Links, the sticky glue of the internet, the individual threads in a spiderweb, the chains in a chainlink fen… alright, enough goofing around. A vital piece of any SEO campaign is a strong link-building strategy. And, here at Redefine, we see link building as a necessary component of all SEO campaigns only after a sturdy SEO foundation is laid.

So, before you begin doing any sort of link-building outreach, you should ensure you have all the SEO foundational aspects buttoned up. Then you are going to want to have fully defined the types of links you want.

The objective of link building: What is link building?

Part of the reason we, as SEOs, do link building is to build the authority of our client’s site. For those new to link building & SEO, authority – or domain authority (DA) as it is frequently called – is a term describing how we gauge the trustworthiness of a given domain. As we build authority for a site, the more likely it is to rank in search engines.

In a way, you can think of authority, or domain authority, like a credit score. The more financially responsible you are (let’s say, the more “financial authority” you have), the more willing banks are to lend you money. Similarly, the more authority you have in the eyes of search engines, the more willing Google is to lend you favorable rankings in results pages.

Creating link-building standards & guidelines

At the start of any link-building campaign, it is important to have a well-defined guideline for building links. Otherwise, you’ll find your link-building campaign to be a bunch of outreach with no results.

Throughout the campaign, you should be following this guideline as closely as possible, settling for nothing less than what you’ve laid out in your guidelines. Following this to a tee will bring you the exact results and rankings you want.

But, what does a good link look like, anyways?

A good backlink is anything you want to be – remember, you set the standards. However, we will break down what a good backlink should look like at the absolute minimum.

A great backlink should look like this:

• First and foremost, it’s from a relevant source. This is super important as Google gets better at detecting unnatural links.
• The site seems trustworthy and has a decent authority score.
• The site derives its traffic from a variety of sources (Direct, Social, Organic, etc.).
• The site has an acceptable traffic/keyword history.

Now, this is how we define good backlinks here at Redefine. However, your guidelines can be whatever you like. These can be as strict or as lenient as you please.

Getting your hands dirty: Doing outreach & locating link prospects

With newly formed guidelines, you should have a better idea of what sites to reach out to. For example, if you’re in the data analytics space and your guidelines prioritize trustworthiness and credibility, you know KDnuggets.com would be the holy grail of links.

We’ve said this before, and many link builders realize this: link building is no easy task. It requires hours of digging and manual review of sites to find the perfect link prospects. However, using link-building tools like SEMrush, you can find lists and lists of sites you can reach out to. Once you have that list, it’s time for a manual review of every site on that list and making notes of the sites that fall in line with your link-building guidelines.

Pro tip: One of the most effective ways to build links is to have a streamlined approach to outreach. Use variations of templates and develop a steady workflow where you can churn out emails while preserving quality.

Another way is to network with like-minded individuals. You must continuously interact and network with influencers that are open to promoting great content. Not only does this increase your chances of receiving a response, but it also increases your chances of receiving more backlinks down the line. Think about it – these people are primed for sharing & linking to awesome content, so why not leverage that? Plus, it allows you to diversify your link acquisition process a bit!

As with anything in link building, or SEO for that matter, there is not one be-all-end-all strategy. Your strategy should be whatever works for you and whatever aligns best with your overall campaign.

But leave that to the pros. The team at Redefine Marketing Group is ready to help. We’ll put a strategy together that not only ranks you higher but brings you more targeted traffic. Don’t do it by yourself – let us help!