How to Build Links to B2B Websites

When you don’t have many outreach prospects on your lists, what do you do?

Either you reach out again to your same link building targets or find new ways to collect more to your list.

This is one of the challenges when you’re building links to B2B sites.

Not enough outreach markets. Niche is too boring. Topics are only limited.

In this blog post, we’re going to talk about b2b link building and how you can brainstorm content topics that get links.

With enough content planning, smart link prospecting, and an effective outreach campaign, you’ll be able to formulate a plan that works for your industry.

Here are four tips to address those challenges I’ve covered earlier.

 

How to Build Links in B2B Markets

1. Vary content creation approaches

Test out options on your content marketing campaign.

One, in particular, is to go with broad topics, instead of just niche content ideas.

It’s easy to get frustrated with the low amount of topics you can brainstorm when you only focus on your niche.

So figure out how to mix your blog targeting with broad topics by looking at categories and interest groups that you can tap onto with your content.

Secondly, you also want to be looking at the content format you can try and test in your blog.

One good example is how Mattermak, a data platform for venture capital companies, does with their Raise the Bar content.

 

They basically compile a “daily digest” of timely posts on sales, marketing, and growth engineering.

Not only do they grow broad on topics, but find a way to make it worthwhile their time to produce content with fewer resources.

Surveys, year-end reports, swipe files, and resource guides are some content assets you can vary for your content.

Two good examples of this are MYOB  and Deloitte.

MYOB features end of financial year resources as they recognize that many businesses are figuring out accounting and financial decisions as they grow. Doing so helps them to position themselves as a go-to-resource brand for businesses navigating in each stage of progress.

 

Deloitte conducts annual and timely surveys for millennials and Gen Zs. During this pandemic, they launched their research revealing “resilient generations” which showcases how those two generations (millennials and Gen Zs) express resolve and thrive for their better future.

 

These are all big brands and you may be wondering if you could actually do the same for your B2B site.

The reality is you may not have a big budget, but you can get inspiration from these companies to identify what works for you based on your context and industry.

Here are some guides to help you with creating content in the new normal and how to do outreach during Coronavirus.

• Outreach Strategies During the Coronavirus
• How to Generate Content Ideas in the New Normal

2. Expand into multiple outreach markets

Not only you should be looking for ways to vary your content strategies, but you can also penetrate multiple outreach markets.

The advantage of doing so is that you create consistent relevant content that yields more brand awareness, as you get to increase eyeballs for your site from every potential linkable market possible.

There are two ways to do this:

1. Match your content with any linkable audience.
2. Find shareable audiences to promote your content.

The first approach must be planned ahead of content promotion.

In the content creation process, there must be aligning the topic to a particular linkable audience you choose.

 

Given that these linkable audiences are more receptive to linking than other outreach markets, you can guarantee links when you promote your content asset.

You can start this off by checking what your competitors are doing. List down all outreach markets they have targeted with their content. You will end up finding more markets that are not included in the graphics above.

 

Then choose among these audiences that make sense to target with your web assets.

The second approach is geared towards people who are open to sharing visuals, assets, and guides rather than just externally linking to your page.

These are bloggers and publishers in your space with past history of sharing assets with their audience. As simple as having a Google search to figure that out, is a plus if you want to know how keen they are to respond to sharing-content outreach pitches.

3. Use template pages as link assets for SaaS brands

If you’re into SaaS B2B sites, you want to maximize your landing pages that have the potential to get quality links.

Now, it’s not that easy to promote a landing page (i.e. template page) and acquire links instantly. No one would give a link to a sales page.

So you have to make changes to the template page, targeting, and how you approach your outreach campaign.

I’ve covered this in detail in my guide on how to build links to SaaS template pages.

Here are some insights you can discover from it:

• Learn from other template-specific sites and model it to your brand
• Add citable elements to your SaaS template page (to add a linkable value proposition to your copy).
• Leverage resource page opportunities
• Build landing page links with brand mention outreach
• Tap off-site brand content like blogs

4. Maximize passive-link earning content pieces

Passive link acquisition works.

However, there must be an upfront investment of resources to put the content out there and dominate rankings, until other content creators would see and reference the page from their content works.

Find referential keywords that you can target with content. These include “questions” people ask when they’re looking for something and are likely to be cited by other content creators.

You can also start looking for “research” or “data” keyword-driven opportunities, where publishers normally link to add more credibility to what they’re writing about.

 

Leverage manual outreach opportunities to promote these referential pages to gain traction and links, to have the ability to rank for their target keywords.

Once it ranks, it gives your pages the ability to build the pipeline of organic links over time.

Replicate the same strategy to your other content assets and get the benefits of any passive links.

Mix that with active link building outreach to get some momentum with your link building.

Land and Expand

Start small by looking at opportunities in your hand. Leverage what works already to land on a few links. Then get the ball rolling by tapping either other outreach markets or other content formats that can work for your brand.