Game-Changing Link Building

Presented by Nate Dame

CEO & Founder, SEOperks

So You Want to Be a Link Builder

Link Building Reality

• Marketing

• Sales

• PR

• Tech

• Luck

• Free beers

(and lots of networking)

Today’s Goal

• Design a link building campaign with 60-100% success rate.

How it Works

• Know where to get links and who to talk to

• Start with the right outreach

• Bait them with highly customized appeal

• Get the link

Persona Development

Who are you going to reach?

A Link Building Persona represents a cluster of websites who share one or more characteristics including topics of interest, business vertical, target audience, products, services, mission, and/or geographic location.

Persona Development

• Examples– Car dealership

– Home décor

– Ecommerce selling vacuums

– Tech startup

By topic, plus ancillary / complementary product and service providers.

Persona Development

Is this persona worth my time?

Persona Development

Is this persona worth my time?– Is it topically relevant?

– Do they have a modern online presence?

– Are they active online?

– Do they have logical link opportunities?

– Do the meet your other link building criteria?

Initial searches for blogs: “top [TOPIC] blogs”

Initial searches for businesses: “[BUSINESS TYPE], [CITY]”

Create The Bait

Choose your (link bait) weapon

Create The Bait

• Social shares

• Group interview

• Roundup feature

• Individual feature

List Development

List Development

• Manual prospecting

• High volume prospecting– Link Prospector by

Citation Labs

• People searches– Followerwonk

– LinkedIn Search

– Listorious

List Development

• Qualify!

– Modern, active online presence

– Logical link opportunity

– Topically relevant

– Domain authority within campaign goals

• Contact information

– Find the right person

Initial Outreach

Initial Outreach

• First email

– Be brief

– Demonstrate value, no strings attached

– One question / call to action

– Do not:

• Ask for a link

• Include list of interview questions

Initial Outreach

• Follow up correspondence

– Collect feedback as needed

– Secure a commitment to link!

Initial Outreach

Hi FNAME,

I love the site! I especially appreciated your post on ABC because XYZ. Keep it up!

I’m emailing because we’d like to feature you in an upcoming post on OurSite.com. You were nominated as one of the best blogs on TOPIC in CITY.

What do you think? Interested? Let me know.

Best,YourName

Initial Outreach

Hi FNAME,

Quick update on the X post you are featured in - it's scheduled to go live Monday! The team here loves how it turned out - thanks again for being a part of this.

We plan on doing similar resources in the future. Our big goal with these campaigns is to grow blog by offering real resourceful local community content.

Can you blog about your involvement when the post goes live? [OR link to the post on your press page OR mention it on http://www.blog.com/this-specific-page]

Let me know - thanks!!

Best,NAME

Initial Outreach

Subject Lines– Enjoying your site– Would love to interview you– Feedback on your site– Your site rocks!– Including you in a roundup

– 10,000 and counting...– So you want to strangle your college roommate...– Take the children out of the middle...– When anger rears its ugly head...

Get the Link!

• Create and launch content

• Follow up on link commitments

Get the Link!

More link opportunities

• Didn’t work out? Try other asks:

– Guest post

– Broken link fix

– Inclusion in resource listing

– Improvement / addition to recent piece of content

• Don’t let any relationship to untapped!

Tips & Tricks

• Identify specific link request

• Give them serious press

• Keep in mind your website’s current reach

• “No” not necessarily “leave me alone”, might be opportunity

• Phone calls still work!

Q & A

Questions?

Thanks to Matt Koulas from Grasshopper for moderating!

Get $50 free at grasshopper.com/buzzdebt

Nate Dame @seonateCEO & Founder, SEOperks.comnate@seoperks.com (312) 870-0056