Three Ways to Evolve Your Link Building in 2023 — Whiteboard Friday

Welcome to 2023! Within the first Whiteboard Friday of the brand new yr, Paddy walks via three strategies to evolve your hyperlink constructing efforts — not reinventing the wheel, however by bettering what you at present do.

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Video Transcription

Hello, Moz followers. Welcome to a different version of Whiteboard Friday. I am Paddy Moogan. I am the CEO of Aira. In the present day, we will discuss hyperlink constructing and the best way to evolve your hyperlink constructing to its subsequent part and to enhance what you do for the time being.

So we will discuss via three strategies to enhance your hyperlink constructing and evolve it and enhance the outcomes you get for purchasers. 

1. Use the shopper journey to generate concepts

So firstly, primary, there’s a little bit of a difficulty generally with hyperlink constructing and the relevance of the content material that we produce for hyperlink constructing. So a method we will truly enhance that and make our content material as related as doable is to make use of the shopper journey to generate hyperlink constructing concepts.

Now, there’s plenty of alternative ways of enthusiastic about the shopper journey, totally different funnels, totally different methodologies. One factor we use at Aira for that is the notice, consideration, and resolution phases, the place the shopper goes from being conscious of the issue, the ache factors, one thing they wish to repair, then their choices and attempting to determine, “Okay, who ought to I select to unravel that downside?”

After which, lastly, possibly getting their bank card out, selecting up the cellphone, emailing, that type of stuff to really resolve who they’ll go together with. Now, we will use this mannequin to really provide you with hyperlink constructing concepts. I will share how we do that at Aira. So there’s 4 pillars we will use to try to work out content material concepts which can be related to our clients. Firstly, we begin with the viewers themselves.

So who’re our viewers? Who’re we attempting to talk to? Who’re our perfect consumers for the services and products that we promote? In order that’s the place we begin. We then transfer on to the ache factors of our viewers. So what sorts of issues do they wrestle with? What sort of triggers can truly make them begin to search for a product corresponding to yours or a service corresponding to yours?

After which thirdly, what options do you provide as a model or an internet site to try to repair these ache factors for these clients and attempting to attach these issues collectively? Fourthly, what key phrases are you attempting to rank for? What are you attempting to rank for in Google? How does that join again to your service and your product? And what that means that you can do is to tie collectively these phases into precise rankings, precise key phrases that you just’re attempting to enhance together with your hyperlink constructing and your content material.

The great factor about utilizing these 4 areas to try to provide you with content material concepts for hyperlink constructing is that it forces relevance. It is actually laborious to really do that. In case you stray too distant from it, you provide you with concepts that are not very related. So if you happen to stick actually nearer to it, it is a bit more durable. That is type of the purpose. What you are attempting to do right here is strike that stability between concepts that may get hyperlinks, but in addition content material concepts which can be very related to your viewers and who you are attempting to promote your merchandise or your companies to.

So try to use these 4 factors right here to provide you with your concepts, and ensure the concepts you provide you with are really related to your buyer and never simply being completed purely for hyperlink constructing. 

2. Transfer past campaigns

Second level, second factor we will do to evolve our hyperlink constructing is to maneuver past huge, shiny, interactive hyperlink constructing campaigns. Now, we have constructed a whole bunch of those through the years at Aira. We are going to proceed to construct them.

I really like a great, shiny, interactive hero marketing campaign. However I imagine there’s extra we will do in the case of content-led hyperlink constructing. So there’s 4 issues we will do right here. So firstly, try to make any campaigns, any content material that you just provide you with evergreen. What I imply by that’s it should not be a begin and a cease marketing campaign, the place you launch a marketing campaign, do your outreach, after which overlook about it and transfer on to the subsequent one.

Attempt to create concepts and campaigns that you may outreach and promote over and again and again. If you are able to do that, it continues to be related all year long, throughout a number of years. It is not only a one-off marketing campaign that you just’re hoping will get hyperlinks earlier than you progress on to the subsequent one. The second factor you are able to do is definitely to not cease the outreach. So most SEOs truly will outreach a marketing campaign after which cease as soon as that marketing campaign is completed and transfer on to the subsequent one.

What you have to be attempting to do as a substitute is create campaigns that you may all the time outreach and all the time promote. So strive to not cease your outreach, and what occurs over time is you construct up a number of campaigns, a number of content material items, and you find yourself with a pleasant, huge financial institution of content material that you may regularly outreach and get hyperlinks to. It is not relying upon one marketing campaign after one other to get hyperlinks. 

3. Purpose for hyperlinks you did not ask for

Third level we will do is to take a look at present content material.

So once more, while you’re enthusiastic about creating hyperlink constructing campaigns, the pure tendency is to think about one thing new, to consider, “Okay, what can we create that is model new, hasn’t been completed earlier than, utterly new marketing campaign for an internet site or a consumer?” Nicely, truly, that is completely wonderful, however there could also be some present content material on that web site that’s link-worthy. So be sure, while you begin working with an internet site or a brand new model, have a look at what they have already, see which content material they have that is likely to be link-worthy, might have gotten hyperlinks prior to now, and try to outreach and promote that content material while you are constructing new campaigns.

This works very well significantly for businesses, as a result of while you’re launching a marketing campaign, it takes a little bit of time to provide you with concepts, do the manufacturing, do the design. While you are doing all of that, if you’ll find present content material on that web site that’s link-worthy, you’ll be able to promote that and get hyperlinks to that while you are constructing the massive marketing campaign. And also you’re offsetting the danger there as nicely and getting hyperlinks within the brief time period in addition to the long run.

Fourthly, simplify your execution. Not each content material piece must be huge, shiny, interactive, full-page takeovers. It may be so simple as a weblog publish. It could possibly be a small, mini infographic. Strive to not fear an excessive amount of about huge, fancy executions. Let the concept lead the execution. And if that signifies that you write only a very, quite simple weblog publish with a few photos, possibly plenty of copy and bullet factors, that is completely wonderful.

If that is the easiest way to execute your concept, then that is what you must go together with and never fear an excessive amount of about making one thing interactive or huge only for the sake of it. So thirdly, the third factor we will do to raise our hyperlink constructing is to goal for hyperlinks that you just did not ask for. So lots of the time with hyperlink constructing strategies they depend on outreach, and outreach means sending emails, attempting to get in contact with site owners and hyperlink prospects and get hyperlinks from them.

That is completely wonderful. We should always proceed doing that. However one place you wish to try to get to is to create content material the place it naturally will get hyperlinks by itself. So you could nicely do outreach and get hyperlinks for that content material. However in addition to that, you are additionally getting individuals who hyperlink to that content material naturally, so you are not relying an excessive amount of simply on the outreach. Now there’s three examples right here of content material you’ll be able to create that really will do that. Now the very first thing to recollect is definitely content material that ranks tends to get hyperlinks, as a result of when individuals are doing analysis into totally different areas and attempting to write down about sure industries, they might search for content material they’ll additionally hyperlink to.

So, for instance, when you have a web page that is about statistics and tendencies in your trade, and somebody is writing an article about your trade and tendencies in 2022, in the event that they discover your content material, there is a good likelihood that they are going to hyperlink to it as nicely within the content material they’re producing. But when it ranks, they have extra likelihood of discovering it. The second space is long-form guides, actually in-depth, actually detailed content material. If you’ll find some good subject concepts to write down about within the long-form approach, long-form guides are likely to rank for lots of long-tail and mid-tail key phrases.

Once more, if it ranks very well, it is very detailed, very techy, this works very well for very technical merchandise and really technical companies. In case you can create content material about your services or products that is fairly technical, it is bought a great likelihood of rating nicely and likewise being referenced and linked to by different web sites. And thirdly, trade experiences. So truly, we do that ourselves at Aira.

We produced a State of Link Building Report a couple of months in the past. It is a report that will get referenced loads by our trade as a result of it is an ordinary within the trade for hyperlink constructing and folks consider it once they’re writing their very own content material. So in your trade, if you happen to can create trade benchmark experiences, state of trade experiences, surveys, that type of stuff, that really shares information and shares data with the trade, it is simple for folks to reference that in their very own content material that they produce as nicely.

However once more, it must rank nicely for folks to seek out it within the first place. So there’s 3 ways to really evolve your hyperlink constructing and attempt to elevate it to the subsequent stage past campaigns, past outreach, and truly attempting to get hyperlinks that you just did not ask for. In order that’s Whiteboard Friday for me. I am Paddy Moogan. In case you’ve bought any questions, drop them into the feedback under. I will be blissful to get again to you.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com