have the complete information on how different link building and PPC are, and how you can use both of them to enhance your overall website. Let us know if we missed anything in the comments too. Good luck with your Link Building or PPC campaigns, or hopefully, both!

The post Link Building Vs. PPC: Choosing the Best Strategy for Your Website appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

In addition to them, a new name pops up every now and then in the present landscape. And of course, a part of their success is attributed to the organic growth via SEO and link-building services. So, it goes without saying that a ton of value is associated with SEO and strengthening a backlink profile.   

As there are a lot of ways to earn backlinks for a B2B site, it is equally important to pick the right one. So, in this blog, we’ve dived into the proven link-building strategies to get quality backlinks and explore how they’re exceptionally great for all B2B sites alike. 

So, let’s begin! 

Why Link Building is Necessary for B2B Sites? 

As a rule of thumb, industry-relevant backlinks play a major role in establishing authority, credibility, and thought leadership. In fact, when you search for something on Google, the top 10 results have 3.8 times more backlinks as compared to those that appear on the second or the third page.   

On top of that, when a B2B site gets a lot of backlinks pointed to them from niche-specific sites, it appears as a trustworthy and authoritative brand within a particular industry. And this in return leads to consistent traffic, better visibility, and more prospects. Meanwhile, for a search engine behemoth, Google, backlinks are a sign of authority and credibility. Due to this, they directly influence the rankings and amount of incoming traffic. 

Apart from all of these amazing perks, there comes a challenge because it is not easy to get other sites to link back to you. It’s an arduous and time-consuming task. And this can be painfully prolonged if a person is not on the right track or strategy. 

So let’s discuss some best link-building B2B strategies that work wonders.  

Different link-building strategies to get backlinks

Develop strong relationships with Vendors & Partners

It doesn’t come as a surprise that maintaining a strong relationship with your vendors is crucial.  

What vendors and partners say about you matters. Indeed, they act as pristine advocates of your brand, services, and what you’ve got to offer. So, it’s extremely important to establish pleasant, meaningful, and long-term relationships with them.

These connections can not only give you a chance to be promoted in their social circles but also appear as mentions on their websites. And this is a great opportunity for building links for your site from the ground up.  

No matter old or new, if a vendor or collaborator mentions your brand on their site, make sure they’re linking back to you. Furthermore, you can go the extra mile by writing the article for their site and attaching the link to the particular web pages you want to push forward. 

Write and pitch op-ed articles

‘Op-ed’ refers to the ‘opposite of the editorial page’. Originally these articles used to appear opposite of the editorial page in newspapers. 

These are opinionated articles written for magazines, newspapers, or online publications platforms by guest contributors. It gives the coveted opportunity to the contributor to share their insights, unique perspectives, and interesting experiences on trending issues or prevalent problems.   

The holistic process of crafting, proposing, and submitting these content pieces is termed as ‘Pitching op-ed articles’.  

In case you’re interested in the ongoing discourse within your industry and have two cents to share, or have a proven solution to the existing problem, go ahead and share it as the op-ed article. Garner your data, embrace your personal voice, and write that remarkable piece. Also, keep in mind that it’s not merely a written piece, you’re representing your business in front of a vast audience. 

This will allow you to tap into a new stream of audience, be a part of the community, represent your B2B site, and get quality backlinks to your site. 

Incorporate “Tweet This” links into your content

Some B2B sites roll out content religiously. They publish blog posts and case studies, launch new webpages, and maintain a solid online presence through social. And the practice greatly helps them gain traction. In case, you’re in the same boat, there’s a tiny thing you can add on which will further boost your reach and bring you more backlinks. 

Add a “Tweet this” or “Click to Tweet” button in your content. These tweetable links are easy to create using the ClickToTweet service. You can put them right next to the shareable nuggets of information, at the side or bottom. This will make viewers instantly share what they find interesting to their timelines and let others check it out too. Result? You’ll end up on multiple timelines of many people at once and this will draw more attention to your content and brand in the grand scheme of things. Like, your content will contribute to the ongoing Twitter trend, news feed, and most importantly, achieve greater visibility in the search engine.    

Although, it will not directly give you backlinks, but surely bring you potential mentions or opportunities of backlinks from other platforms and sites and positively influence your website’s SEO.  

Have your B2B included on business listings.

Being a B2B brand and missing out on your business listings is a dire mistake. Don’t ignore it. Because having your business listed does more than what meets the eye. They’re the proof of your existence, inform about your services and what people think about you. And they also play a vital role in drawing in more prospects and helping them locate you. 

If you don’t have your business listed, you can initiate by signing up on Google My Business (GMB), and other third-party businesses like Clutch, Yelp, LinkedIn, Capterra, etc. Be mindful to choose the business directories and platforms relevant to your niche. When you list your business on these sites and directories, this practice can provide valuable citations and gives precious backlinks to your site.   

Conference Sponsorships

As much as the idea of landing conference sponsorships sounds fascinating, it is a fact that they don’t come easy. A lot of factors play into them to score them, for instance, authoritativeness, finances, liaison, right timings, etc.      

If your budget allows and the opportunity is right there, then consider Conference Sponsorships as an investment. Because they’re way more than just glitzy networking events where professionals from different backgrounds come together and hold up conversations. It also serves as a chance to get the spotlight on your brand, grow your business, and earn high-quality, industry-relevant backlinks.        

Choosing a conference to sponsor can also be difficult at times. To deal with it, it’s better to divide your sponsorship opportunities into three distinct categories. Industry, Target Audience, and Local. Industry conferences work incredibly well in establishing new partnerships, while target audience conferences help you showcase your business in front of clients, and local conferences offer you a chance to elevate your local SEO. 

Forum Posting

Quora, Reddit, Moz community, WebmasterWorld, Warrior Forum, and Black Hat World — Forums serve to be the ideal platforms to expand your link-building strategy B2B. Being a part of the B2B industry, you can take part in different discourse going on, trending news, and just share opinions on any topic that pique your interest.  

So these forums, not only help you contribute to the community but also receive useful insights and valuable solutions. The holistic participation will allow you to build a following from the ground up as a helpful contributor. This will make a whole lot of people look into the range of content you’re offering, and voila, you’ll have more backlinks coming your way.  

Your primary focus should be providing insights to the people, and not to plug your own site in each and every answer you offer. This will push people away and it may happen that the site moderator will start deleting your answers.      

Funding & investor updates

Funding and investor updates are a great way to keep your investors, stakeholders, and relevant parties involved in the financial status, ongoing developments, and the progress of the business. This helps in maintaining transparency and good relationships with them.          

And there are multiple channels to deliver these updates; reports, press releases, presentations, and online platforms. This, indeed, increases your chances to get featured on other platforms with a link pointing to you. And you may end up getting mentioned on one or multiple high-domain websites. For e.g., Mashable, TechCrunch, and more.  

Source 

Conclusion 

That was all on how to generate industry-relevant backlinks for B2B websites. 

The B2B realm is rapidly growing. With ever-evolving technology and mind-blowing innovations, the competition is getting fiercer. So, in this context, it’s a smart move to focus on the right link-building strategies, drawing in more traffic, and building your authority. Only then, one has higher chances to outperform the competition and reign in the B2B landscape.     

The post Link Building for B2B Websites: Strategies to Generate Industry-Relevant Backlinks appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

Spoiler alert! Gone are the days of mere quantity, as the future of link-building revolves around quality, relevance, and user-friendliness. 

In this blog, let’s explore the Future of Link Building and what it might bring to us. 

Note that it is important to evolve in the link-building approach as the digital world evolves. With this blog, you might just be able to get ahead of the curve and embrace emerging trends and strategies.

Without further ado, let’s dive into this journey where innovation meets tradition, and where the bond between content, authority, and connectivity shapes the digital landscape of tomorrow.

AI in link building 

AI has taken over the world by storm. If you know what ChatGPT is then you are part of the world it has taken over. As the concept of AI is rising, it is being incorporated into the link-building world too. 

Currently, for link building, you have to find the best prospects and find them through analysis manually. However, with AI you have the list in your hands and most of the work seems to be complete. 

Moreover, while still in the beginning stage, AI outreach tools are making the process automated and in some cases even fruitful. 

As of today, the data provided gives limited results. This means that AI’s only limit for link-building services is the strength of the data and the prompt. We believe that it will get better and give more apt results soon. 

A prediction is also that AI will soon be able to tell you how well your strategy will work without being solely dependent on A/B testing. This will make link-building a faster and more optimized process and the chances of successful link-building for everyone may rise. 

Higher criteria for user experience

Google is becoming more democratic every day – of the people, by the people, for the people. This means that in the future, the websites with the best user experience will be the highest of priorities on the SERPs. 

The Google standards are already very strict on user experience and in the near future, they might get even more strict. This is why only websites that cater to users in every field will get the best backlinks. 

Why would any website give a backlink to a website with low authority? 

Brand building

Having backlinks or giving backlinks to quality websites is one of the best things you can do to surface on the SERPs. John Mueller once said “…links will always be something that we care about because we have to find pages somehow. It’s like how do you find a page on the web without some reference to it?”

However, in an effort to remove spammy and pointless backlinks, Google’s SpamBrain AI Algorithm works wonders to reduce spammy and low-quality backlinks. To keep them valid and functional, in the near future, Google may make its guidelines even stricter for a valid backlink profile. 

So, to stay safe your website needs to have proper brand positioning and recognition of authenticity in your niche. This will allow you to receive high-quality backlinks for your website that help you rank. 

Personalization 

One of the many things that will change is the level of personalization. Currently, people who outreach for link building start with something like ‘Hey! I love your website and so on..’ Amit Raj who is the founder of ‘The Links Guy’ once stated that because of AI used for writing, the personalization factor has become disingenuous. 

He further claims that this process may work on a certain level, but may not work in the longer run on an excellent outreach result. While he specifically mentioned candidacy and personalization, you should know where to stop. 

For outreach for link building, it might currently be working. But the experts in our team and around the world predict the fakeness of it and it being AI has become so evident that it does not seem worth a response anymore too. 

Paid links are okay!

Yes! You read that right! And Google is saying this! No, we are not joking! 

You see, Google has revised its terms for paid link-building guest posts and so on. Google says that it understands that websites do have to make money somehow and that is fine! However, going forward, Google tells us to be nothing but honest.

Confused?

Let me clear it out!

“Google works hard to ensure that it fully discounts links intended to manipulate search engine results, such as excessive link exchanges and purchased links that pass PageRank.”

Yes, Google once said this! But now it’s changing. Now it says 

“Google does understand that buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes. It’s not a violation of our policies to have such links as long as they are qualified with a rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute value to the <a> tag.”

So, does that mean that Google has no way to find out that your links are paid? 

First of all, being user-first, Google will for instance find out the low quality and lack of helpfulness of the content if it is that way. Moreover, if you use paid backlinks with the intent of trying to trick the algorithm there is a good chance you will be caught. If you, by miracle, cross these hurdles, then your competitor just might snitch on you. 

However, if you are suddenly the luckiest person on the planet and somehow you are saved, one day you might fall bad! 

The solution is simple! 

You have to define your relationship to Google through the rel attributes. 

Use rel=“sponsored” when you want to tell Google that this is a paid placement and Google will be kind enough to disregard it. 

Use rel=“ugc” to tell Google that this is purely user-generated content and you are not responsible for the endorsement, quality, or accuracy of it 

Use rel=“nofollow” to tell Google that this site is not something you want to be associated with so don’t follow it in your regard or crawl the page.

Grey Hat Link Building is out of the question

White hat link building is the purely organic way to build links without any loopholes in the system. Black hat link-building is very unethical and violates Google’s spam policy. It literally means violating every rule and building links. For example, paying for them.  It is not allowed – no questions asked!

However, in recent times, Grey Hat Link Building seems to be on the rise. Grey Hat uses the techniques of white hat link building and black hat. So you can say that they take advantage of the loopholes in the system and work to create links. 

For example, Google counts link exchanging as a serious offense under spam. However, companies tend to use sister companies or personal relationships to exchange these links. This comes under a grey hat. While it is not illegal and easy to pick by Google, it is not very encouraged. 

Experts say that in the near future, Google will be able to pick Grey Hat Link building easily and more consistently. This means that if you are currently taking advantage of the algorithm not detecting your practices, then it is time to rethink your strategies before all goes downhill for you. 

Diversity

As Google becomes more diverse, one way it picks out a strong backlink profile is through diversity. Gone are the days when only guest posting or only social media can build you an authentic set of backlinks. 

This has come in practice that you need a diverse profile. From social media, influencers, websites, guest posts, and everywhere else on the internet! For a rich and functional backlink profile, websites will now need a more diversified host that gives them backlinks. 

If you are targeting yourself to one medium to gain backlinks, switch it up and reach out to more people and adjust your strategy to be diverse. 

Conclusion

As we conclude our journey through The Future of Link Building, it becomes clear that link building is no longer a mere numbers game but a sophisticated art that demands creativity, relevance, and genuine value. 

The future of link building is currently and will be revolving around user-centricity and organic link acquisition. By creating EEAT standard content, one may naturally attract links from authoritative sources and amplify your backlinks. 

Embracing collaboration with influencers and industry leaders can unlock new avenues of exposure and link opportunities, as their support brings a stamp of authority and authenticity to the brand.

Moreover, brand mentions and unlinked references are no longer overlooked; they serve as potential link-building opportunities.

The post The Future of Link Building: Emerging Trends and Strategies appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.

To better elaborate this with an allegory, the website is a plant that needs SEO and Link Building as Sunlight and water to grow up in the forest of the internet. The link-building importance of SEO is quite apparent from this allegory. However, link-building challenges, nonetheless, can be quite difficult to overcome. 

Why is Link Building Difficult?

One of the major reasons why white hat link building is a challenge is that it requires your website’s backlinks to be present on other websites that are fully trusted by Google. Moreover, Google also forbids you to pay to get these backlinks. In such an event where Google does find out that you paid to get backlinks, your website is immediately hit with a Link Spam Penalty. 

So, in order to build links legitimately, it is important that websites voluntarily put up links to your website without any monetary compensation involved. The best reciprocation you can provide in these circumstances is to link back. 

In case the external website trusts you completely, it may provide you with a do-follow backlink, which means it will pass its own authority to you. Do-follows from high authority websites are often considered crucial for you to climb up the SERPs. But link-building challenges only start from here. 

Following are some of the most challenging obstacles you might face when you start link building. 

1. Coming up with an Outreach Pitch

One of the first challenges that you’ll likely face when you start link building is coming up with an outreach pitch. While beginners might feel like finding relevant websites to outreach is itself a challenge, if you have been in the SEO game for a year or more, you will know that winning a reply over an outreach email can be ten times tougher.

Finding relevant sites that publish content on your niche merely requires a bit of searching on Google. Simply type your niche and add the word Blog in inverted commas (“). You’ll get a list of blogs pertaining to your niche. From there on, all you need is a set of standards to shortlist the website you see on the SERPs. Following are the most basic factors you should be looking for in a website you plan to outreach.

1. The website should be using white hat tactics and adhering to Google’s SEO Policies. 
2. The website needs to have content that is ranking high on the SERPs
3. The website needs to have Good Domain Authority (DA). 

Do note that the above points are the most basic ones, so it’s best to add to the list and further screen for only the best websites to outreach. Also, keep in mind that the difference between your own website’s DA and the ones you outreach to isn’t too much. For example, if your website has a DA of 15 and you outreach a website of 90+ DA, then there is little chance you’ll receive a reply.

How to Outreach for Guest Posts?

The first task at hand for outreach is getting the email of the person who is responsible for content publishing on your shortlisted website. With tools like Hunter.io, you can easily find out the contact email from a website. 

The main goal of outreach is to get in touch and start a conversation with the content representative of the website. Thus, it is important that the tone you use is formal yet polite and conversational. You can devise your email into three paragraphs, each pertaining to one idea. 

You can start your outreach email with the first part complimenting the website’s representative on their content, even pointing out some content pieces that you found most interesting. 

The second part of your email is your own introduction and the website you represent. Here you can also talk about your current standing on Google and the type of content that you usually go with in your guest posts. 

The third and final part can be about you offering up your content to be posted on the website. This part should be detailed and should also outline the benefits the website will reap by posting your content. 

If all goes well, you should get a reply from the website within a few weeks at most.

2. Creating Guestposts

Creating Guest posts can be quite confusing, especially if your end goal is to earn backlinks. 

A guest post from you to an external site is basically free content for the external site to publish. However, this content should be of impeccable quality such that it will create value for the external website too. The external website will be using your content to rank up the SERPs, whereas your website will be earning backlinks.

How To Ensure Impeccable Guest Posts?

While we also have a complete article on Mastering The Art Of Guest Posting For Powerful Link Building, we’ll go through a few aspects that your guest posts absolutely need. 

Firstly, your guest posts should be based on Double-EAT. Following Google’s Quality Rater guidelines will provide you with a roadmap to create content that ranks effortlessly. 

It is also important to keep the helpful content update in your mind as you create a guest post. Guest posts focused on helping your target audience are more likely to rank up as well as provide you with traffic than a simple press release only highlighting your website’s achievements. 

3. Quantity and Quality of Backlinks

When planning out your backlinking strategy, you also need to specify the quality and quantity of backlinks you’re looking for. Acquiring high-quality backlinks can consume a lot of resources and time too. However, they are worth it, as according to Adpearance, a single high-quality link can be worth more 100 backlinks from low-quality resources.

Most backlinking strategies are solely focused on ranking up the SERPs, which further makes it difficult to set a specific goal for quality and quantity. However, with a set measure for backlink quality and quantity, you get an apt idea of how your website’s SEO should improve within a year of your backlinking efforts.

How to decide on the Quantity and Quality of Backlinks

The ideal way is to get extremely SMART when setting your objectives of backlinks quantity and quality. To better elaborate:

Specific: A specific DA range needs to be set for the backlinks that you would like to acquire for your website.

Measurable: A quantitative number of backlinks need to be set for your backlinking strategy.

Achievable: The number and quality of backlinks you’re aiming for should be a challenge but not one that could be considered impossible. 

Realistic: Your DA aims should be realistic. It would be unwise to seek to get a do-follow link from a 90+ DA website if your own website is new and has a DA of less than 20. 

Timely: A time range needs to be specified for your backlinking strategy. This figure is usually within a single year.

4. What platforms to use for your Backlinking Campaign?

A good backlinking strategy will always outline different platforms that are being prioritized to earn backlinks. Of course, your social media handles and website is a definitive yes. But the list of platforms to use for your backlinking campaign may also contain factors like influencers, online directories, and forums, among many more. Moreover, your niche can also determine how many platforms may be added to your list.

But it isn’t just about opting for the right platforms only. You also have to prioritize the platforms you list out. 

How to prioritize different platforms for Link Building

It is best to visualize the preferred end and the means here. You can forecast how each platform in your list will help you achieve the objectives of your backlinking strategy. 

It’s quite a forecast, one that is aided by your past experiences too. For example, if your target audience is more on forums and less on directories, your focus should be on forums more than directories.

5. Using the right Anchor Text 

Next up on link-building challenges is the usage of anchor texts. Anchor text refers to the clickable text you might find on different content pieces. Your anchor text needs to be acutely aligned with the content where it is placed. 

Making an anchor text on your keywords is one of the most common practices followed by seasoned SEO professionals. However, there is no hard and fast rule on only using anchor texts on keywords. Yet, if you’re not using your anchor text right, then there is a high chance that your website will start ranking for the wrong keywords or even keywords not relevant to your niche at all.

How to use Anchor text, right?

There was literally a time when Adobe used to rank for “Click here,” as most people were using the term as anchor text when linking in a pdf. Moreover, as anchor text is also a ranking factor – as stated by John Mueller – it is best not to use too many anchor texts in a single piece of content.

Moreover, search engines also use anchor texts to determine the context of your page. This means that you can use anchor text for not only your targeted keywords but also their variations. 

Also, too much anchor text is a strict “No”. In fact, using anchor text in moderation will not only make your content more readable, improving user experience, but it will also ensure that the content is actually read properly by your audience. 

6.Balancing between Do-Follows and No-Follows

One of the most common practices that SEOs have in their backlinking strategies is their focus on link-building opportunities for Do-Follow links. These links are often considered precious as the website actually trickles its own authority to the destination site. 

However, only aiming for do-follow is not only a challenge but can also be detrimental to your link-building strategy. Even though you will be able to garner authority faster with only do-follows in your backlink profile, without no-follows, all your efforts may be in vain.

Setting the right ratio for Do-follows and No-Follows

Even though your backlinks on other platforms like forums and directories come under link-building examples of no-follows, their presence is necessary. 

A backlink profile with only do-follow links would showcase suspicious activity to Google. On the other hand, a backlink profile with a set ratio of do-follow and no-follows would look much more natural. While this ratio is highly dependent on the type of niche you have, the general rule of thumb is to have 60% do-follows and 40% no-follows. 

7. Staying Aligned with Google’s Policies

The link-building importance for SEO can be easily seen in how Google mentions it in its different policies. Even after a decade of being around, link-building is still one of the strongest signals to Google about a website’s authority. 

Thus, it is imperative that your website and SEO are always adhering to Google’s policies. There can be no mistakes here. 

How to keep vigilant of Google’s Updates?

Google is constantly coming up with new updates almost every month, so it is best to periodically look at its updates history page to ensure that your website follows all the rules and regulations. Or better yet, simply bookmark the link we mentioned and have it accessible at all times. Once you are aligned with Google’s Policies and updates, you will know exactly how to steer your backlinking strategy for it to become an imminent success.

Conclusion

While there are certainly multiple link-building challenges that websites face when creating a backlinking strategy, none of these are impossible to complete. Moreover, with the right approach, you can easily devise the perfect backlinking strategy that will ensure your website climbs up the SERPs in no time. 

The post 7 Link-building Challenges and How to Overcome Them appeared first on LinkBuilding HQ.