8 Link Building Strategies To Enhance Your Digital Brand

Link building is a great tactic that builds your domain authority and increases your visibility in search engine results. As you begin to build or enhance your digital brand, developing the proper link building strategies will increase brand awareness, visibility, and credibility. This article will show you how.

Link building strategies are used to boost your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. In essence, it’s the process of getting external pages to link to a page on your website.  I am going to outline 8 tactics you can use to find and build relationships with potential partners and websites.

Let’s dive in…

Strategy #1:
Link to Influencers within Content 


When you use this tactic, it will direct more attention to your content by using your partners’ social media network. You can start by searching and connecting with influencers in your niche. An easy way to start is by simply using Google to discover these type of people.

For example, if you’re looking to find influencers in the personal finance industry, you would type “personal finance bloggers” in the search engine and start developing a list of influencers.

link building strategies

After you lock down the list of influencers you may want to work with, you can drill down deeper into specific topics by searching for relevant content on that influencer’s website.

Use the following search phrases to make this task easier:

Site:domain.com “keyword” Or, site:domain.com intitle:”keyword”

 

link building strategies

 

For example, if you want to search for credit card articles on fool.com, try site:fool.com intitle: “credit cards.”  Google will return to you the posts from fool.com with “credit cards” in the title.

This is a useful tactic for your link building strategies because it provides the most targeted results. As the tactic relates to influencers, you can use these search phrases to search for specific pools of bloggers.

The next step is to email those influencers.  You will have the chance to generate more social shares and get potential links from them.

When you reach out, you can say something like this via email:

 

Hi [ NAME],

I saw your website and found that you linked to a blog post about [ TOPIC].

Just thought that you might find my definitive guide on [TOPIC] also useful. It is rich content that contains [DESCRIBE YOUR CONTENT].

[URL]

Kind regards,

[YOUR NAME]

 

This isn’t a fool-proof method.  Sometimes you won’t get a response.  But hey, keep trying!

Gets Influencers Involved


Make your influencer feel like an expert.

Flattering influencers helps you in the long run. Besides, most thought-leaders or influencers would love to toot their own horn. It’s the best way to increase awareness. Right? Keep this in mind as you hash out your link building strategies.

So, do one of the following to get on their good side and get that backlink.

  1. Quote them
  2. Ask them to contribute
  3. Use their work for examples

Sometimes you don’t need to email influencers directly.  However, many are part of communities in your niche.  If you create content aimed at those communities, the influencer you’d like to get a backlink from would likely read it.

 

DBI TIP: How do you find where sites influencers frequent?  Try niche-specific aggregators like Inbound.org. Or, go to Facebook groups.  This is a little harder, but the influencers are there in these groups. LinkedIn groups are just like Facebook groups, but it’s easier to actually find these influencers by simply typing their name in the search bar.  On LinkedIn, you can find the groups they are involved in.

Round’em Up!

It’s always easier to get something from someone when they want something from you, as well.  Start with a list of roundups.

Using another search phrase “intitle:roundup + (your keyword), you will easily find these targets.

intitle:roundup + (your keyword)

 

After that, comment on some of these people’s posts and share their content through social media.  At this point,  you’re doing them a favor, so they’ll likely be happy to do you a favor by giving a link to you.

 

SEE ALSO: 5 Ways to Gain Quality Backlinks

Strategy #2:
Use Interviews as Guest Entries from Other Websites


Experts in your niche can provide solid content for your website. You can find experts such as publishers and book authors using google search “industry+ influencers.”

Reach out to the niche experts you think will be the best fit, and try to do an interview with them. These interviews can then be used like guest entries from other sites.

To ask them for an interview, you can send something like this:

Hey [NAME],

I hope you’re doing well.

Just want to tell you that, [WEBMASTER NAME] who manages [SITE NAME], gave me an opportunity to guest post at [URL] and I am planning to do a short written interview with some of the following bloggers (see below) and I want you to be one of them.

INTERVIEWEE’S NAME 1

INTERVIEWEE’S NAME 2

INTERVIEWEE’S NAME 3

INTERVIEWEE’S NAME 4

If you want in, I’ve attached a short written interview that you can use to share your tips or ideas. If you’re interested in including screenshots as part of real life examples, you’re welcome to do so.

The topic of discussion is [TOPIC].

Cheers

[YOUR NAME]

 

SEE ALSO: Content Planning Tips To Compete with Big Brands

Strategy #3:
Collect Link Prospects from Listpedia 


This next tactic when implementing your link building strategies is using Listpedia. Using social media like Twitter for link prospecting is a strategic approach for link builders to find new bloggers and publishers that aren’t found through a Google search.

With Listpedia, you can expand your list without depending on search engines as your primary source. Besides getting additional backlink sources, you will be able to tap influencers that have a massive reach in both web publishing and social networking.

If you are trying to use social media as your main prospecting tool. You will benefit more by reaching out to influencers since they will not only link to your content but also share on social media to their followers.

Check out www.listpedia.org to see how it can be used to search and generate a massive Twitter list relevant to a particular keyword. You can send a pitch to the individual or website via email.

You can say something like this:

Hey [NAME],

I saw your profile on Twitter, and also saw that you are part of this Twitter list [URL].

Just thought that you might find my post about [DESCRIBED YOUR CONTENT] really useful. [YOUR CONTENT URL].

Have a great weekend!

All the best,

[YOUR NAME]

How-To Get Started on Listpedia

1. Get familiar with Listpedia and how to make lists, so you understand the process.

link building strategies

 

2. Next, you’ll have to make an account for Listpedia, but for purposes of finding influencers when planning your link building strategies, it’s a small step that goes a long way.

Sign up with your Twitter account, Instagram, or AngelList.

 

link building strategies

 

3. Once you connect to Listpedia, you can go ahead and create/manage your own lists.  After you find your influencers you can create a list to keep them all in one place.

However, the magic lies in the lists made by other users with the influencers you’re looking for.

link building strategies

 

Here’s one list that might be useful to someone looking for an influencer! Click it and see how to use this list.

link building strategies

 

In this particular list, you can see 8 active accounts linked to individuals that the person who made the list considered to be influencers. Also, on the list is a “watch” button that you can click to basically watch this list.

You can see that this list is linked to Instagram, so you can follow these particular people from here on Instagram.  Listpedia makes your life easier by aggregating these influencers.

 

link building strategies

 

Strategy #4:
Include Post-Preview as Additional Proposition to Content 


link building strategies

When you create remarkable content, it may require experiences and case studies from your own brand that get people to take action. However, creating case studies is time-consuming.

Instead, you could include data and cases from influencers and experts that you have relationships with for collaborations. Since you have a connection, the influencers won’t think you are stealing content and ideas when you ask for permission to use their data.

First, identify those influencers you have relationships with and create a list based on their expertise or experience. And then, you should reach out to them asking if they will be interested in adding some insights into your upcoming post.

You can try reaching out like this when asking to include the influencer’s tip in your content:

Hello [NAME],

I know you’re quite busy today. But just a quick heads-up if you’re interested in contributing insights to my upcoming post about [TOPIC].

I would like to know if you have any experiences and tips regarding [TELL MORE ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING POST].

Let me know your thoughts.

All the best,

[YOUR NAME]

Strategy #5:
Invest in References from Q&A Sites from Real People 


This strategy requires you to first identify sites that your target audience likes to frequent. It will allow you to acquire the referral links that your competitors haven’t thought of building for their websites.

First, create a list of outreach prospects, including your current brand followers and customers. Then, you can start looking for relevant discussions that can potentially drive high converting visitors to your site.

After that, reach out to your prospects and ask them if they can participate in the discussion. If they are your loyal customers, they are very likely to recommend your brand.

Some of the best Q&A sites to get started with include the following:

  1. Answerbag
  2. Yahoo! Answers
  3. Blurt It
  4. Anybody Out There
  5. WikiAnswers
  6. FunAdvice
  7. Able2Know
  8. Ask Me Help Desk
  9. Answer Bank
  10. AskDeb

Strategy #6:
Reverse Image Search from Link Prospecting 


Reverse image search is an effective off-page SEO practice that helps link building practitioners to find out blogs where the image has been embedded.

First, simply find a compelling visual asset in your industry, for example, an infographic you want to use in your blog or a generic image created by people in your field.

1. You can use the google image search for “infographic” plus “industry” to find popular images.

link building strategies

Next, grab URLs of these visual assets and plug them into your favorite reverse image tool to find websites that embed them.

A tool you can try is www.tineye.com. Then add those websites to your spreadsheet and try to reach out to site owners with a unique proposition.

2. Click the associated link and copy it.

link building strategies

 

3. Paste the link into the TinEye search bar to get similar images from the same site and their specific locations.

 

link building strategies

 

4. If you have an image and want to find its associated site, you can upload it instead, and it’ll bring you to that particular image’s associated links.

link building strategies

 

5. These are all links for that one particular image.

 

link building strategies

Strategy #7:
Find High-Converting Outreach Prospects in Moment Queries


Another interesting tactic when developing your link building strategies is leveraging moment queries. Searching the web for potential linkers is one initiative you can start in your link prospecting process. However, your search result should be as specific as possible to get the finest results from search engines.

When off-page SEO techniques become very specific with search pages, as well as, increase responses and link acquisition rate in your outreach, they’re actually using in moment options in Google search. This means that pages that appear in search results are sure to be published in the last hour or within 24 hours of your search.

To apply this method, you can do a google search for your preferred phrase.

link building strategies

And then filter the results by date of publishing. Then you want to gather those web pages that are relevant to your niche and put them down to your lists.

You can reach out to those links afterward.

 

link building strategies

Strategy #8:
Comment-Based Link Prospecting 

The last tactic may not be considered as top of mind as you develop your link building strategies but I highly recommend it. Essentially, it is comment-based link prospecting. It’s the practice of adding a number of comments to a specific link prospecting phrase.

You can simply add”comments” plus a number of your prospect keywords: “comments(8)””keyword.”

 

link building strategies

 

The next step is to qualify those results and simply discover new backlink opportunities by checking links. Then, you can use comment-based search phrases to collect more backlink targets. For example:

 

“disqus” “keyword”

“comment” “keyword”

“notify me of follow up comments” “keyword”

 

 

Final Thoughts


With all the changes in Google’s algorithm, influencers are becoming essential to your link building strategies.  Queries and link prospecting are fantastic supplements.  Throughout the process, keep in mind that your digital brand needs the vitality supplied by links from influencers and sites that receive a significant amount of traffic that you can piggy-back.

With a little bit of creativity and the power of Google and other web applications, you can connect with the right influencers that help direct their network to your website.

Are there any other ways you can manage your brand’s link building strategies? Please share your thoughts below?

Written by
Juntae DeLane

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