A big part of the link building process is awareness.
This is the step where you interact with other websites and see if they will link to you.
They may link to you for a variety of reasons, like you made a great piece of content or you tell them your link is broken and you have a new resource to replace it.
The thing is, when many of us think about building connections, our default mindset usually goes toward building proactive connections using networking techniques.
We tend to think of link building as something we do, rather than something that just happens.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and of course, many of us spend a lot of time adding value to businesses by building proactive links via techniques like content marketing, digital PR, or broken link building.
For many businesses, this is a good use of budget and helps improve organic traffic faster than you might get otherwise.
The thing is, you don’t need to request every link a website gets.
Proactive communication and campaigns are important, but to make link building drive the best possible return on investment, focus on how naturally a website can be link-worthy.
A link-worthy website gets links you didn’t ask for, and even if you stop communicating, you’ll still get links.
Sounds good, right?
For most of us, it takes work to make a website link-worthy enough to generate links on a good scale and over a long period of time.
For others, it’s not that difficult.
For example, when Apple releases a new iPhone, almost every tech publication on the internet will link to it!
The same can be said of other mega brands like Samsung or Amazon.
Their sheer brand awareness, often combined with truly unique and innovative products, means they never have to worry about getting links.
The same cannot be said for the majority of other sites on the internet which across the UK and US are made up of over 90% small businesses.
For many of us, we need to do more to make a website link relevant.
Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can do this.
The role that brand building plays in building links
While branding teams and top campaigns are often in teams that are far from SEO, it’s important to understand the role brand building plays in link building.
If you work with a brand that is well known, both within your industry and in general, you are in a much better position to generate links without asking.
A strong element of brand awareness and affiliation can add credibility to your link building campaigns.
Brand awareness can also mean that writers, bloggers and journalists are naturally looking for your content, data, information and opinions when writing stories which can lead to links as well.
This is less likely to happen to smaller, less well-known companies, and as a link builder you will probably need to work a little harder to get links.
This is an important distinction to understand because depending on the type of business you’re in, your link building approach and strategy may be different.
For well-known brands, you may be able to generate links you didn’t request by simply adding linkable assets to the website or providing content assets to PR teams.
These assets may then establish links naturally without any direct contact.
For lesser-known brands, you may need to put more work into content that ranks well for research-led keywords and try to establish them as an authority in their niche.
How to create well-ranked, naturally linked content
One of the main ways that a piece of content can build links naturally over time is to rank well in search results.
By doing this, more people will find your content and in some cases, people who find it will link back to your content.
This works especially well if you create content that can rank for keywords that indicate someone is searching for something.
Some of the people who conduct this type of research will be writers, bloggers, and journalists looking for information for their own articles.
If they find your content and mention it, they will likely link to it too.
For example, if a journalist is writing a story about dogs, they might want to include some information about the dogs’ names.
If they google [dog name statistics]And This article is from Rover It is well curated and updated regularly with new trends and content.
If this article is not rated well and is not regularly updated every year with new trends, it will not come close to having any number of links as it has.
You can also look for opportunities to optimize this type of content for keywords that might indicate someone is looking for data, trends, or stats.
You can use basic on-page SEO to optimize for keywords including:
- [topic] datasets.
- [topic] 2022 statistics.
- latest [topic] trends.
- [topic] quotes.
Anyone searching for these types of keywords may not only visit your content, but also reference and link to it if they write an article or blog post about it.
How to create linkable assets in linked build campaigns
One of the classic challenges with link building campaigns is when you get a lot of coverage but no links.
Someone might write about the campaign and mention the brand and the campaign, but for some reason, they don’t include a link to your campaign.
Some posts don’t have engagement policies, but that aside, you should spend time with each campaign thinking about how you can make it more likely that someone will link to you.
One of the best ways to think about what makes your campaign engagement worthwhile is to take time during the production process to create assets that might encourage someone to link to your campaign.
A strong and relevant story might be enough for the journalist to cover it and mention your brand, but to encourage engagement, you might need something else like:
- Unique photos Adds or clarifies the story, allowing you to request a credit link to the image.
- a larger data set Behind the story that allows someone to click on the story and data and read more about it.
- profile page On your website for someone from your company who is quoted in the story.
Even if someone doesn’t link to you the first time, building these assets will make it easier for you to reach them and ask to mention your brand or convert someone to a clickable link.
The importance of building relationships within your industry
Relationship building is an often overlooked part of bond building.
We tend to think of building a relationship at the point where we need an attachment from someone, not before that point and not maintaining it afterward.
It really helps to use an approach where you genuinely try to build relationships with key industry contacts outside of your campaigns.
For example, sending random feedback, tips, or information they might find useful for their stories that has nothing to do with the brand you’re working on.
Not only is this good for them, but it shows that you want to help them outside of the times when you want something in return — and that’s what strong relationships are all about.
Bringing this back to link building, having strong relationships with key contacts in your industry can mean that you get links naturally because they are already aware of your brand and the content you produce.
If they come across your content themselves, they may pay attention to it and cover it, even if it hasn’t been explicitly told to you yet.
Another possibility is that they are looking for content to link to that you may have produced in the past. If it is still useful and relevant, they are more likely to relate to it because of their current relationship with you.
In conclusion, it is entirely possible to generate links that you did not request.
It takes some thought and planning, especially if it’s not a well-known brand and you don’t have the natural credibility that this can bring.
But even if you’re not a well-known brand, you should put some of your time and resources into some of the above-mentioned activities that might start moving you in the right direction to create links you didn’t ask for.
More resources:
- Top 5 Link Building Strategies (With Examples)
- Eating and Building Bonds: A Guide to Assessing Prospects
- SEO trends for 2022, according to 44 experts
Featured image: fizkes/Shutterstock
