Sudheer Kiran

Sudheer Kiran

Marketer, Musician, and Philanthropist

Link Building Guide for SEO – The Link Building Bible

As a digital marketer I have been through so many challenges while building backlink strategies for my clients. Most of the time those works pretty well and sometimes it’s a headache thing to acquire quality backlinks for some kind of industries. But, we can figure it out if we know all the link building tactics.

Here I’m going to share all link building tactics (Link Building Bible)

Internal Linking

Internal links are links that go from one page on a domain to a different page on the same domain.

It is very important to maintain good navigation throughout your website wherever it is needed by linking internal links. Use descriptive keywords in anchor text that give a sense of the topic or keywords the source page is trying to target.

Add links whenever it would be helpful to readers. Don’t link if the pages don’t have related content. You can link between pages and posts in the body of the article. The context of each link is important. Many believe that links within the body content are weighted more heavily than links within the navigation.

Tip: Maintain User-friendly navigation and link internal pages with relevant anchor text whenever it’s needed.

Competitive Analysis

When I was started working as a SEO analyst, my first link building strategy is searching for backlinks of competitors. Competitor analysis is an integral step in any link building campaign

There are many tools available for competitor backlink analysis.

You can use below tools for Competitive Link Analysis

  • Open Site Explorer
  • Ahrefs
  • Majestic SEO

Download the top 3-4 competitors’ backlinks into CSVs. Combine into a single Excel sheet, removing duplicates, and find obtainable quality links already secured by competitors.

Tip: Have a look on competitor link building strategy on daily or weekly or monthly basis.

Link Building through Content

We do building backlinks for our content to get more exposure to our content that helps to improve search engine rankings. Link building and content marketing are commonly listed as separate SEO tactics. But, there is really nothing that separates the two from each other – Content Marketing is for building backlinks and building backlinks is for marketing our content.

Content marketing has become link building, and link building is content marketing.

Tip: Create viral content and share in Social media to go viral. Create content based on current trends and most happenings in your industry.

Infographics

Everyone knows that infographics are the best option for branding as well as for acquire quality backlinks. People love to share infographics that has really cool design with useful content. Design a beautiful Infographic and share with all infographic websites. There are many Infographic submission sites who accept to submit your Infographic with source link. You need to give your website address in source link and let them promote your infographic through their website.

When you publish your infographics within your website, follow these below instructions:

  • Infographic (good file name and alt attribute)
  • Share buttons (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, LinkedIn, Digg)
  • Embed code with good image name and alt attribute, Embed code links image to post and has a secondary branded link after your infographic

Tip: Use beautiful and unique graphics while you are creating infographics. Promote everywhere where images and infographics shares happening.

Broken Link Building:

Broken link building is a link building tactic where a marketer contacts a site owner who has a broken link on his site and recommends one or more alternatives that include his target site. The hardest part about broken link building is finding dead pages that a lot of people link to.

Target Resource Page with Keywords

Target resource page with keyword is the most common and straightforward method of broken link building. You can search for keywords relevant to your site’s interests, This is a process of finding resource pages that link to content related to your keywords, extracting all the links from those resource pages, finding missing pages among those links.

So, how you target resource page with keyword?

You have to use below search query

[highlight]”intitle:resources” [/highlight]

Target Resource Page with URLs

This is a process of finding URLs relevant to your site’s interests, finding resource pages that link to content related to your links, extracting all the links from those resource pages, finding missing pages among those links.

So, how you target resource page with URLs?

You have to use below search query

[highlight]”inurl:links”[/highlight]

Below is a list of prospecting phrases you can use to help find relevant linking pages

[highlight]site:.gov
links
resources
intitle:links
intitle:resources
intitle:sites
intitle:websites
inurl:links
inurl:resources
inurl:sites
inurl:websites
“useful links”
“useful resources”
“useful sites”
“useful websites”
“recommended links”
“recommended resources”
“recommended sites”
“recommended websites”
“suggested links”
“suggested resources”
“suggested sites”
“suggested websites”
“more links”
“more resources”
“more sites”
“more websites”
“favorite links”
“favorite resources”
“favorite sites”
“favorite websites”
“related links”
“related resources”
“related sites”
“related websites”
intitle:”useful links”
intitle:”useful resources”
intitle:”useful sites”
intitle:”useful websites”
intitle:”recommended links”
intitle:”recommended resources”
intitle:”recommended sites”
intitle:”recommended websites”
intitle:”suggested links”
intitle:”suggested resources”
intitle:”suggested sites”
intitle:”suggested websites”
intitle:”more links”
intitle:”more resources”
intitle:”more sites”
intitle:”more websites”
intitle:”favorite links”
intitle:”favorite resources”
intitle:”favorite sites”
intitle:”favorite websites”
intitle:”related links”
intitle:”related resources”
intitle:”related sites”
intitle:”related websites”
inurl:”useful links”
inurl:”useful resources”
inurl:”useful sites”
inurl:”useful websites”
inurl:”recommended links”
inurl:”recommended resources”
inurl:”recommended sites”
inurl:”recommended websites”
inurl:”suggested links”
inurl:”suggested resources”
inurl:”suggested sites”
inurl:”suggested websites”
inurl:”more links”
inurl:”more resources”
inurl:”more sites”
inurl:”more websites”
inurl:”favorite links”
inurl:”favorite resources”
inurl:”favorite sites”
inurl:”favorite websites”
inurl:”related links”
inurl:”related resources”
inurl:”related sites”
inurl:”related websites”
list of links
list of resources
list of sites
list of websites
list of blogs
list of forums[/highlight]

Wikipedia:

Do you know you can find broken links using Wikipedia?

So, how you can find broken links using Wikipedia?

Use below search query to find broken links on Wikipedia

[highlight]site:wikipedia.org YOUR KEYWORD “dead link”[/highlight]

You will get a list of Wikipedia pages that are related to YOUR KEYWORD which contain dead links.

You have to click on the result pages of Wikipedia and search for the phrase “dead link”. If you found any dead link that means Wikipedia is looking to replace those dead links with valid links. Here you are going to start your link building strategy, search for dead links which are pointing to any page that is related to your business.

Create a related page on your site and go into the Wikipedia article and click the “Edit” button, here you can request them to replace those dead links with your website link which is more relevant to that Wikipedia Article.

.Edu and .Gov Links

We know that a link from .Edu or .Gov site is having more weightage than other backlinks to your website to get better rankings. But getting backlinks from .Edu or .Gov is not so easy. Do research and make a list of .edu and .gov sites that has blogs with comment option. And make a list of competitors backlinks and pick all .edu and .gov backlinks separately. Now, go to those links where your competitor got a backlink and try to get a backlink for your business from that source.

Tip: Concentrate on University and Government Blogs and Forums 

Link Building with Images

Have you ever heard about link building with Images? Yes, It’s True that you can build some backlinks using your premium copyrighted images.

Images give great user experience as well as in helping give more information to visitors. And images are making information so clear and easy to understand. People love to share good content and helpful content with their friends or followers.

Create your content with beautiful images which are relevant to your content. It encourages people to share and it makes feel of a good brand.

And there is one more tactic to get backlinks using images is offering premium images and cinemagraphs to bloggers. Market your images with your copyrighted details by using your website address. You can create all types of images and offer to bloggers to use free with a backlink of your business. I recommend to create images which are related to your industry.

There are many types of images that can be used for web marketing, such as:

  • Photographs (conceptual, landscapes, products, etc…)
  • Drawings/illustrations
  • Infographics
  • Typography
  • Cinemagraphs
  • Memes
  • GIF (Graphic interchange format)
  • Comic strips

Tip: Use all possible ways to share your premium images through Flickr, Tumblr and other photo sharing sites or Apps. 

Guest Blogging

Guest Blogging is always best option for getting valuable backlinks from your niche. Most of Webmasters are abusing guest blogging tactic by overusing this tactic. Some people are started arguing that Guest Blogging has no importance in building backlinks, but I still recommend guest blogging for getting valuable backlinks.

Get Google authorship from your Google Plus profile for your guest articles using “rel=author”. Go for only your niche blogs and concentrate on your personal brand instead of thinking about links from your guest post. Give a brief Bio with your social profiles and your Designation in your company. This makes a natural feel about your profile and it gives more exposure as a personal branding.

Tip: Forget about number of links and focus on branding with your profile. Go for only within your niche and don’t link many links from the same domain.

Job Portals

Another interesting link buiding tactic is link building using Job portals. Use your link building strategy when you have job vacancies in your organization. Posting your jobs in any job portals with linking of your domain is a good idea to get some reliable traffic to your domain.

You can include your domain link at your contact details of Job vacancies or else you can include your job opportunities page to give even more details about your Job vacancy. Anyway, you are getting a natural and relevant backlink from them.

Tip: Use all the options in Job Portals which are useful to the Job seekers and leave your website address for more information

Interviewing Experts

Infact, This is not just for getting a backlink from Interviewee but it is more helpful for branding and giving more exposure to your domain in your niche. People love to expose themselves as an expert in their niche, and they always ready to share their experience to other experts from their niche. Build good relationship with experts in your niche and ask for a slot to interviewing them. I recommend giving all questions before you are going to interviewing them, so that they can prepare answers even better. This makes more comfortable for both sides.

Tip: Post their interview in your site and try to promote with all social media channels. And Let them know the link you posted their interview. As I said earlier, people love to expose themselves as an expert in their niche. So, you can expect a link back and some shares to that post from those experts.

Ask Bloggers for Reviews

Nowadays, building relationships in online gives you more exposure rather than working yourself on your website. Bloggers always search for new content to publish in their blogs. And they always search for new ways to earn money from their blog. You can ask them to write a review about your Business by offering few bucks or offering any other favor.

Tip: Choose best Bloggers within your industry and don’t go for other industry Bloggers.

Local Listings & Event Promotions

Go everywhere is a common marketing strategy for promoting your products and services. And promote everything you do for your business, by your business with your business. Most of local business directories are offering an option to list your website address including physical location of your business. List your business including your website URL in all local business directories.

There are some good event promotion websites in market with Free and Premium option. You can choose whatever you need for your requirement. These event promotion sites also offering an option to list your business website address.

Tip: Submit your business in all Local directories, Yellow pages. And promote your events by using event promotion sites and use social media event promotion campaigns

Link Building with Yahoo Answers

I used to go to Yahoo Answers to get answers for all my doubts. You can even build some valuable backlinks using Yahoo Answers. You can write answers for questions in your niche and even you can ask questions. Try to give a best answer for questions in your niche, This makes you more popular and best contributor. Sometimes, you can give a link that gives more reasonable and relevant answer for some questions. If your link has really a relevant answer for that question, your link goes very popular and the number of hits on your link will increase drastically.

Tip: First, build your reputation by giving best answers for questions in your industry and go for suggesting your website links which are having relevant information for their queries.

Social Media Profile Links

As per my knowledge, every social networking site is giving an option to list your website while creating your profile. These links are having more weightage as search engines believe that company is having more customer engagement in online. Every profile is an employee from your business and every person is playing his role to get a reputation for your business.

There is lot of social networking sites globally and locally. You can also find local social networking sites where only local people connect each other.

Tip: Search for a list of social media or social networking sites. Create your profile with your website link and make connections and share your content

Free Themes and Plugins

People are always happy to get freebies, and they give more priority to those who offer giveaways. Provide free themes and Plugins is really great idea to get hundreds of backlinks from your Themes and Plugins. You can have your links with those free Themes and Plugins and you can use a non-removal script to not to give permission to users to remove those links.

Tip: Design beautiful Themes and useful Plugins by using your business name and your business URL. Provide those Themes and Plugins from your website and you can submit those in other free directories.

Other Common Link Building Tactics

Directories

Directories give you a permanent backlink to your website. It’s a best option to go for industry specific directories first. You can also submit country wise directories and SEO friendly directories. Choose your category and your information while you are submitting your site into any directory. And check whether those directories IPs are blacklisted or not. Avoid those directories which are having blacklisted IPs.

Bookmarking

Bookmarking is quick and instant traffic giving strategy by sharing your link with all popular bookmarking sites. Make a list of SEO-friendly and your industry and country specific bookmarking sites. Make sure you should submit every new link from your website into your list of bookmarking sites.

Forums

Forums played a major role in ancient SEO days. But now, their importance has been decreased in SEO. But still Forums have some significant importance in building quality backlinks. It’s better to have your profile with signature links in Forums which are related to your industry only instead of going for all forums.

Case Studies and White Papers

Case studies and white Papers are useful for branding and very helpful for getting customer loyalty. You can submit those Case studies and White Papers in PDF format into file sharing and PDF sharing documents. And you can share your White Papers with bloggers who are into your industry to provide free White Papers for their blog visitors.

Press release

Submit in all free press release websites when you have a press release or any announcement from your Organization. You can hire any reputated PR agency which is having deals with giant news or magazine websites.

PPT and PDF Submissions

Create Presentations and PDF documents which are related to your industry and promote them using PPT and PDF submission sites along with social media

Video Marketing

You can leave your URL after sharing your video in video sharing sites. For example, you can put your website link in description while you sharing your videos in YouTube.

Classified Ads

Advertising your products and services by giving relevant information will consider as a best Advertising. But, you can’t give all the information in your advertisement about your product or service. So, here you can provide your product or service link for more details.

Article Submission

Article submission is an old school link building tactic where people submit their articles in Article directories with including their links within the content of the article. This Article submission is replaced by content curation.

10 Comments

  1. Madhu

    Firstly thank you Mr.Sudheer Kiran for off page implementation insight,
    It’s an amazing article regarding link building. I was worried about referral traffic. Now I feel It’s not a rocket science.

    Reply
    1. Sudheer Kiran

      You are Welcome Dear Madhu.

      It is true that every website needs referral traffic for getting organic traffic later. Social Media is the best channel for referral traffic and there are few social bookmarking sites to drive huge referral traffic for your website. It is true that your organic results will effect by referral traffic.

      Reply
      1. Madhu

        Hi Sudheer, I have a doubt, please look in to it. I have a website called example.com & I’m getting referral traffic from example.com(self referral). Is this because this site has many micro sites? or any other reason?

        Reply
        1. Sudheer Kiran

          There are few reason for showing self referral traffic in Google Analytics:
          Reasons:

          • Tracking Code Missing or Not Working on Landing Page
          • Inconsistent Tracking Code Configuration
          • Multiple Micro sites or sub-domains
          • Having multiple micro sites is one of the reason, but traffic from micro sites shouldn’t consider as a referral traffic. Because you are going to lose your conversion tracking process. If a visitor comes from Social Media or from any other channel to your micro site and he converted as a lead(enquiring or buying your products or services), you can’t see where he came from, what is the real referral site for that lead.

            Solution: You have to set up tracking code properly in all your sub-domains with cross domain tracking.

          Reply
  2. Glenn Weidner

    Thank you so much Sudheer!

    This is absolutely awesome. My focus until recently has been to focus on on-page factors because in my market almost nobody writes decent web pages. Now I am venturing out into the world of marketing this great content I’m creating on my site and link building is what its all about. Now I have a guide thank to you.

    Thanks again

    Reply

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