How to Create the Right Link Building Strategy

Introduction

There are thousands of articles about link building already. I think that almost every SEO with a blog has written a few. When you want to know about something more than just deep links or main page links, things get complicated.

If it is so difficult to get or build links now, it’s crucial to make the most out of the good links we get.

I think it is safe to say that 90% of all websites I‘ve ever seen didn’t have the right strategy figured out. By just fixing the structure of the page and creating a link building strategy, you can sometimes increase your visibility and conversions at a really low cost.

On-page structure

Creating a clear website structure is an absolute must for good SEO. It is one of the cheapest ways to get more conversions and traffic. Also, without implementing a clear structure, you are risking Panda-related problems.

I will not explain the whole methodology behind creating a proper content structure, as that is enough content to fill an entire e-book. Right now I’m just focusing only on the general idea.

3 most important things to check:

1. The landing pages for each topic or keyword group you are targeting
2. The content is grouped into clear, topic-related buckets
3. Whether each landing page has content supporting it (e.g. blog posts for each landing page)

Example:

Link building strategy for different platforms

Obviously, we are going to have a different approach when building links to an eCommerce store, personal blog or small company website. Let me show you the four most common examples.

Blog

A blog is the easiest platform to build links to. Basically, all you‘ve got to do is create really good content and get links to interesting posts. Then, all that‘s left to do is monetize the traffic coming to the posts. In this case, usually posts are our landing pages.

Tip:

Usually, a blog is monetized with a call to action of some kind, traffic redirection (e.g. to an online store) or advertising within the post (e.g. AdSense).

Small or medium company

Depending on the company, strategies can be different, but the most popular way is to create a blog within the same domain (e.g. https://www.linkresearchtools.com/case-studies/). If your content is interesting enough, you will get links to the content created within that blog.

Tip:

Remember that with companies offering many different products, you need to create topic “buckets” within the blog. Those “buckets” will support your main landing pages related to those topics.

Large corporation

With large corporations, the whole game changes. In some niches, links are created on an enormous scale due to the authority of the company. In some really technical niches, I was surprised to find a website of a huge corporation with few backlinks.

Let me show you some random corporations compared:

Looking at the chart above, we can clearly see that each corporation is implementing a different strategy for their link building efforts. Of course, only some of them will invest a lot in a digital presence, as many corporations decide to focus on different channels.

Of course, once we look at corporations competing in the same niche, all of the numbers are much closer.

Main laptop brands:

In my opinion, 99% of link building for corporations depends on the niche they are in. This disproportion is not as visible with small or medium companies, or even eCommerce stores in different niches.

Structure:

It is hard to describe the main strategy used in corporations, but usually the structure is usually based on publications (articles, blog posts, press releases, product releases) that get tons of natural links. Usually, they are also based on sponsored articles from authority websites (usually those are not marked as sponsored, of course).

eCommerce stores

This is where things get interesting. You all probably know that getting links to your online store is a nightmare. I’ve seen many epic fails connected with eCommerce stores‘ linking strategies. The best example for this article is to show how much you can gain by doing it right.

This time I will list the most popular mistakes:

1. Getting most of the links to the main page.

Yes - this still happens, quite a lot, actually. If your store sells electronics, you cannot optimize your main page for an LED TV or iPad Air, can you?

2. Linking to the wrong landing pages

This is how I usually spot fake personas on forums. They join a topic titled, say, “Should I pick the Asus G53 or Toshiba X305?” and post info like “There are really cool Toshiba X05 laptops on awesomestore.com.”

This is not only bad for conversions, but in my experience, such a link is worth only 10% of its potential if not targeted towards the right page.

3. Linking a lot from an eCommerce store to its blog

This is partially an on-page issue and partially an off-page issue. In many cases, blogs or articles are even hosted on a separate domain altogether. I‘ve had a few cases when a customer has emailed me asking, “Why would my my blog be ranking higher than my store?”

Takeaway:

The blog should be linking TO the store, not the other way around. If you host your blog on a separate domain, I recommend using no-follow. When you are hosting your blog internally, this issue should be solved with the appropriate internal navigation.

The Right Structure:

There are many ways to do this, but let me list the ones that I know are the most popular:

1. Getting links to the blog, and “pushing” the Page Rank to the landing pages

This is one of the easiest methods. It is imperfect, as you need to create a spotless structure or you are risking ranking higher with your blog posts than with your products.

In my opinion, this is one of the easiest and best long term ways to do SEO for eCommerce.

I like it not only due to SEO reasons: it also keeps the website’s owners in shape and makes them create a lot of awesome content. This way, they become experts in their field and their store slowly gains authority.

While this is probably Matt Cutt’s (or any Googler’s) dream, it is not for everyone. It is good only when you are sure that either your SEO agency for the store or your customers can keep creating awesome and unique content. If the blog becomes a “made for SEO” blog, this is a sure highway to Panda Hell. Also, getting links this way will be close to impossible.

2. Building links to products

The most popular way is to get links from forums. Then all we have to do is support categories with the right internal linking. This way, we create a silo structure.

This is one of the most effective methods, but only for best “players.” Getting natural links to products is close to impossible. This is why I call this “BUILDING links” and the paragraph above “GETTING links.”

Tip:

While using this method, remember to use the Link Juice Recovery Tool. Otherwise, with each product you delete, you will be losing valuable links.

3. Building links to categories

From a link builder’s point of view, it’s almost the same as building links to products. From an on-page point of view, it’s completely different.

Pros: You will rank better for e.g. “Samsung LED TV”

Cons: You will not rank for e.g. “UN50F5000AFXZA”

Real life example:

I’ve searched Google.com for 2 different keywords. One was a general keyword related to Samsung LED TV, and one was more connected with a specific model.

Google.com - “Samsung LED TV”

About 89,000,000 results

Google.com - UN50F5000AFXZA

About 35,300 results

As you see on the screenshot above, this keyword is much easier than the previous one. Some of the results are not even related to our search (e.g. NewEgg.com result).

Which strategy is better then?

Now, if you are reading closely, you are probably wondering:

Why would I want the 35k results in Google keyword, when I can get the 89 million one?

Well, you can’t really get the 89M one. Not easily. Also, let me give you a few interesting facts:

1. You want people to come to your website after using “transactional keywords,” not “informational keywords.” Samsung LED TV may be both.
2. If you are selling TVs, the TV model is the best keyword you can get. It is your gold nugget. Even though the traffic is low, conversions from such searches can be a few hundred % higher than from general keywords.
3. For the keyword I showed as an example, ranking will be extremely easy, as the top 10 results are not even filled with the right products.
4. And last, but not least - after ranking for many keywords related to 1 topic, you will eventually rank for your category name anyways.

Summary

As you see, you can gain a lot by just pointing your backlinks to the right place. This will affect your sales and traffic directly.

Remember to adjust your link strategy to:

1. The type of your domain (blog, store, company, etc.)
2. Your website’s authority and your client’s budget (targeting difficult keywords straight away or low-hanging fruit, while slowly going up in SERPs)
3. The website’s internal structure
4. The link building or link getting approach
5. Targeting high traffic keywords or finding good niches

Where should I link from?

Now, obviously, you want to start getting links. Where should you get them from?

A correct website structure makes it really easy to figure out the strategy of your link building efforts.

Example 1:

You’ve got an online store, depending on the internal structure, it is really obvious what kind of links you can get.

If you are really active with your blog, you will focus on getting links from other bloggers. If you are focusing on building backlinks to your products, you probably want to become an authority on large forums and product-related communities.

Example 2:

You have a small company website – say, you’re a plumber from California. If you don’t have a blog or any really valuable content on your website, you should start looking for e.g. niche related directories or donation sites, etc. Obviously, you will not get many links from bloggers or forum users.

How to check what my main landing pages are (by off-page metrics)

After implementing the correct link building strategy, it is really worthwhile to benchmark it after a while. The best way to do this is by going to the Strongest Subpage Tool and running a report on your domain.

This way, we can clearly see which parts of our website hold the most link juice.

By looking at the report form the Strongest Subpage Tool, you can clearly see if your desired landing pages are getting enough % of backlinks.

Example of link building strategy:

I never got around to finishing my own website’s structure, so I can just as well do it now and kill two birds with one stone.

Only because I want this article to be really valuable, I will share a draft of my own link building strategy with you guys. Please don’t share ;).

My website address is: https://goralewicz.co

Obviously, I do SEO and this is where I want my conversions.

What is the current structure of my website?

My website’s landing pages and structure, as I mentioned, are not finished yet, so this is the perfect example for this case.

• The category closest to my blog is “Small Company Website”
• As for my strategy, I am definitely targeting low hanging fruit first, and then I am going to go after more difficult keywords.
• I have a “link getting” approach for my website
• I am trying to find good niches, and then go after difficult keywords in the long run

What is my strategy?

I’ve created 3 main topics that I need to create landing pages for:

• SEO Training
• On-page audits
• Link audits

The base structure looks like this:

Those 3 categories are my main landing pages, but I will be targeting keywords related to the topics with either new sub-landing pages or blog posts. Let me show you an example:

• SEO Training
• On-page audits
• Fixing Panda issues
• Creating content strategy
• Link audits
• Manual penalties
• Penguin recovery

The Main Page is not the landing page for any of those keywords as I want to keep it strictly informational and navigational.

This way, everything is clear to users and Google. Thanks to this, I know exactly where to build links and, for example, where to get a link from on-page related content.

Now my whole strategy looks more or less like the one shown on this image:

With such a plan, I can easily create tasks to start my link building.

Tasks:

1. Create landing pages
2. Optimize landing pages
3. Group all the posts into those 3 buckets
4. Create content to support the landing pages
5. Get links to blog posts

Summary

The right structure and strategy for your content and business should be the foundation of your off-page efforts. Not only does it make it much more effective when you get links, it also makes creating a link building strategy easier.

What is also really undervalued is creating a clear structure, which makes it much easier for you to focus on your main goals, avoid penalties (Pandas are extremely scared of a clear and easy to understand structure).

The goal of this tutorial is to help you create fewer links while getting better results. I think that optimizing this process can result in not only getting better traffic and positions. I believe that it is the first step to getting closer to your business goals and increasing your conversions.