How My Link Building Service Works

There is a reason I consider this the best link building company in Glasgow (and probably Scotland) and why my clients get better and longer lasting results than their competitors. Its from many hours of hard work and testing – giving you value for money.

And just to give complete transparency, I decided to write out exactly how my process works.

The hope being, this will answer most of your questions, overcome any doubts you may have – and just prove that I actually know what I’m talking about.

The Initial Audit/Analysis

1. Create a personalised Gmail account using the business owners name– this will be used to pitch for links from the targets that I’ve found. i.e. I’ll pretend to be you! My reasoning for that is, they’re more likely to link to the owner, than to a freelance SEO consultant or marketing manager.

2. Get access to your analytics and your search console – so I can analyse the visitors, the pages they visit and the keywords they are searching to get to those pages. From this I will know which are the most popular items and which keywords are doing well.

As well as any which are doing ok (positions 7 -35) but with a boost in rankings could get you a significant amount of traffic.

3. Check anchor text ratio

By using Moz Pro tools, I’ll analyse your backlinks and the anchor text ratio. I’m not a fan of unnatural looking link profiles – where every incoming link uses anchors of terms you want to rank for. This rarely occurs in the “real-world” and is usually a sign of nudging people for links.

If required, I’ll dilute it a bit with links using anchors like “here”, “this new article” or your company name/URL just to keep everything looking natural.

4. Audit your content and on site SEO – crucial point is do you have content, and how good is it? The better the content is, the more chance I have of getting the best quality links.

So I’ll assess what I can work with, the number of social shares the content has and if you have any distributions channels like a social media following or an email subscriber list.

I’ll then create a list of your best content and look for link targets according to who would be most interested in that particular piece.

However, if you don’t have usable content, I can hire from my Rolodex of writers (this will be an additional cost) or you can use your own writer.

5. Analyse your incoming links– making sure you have a “natural” keyword ratio and there are no spammy or unnatural links bringing it down. I’ll check your metrics, whether its Trust Flow, Citation Flow, or Domain Authority and Page Authority.

I could also uncover anything that isn’t being used to its full potential.

6. Gather up the info and record the content I’ll be using into my spreadsheet (I’ll share this with you so you can track my work in real time) and which keywords we’ll be targeting for each content piece.

Finding the targets

7. Generate large lists of search terms using my custom spreadsheets with the keywords above.

These search operators will allow me to find just the right targets for the links I’m looking for.

Example:

If you’re building links in the “comic book” niche, you could use  search term like

“comic books inurl:resources”

this will throw up results about comic books, where “resources” is in the URL. Chances are, most of these will be resources about comic books and will be suitable targets for whatever piece I have.

8. Select types of links – whether its using Guest posts (placing our content directly on their site), Resource pages/Broken links (getting a link on their “Resources” or “Useful Links” page), Local bloggers or various other types that I use.

I’ll select the link types that most suit your site and will form the basis of our link building campaign.

For example in an industry which is perhaps not so interesting and difficult to create content for, we could concentrate mainly on links from local bloggers or businesses that are in the same location but not in competition (e.g. a chiropractic clinic linking to a yoga studio)

9. Prepare a plan going forward

I’ll have a clear vision in my mind of where to take it, and I’ll create a special tab in the spreadsheet showing the tasks going forward for the next few months. It will detail exactly what the task is, when it should be completed for and will be updated as assigned, working or completed. This will keep you constantly updated on whats happening.

10. Find our targets and point of contact

So now I’ll know

• The keywords to target
• The content I can use to get links
• The types of links to aim for
• The search engine operators to create a target list

I call this next process “prospecting”. This is an ongoing process and from day to day, the targets and status of this section of the spreadsheet will change.

We’ll ideally be trying to get a personal contact email of the owner rather than just a general enquiry email address, as it yields a better success rate.

Getting the links

11. Send personal emails to each opportunity – depending on the type of link, the content and the websites niche I will pitch each target accordingly and send a personal email to the person or team in charge of inserting links, using their name when possible.

A side benefit will be possibly getting the content shared on their social media accounts.

12. Follow up each lead – People can sometimes forget about or miss an email, which is why I always follow up at least 3 times – you’d be surprised how many more links can be gained by doing this! And once I’m getting replies, I always follow up and negotiate to the best of my ability to secure your link.

In addition, I track email opens, so I can tailor the email according to whether they’ve opened it and not replied, or just haven’t seen the email.

Results

Here’s the 2 main goals we want from these links

1. Referral traffic
2. Organic traffic

I.e. we want direct referral traffic from people clicking on your link because they’re interested in what’s in front of them. This is very targeted traffic you can get clients/buyers from, if your website does its job and can convert the traffic, you can make some direct profit here.

And the second benefit are that since the search engines can see all these relevant, quality websites linking to YOUR website, it will reward your site with better rankings (and hence, even more traffic)

Typical expectations

First and foremost is the quality, not a single link will be spammy or from a link farm or any of the other questionable techniques that other SEOs do. However, I terms of quantity, I tend to get around 10-20 links per month. This will vary depending on the content, and the willingness of the targets we approach.

The more willing you are to produce quality content that I know will perform well, or provide the budget to outsource this, the more links I can secure for you.

Keeping track of everything

• A Live Spreadsheet – you can track in real-time, exactly what I’m doing, who I’ve approached, what stage I am in the follow ups or negotiations, which have been successful, the content I’m using and the login info for the accounts I’m using. (Click to see an example of a Project Tracker)
• Monthly report – In addition, I’ll give you a report at the end of the month, showing the links I’ve built, improvements in traffic and any other useful info. 

So how much do I charge?

This depends on what you need, I have a calculator below you can use to figure this out:

And in fact.. I’m so confident that if I fail to build links as described, I’ll offer a…

Anyone that wants to know exact details about the types of links my company can build, you can read these below…

Or, if you want to just go right ahead?
If you like what you’re hearing so far and don’t need to read all the technical details just..
Click Here To Contact Me Now

Link Types

I won’t use every single type for your site, only the ones which  are most relevant to your niche. Here’s a run through of all the ones I utilise.

Resource Pages /Broken links

This is a big one, and very under-utilised by many – but an essential link type of any link builder worth his/her salt.

These exist on many, many sites across many industries. If you have a useful resource, it should be on these pages . And if you don’t, we can create one .

I’ll couple this with broken link building, finding links which don’t work anymore and offering your resource as an alternative to link to.

Link Roundups

These are pages where content about a specific subject matter have been aggregated and placed on one page.

For example:  finding a page titled “The Best Link Building Posts of 2016” and showing the owner an innovative article about Link Building, in order to get a link.

Guest Posts

Useful when you don’t have a lot of usable content. I’ll find site owners in your industry that allow content from guest writers .

It s win-win as they will receive an amazing article and we’ll get a contextual, relevant link.

Sponsored posts

These will cost money, as these site owners now the value of having a link on their site, so will charge for a link (and/or a product sample). It is a useful and fast way of getting links however.

Link Reclamation

Useful if you have a long standing history of content that is already known. I’ll find any sites which have mentioned you in the past but have removed the link, and I’ll remind them to attribute your content. And I can also find sites which mention your brand/product without linking, and ask for a link.

Bridge Method (Location)

Find sites in your local area and ask for mutual link placement.

Bridge method (niche)

Find related sites (but not competitors) and ask for a link.

Online PR

This has been used in some way, in a sort of spammy way for many years, however, what I’m talking about, is REAL PR.

If you have something which would get the attention of jouranlists, on sites such as the Huffington Post or Buzzfeed, we can get their attention and ask either to add a link to an already existing article, or an upcoming one.

They will need to be compensated for this, but while the average link will cost a few hundred, it is a very valuable link.

Alternatively, if you’ve done something for the local community or charity, this could be a good oppprtunity to be featured on local newspaper sites.

Local blogs

There are probably thousnads of people in your local area with a blog, and the vast majority won’t be making anything from it.

Since they are in your local area, this will be a relevant link. And if they it isn’t compelling enough for them to link, we could use the opportunity to get a sponsored post.

Student blogs                                                                       

Since these are hosted on university domains, they are very authoritative and carry a lot of weight to them with regards to how Google views them.

Pillow Links

I use these purely to diversify the links and dilute your anchor text, allowing your link profile to appear as natural as possible.

Manufacturer Links (ecommerce)

If you sell a product produced by another company, you can often get a link on their site as a distributor/notable affiliate. And if they don’t have a page for this purpose, its usefully not too hard to convince them to create one.

Video Link

If you have any video content for your brand, we can distribute it across sites such as Youtube or Vimeo and insert a link in the description box.

Directory Links

If there are directories specific to your industry or business type, you should be listed on them.

Professional Organisatioms

If you are a member of an organisation which is related to your business, you can often get a link on their page.

Conference/event links

If you attend conferences or events, this could be another opportunity.

Blog and Forum Commenting

Can be used in a spammy way by some SEOs, but done properly, can build links, direct referral traffic and build useful relationships with other content producers. The key here being to post relevant and well thought out replies.

Wikipedia

One of the best sites in the world to get a link on. However, the link needs to be extremely relevant and useful.

Extra tactics

Reverse engineer competitors

Can be useful to analyse the link profiles of your competitors and emulate what they have.  However, I will always concentrate on getting you links which they don’t have.

Infographics

If you’re in an industry where you can accumulate an interesting set of date or statistics, infographics can be a very visually appealing and compact way of sharing them. Any related sites which like the infographic will often embed the image on their site and link back to you.

Skyscraper Method

An oldie, but back in fashion thanks to Brian Dean!

Simple put, you find some content which has a tonne of links, create some content which is better or more up-to-date and approach everyone who linked to the original piece, showing them your better piece.

Broken Link Building (with a difference)

I already discussed this type, but we can use another method. Find content which has a lot of links, but no longer exists. We’ll then create our own version of the content, approach everyone who linked to the original and show them our piece.

This is very effective, as they will generally be very appreciative that you’ve pointed out a broken link on their site and offered them an alternative link which they can quickly replace it with.