Venchito Tampon Jr

Getting Dofollow Backlinks from Primary Schools

In a nutshell, do follow backlinks can pass Page Rank (link juice) from the linking page to a website it links to.

These are different from nofollow backlinks because this other type of backlinks has "nofollow" tag attached to them. Google and other search engines ignore backlinks with a "nofollow" tag attribute.

In a natural HTML programming practice, all links are by default do follow unless these links have the nofollow attribute applied.

Sidenote: Learn more of these fundamental topics in this beginner's guide to link building.

Let me cover this one scalable link building strategy that can help you acquire sets of dofollow backlinks for your website.

 

What is the major difference between a no follow backlink and a do follow backlink?

The major difference between a nofollow backlink and a do follow backlink is how they affect website authority. Dofollow links pass on authority, benefiting the linked website, while nofollow links do not transfer authority or "link juice." This understanding helps Google associate and evaluate websites effectively.

 

How to Get Dofollow Backlinks 

Here are three ways to get dofollow backlinks from primary and secondary schools:

• Know the difference between primary school backlinks and Edu links
• Discover available link opportunities
• Establish link building process
• Start content creation.
• Do outreach

There are three phases of execution in this strategy, and just like any link building campaign, it is composed of link research, content creation, and outreach.

There's nothing new here if you've been in the SEO industry for years, but I have been fascinated with this strategy because it's so simple to execute, and its difficulty level is very low.

Let me explain.

Both .edu links and links from primary and secondary school websites are great, but the value is dependent on your website's relevance and actual conversions (how many links you gained from a series of outreach campaigns).

There are noticeable differences that I've seen tapping into both types of links.

Let me give you a few things that I've noticed.

Know the difference between primary school backlinks and Edu links 

Educational website managers, including the ones who handle library guides, would have to pass on reviews to other staff members concerning the resource to be added - we may call it their editorial process.

Sometimes your content piece has to undergo a series of reviews by different staff members handling the page, making sure it's a resource relevant to theirs and could add value to their target visitors.

It may take weeks or several months to get your link live. This certainly requires patience, but it’s worth it if you acquire backlinks that come from a highly trusted and authoritative website.

For primary and secondary school websites, it wouldn't take you long to find that their kids' pages or family pages are being managed by a few people. At most, these pages are managed by just one person.

 

The short period of time it takes you to get the backlink from the time you do the outreach is a huge advantage for most SEOs, especially those that deliver monthly reports of live links to their clients.

Discover available link opportunities 

Before we dive into the actual process of pursuing backlinks from this type of website, let me give you the available link opportunities we could find from primary and secondary school websites.

 

1. Resource links from subject-based resource pages

Primary and secondary school websites have dedicated pages for each subject their teachers offer in schools, i.e. that they publish pages for math resources, science resources, social studies, and reading resources.

 

Here are websites that can benefit from this link opportunity:

• Online courses that sell primary and secondary school subjects
• Niche-specific informational blogs
• Course on reading
• Parenting blogs with categories or are focused on teaching kids

 

2. Resource links from curriculum pages

These are pages dedicated to school teachers. They have curated pages of additional materials and tools to help them with their teaching and mentoring skills.

 

Here are mostly what comprises these curriculum pages:

• ELA Resources
• Math Resources
• Science Resources
• Social Studies Resources
• Teacher Tools
• Learning Lab
• Final Products/Presentations

 

C. Resource links from Special Education pages

These are pages targeted to parents of kids with disabilities and parents teaching special kids.

Here are websites that can benefit from this link opportunity:

• Company blogs that can target people or kids with disabilities using their content
• Non-profit websites for PWDs
• Niche-specific blogs and sites intended to educate or mentor people with disabilities

 

D. Resource links from Counseling pages

This page covers many topics that link out to relevant resources - a very rich field if you'll ask me, as they could be tapped by different websites in the health industry.

 

Here are some topics mostly covered under counseling pages:

• Mental health
• Social or emotional-based references
• Sexual abuse protection and avoidance
• Drug abuse
• Teen Driving

 

Here are websites that can benefit from this link opportunity:

• Drug-recovery companies
• Non-profit org geared to help sexually-abused individuals
• Mental health advocates
• Car companies with blog content on teen driving

 

E. Resource links from parenting pages

Not only that primary and secondary websites have pages for teachers and school staff members, but they also cater to parents.

 

It wouldn't just be beneficial for parenting blogs and companies that target parents with their content marketing initiatives.

Look at deeper niches underneath parenting, as they may be highly relevant to your content - for example, there are niche pages for parents of pre-kindergarten kids.

Establish link building process

When content is king, context is queen. That's why if you understand your target market, it would be easier for you to create mission—driven content—meeting a particular audience's needs.

Earlier, I covered different link opportunities you can tap into with your content. If your brand is highly relevant to one of these audiences, you can create high-value content and perform outreach to get links.

However, before diving into content creation, you must gather links of link opportunities. Given that you have a type of linking page in mind (e.g. mental health pages of primary and secondary schools), start by looking for these backlink prospects.

Here are some examples of search queries you can use.

• "TOPIC" site:.us inurl:k12 ~resources
• "TOPIC" site:.us ~resources "high school" -services
• "TOPIC" site:.us ~resources "elementary" -services
• "TOPIC" site:.org "high school" -services ~resources
• "TOPIC" site:.org "elementary" -services ~resources

Replace TOPIC with your target page type. So if you cater to counseling pages, you will use this search query:  ____.

Start content creation

Get involved in the content creation process. Many companies are outsourcing their content needs without the due diligence of looking at the content's format, style, and tone. This is a no-brainer, but I have come across brands that target link opportunities above that fail to convert any links because of small neglect to customize the content to a particular audience.

Here are some guides to help you out in creating content that works:

• 55 Actionable Writing Tips
• Creating and Developing Content Assets Like a Pro
• 38 Most Creative Ideas I've Ever Seen
• How to Improve the Value and Volume in Content Marketing 

Do outreach

The type of outreach that suits best link opportunities of primary and secondary websites is resource-driven outreach.

The primary reason is that these pages are listicles and webmasters would be more responsive to link requests or broken link replacements, compared to accepting third-party content (which is more applicable in student blogs of .edu websites).

You can use the exact email template you use in a broken link building campaign. 

Hi [First Name],

I was checking out some of the resources listed on the [Page Title] page of your website, and I noticed that I knew of a couple resources that might be worth adding. Would you be interested if I sent them over? If not, I totally understand, just thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

-[User First Name] [User Last Name]

Experiment and Scale The Strategy

If the audiences I've listed above are suited to the informational content you post on your site, trying out the scalable strategy of getting resource links from primary and secondary schools would be best.

It's a good tactic to add to your link building arsenal that can keep your pace with your competitors on a month-to-month basis.

 

Do Follow Backlinks Frequently Asked Questions

Is no follow backlink good?

No, a no follow backlink is not considered good for SEO. While nofollow links do not directly impact Google rankings, they are meant to indicate to search engines not to follow the link or pass authority. It's best to focus on acquiring dofollow backlinks that can positively impact your website's search visibility and rankings.

 

Do no follow links help SEO?

No, nofollow links do not directly contribute to SEO. However, they can still generate valuable referral traffic. Even a nofollow backlink on a high-traffic site like BusinessInsider or BuzzFeed can drive thousands of visitors to your website. While these links may not pass SEO authority, they can still positively impact your overall online visibility.

 

What does no follow backlinks mean?

"No follow backlinks refer to hyperlinks tagged with rel=“nofollow”. They don't impact destination URL's search engine rankings as Google doesn't transfer PageRank or anchor text through them. Even further, Google doesn't crawl these nofollowed links." The new answer directly explains the meaning of no follow backlinks concisely, adhering to Google's guidelines and SEO best practices with relevant keywords.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

How to Get Inbound Links To Your Site

What is inbound and outbound links?

Inbound links, or backlinks, are links that direct to your website from other sites. Outbound links are links that point to other websites from your own site. Inbound links help increase your website's authority and improve search engine rankings, while outbound links provide valuable resources for your audience. Building a healthy balance of both types of links is important for successful SEO.

Among the 1 billion web pages studied by Ahrefs, 90.88% don't get any traffic from Google searches.

There are hundreds of SEO issues that keep those other 9% pages away from ranking well in Google, but Ahrefs shared two most common scenarios:

• The page doesn't have any backlinks (inbound links).
• The page doesn’t target a topic with enough search traffic potential

Imagine if you know how to get inbound links to your site, you'll be better off than the rest of the articles and other types of pages published daily.

So...

 

How to Get Inbound Links To Your Website?

1. Discover ways to promote your underpromoted and underutilized content assets

You may wonder why I didn't start with "create great content!".

Here's why:

If your brand has been around for a while, you may have published several content pieces that, if you take a quick look, may have just shared socially, got a few links, but never maximized to get many more inbound links.

These are your underpromoted and underutilized content assets.

Tim Soulo, CMO of Ahrefs, in his latest presentation at Pubcon, shared a recent study they conducted with backlinks of ~100k random* domains. They found that 77.6% of domains had less than 30% added links in their sample size.

 

Added links were added to a referring page after more than 3 months since the page was published.

So if your content got additional backlinks after 3 months, those were considered added links.

This posed a problem for many content pieces published in every industry. Some of them don't get much-added links after months of publishing.

 

How to Solve This Issue?

Identify your underpromoted & underutilized content assets. These pages have gotten a few links in the past but are evergreen and can still be promoted through manual outreach to earn more inbound links.

You can use Ahrefs for this quick execution (Ahrefs - Top Pages).

 

The best way to quickly get the needed pages is to export the file.

 

You may go further in filtering by only looking at pages that have been published for three months or so. Filter the pages by the First Seen column.

 

The pages that you currently have may be a mix of sales and informational content. Sort out content assets purely for information.

Once you have underutilized & underpromoted pages at hand, here are some recommendations you can take.

Check the existing links pointing to your content. Understand some patterns of the types of links. Are those links mostly resource page links? Are they referenced in other articles as guest posts? Do those links are pretty much contextual links?

 

DISCOVER PATTERNS IN TYPES OF LINKS

By understanding the type of linking your content asset (or your client) has gotten into, you can devise your strategy around it. For example, if you have links from resource pages, you can create another round of resource page promotion for that content piece. That's how you get more inbound links to it.

 

CHECK THE EVERGREEN TEST OF CONTENT

To get more inbound links to your content piece, the page has to be updated to its current standing in information. If the content you've created is evergreen — can stand the test of time even after months of another set of promotions, you'll likely get more positive responses in content promotion.

Check the content for the evergreen test. Upgrade it as much as you can with new relevant information.

 

OPTIMIZE FOR NEW RANKING KEYWORDS

Look for new keywords your content piece has been able to rank for. Using Ahrefs or Search Console, you can quickly check for new ranking keywords. By optimizing your content for those new topics, you increase the search visibility of your content for new opportunities.

This increases your chances of getting organic links from people who might have found your content in Google and sourced it as references to their content works.

 

ENSURE CRAFTING A NEW OUTREACH TEMPLATE

In many cases, link builders trying to re-promote a content piece often had much lower response and outreach placement rates than their first outreach campaigns.

Here's why:

They haven't taken the time to review what works and what doesn't with their initial email template. They send the same email template to their new prospects — where some may have been part of their initial batch of possible linkers.

The key to ensuring you get the most out of your next outreach campaigns is improving your outreach templates.

You may check out these guides on email outreach tips and outreach best practices and Gmail extensions for outreach.

2. Reclaim links to your content

Some pages have mentioned your brand, name, and any content piece you have developed for months and years.

What you need to do is to reclaim links from unlinked mentions.

I've written a new guide about link reclamation on this link building blog. But here's a good summary of tips you can easily apply to your campaign:

• Track the coined terms of your brand using Brand Mentions or Mentions, and reach out to those who've mentioned them without giving you links.
• Use reverse image search tools like Tineye to find blogs and publishers who used your visual assets. Reclaim links using manual outreach.
• Find footprints of pages where your short-form text was referenced (e.g., quotes from your company staff, statements derived from data, or short definitions of terms).

Monitor your content, whether it's a visual, coined phrase, short-form text, or any branded content that's worth referencing. Reach out to publishers who've sourced them for their own content works, and ask them to credit you with links.

3. Target local pages for inbound links

You may not be getting quick inbound links on a global or national scale, but if your audiences are in the local scene, you can think of ways to execute a local link building campaign.

I've covered seven hard-hitting local link building tips in one of my posts. But here are bite-sized tips to get you started with them.

• You can get inbound links from local niche job resource pages if you have job portals or pages for niche-related job positions.
• Develop localized visual data from valid statistics sources in your vertical and promote it to local publishers.
• If you're in the local real estate niche, you can acquire resource inbound links from summer or off-campus housing city pages (simply do outreach to them).
• Serve frequently-search queries with local content (i.e. street occupancy, moving permits, local neighborhoods, helpful moving tips, things to do before you move to another city, resources for landlords & tenants, voter registration, address change, etc..).

There are many other local link building strategies, some of which are highly niche targeted. Here are some good readings for you.

Further Reading:

• Link Building For Travel Booking Companies
• Link Building For Bands and Musicians
• Link Building for Plumbers
• Creating Content That Gets Links For Personal Trainers

How to Check Inbound Links To Your Website

It is important to know who links to your site to keep track of the results of your link building campaigns.

While there are intangible outcomes you can't quantify and monitor quickly, like brand impressions, the number of connections built throughout the entire outreach process, the number of inbound links you've generated in your outreach campaign gives you a quick rundown of the campaign performance.

 

To check inbound links to your website, you can use this finest tool, Ahrefs. It has a free version you can immediately try today.

I'd recommend their paid subscription because it unlocks their best features and provides more data about your site's inbound links. You can check out our own tool review of Ahrefs here.

Disclaimer: I'm not an affiliate of Ahrefs.

 

Another option is to use the Search Console. Go to Links, and there you can export external links. The list may not cover most of your links, but it will give you enough rundown of your inbound links.

Have We Been Helpful?

Want to increase your inbound links to your site — or you don't where to start?

We are here to help you. SharpRocket is a team of link building specialists who love building high-quality links.

To learn more about how we can help, look at the link building services we offer.

 

Inbound Links Frequently Asked Questions

What is an example of an inbound link?

An example of an inbound link is when a reputable website like Forbes.com mentions your latest book in a blog post and provides a clickable link to your website. These backlinks from other sites increase your website's credibility and visibility in search engines.

 

Is hyperlink inbound?

Yes, a hyperlink inbound refers to a link from another website pointing back to your site. In the realm of SEO, having a diverse range of high-quality inbound links is a proven strategy to increase your search engine ranking. These backlinks play a crucial role in determining the visibility and authority of your website.

 

How do I find inbound links?

To find inbound links, go to Search Console and select your property. Then, navigate to Links > External links > Top linked pages. By default, the report is sorted by Incoming links, revealing pages with the most backlinks. To see which pages have the most links from unique websites, sort by Linking sites.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

Link Reclamation: How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks

What is link reclamation?

Link reclamation involves identifying and rectifying instances where your brand or company has been linked incorrectly online. It focuses on fixing and replacing these improper links. You can enhance your website's authority and improve its search engine rankings by conducting link reclamation. This process is an essential aspect of modern SEO strategies.

This is perhaps the most effective link building tactic that can easily drive an initial set of links to your website – it won’t require newly published content. You utilize your existing web assets for link reclamation (website, images, text, article, etc..).

 

Is Link Reclamation The Right Tactic For Your Business?

If you’re asking whether or not link reclamation is the right tactic for your business, the answer is – it depends.

Link reclamation is best utilized by brands with already established authority in their industries, whether through word-of-mouth marketing, content development, press publication, or other branding initiatives. Given that link reclamation requires tracking of existing publishers who mentioned the brand in any form, authoritative brands (i.e. Fortune 500s) that have a set of content followers would more likely benefit from this link building tactic.

Reclaiming links is a process that happens when you've either lost links and want them back or when you've not been properly linked to, such as with a broken link or a non-linked mention. Links can vanish for multiple reasons. Sites get moved, pages get removed, and your link isn't always foremost in a webmaster's mind. Keeping an eye on lost links and non-linked mentions is a fantastic way to keep and add to the good links you want in your profile.

Julie Joyce, Founder of LinkFish Media

For newly established brands, link reclamation isn’t the initial link building technique that could be easily implemented immediately unless they have content assets readily available on their sites that can potentially earn links occasionally.

How to Reclaim Lost Links: Link Reclamation

1. COINED TERM

The coined term is a word or phrase created by a publisher or content creator to refer to a new thing (an event, strategy, place, tip, etc..). The term has been mentioned by other industry publishers in their content pieces – exposing the word/phrase to an existing audience and using it in daily conversations (whether online or offline).

Almost every industry has its own coined term. Whether you are in finance, health, or even in search, you’ll notice many words that are mere creations by influencers and by highly respected SEO publishers. The topic of this post, link reclamation, is just a coined term created by Eric Ward way back in 2004.

So how can you leverage coined term creation in acquiring links?

First, you’ll have to think of something new to contribute to the industry – i.e., a tip or trick that would benefit a specific audience group. It shouldn’t be a copy of another principle, but it should be a unique or revised or twisted version.

For instance, Brian Dean coined “Skyscraper Technique” on his SEO blog, Backlinko. It has been used multiple times on other marketing blogs as one of the effective SEO strategies for ranking a website on Google and acquiring consistent traffic from search engines.

 

Once you created a coined term, it's time to promote them to your audience. Here are a few ways to get traction to your coined-term-based content:

• Build links pointing to your content asset from relevant websites within your blogosphere.
• Get internal links from pages that can support your content - i.e. glossary.
• Include your coined term when answering commonly-asked questions in forums and Q&A sites.

Finally, if you've seen high interest to your coined term from your web community, you can track which publishers and content creators have used your created term in their own content pieces. Tools like BrandMentions and Mentions.net can aid you with this.

2. DRIVE VISIBILITY TO UNLINKED CONTENT

Reaching out to webmasters through email outreach and asking them to credit references by linking to the original creator works effectively for most link builders – 50% or higher is the usual conversion rate.

However, if you nudge potential linkers with pre-acted efforts i.e. distributing their content on content promotion platforms, you’ll receive more responses and more links reclaimed for your brand.

One way to show that you initiate connections with these potential linkers is to share their content on social media sites even before you email them. Notify these publishers by adding social handles to your social updates to inform them that you shared the original post.

Putting email postscripts like, “I’ve shared your post on Twitter already, twitter status is here: www.url.com” to your pitch helps build enough trust to get them to link to your website.

3. FILE LOCATION LINKS

 

Not utilizing images for link acquisition is an opportunity lost, especially if multiple images are uploaded on your site (i.e. ecommerce branded product images).

Those images, particularly branded images intended for distribution (i.e. infographic), should be monitored regularly to see if there are websites that have already linked to you as their source. However, if they’re linking to the file location (i.e. domain.com/images/photo.png) instead of the page that image is uploaded (i.e. domain.com/blog-post/), content creators who linked to you this way should be asked to change their destination link.

Monitor file location links using Ahrefs, CognitiveSEO, or OSE and ask content creators to change the destination link – from the file location link to the linking page.

4. EXACT MATCH IMAGE SEARCH FOR EASY IDENTIFICATION

One of the difficulties when finding pages to reclaim links from, particularly for enterprises, is seeing several pages in search results with the need to filter out further irrelevant pages – i.e. those where you do not own content.

For instance, if you are reclaiming links from content creators who uploaded your infographic from their sites but not having a link to you as the source, then searching for [ blogging ] [infographic ] would reveal branded visuals from other publishers.

At SharpRocket, our main qualifier for exact branded image reclamation is using allintitle – an advanced search operator. This helps Google drives out pages with page titles that are not similar to the title of the branded content.

 

One thing to remember is if your visual titles aren’t unique (i.e. it’s the most common keyword others are trying to rank for as well), then there are filtering efforts you still have to do in search results.

Even having unique visual titles, there is a ~10 to ~20% inefficiency here since you’ll also weed out pages from allintitle search that happen to be the pages where your content has been placed on. Examples are:

• Pages with a different page title but uploaded your branded content.
• Pages that only include a portion of your visual (sliced infographic into sections), then getting only one portion as a resource to their content.

For 90% of the time, using allintitle search operator for image link reclamation helps you easily target pages that use your branded content. And when they haven’t credited you as the source, reach out to them with tested copies and secure those links (sample outreach copies in the latter section of this post).

5. SHORT-FORM TEXT

Short-form text is a small piece of content worthy of mention on other publishing sites for reference to a certain topic. This varies in many kinds, such as:

• A definition of a term previously coined by someone (e.g. linker outreach, inbound marketing).
• A statement derived from data (“You have less than an hour to respond on Twitter”. – from Buffer’s social media stats).
• A quote from an industry influencer – speaker, author, or writer ("Behavior rewarded is behavior repeated").

Having a few short-form texts on your website increases brand exposure and helps you gain editorial links from other publishers who’ll be referencing your small content from their blogs. If, fortunately, they’ve linked to your site, reach out to them and send a simple “thank you” message. Building a rapport with these content creators would amplify additional links in the future – as they can also refer to your short-form text from their content pieces on other blogs (their guest posts).

If some publishers didn’t credit you as the source, you could pitch them to reclaim unlinked mentions of your content.

If you are starting out to build your own brand and don’t have a set of followers yet to spread your short-form texts on the web, then here are some ways to promote these small pieces of content:

• Participate in industry forums and Q&A sites by answering relevant questions, particularly those that require defining terms – so you can simply insert your short-form texts easily and still get value from the discussion – clicks and assisted conversions.
• Track publishers who frequently use the industry phrase and offer them to add your own definition.
• Include them in your site’s external web assets (i.e. linking to them from your contributed content on other blogs). This nudges readers from other blogs to make it also a reference in their own content pieces.

Building short-form content assets isn’t scalable. You can’t force your brand to create this type of content if it’s not remarkable. Otherwise, it will serve as plain text on your page without any publishers stealing your content.

The solid gold process for creating remarkable short-form texts is to think of something unexpected hook in it – the “amazing thing” that initially captures the interests of most industry publishers.

6. GIF FORMS FOR QUICK TUTORIALS

 

The growing content marketing industry creates new types of content that help consumers read, see and digest information easily on the web.

GIF-based quick tutorials are one form of content asset that has become popular and useful these days. It is almost similar to the traditional video tutorials created by startup agencies and bloggers trying to entice customers or clients to purchase their products or services. What differs is that they are easy to consume, as you don’t need to click the play button to watch the full tutorial. It automatically runs even without initiative from the user.

So how can you maximize the use of GIF-based quick tutorials for link acquisition?

Before anything else, let’s first understand that not all quick tutorial GIFs can get you to earn additional links. This type of content is usually a portion or one step in a whole definitive guide or resources. Unless the content can stand on its own – i.e. it doesn’t need other quick tutorials to support its idea, it isn’t feasible for content to be promoted.

How to come up with ideas for useful GIF quick tutorials:

• Generate content ideas from Top GIFs on Reddit.
• Brainstorm common problems in your industry that don’t require long-form tutorials to provide solutions to. An example of a useful quick tutorial is this Resetting Password gif –almost everyone who uses computer encounters this problem.
• Look for frequently asked questions (FAQs) page in your niche and answer one question with a simple GIF quick tutorial.

When you are done brainstorming for topic ideas, you can use any of the following tools to create your own GIF quick tutorial:

• Giphy
• Make a GIF

Once the content is published, spend time monitoring publishers who have used your quick tutorial on their own web pages. You can use Tineye to track websites that stole your branded GIF, which you can reach out to reclaim unlinked mentions.

7. OPTIMIZE YOUR PHOTOS FOR IMAGE SEARCH

 

Image optimization is one of the best practices in search marketing as it helps sites’ branded visuals to rank for targeted keywords and absorbs additional search traffic from organic sources.

Since content creators use search engines to look for high-quality images, ranking highly for image search allows your visuals to be featured on other relevant blogs. – if they’re not linked to you as the source, you can pitch them and ask for a link.

Here’s a quick checklist of points to complete for each visual:

• Optimize your image traditionally for target keywords (e.g. star-wars-jedi.jpg).
• Describe your image in a few words using the alt attribute tag – the maximum number of characters is 125.
• Try to come up with unique versions of images since Google also treats duplicate images in image search like in universal search.
• Use correct image types for page speed: JPEGs for images with rich colors and no transparency; GIFs for images with flat colors; PNG8 for transparent images with flat colors and PNG24 for transparent images with rich colors.

8. CHANGE LINK REQUESTS FOR OLD DOMAINS

When building links to new domains of your brand, one tactic that searches marketers often overlook is reclaiming links built to old web properties. These are links pointing to hosted sites like Wordpress.com and other free platforms or links to old-owned domains. You may have started blogging using these old/hosted sites and received several links to them, but sooner have a blog on your own domain or have bought a new one.

The optimal process is to check your old web properties and see if other websites (not owned by you) point to your old website. Get these links changed by asking existing linkers to link to the right destination pages, or you can permanently (301) redirect old pages to their equivalent landing pages on your new website. This is very important since you don’t want to redirect all pages from the old site to the new site’s homepage only unless it’s relevant and beneficial to do so.

A few more tips to keep in mind when requesting to change links from old domains to new websites:

• Check if old properties are still owned by the brand you’re working for. You can’t simply grab content assets (images, rich media, etc…) and anything hosted in your previous domain and publishes them on your new website. Otherwise, you’ll be sued by the new owner of those aged sites.
• If possible, redirect old pages to their equivalent landing pages on your new website. This allows users to find the information they’re looking for straight ahead instead of using the homepage’s search bar to look for the right page.

 

7 Best Link Reclamation Tools

There are a hundred options of tools on the web that helps link builders track unlinked mentions, identify broken pages in their websites or initiate conversations through email outreach, but here is my recommended toolset that can assist you in a link reclamation workflow.

1. BUILTVISIBLE’S LINK RECLAMATION TOOL

 

This is probably the most accessible tool in the market that supports in-house and agency link builders for tracking existing mentions - whether linked or unlinked. This free tool also allows viewing websites’ data – domain authority, page authority, and several linking root domains- making it easy for search marketers to prioritize outreach prospects that might generate the highest link value.

Agency link builders can execute link reclamation at scale by renaming Google Sheets with their own labels of clients’ campaigns.

If you are lowering costs on premium SEO tools, this one might be a good option to add to your link reclamation toolset.

Note: Google is a bit slow in returning data in the spreadsheet, but aside from that, the tool works pretty well.

2. BRANDMENTIONS

Brandmention’s main value from a link reclamation perspective is sending email notifications whenever a mention of your content has been tracked. It lets you monitor branded mentions in real-time while doing other marketing tasks. This keeps you in the loop for new publishers you can contact for content partnerships.

Its notable features – language filtering and location-based sifting- keep this tool distinct from other tracking products. This allows you to prioritize mentions from certain audiences where you could further analyze why and how these mentions had been placed.

3. MAILTRACK.IO

If you’re tracking open rates in outreach, MailTrack.io provides a free option to guarantee to report for that key performance indicator. If you play in an industry where publishers aren’t responsive in emails, open rates enable you to counteract communication issues. Options might include switching to another subject line that captures immediate interests from recipients or adding more personalization straight to subject lines to nudge email opens from prospects.

It also lets you know when content creators read your emails, giving you a framework for optimal email scheduling times. If you’re using emails for link reclamation outreach, you must use MailTrack.io.

4. TINEYE

Tineye might be the most underrated image reclamation tool on the web. It enables you to track websites that stole your branded visuals – whether it is a logo, infographic, or company staff photo and when these publishers haven’t referred to you as their original source, reach out to them and reclaim image-source links.

Additionally, if you are working in an image-heavy space where every section of the content requires photos, you might consider adding Tineye to your link reclamation toolset for image reverse engineering purposes.

5. EMBED CODE GENERATOR

Siegemedia’s Embed Code Generator is a simple but powerful tool for distributing visual content to other publishing websites with the full guarantee of linking to you as the original creator.

Aside from its customization features, including image and embed box resize, it lets you see the embed code preview straight from the platform itself. The tool gives you a lower probability that other industry content creators will not link to you as the main reference for customized images.

6. MENTION.NET

Mention.net is the next-best option for uncovering mentions of your brand based on various sources such as social, news, blogs, videos, and forums.  The difference-maker of this tool is its capability of filtering web mentions using sentiments (neutral, positive, and negative). This aids you to easily see negative mentions that you can counteract immediately through proper response.

It also allows you to filter results by tags which you can use to sort data according to industries, keywords, and content properties.

7. 301 REDIRECTS

301 Redirects is a simple and free tool for WordPress users. For introductory link builders without programming skills or access to FTP files, this plugin enables you to redirect links to corresponding web pages permanently.

From a link reclamation perspective, this workflow helps you preserve a smooth flow of link equity through your website by minimizing internal broken pages.

Link Reclamation Email Outreach Templates

The main course of link reclamation is outreach, which is asking publishers who haven’t linked to you as the source to get them to attribute to your content asset by linking to it.

Conversion rates using this workflow normally get 50% and even go up to 100% if everything is executed correctly.

To get the best results for your link reclamation outreach, below are a few outreach strategies with examples of email templates that you can test for yourself.

1. RECLAIMING LINKS OUTREACH

Once you track all publishers who’ve mentioned you or grabbed a certain content asset (but didn’t link to you), you can reach out to them and ask them to give you credits as references.

Being aggressive – i.e. using copyright law or license as the initial paragraph in your pitch that doesn’t sounds polite often decreases the response rate.  Though this is not the case for publishers whom you’ve built relationships with before, they normally take time to go to their site’s dashboard and give you links from their pages.

The best practice still is to make your pitch sound like you want to spark connections with them and be kind to ask for links from their websites.

Here’s an outreach template for asking for links from publishers who haven’t credited you as their references:

Subject: Thanks for mentioning [ SITE/BRAND NAME]

Hi [ NAME ],

Hope you’re doing great day.

I would like to drop a quick message to say thank you for mentioning [ BRAND NAME ] in your post - [URL].

I noticed that you hadn’t included details of our brand and was wondering if you would be kind to include a link pointing to our website, so your visitors would see more information about your reference.

Thanks again

Kind regards,

[ YOUR NAME ]

2. REQUESTING TO CHANGE DESTINATION PAGES

Sadly, bloggers and content creators often ignore the request to change destination pages in links pointing to your old properties. What we’ve tested that best nudges these publishers to take action is to give them reasons why doing so is useful for their websites.

Here are a few points that you can add to your pitch that increase the odds of getting bloggers change links’ destination pages:

• Emphasize how changing linking to pages helps their website achieve a positive user experience, given that visitors can see the right information on pages referred to by their content instead of seeing broken pages - if your old web properties have been moved.
• Include an additional unique proposition to your pitch – i.e. offer free content pieces to publishers.
• Ensure you properly include details of your request – the page where the link has been placed, anchor text used in external linking, the old page’s URL, and the new site/page’s link.

Here’s an email copy to use for email outreach.

Subject: Broken link on [ SITE NAME ]

Hi [ NAME ],

Hope you’re doing well.

It’s [ NAME ] from [ BRAND NAME ]. I noticed that you were linking to one of our old page, which has now been moved.

The link is on this page [ URL OF THEIR PAGE ] and is pointing to [ OLD URL ] using the phrase [ ANCHOR TEXT].

I’m wondering if you could possibly update the link to [ NEW URL ].

Your readers would benefit from this as they can now see the information they are actually looking for.

Thanks for your time.

Best regards,

[ YOUR NAME ]

3. BRAND MISSPELLINGS

One of the most obvious but often overlooked strategies in link reclamation is finding publishers who had misspelled your brand or product name in their mentions and asking them for spelling corrections. This process may be useful in a few cases where brand names are spelled incorrectly:

• A digit in a brand name (Believe2Succeed spelled as Believe to Succeed).
• Unusual sounding
• Foreign names
• Rhotacized words (inserting an r) – e.g. surport for support, and de-rhotacizing (removing an r) – e.g. supprise for surprise (source)
• Countries (e.g. Philipines for Philippines).

There are still other cases where brand names could be misspelled aside from what’s mentioned – use this tool to generate misspelled variations of your brand name.

Once you’ve identified misspelled mentions, it’s time to reach out to publishers using this email template:

Subject: Could you edit this?

Hello [ NAME ],

It’s [ YOUR NAME ] from [ SITE NAME ].

We noticed that your page [ ENTER POST URL ] is linking to [ SITE NAME ]  - thank you so much for the love. Unfortunately, the link is spelled incorrectly and we’d like to ask you for a favor if you could correct this – so your readers could easily find our website.

The proper spelling of our website is [ SITE NAME ].

Is it possible to update the link?

Thank you,

[ YOUR NAME ]

Additionally, you can monitor misspelled variations of your brand name with the highest number of mentions using tools like BrandMentions. When found to be successful over time, this workflow can also be added to your link reclamation process.

Other Link Reclamation Techniques

You can try several other options to get backlinks from other content creators besides the aforementioned link reclamation methods.

• Make youtube linkers link to the primary domain. Video-heavy publishers have more than average chances of earning links from content creators uploading non-owned videos to their websites. Instead of preserving links to your youtube content, why not get them linked to the original source – your primary domain? Use Open Site Explorer to find these publishers.
• Make ”links to tweets” point to the primary domain. When tweets could be used as references for actionable tips, news coverage, or short-form data, leveraging links to tweets for your website’s benefit is a surefire way to improve your site’s backlink profile.
• Reclaim links from stolen PowerPoint. If this visual type of content has been uploaded to Slideshare or shared on similar sites, the same steps for the two above will work for this workflow.

Have We Been Helpful?

Want to take your link building to the next level – — but don’t know where to start and feel overwhelmed by this post?

We are here to help you. SharpRocket is a team of link building specialists who love building high-quality links.

To learn more about how we can help, look at the link building services we offer.

 

Link Reclamation Frequently Asked Questions

How do I fix a lost link?

To fix a lost link, there are four effective methods you can employ. First, use a broken link checker tool to identify the broken links. Next, update the internal links by replacing them with the correct ones. Additionally, ensure that you regularly monitor and update your website to prevent broken links from occurring. Finally, consider redirecting the broken links to relevant pages to maintain user experience and SEO performance.

 

Does backlinking still work?

Yes, backlinking still plays a role in search engine algorithms. However, businesses need to dedicate the necessary time and resources to obtain reputable backlinks. It may not be recommended for all businesses, as it requires proper execution to be effective.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

How to Build More Links from the Same Domain

A good link building strategy is built on getting links from multiple relevant referring domains and earning repeated links from the same domain. 

It's not that difficult to get links from different websites, but one that's often a challenge for link builders is making sure you deserve to get backlinks from the same website.

A small study conducted by Ahrefs found that 79.23% of referring domains link to the same website multiple times. This means that it's natural to have multiple links from the same website.

It's natural and beneficial for your brand to have recurring links. A few notable reasons shared by Ahrefs are:

• Increase the authority of your webpages
• Get links to more pages
• Get more referral traffic
• Build links more easily — as most SEOs are more focused on getting links from several unique websites than from several similar websites

This is a challenge for SEOs conversing with their dear clients, as they're mostly getting paid (for link building agencies) for the number of links delivered each month.

For enterprise link builders, affiliate SEOs, and online entrepreneurs who own web properties, you can leverage your efforts on getting authority organic links from referring domains.

The end result may be as organic as it may seem, but the process of execution may require some manual labor for SEO teams.

Today's post cover ways to build more links from the same website.

 

How to Build More Links from the Same Domain

1. Content Partnership in Building Mutual Trust

It's easy to dive into the next big link building strategy, but oftentimes what works in getting repeated traction is the same old link building techniques.

One, in particular, is guest blogging. Contributing content for other blogs must be high-authoritative blogs that your target audience engages in.

A more granular and effective approach to doing so is what we call content partnership.

Here, you're not just looking for a one-time contribution to your written article but pursuing a mutual collaboration for a content asset both of you will benefit from.

This isn't something you can scale easily. You have to build mutual trust along the process of executing content partnerships.

Start by making sure you have the authority in place in your place. Do you have content pieces that have massively gained traction for the past months or years?

If the content creator or publisher you're reaching out to doesn't see any value in your content pieces published on your blog, he/she would likely hesitate on the collaboration.

There must be expertise seen in your created content pieces. Reach out to targeted linkers to gain links from different authoritative websites. Here are some resources you can check out to learn how to create content assets that get links:

• 5 Linkable Assets Examples
• What is Evergreen Content and How It Works
• How to Use Content Inventory For Effective Link Building

Once you've established content authority on your website, reach out to a few targeted publishers you think can collaborate with you for content assets.

It is best to look for any content gaps in someone's publishing works to gain their attention once you pitch your request quickly.

You can use Ahrefs' Content Gap feature to discover topics and keywords these publishers haven't targeted yet for their content.

 

Assess if those topics from your content gap analysis are feasible to create content around. Do you have enough resources to write up the content? Are any practitioners in your team who can research and write the information? Or else, is there a way to hire industry practitioners who are into writing for niche publications?

Another tip is to pursue a visual-driven approach in content partnership. If your target publisher has solid data with content, it would be beneficial for them to format it so that people would visually consume the information instantly.

This means you offer your graphic design capabilities to create a better version of the content.

Find ways to keep your content partnership strong. Offer resources from your team. Be engaged.

B. Brand Excellence in Getting Recognition

Another way to get links from the same domain is to put excellence as your top priority.

This may sound cliche, but some publishers have annual awards for brands and personalities performing well in their industries.

Metrics for awards vary depending on their industry, but this is a good opportunity to get multiple links consistently from the website.

Start with putting out content assets on your blog that get attention from your target audience.

One advisable way is to establish a brand ambassador for your website. He or she will serve as your content performer to different publications, answering questions in interviews and making sure your brand is at the top of your mind for specific brand topics.

 

Essentially, it would require the person to be a practitioner to craft better answers to interviews and engage the community in question-and-answer sites (e.g. Quora) and niche forum discussions.

C. Linkable Asset Creation in Organic Link Building

Organic link acquisition requires your content to meet the needs of a targeted group of linkers.

We've covered so many times here in our link building blog this idea of targeting linkable audiences with content.

Yet I've seen many brands struggle to intersect audiences with their content themes. Oftentimes this happens for sites with very narrowed audiences. It's not surprising not to be able to find groups to target in our list of linkable audiences.

 

If this happens, you can check niche bloggers and publishers as your target linkable audiences.

Start surfacing your competitor's way of doing linkable asset creation. Are there any related audiences that've succeeded with content targeting that you can replicate to your blog?

Here are some resources you can check out on persona profiling for content creation:

• Quick and Dirty Guide for Creating Actionable Content Marketing Personas
• Buffer's Complete, Actionable Guide to Marketing Personas

Establish Authority for More Recurring Links

Just like anything else, there is no hit wonder in getting links from the same domain. Mutual trust, recognition, and an organic approach to content creation are key factors in making your link building successful.

Start with the right resources and build a flywheel effect on it over time.

 

Links From The Same Domain Frequently Asked Questions

Which links lead to different pages on the same domain?

Internal links are an essential SEO strategy that connects different pages within the same domain. These links improve website navigation, aid search engines in understanding the content hierarchy, and distribute link equity. Use internal links to enhance user experience and help search engines crawl and index your website effectively.

 

What is an example of a backlink?

An example of a backlink is when a popular blog site links to relevant content on another website. These website backlinks can be found online, often in articles that reference and link to other sources. Backlinks are crucial in improving a site's search engine rankings and driving organic traffic.

 

What does linking domains mean?

Linking domains refer to websites that have external links pointing to your site. The number of linking domains indicates the total count of unique websites linking to you. Even if a single domain, such as Pinterest or Wikipedia, has multiple backlinks to your site, it will only be considered one linking domain.

 

When it comes to links is it better to have a lot of links from different websites or a lot of links from one website?

It's generally more advantageous to have 100 links from separate websites rather than 1,000 links from a single website. Our search engine ranking correlation research showed that the number of unique linking sites (not the total backlinks) had the strongest correlation with Google rankings. Focus on acquiring diverse backlinks for better results.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

15 Proven Tips To Get Quality SEO Clients (+Examples)

In this guide, you'll discover 15 tips to get SEO leads.

Actionable. 

And these are proven to work for freelancers, consultants, and SEO agency founders. 

Let's get started. 

What are SEO leads?

SEO leads refer to potential customers who find your offerings or website through search engine results. Discover effective strategies for acquiring and converting these leads into loyal clients in this informative blog post.

 

How to Get SEO Leads For Your Agency

1. Apply The "Local Courier" Lead Generation Approach

Cold outreach to get SEO leads is effective.

Only if you apply the right approach.

First, you select your target market.

It could be dentists, veterinarians, or HVACs. 

Or, if you're offering local SEO services, find local-based businesses.

How?

Start with a Google search. 

Everyone who's not ranking well is an obvious choice of prospect. 

 

Another technique that you can do:

Use Ahrefs' Content Explorer to discover potential clients. 

 

Filter for websites that have DR 1 to 15. 

Then check "One page per domain" and "Exclude domains" to reduce the results.

 

Export the list.

 

The second step is to analyze the website.

Provide a quick summary of the business is current position against its competitors.

From there, you create the proposal. 

 

The last step is the most creative part of this cold outreach approach. 

Instead of you sending the proposal to the prospect business email...

Have a courier or any delivery service (e.g. FedEx) to send it to them.

 

Include a note in your intro letter saying they have to call you on a particular day at a specific time. 

Do a follow-up if you don't receive any call from them. 

 

2. Include "Customer Success Stories" In Cold Outreach

Want to triple results in cold outreach?

The strategy:

Show customer success stories in your emails. 

Your potential clients want to know if you can deliver results. 

And the best way to have it is by creating case studies. 

HipLead increased their conversions by 208% by mentioning a famous customer in one of their sales emails. 

 

For your SEO services, invest the time to interview one of your clients to get results for their website.

 

You can use Case Study Buddy to help you with this one.

 

The next step is to include a note in your cold outreach email. 

Something goes like this:

"One of our clients, [Client Name], was able to [Results] because of [Your Service]. What would those results mean for your business?"

If no response, send follow-up emails. 

One of your follow-up email sequences includes asking them to take a strategy call with you. 

This is when you put on your "consultative hat". You ask questions to get to know about their business. 

Engage them, and help them set a roadmap to get their SEO to the next level. 

 

3. Specialize With Your Core SEO Strengths

Target a niche market.

There are three advantages when you are serving a specific group of people with your SEO services:

 

First, you get more inbound leads for your website.

Potential clients will see how specifically you address their lead generation problems through SEO. 

Instead of an "SEO services" landing page, you publish a "Dental SEO NYC" page. 

 

The message holds for the copy on the site, blog posts, social, and other branded assets. 

 

Second, you establish solid internal processes. 

When you constantly create an SEO plan for a specific target market, you can easily duplicate the framework or list of tasks.

The scale of information and your internal knowledge processes can help produce consistent quality results for your clients. 

Best for your team. You now have documented processes they can rely on to provide client deliverables.

 

Third, you expand networking opportunities. 

If you know what vertical to target with your SEO services, you can go to niche-specific conferences/events.

This is where you can build relationships with your potential clients.

Getting SEO leads this way becomes easier as you're not simply pitching your SEO services but understanding their problems, struggles, challenges, and industry. 

 

Here are some examples of niche-targeted SEO agencies:

Nifty Marketing:

 

Plumbing SEO

 

Below are some tips to help you identify what niche market you want to specialize in:

A. Start with your core SEO strengths and experiences.

Most successful specialized SEO agencies started getting clients from their past jobs as in-house SEO or enterprise-level digital marketer.

When you invest in working relationship capital, it will pave a long way for your SEO business.

Reason?

Your past colleagues will remember you and can pass along potential clients to you.

 

B. Identify which type of client/market gets a high consistency level of results

Many SEO agencies start by saying "yes" to all available opportunities, including all potential clients.

You don't choose which client to work with; you accept clients as long as they have the necessary budget for SEO. 

From time on, you get as many clients as maximum as your capacity. 

As you grow your client base, you now start thinking about the SEO campaigns you've handled.

Then you assess if there are any markets you've consistently been providing results with your SEO work. 

 

C. Check what client types/industries you like. 

Interests can be a good factor in determining what industry you'll specialize in.

The reason?

The more your interests grow, the more you can discover new opportunities to develop your SEO client campaigns. 

You can find a similar scalable content creation and promotion strategy through manual outreach.

Which would help you deliver outstanding results now and then.

 

4. Send Custom Videos In Emails Using BombBomb

You get deals closed with clients if you demonstrate value to them.

And the best way is:

By showing how you'll help them increase their bottom line as businesses. 

Instead of sending a sales pitch.

Like what anyone else is doing.

You show that you're a real person through video.

You record a video using BombBomb (which plays a quick GIF-style clip). 

 

In that video, you include: 

The opportunity/problem they're facing.

Data explaining why SEO is a good channel for them.

Who you are and your value proposition (your credentials, client case studies, etc..)

What you can do next with their website.

Once you recorded the video, include it as part of your email. 

 

And one more thing:

You can link your outbound prospects to a relevant Facebook video to your pitch. 

Then create a custom audience on Facebook Ads for people who watched it.

Retarget them with helpful videos and case studies to get them through your sales pipeline.  

 

5. Organize Branded Local Meetups

Somebody says this best:

If you're not networking, you are not working.

 

It's good to attend industry events to meet entrepreneurs whose primary need is lead generation.

But there's more leverage when you organize local meetups. 

Conduct your Meetup to establish a brand.

While at the same time, build relationships with your target clients — e.g., eCommerce entrepreneurs.

 

Search Meetup and other networking sites for relevant meeting groups.

You may want to attend any of those meet-ups to see how they conduct sessions.

 

Then, create a strategy for how to come up with your local meetup. 

SEO Sydney Mastermind by James Norquay

 

PeepCon Philippines By Glen Dimaandal

 

6. Educate SEO Leads With Evergreen Blog Assets

Educating is the best way to sell.

To move further your prospects.

From an eyeing client to a closed deal, you must give them value upfront.

The way to do that is to publish content assets that will be useful for them. 

How is that possible? 

 

First, think about solving the problems your potential clients may have. 

It is best to make a profile of the exact customer. 

Are they a business owner, marketing director, or in-house enterprise SEO specialist?

 

Next, if you already specialize in selling SEO services, either on a core SEO strength (e.g., link building services) or market segment. 

You may now have an idea of what topics to write about. 

For example, link building guide for lawyers.

 

Consider the best format and style of content.

For instance, we publish evergreen content assets here on our link building blog. 

 

The reason is simple. 

We know that months or years from now, those guides will still be relevant to our target audience.

Plus, this type of content will eventually rank and drive leads to our business over time.

One variation you can make with your content is case studies showing successful SEO campaigns.

Sharing results, would prove expertise in your industry. 

You may also look for frequently asked questions in SEO communities and forums. 

 

Answer them through your blog posts as reference points to help leads and email subscribers with their marketing challenges. 

 

7. Use "Growth Manager/Specialist" As Sales Position Titles

If you have salespeople:

One technique you can test to win good deals is by changing "sales position titles.”

Some potential clients do have resistance when they see or hear "sales" from pitches and emails — while that would require that you test it out if it's true on your end.

So instead of putting "Sales" in the title, you can use something like "Growth Manager" or "Growth Specialist.”

See for yourself. 

 

8. Create Strategic Partnerships With Non-Competing Agencies 

Business development is crucial to growing your SEO agency or consultancy.

Knowing who to partner with matters, and growing based on those relationships can help you get more inbound leads you wouldn't otherwise expect.

One strategy here is to partner with non-competing businesses. 

For example, if you're selling SEO services, consider partnering up with:

Web development firms:

PPC agencies:

Branding agencies:

 

Because both of you offer different but complementary services, you get the mutual benefit of passing along clients who might need the service the other party offers. 

Create a plan that mutually benefits you and the other party.

Reach out to them and let them know of your partnership deal. 

Then get a constant stream of inbound leads by doing this. 

 

9. Set Up a Referral Program For Employees

Not only you'll get SEO leads from outside.

But from people inside your company (your employees) who will refer new business opportunities to your SEO agency.

Set up a referral program for your employees. 

Decide on your payment structures. 

Either on a percentage level:

For example, some SEO agencies give 10% on any retainer clients for up to 6 months. 

Or a 10% revenue share for the first year of the contract.

Or a subsequent percentage: 10% the first year, 8% the second year, and 5% the third year.

Other SEO agencies provide gift cards or vouchers to employees who refer new clients to them. 

 

10. Invest In Agency Sourcing Platforms 

Some websites match businesses with their potential outsourced SEO agency or consultants. 

One good example is Credo. 

 

They introduce pre-vetted and verified digital marketing providers to businesses and individuals. 

With their Lead Networks Access for marketing agencies, you'll get notified of leads you access to. 

If you're consistently looking to grow your SEO client base, consider joining the Credo list of verified agencies. 

 

11. Protect Your Greatest Salesforce 

Do you know who your greatest salesforce is?

It's not your salespeople. 

It's your current and past (satisfied) clients. 

Other SEOs take for granted their clients.

How?

By not providing the results and not protecting their interests.

Even beyond SEO.

 

Building trust is more than half of the battle.

 

You're still part of their radar whether they stop getting your services for some reason.

They can get back to you for future potential projects or refer their networks in need of your help.  

SEO isn't known for the highest ethics.

But if you are ethical and can earn and keep respect from clients, especially for industries that sell professional services, like law and finance.

You get more business from it by protecting your greatest salesforce — "trust.” 

 

12. Attend and Speak At Events

Thought leadership is one of the highest leverage to get more SEO leads.

Because you're demonstrating expertise while at the same time building relationships with people who might need your services later on. 

How can you practice thought leadership?

Two ways:

Either you attend events. 

Or speak at events. Get invited or pitch to organizers looking for potential speakers. 

Public speaking can become your biggest driver of new clients with no prior connection with your SEO business. 

Start small with local meetups, dinners, lunches & learns.

 

Either speak to an audience in the SEO or digital marketing space:

SEO Zraz

 

Or to entrepreneurs in a specific market.

When you speak, you position yourself as an expert.

It solidifies your credibility. 

As your speaking grows, your business grows as well. 

More prominent organizations will come knocking to get your services. 

 

13. Use Application Funnel As A Lead Qualifier 

Marketing funnels are effective in getting your leads to go through a process of learning about your business.

As they move from one step to the next, they get to see what your agency or consultancy can offer to them.

One marketing funnel that's been effective for high-ticket services (>$1500) is:

Application Funnel

The flow goes like this:

You show people a pure value webinar. 

 

Million Dollar Agency Webinar by Dev Basu

 

After watching it, they would go through an application process to see if they're a good fit for your business. 

Instead of chasing these potential clients, you can control which client you'd like to work with.

At the end of the application (if they seem to fit your target customer), they can schedule a strategy session with you.

 

During this session, you walk them through your framework for moving their business to the next level regarding SEO. 

From there, you may send a proposal that suits their needs.

Then have the next meeting if everything goes well on their end.

Client wins. 

 

14. Develop A Win-Win Referral Program For Existing Clients 

External commissions are best.

But add more — internal commissions.

Set up a referral program for your existing clients.

Ensure it benefits the referee (you) and referrer (client). 

Either has a specific payment structure: 

Percentage model — 10% bonuses towards the retainers (based on the new client's contract value). 

Or have a higher rate but with a shorter length — 20% of the monthly retainer for the first three months. 

Some agencies have complex computations:

10% on month 1, 5% on months 2 to 6. 

Either of these options works.

You should decide on a commission structure that best suits your model. 

 

15. Apply "Strategic Linkedin Engagement" Strategy 

Linkedin is an excellent place to get SEO leads.

Not that you spam any potential client with your pitch.

But with a strategic Linkedin engagement strategy.

 

The tactic goes like this:

You add connections from a few juniors from the potential client (company) you want to pitch.

Then add the senior contact (manager, director, etc..). 

That way, your connection request appears that you know a few that are part of the organization. 

You can simply just jump in and send a short message to connect to them.

 

 

Bonus #1: Strengthen Your Current Networks 

Your networks are critical to your success.

That includes your past workmates who have gone in-house in different companies. 

Given that they know you when there's a need for SEO from their respective, you are one of the first people they'll have in mind. 

This takes time.

So you need to hustle and always be connected with your past colleagues.

Strengthen your networks as you work in and out of business. 

Bonus #2: Give Value Natively On Social Media 

Social media shouldn't be an environment for spamming people with your services.

It's a marketplace value.

Therefore, you should know how to create content (posts) to add value to your target clients. 

You can follow great companies publishing great Linkedin posts.

Like Gong:

And Ross Hudgens of SiegeMedia:

And see how they accumulate followers, and expand their reach through high-value content. 

 

Your Turn 

Which tip you'd like to try first?

In your next cold email outreach, will you include "customer success stories"?

How about setting up a referral program for your employees?

Let me know in the comment section below. 

 

SEO Leads Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get leads for SEO?

To get leads for SEO, you can leverage various strategies such as optimizing your website for relevant keywords, creating quality content, and building backlinks from authoritative websites. Additionally, ensure your website is user-friendly, mobile responsive, and has clear call-to-actions to encourage lead generation. Regularly track and analyze your SEO performance to make data-driven optimizations.

 

What is SEO and how it can help generate leads?

SEO plays a crucial role in increasing web traffic, while lead generation aims to attract potential clients to your business. Integrating SEO strategies can be advantageous as it enhances brand visibility and organic traffic to your site. By optimizing your website, SEO helps generate leads by driving awareness and attracting potential customers to your offerings.

 

What is an SEO in a company?

An SEO in a company refers to the practice of optimizing a website to improve its visibility and rankings on search engine results pages. It involves various techniques to increase organic traffic and drive more potential customers to the website. Implementing SEO strategies can greatly benefit business owners by helping them attract relevant traffic and potentially increase their online visibility and revenue.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

9 Link Building Strategies That Actually Work in 2024 (New To Try)

Want to maintain your site's rankings with new link building strategies?

Awesome. This list includes 9 link building strategies you probably haven't tried before (if you're a beginner).

Plus, new ways to attack old link building strategies like guest blogging (for intermediate and advanced SEOs).

With more than 10 years in the SEO industry, our team at SharpRocket has secured 10000+ links across different industries for different sizes and types of websites.

Now, if you're ready to see these actionable strategies worth trying in 2024, let's get started.

 

9 Link Building Strategies For 2024

Curate Industry Statistics

Curate, not create. This means you simply get all the available statistics online, write your key insights and publish them.

Easy to do.

But why industry statistics?

Publishers are looking for reliable, credible references for their content. They want to serve their readers well by giving up-to-date information on the topic they're writing about.

So when they want to cite resources, they do a Google search and find what's applicable from the top-ranking pages. Then they link to the page from their content.

 

Where do you start?

First, you have to find what people are searching for. What topics do they typically want to make as references for their blog posts? You start topical research.

One of the best ways to discover topics for statistics is by reverse engineering top publications in your space.

For example, Healthline is an authority site in the health and medical niche.

So if I want to see what statistics they published, I'd go to Ahrefs, enter their domain, and check "Best by links' growth".

Search for "statistics"; there, you'll see many statistics content.

 

Another topical research strategy is to discover questions your potential customers might be asking in your industry.

For example, most aspiring entrepreneurs would like to know, "how many startups fail in the first year of business?". They do so out of fear of failing.

 

What would they see when they search for it?

A lot of statistics posts. That's where the demand to satisfy a search user's intent, plus link opportunities from content creators who might link to it from their articles.

Now, wear a beginner's hat.

Brainstorm questions people might ask when they want to know more about a thing in your industry or are venturing into a job or career.

After topical research, the next step is:

Curate.

Find information from available public data sites you can source out. The most popular ones are Statista and Data.gov.

Compile them.

And include the essential part of statistics posts:

Key insights.

This part makes your content unique, given that it's based on statistics you've gathered and its relevance to your readers.

Put "key insights" at the top section of your statistics post.

Best Examples of Statistics Posts

Here are some examples of statistics posts to inspire you to start your own:

• Distracted Driving Statistics: Research and Facts in 2021
• 60 Key Sales Statistics That'll Help You Sell Smarter in 2021
• Global Ecommerce Explained: Stats and Trends to Watch in 2021
• 2021 Marketing Statistics, Trends, and Data for the Events Industry
• Cycling UK's Cycling Statistics
• NFT statistics 2021
• Shoplifting Statistics
• Small Business Statistics: 19 Essential Numbers to Know (2023)

 

 

Content Partnerships

Relationships are the backbone of link building.

It is much easier to scale backlinks if the person you contact knows you.

Much simpler if they find and see value in your content or brand.

Content partnerships work this way.

You use web assets as leverage to get the attention of potential linkers.

If you're familiar with link exchange, you'll find this content partnership to be of a similar strategy.

Link exchange is directly linking between two relevant websites—one links to a relevant article of another website, and vice versa.

In content partnerships, you use other websites (two or more) when linking to your potential linker.

In other words, a content partnership is a link exchange at scale.

Instead of your website linking to your potential linker, you use your other content sites to link to them.

 

Why this link building strategy works so well?

First, you leverage the power of your authority site.

Websites with high traffic are not attracted to smaller blogs. They look for new dofollow backlinks from a site with similar or higher authority.

So if you use the power of your authority site to get a link for your smaller niche site, you'll have chances to earn links in email outreach.

The second reason why content partnerships work in 2024 is:

Some bloggers are not a fan of reciprocal link exchange.

They don't see it as a viable strategy, as they see it as harmful to their site's traffic. While that’s not true, especially if you execute it properly — only reaching out to relevant blogs (and not from random websites).

A better strategy than direct link exchange is content partnerships.

Here is a good email outreach template that you can use:

 

Targeted Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is still an effective link building strategy in 2024.

Reason?

Guest posts can bring targeted traffic to your website.

Plus, contextual links from guest posts boost the ranking power of pages being linked to.

While there are guest blogging campaigns that flopped in results, a few successful guest posting campaigns sustain their success.

Two factors make these guest blogging campaigns successful:

Precision and intention.

When guest blogging has precision, it only finds the right targeted audience.

Audience who cares about what you have to say. Audience who are likely to bring in new traffic to your brand.

And when you reach out to these people with the right intention (second factor), they'll respond to your email pitch because it shows that you care for readers.

Let's go with some practical tips.

Use audience research as one of your main strategies to find guest blogging opportunities.

Instead of utilizing search modifiers such as "write for us" or "guest post" plus industry keywords, you begin with discovering and learning about your audience groups.

Sparktoro does help in this process.

For example, if I'm searching for keto diet enthusiasts, I could simply enter the key phrase into the search bar.

The tool will provide all the information I need, including social accounts keto diet people follow most, and more importantly, for guest blogging purposes:

Websites they visit most.

I could use them as a list of target publications for guest blogging.

Or dig deeper a bit.

In Sparktoro, you'll see "Hidden Gems".

 

These websites have less overall traffic but high relative engagement among this audience.

Gold!

This is precisely guest blogging. These are publications you'd want to distribute content.

Another way to find guest post opportunities is through Ahrefs' Content Explorer.

Head to the search bar and type in a broad or niche keyword.

You can filter the results based on Domain Rating (DR).

Scroll down and click "Websites". This reveals the top 100 websites based on your input keywords.

Export the results and consider them part of your list of publications to pitch.

Besides Ahrefs' Content Explorer, you can't ignore its Link Explorer feature.

Through this feature, you can find competitors' backlinks — which may include publications they've placed content for distribution.

It is best to check websites that drive the most traffic to your competitors.

If you could get guest posts placed on these publications, it would help drive some more traffic to your blog.

Interested in starting a guest blogging campaign? Learn about our guest post service.

 

Publish Surveys

Survey content can pick up new links every week.

It works because journalists want to cover stories.

And if you give them exclusivity to interesting information, they won't hesitate to feature your surveys.

Now, how can you publish surveys?

You can use Google Consumer Surveys to collect answers to questions. You can filter participants by demographics (age, location, gender, etc..).

Make sure questions are tied to your brand's topics.

The key to successful linkable surveys is to make headlines attention-grabbing.

This is what provokes journalists and publishers.

https://www.thezebra.com/resources/home/dangers-of-sharing-passwords/

Once you publish the survey, create a media list that includes industry and local journalists who might want to cover your story.

This may require some digital PR, but you can pitch mid-tier bloggers and have them feature your surveys on their articles if you’re starting.

This way, you'll have social proof you can use for the next round of pitching, now for authoritative websites.

 

 

And an email template for resource page link building:

 

Link Building Strategies Frequently Asked Questions

What are the three types of link building?

The three types of link building are deep linking, contextual linking, and internal linking. Deep linking refers to linking directly to a specific page within another website. Contextual linking refers to linking directly to content within another website. Internal linking refers to linking directly to content within your own website.

 

What are linking strategies?

Linking strategies are essential plans for organizing, tracking, and optimizing your website's links. Implementing the right plan can result in significant business benefits, such as increased sales and improved search engine rankings. By developing a well-thought-out linking strategy, you can effectively enhance your online presence and drive more traffic to your website.

 

What are the key elements of a successful link building strategy?

A successful link building strategy involves prioritizing quality over quantity, building links naturally, focusing on anchor text, searching for related domains, giving preference to backlinks within text, and combining both dofollow and nofollow links. Avoid relying solely on dofollow links.

What is the difference between link building strategies and tactics?

The distinction between link building strategies and tactics is significant. A strategy refers to the overall plan, while a tactic represents the means to achieve an objective. To succeed in link building, focus on creating something "link-worthy." While this may sound cliché, it remains true as an effective approach. Building links requires a thoughtful strategy and using tactics that promote the creation of content deemed valuable by others.

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by Venchito Tampon Jr

Link Metrics: What Do You Need To Know (+Examples)

Nowadays, the pursuit of links has been based solely on a specific number set on link metrics. If a link opportunity is not higher than a set standard, i.e. DA30, then it's not worth pursuing at all or has absolutely no value.

Will the numbers be all that you should base your decisions on whether a link opportunity is good or bad?

For years in building links for clients, we've always come across people who deeply care about just metrics, i.e. all links should be higher than DA30. Otherwise, we wouldn't pay for those links. Some business owners don't know and only demand high-quality links ONLY, where quality is pretty subjective from the service provider themselves.

 

What is link metrics?

Link metrics are a set of ranking factors used to determine the importance and relevance of webpages in search results. They include domain authority, relevancy, and trust, and help search engines assess the value of a website. These metrics play a crucial role in determining search rankings and ensuring high-quality search results.

 

Link Metrics: What Do You Need To Know

Proper education in the community

The common knowledge of what's valuable and what to pursue will normally become the basic foundational model of those starting out in the industry and those looking to invest in search.

When most people say this particular metric is the right one to pursue when qualifying link opportunities, it wouldn't be hard enough for new non-SEO-savvy people to accept it as their own.

Though that may be a good thing, as it looks like a common understanding, it may leave some good opportunities.

2 uses of link metrics: to make sure you don't include bad opps, or to make sure you don't miss out on good ones. We do the latter.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooperseo) November 14, 2017

There are verticals where there are only a handful of link opportunities available. Setting a high standard on metrics may leave you missing out on good relevant opportunities — ultimately not maximizing the campaign opportunity.

Frequent wild changes in metrics

You often encounter this situation if you're reporting links solely based on metrics.

You prospected a potential linking opportunity and saw its DA to be 35. You go through the process of filling in your list with more link targets - reaching 300 qualified targets. When you visit the page again to find available contact information — the DA goes down to 29. Now, you get stuck on whether to pursue the link opportunity.

If you're highly reliant on only one metric number, you'll have trouble with these quick changes, given they'll affect the quantity rate of your qualified link prospects.

A piece of very good advice from Jon Cooper that can battle against these frequent wild changes in metrics: 

I also can't imagine agencies using DR in contracts for link requirements. That's why we don't use hard ones, but i.e. needs to hit at least one of 6 different numbers, so we're not reliant on wild changes like these.

— Jon Cooper (@joncooperseo) March 8, 2018

Natural links may be lower than metric standards

Some links can be acquired naturally, i.e., when writers find your content by searching for resources on Google and linking to it from their content at the stage of their writing process.

Most link builders and SEOs devalue natural links as these may not have passed a certain metric benchmark. When common sense isn't a common practice, you don't have to worry about metrics now — these are natural links built effortlessly. It makes your link acquisition process for that content semi-automated.

Though you'll have to do the groundwork of manually building links to get your content ranked first and earn natural links, the tremendous benefits of making it a link magnet is staggering.

Links that drive clicks

It's not good when you're too focused on metrics, preferring it over relevance. Given that relevant targeted links can drive referral visitors, that may, in turn, be more valuable than any high number metric links that are irrelevant to your page.

This is pretty obvious, but time and time again, I've found link builders scaling link acquisition on DA70+ resource pages with over 300 outbound SEOly links (which have been pitched by different kinds of link builders) and of which you're less likely to get clicks and link juice if you happen to build links from them.

If you prioritize clicks from links, some hints will help you determine if there's a potential click on a link on a page.

 

I'll be using resource pages as an example here.

Page with link categories

When looking for references for project research, it would be too hard for you to find the exact references you need when there are no categories or sub-sections that'll group links on the page.

You're less likely to click on any of the links and might look for another similar resource page.

 

Assuming you get a link, it'll be somewhere placed in an unclassified manner.

It is best to look for resource pages where links are categorized into sub-topics, as it'll be easier for users to find and click on your resource. 

Descriptions for links

Descriptions for each link provide context to readers that allow nudges for decisions about which link to click on.

A resource page with descriptions for each link can entice clicks. But without them, links would have divided attention for clicks.

Hundreds of outbound links

Similar thing to attend. A resource page with hundreds of outbound links (all battling for a visitor's attention) is less likely to give your desired clicks.

List of resources not placed in the main section

You may come across a page entitled an Industry/Audience Resource Page, but links are placed somewhere on the page not likely to be clicked (e.g. bottom right section). In this case, you may get a link, but you may have a low potential for a click.

Links from pages that drive traffic

It's easy to say you must acquire links to generate traffic to your site. However, practically doing that is a different thing.

There's an approach to maximize the effectiveness of your link building campaign by focusing on acquiring links from that pages that can drive traffic to your site.

In April, Ahrefs improved one of its core functionalities - search traffic of a referring page and the number of referring domains to Ahrefs "Backlinks" report - which allows you to gauge high-quality linking pages from a traffic perspective.

 

You can grab your competitors' domains, see their backlinks reports, and identify the ones driving them a significant amount of traffic. This can be likely your initial link building approach when you have a new client or project to work on.

You can easily figure out the value of potential linking pages and not guess enough how much potential traffic you can get from the page.

Link Metrics Frequently Asked Questions

What metrics are used in link building?

In link building, various metrics are used to assess the quality and impact of links. Some key metrics include domain strength, page strength, anchor text, number of links, linking root domains, the relevance of the linking page, the position of links on the page, and cost per link. These metrics help determine the value and authority of websites and pages online.

 

How do you measure the quality of link?

To measure the quality of a link, it is essential to consider the link quality indicator (LQI) and received signal strength (RSS). LQI indicates data packet quality, while RSS measures the energy of the received signal. Both metrics provide valuable insights into link performance and reliability.

 

How do you measure link building success?

To measure link building success, focus on creating high-quality links from other credible and relevant websites to your own. Such backlinks indicate to search engines that your site is trustworthy. The key metric for success is the number of acquired backlinks. So, ensure consistent and effective link building campaigns to improve search engine rankings and website credibility.- everything

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by Venchito Tampon Jr