Sandra Kotarska 
Published: 13.09.2019 
15 minute 
Incoming links to a site significantly affect its search engine rankings. Check out how to create a link building strategy and what to include in it to achieve the best results and keep them for a long time!
Link acquisition – what worked in the past will not necessarily work in the future
. .In 2019, we SEO specialists continue to believe that links are an important ranking factor. Currently, there are no signals from Google that something has changed in this regard. That’s why we take the topic of off-site SEO seriously and devote time and a separate budget to it whenever possible.
.According to Link Building in Poland in 2018 report conducted last December by Linkhouse, we are increasing our link building budget year after year and investing it more carefully. Bulk link acquisition from questionable quality sources is (mostly) history – we now pay more attention to the quality of the sites from which we want to acquire links to our site.
.At the same time, we keep an eye on Google’s actions and the regular changes in the algorithm. Year after year they change our approach to SEO, including link building. How much longer will link acquisition work in its current form? We don’t know, but we should already be thinking about building authority with off-site activities, not necessarily 100% link-related.
.Sponsored articles and forum whispers are the ways that seem to be the best solution today – after all, everyone is doing it! However, it’s worth looking a bit into the future and considering what might change in this regard. What can we do today to prepare for it?
. .In the first part of this article, we will focus on the present. In order not to stand out from the competition, we need to use current link building solutions on a daily basis. It is also necessary to take care of link growth, increase the power and authority of the domain and, consequently, search engine positions. That’s why discussions on how to do this to achieve the best results are still useful and timely.
. .The second part of the text will be a bit “visionary” in nature. We will try to replace the concept of link building with “building brand popularity”, and put strengthening brand authority above link acquisition.
.1. Ongoing link building activities – what is worth focusing on?
. .First and foremost, on QUALITATIVE activities. Activities in the style of buying thousands of links on auctions, writing posts on forums completely detached thematically from the profile of the site and adding links in every existing SEO directory still have their few followers. However, we can safely conclude that these times are irrevocably gone.
. .Stay for quality, because Google is betting on it too – recent algorithm updates confirm this. Create valuable content, choose good sources and stick to a long-term strategy, which is based not only on the number of links acquired, but also on strengthening the entire brand. What elements should you consider when building it? Read also: SEO strategies – how to prepare and effectively implement them?
. . .a. Purpose
. .Before you decide on link building activities, you should think about what you actually want to achieve.
.Do you want to improve the visibility of specific products or product catalogs? Maybe you want to boost the position of your articles to gather monetizable traffic? Perhaps you’re looking to strengthen the authority of your entire domain and gain power from links to your homepage?
Would you like to improve the authority of your entire domain and gain power from links to your homepage? .
Setting a goal is an important step to outline a link acquisition strategy. It will point you in the right direction, help you prioritize your efforts, choose link sources, and determine your budget.
There are a number of ways to do this. . .
b. Prioritization
. .Specifying your goal is a key step to ensure you don’t act blindly. If you already know what you care about, you can optimize your actions and achieve better results. The next step is to decide which url addresses on your site you want to support with links.
. .First, think about what phrases you want to improve your visibility and how. Are you looking to raise or stabilize your position? Do you want to boost those urls that have fallen out of TOP3 or TOP5? Perhaps you focus on those that are “buried” further down the SERPs and want to raise their visibility enough to start collecting traffic?
. .Depending on your industry and type of site, there can be plenty of approaches. However, to start with, choose one that seems to be the most valid at the moment. This will help you operate according to a specific strategy, monitor its effects and optimize your efforts if necessary. The url that you prioritize for support will help you choose Senuto (report Sections).
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With it you can check:
. .- what position your site displays for each phrase, .
- what is their potential as measured by the average monthly number of searches .
- which phrases are worth investing in to effectively increase converting traffic .
You can find all this data in the “Items” in Visibility Analysis report. Use the filters to select the position range and search volume fork you are interested in, and evaluate the visibility of your site for the phrases that appear in the report. To support, select those urls in which you see the most potential. These are the ones that have a chance to rank higher than before on phrases that are searched by users and you can collect traffic from them.
. .c. Search link sources
. .The Internet is a bottomless well. At first, it can be seen as a goldmine, but over time the vastness of sites to browse can be overwhelming. Searching the web to find those sites you deem suitable for link acquisition is a time-consuming task. That’s why it’s worthwhile to systematize the whole process and stick to a specific scheme. This way you won’t be wandering around the same sites all the time, you will discover new sites, and among them you may find real gems.
. .Content platforms
. .You can search for places where you would like to place your link using platforms specifically created for this purpose. This is by far the easiest and fastest solution, but you need to be aware that your competitors are mostly using them too. By buying publications through these services, you can keep track of your competitors and, over time, maybe even catch up with them. However, you certainly won’t overtake them. To do so, you must go beyond the activities of competing services and appear where they do not.
. .The advantage of such platforms is the ability to filter sites according to the guidelines you are interested in, the range of which is really wide. From the large collection of different sites that allow you to buy articles with a link, you can choose only those thematically related to your site, with a certain visibility, traffic, rating according to various tools and – importantly – that are within the price range of the budget you set.
The advantage of such platforms is the ability to filter sites according to the guidelines you are interested in, which are really wide. .
Transparent quotas streamline purchasing,and the platform supports the entire process of article preparation and publication. The downside is often the low quality of the sites we have to choose from in the chosen subject category and the high prices of those that positively stand out with statistics. For those who plan to do the bare minimum in terms of link building, content sites will do. If, however, you want to divide more, it is worth reaching for other ways.
. .Senuto ranking
. .This is a very helpful tab where you generate a list of sites by specific subject matter, which is crucial in selecting domains for link building. The number of sites in the report is really impressive and will leave you with extensive material for further analysis.
.All you have to do is choose from dozens of categories the ones most similar to the nature of your site and screen them for the criteria you are interested in.
. . .Competitors and leaders in a particular industry
. .Their link profiles are a goldmine of different sources you can use. It’s a good idea to pull up a list of sites from which a few or a dozen sites similar to yours have obtained a link, and you haven’t yet – Ahrefs is great for this purpose. As a result, you should get quite a large document that you can work on for several months, manually analyzing each site one by one.
.Check out how a particular site acquired a link on the analyzed domains – perhaps you can use this as inspiration for your own efforts. In addition, this way guarantees a goldmine of out-of-the-box solutions, and sites that seemingly have no potential can turn out to be exceptional sources if you use them properly.
.Of course, you will also bump into a mass of forums, directories and backlinks, so you should screen each site according to the previously specified criteria.
. .d. Domain evaluation criteria
. .The quality of a site is good to verify it manually, simply by reviewing it. Also check it for with the help of SEO tools such as Senuto, Ahrefs or Similarweb, where you will focus on specific statistics. You can tell from the first direct contact with a page whether it’s worth analyzing it more deeply. If there are a lot of ads on it, the last article appeared last year, and there are links to 30 other similar sites hanging in the footer, then you can give up analyzing it in the tools and go straight to checking another domain.
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When you think everything is fine at first glance, however, it is worth checking the following factors:
.First of all, thematicity
. .Thematicity is an extremely important element. It should coincide with the topicality of our domain and the linked url. Thematic linking allows you to maximize the power gained from the link. To what thematic category has the domain been automatically assigned by the tool and what phrases in relatively high positions does it display? You can check this in Senuto Visibility Analysis.
.Site visibility and its potential
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What is the scale of organic traffic and from what phrases is this traffic sourced? It’s a good idea to take a peek at the visibility graph. There you will check how the site has reacted to recent algorithmic changes and what the overall trend of its visibility is. Continued declines over months should be a suggestion to let go of a link from that site.
. . .Check out: “For what keywords is this page visible?”
.Page reach and user behavior
. .These are significant elements when you are serious about building brand authority in addition to “se fuel” from links. By showing up on sites that have traffic and are visited by real users interested in the content on them, you have a chance to familiarize them with your brand. That’s why it’s a good idea to check the number of unique users and the time they spend on the site.
.Seattle-specific ratings
. .Domain rating in Ahrefs, trust flow in Majestic or domain authority in Moz – each tool has its own algorithm by which it rates domains. Consider them as a guide to the quality of your site, but don’t base your decisions solely on them.
.When do statistics tell us that a site is high quality and another low quality? Depending on the type of site, these thresholds will vary. A fashion blog with 5K visibility stands out positively, but a lifestyle website with the same organic traffic does not make as good an impression.
.That’s why it’s a good idea to build yourself abase of analyzed domains, where you’ll compare them with each other and, based on that, determine where the average is, who doesn’t reach it, and who clearly exceeds it. Look at sites holistically, taking into account a set of statistics. Gathering all the data in one place is key to drawing conclusions, evaluating properly, and thus pricing publications.
. .e. Publication design
. .Let’s say you have found a site that matches your criteria. The pricing satisfies you and you decide to publish with a link to your site. What remains is to prepare the appropriate text that the editors will upload to the site, or to set guidelines for the blogger to follow when writing the post. It’s worth sticking to certain rules that work in most cases and affect the effectiveness of the publication:
.- theme and title of the article determine the url you want to support and the phrase it should display for. The H1 should contain the key phrase you care about; .
- Before preparing the text, do research key phrases. See what user queries related to the topic we can answer. Identify the mid-headings and key phrases for which the text should be optimized; .
- the length of the article matters a lot – links from long, substantive texts are stronger. Therefore, if the site from which we obtain a link does not impose any restrictions, prepare a text of min. 5000 characters; .
- The higher up in the text the link is, the better; it’s good for it to stand out in a block of text (at least in color or underline) and be visible to the user. If you have the option to hide it under a banner with a CTA, take advantage of this opportunity; .
- The type of anchor under which the link is placed also matters. It has become established that exact match, or closely matched anchor, is the most effective and also the riskiest. Its overuse in the past risked receiving penalties from Google, and some still adhere to this rule, avoiding it at all costs. However, let’s not go to extremes. Exacts are widely used, and the link profile should be diversified, so you don’t have to be so afraid of them. However, make sure they appear in publications that match thematically with the phrase and url you are supporting. It’s also a good idea to use anchors that include the brand name, so the user has a chance to click on it and remember; .
- It is worth considering additional promotion of articles or blogger posts with links on social media. Comprehensive efforts on several levels have a greater chance of success in terms of branding. .
2. The potential of off-site SEO lies in the whole company
. .Off-site SEO efforts are most effective when all employees add their part to the success and it is not solely dependent on the SEO department.
.The entire company should have at least a basic understanding of organic traffic acquisition and incorporate this aspect into its daily work. SEO is a mission that should be pursued by everyone in the organization, and link building is the perfect opportunity to do so. There is potential for link acquisition hidden in every department. It just needs to be found and skillfully exploited, and this will be a much easier task when the chance to get a link is recognized by more than just seers.
. .Every collaboration with an external partner and relationship started can result in a link. If any department uses the services of an agency, you can initiate the writing of a case study. In this way, the agency will boast about the success to which it has contributed (Read also: How should an SEO report from an agency look like?), while linking to the company involved. When supporting a contest or event, always include in the benefits a link to the logo on the organizer’s website. Go beyond the company – a lecture for students will help acquire a very valuable link from the university.
. .Check out the Senuto and Bluerank case study
. .Context and idea are the key words. Sometimes a little combination is needed, sometimes all you need is to ask (a simple “please” and “thank you” can work wonders!). There will be times when we need to prepare text or graphics for our partner. However, if in return we can count on a link (in many cases free), it’s really worth going all out.
.Links that are the fruit of branding or HR activities have tremendous value. Without the right context, it would be impossible to acquire them, even with a sizable budget. They are so valuable that it is worth investing more time and work in them. It is here that the greatest potential lies to stay ahead of the competition in off-site activities.
. .3. Popularity building instead of link building?
. .Remember that links are not only a signpost for Google robots and an SEO tool for a site, but most importantly functionality for the user. With a link, we suggest him to go to a page worth visiting. Placing a link on quality, well-read sites, in valuable, well-written articles that are primarily created for humans, not bots, is a demanding, but best in the long run, solution. And don’t limit yourself to dofollow links only – all links and mentions of your brand are valuable.
.With your eyes, look at SEO in a few years -will links continue to be as important as before? It is really unlikely. Therefore, do “image SEO”! Invite interesting people and companies to work with you, do creative projects. Also support external initiatives, create good content and appear with it in quality places. Think already about building brand popularity and authority. This way when Google surprises again with a landmark algorithm update, you will be prepared for it.
