Many people today are having problems with effective link building strategies. Previous gurus put out the idea that if you just create high-quality content, people will automatically link to you. In response, Moosa Hemani of Thrive Internet Marketing explores this topic at Rocks Digital.
How to Create Conversion-Centric Link Building
Example: There was a money keyword that one of Moosa’s clients wanted to rank for. Moosa told him that it would take 6 months, and the client said he was fine with that. But then after 2 months, the client was wondering why it was taking so long!
Moosa understood that if you don’t get conversions for a client they are indeed going to become impatient, and he realized it would make better sense to focus more on conversion link building. If you are getting links on high-quality sites they will work well for you. However, there can be a problem finding links for less glamorous products (example: garage sales, fence building).
Build Business Citations
It is imperative to work on your business citations, though many businesses are not doing so. Why? Because people will make their final choice from the first page of the search results, and WILL NOT move on to the second page.
Also, business citations help connect your business online to reviews given about your business. If you are not getting reviews and ratings for your business, you will not get the kind of conversions you’re looking for. There are many people that Google a business, or look it up on Yelp or Angie’s List. Put your business on a listing site of some sort, even if it’s not on Google My Business.
You can get positive reviews from your real clients if you go after them. Even if the review is negative, you can interact with the customer or client to make things better.
Use Google Analytics
This can help with building conversion links. The idea is to dive into Google Analytics for one year and see what is giving you the conversions you are looking for. Look at a date range, and look at which websites are giving you more conversions during that time frame.
Create a list of high-quality websites that have given you a backlink, then brainstorm a list of ideas on how to get that site to give you more backlinks (example: you can guest blog on one of the sites).
Also, brainstorm on how you can get links from those sites in the future. Usually, if they have linked to you in the past, they are going to link to you again.
Authority Blogs / Magazines
- Use an RSS reader like blog.feedspot.com to read all your favorite blogs in one place.
- Figure out what blogs will work for your clients. They usually will have more traffic and more domain authority. It’s not always the case, but usually this is true.
- Put your list in an Excel spreadsheet.
- See how many Facebook fans they have. If they have a good number of Facebook fans it means they are very active. If the amount is growing then they are REALLY active.
- Check how often they post new content. If they post content often, then you know they are active.
- Check the Alexa rank. While not a perfect gauge, it can give you a good idea about the site.
Now that you have this, either write something worth reading or do something worth writing about. Not only will you get traffic, but you also can get conversions.
- Write blog posts on your own website.
- Reach out to like-minded people, and see if they want to share it on their own website.
The audience will usually click on their website and possibly lead to conversions.
How to Find Like-Minded People
- FollowOne is good.
- With the right type of keywords, Google Alerts can be very helpful.
- Moosa uses Majestic to help with finding out how trustful the website is.
- Some use SEOmoz tools (toolset is now called Moz Pro).
It is best to use a combination of tools. Also, when comparing trust vs. citation, lean more towards trust.
Dive into Google Display Network Data
Look for the sites that do well, then reach out to those websites to get even more traffic.
Example: You have a link from eHub.com. It would be smart to reach out to that site and submit posts and articles – which would probably give you more links.
How Moosa Builds Links
- Guest blogging – Google may say not to, but if the site is high quality, then it can help you.
- Charity Websites – Getting a link to one of these can help quite a bit.
- Donation Websites – Some will give you a link if you make a donation at a certain level.
- Sponsorship of an event – You can sponsor an event, and they will usually give you a link on their website.
If you are writing a personalized email as feedback on something, you can get some really good responses. You should personalize the first responses, and the others can be more automated. This is great for when you are reaching out after reading someone’s blog post or article.
Essentially, when you are going for creating backlinks, go for conversion backlinks.
BONUS TIP: Once a month, do a link audit to see if there are “spammy” backlinks. If your spam score on Moz Pro is in red, you should be concerned.
