Building relationships online stills remains an integral element of SEO. For some, launching a campaign of such magnitude can be considered a daunting task. After all, we’re no experts at everything. If you’re fairly new to the SEO industry then getting started with link building can be a bit challenging. Here’s a few basic tips for targeted link building within your SEO campaign:
- 404 Pages and Link Reclamation
- Competitor Analysis
- Web Mentions or Google Alerts
- Local Links
- Leveraging Past or Current Relationships
404 Pages and Link Reclamation
Website changes occur all the time. New content gets added in and old information extracted. Certain page urls become yesterday’s news while others newly introduced into the mix. Many may consider 404 errors as part of on-page SEO optimization. Something that I quite frankly would typically classify as on-page optimization myself.
Utilizing broken links and reclaiming those of benefit could be advantageous in building up trust and relevance on the web. Recently I stumbled across a great article discussing 404 page and link reclamation. Personally one of my favorite resources on the web for staying up-to-date on certain SEO trends.
Competitor Analysis
Evaluating the market positioning of your rivals remains an essential component of effective link building. In order to remain competitive in the marketplace it’s important to assess the competition. I like to refer to this method as “snooping around”. The Moz Open Site Explorer is a great tool for performing some snooping around. Assessing competitor positioning and identifying specific backlinks presents an area of opportunity.
Web Mentions (also known as Google Alerts)
Brand monitoring is an integral part of SEO. Google’s Alerts provides ability for tracking of brand mentions in search engines. The second a specific instance occurs Google will send an e-mail communication to you letting you know of that particularly mention. Using Google Alerts has been a technique in link building for quite some time now. Leveraging specific mentions on the web presents valuable opportunities for building new alliances.
It doesn’t end quite there though. Building new relationships should only be considered with authoritative sites on the web. Sites that are relevant to specific products or services that your brand offers. If alerts indicate mentions from certain sources it may be just as easy as reaching out a requesting a backlink to your website. Such approach typically consists of a courteous e-mail requesting inclusion of a link to your site within that particular website.
Inbound links from external resources are still considered a vital component to SEO. Building an external matrix of resources point back to your domain lets search engine robots know that your brand contains clout in the marketplace. Relevant and quality links from external entities may be slightly difficult to acquire but well worth it in effort to increase search visibility and dominance.