Ah, links. They can be friend or foe in an SEO campaign. Do them well, and improve your organic search rankings. Do them poorly, and have them devalued by Google, or worse, get a search engine penalty.

Even though Google says links have less impact now than they used to, we know they are still important to SEO. But they are not the end all be all.

Remember that for every keyword query, the algorithm itself will vary the weighting percentage of inbound links. So link-building campaigns (we like to call them link-earning campaigns) need to be focused on quality and not quantity.

That said, it’s important to get links right. But where to start? How do you actually create a framework for a link-building program, and what steps do you take? Here, I’ll discuss a three-step framework for a link-building, or rather, a link-earning campaign:

• Understand your current link profile
• Build the program step by step
• Monitor backlinks and prune as needed

FAQ: How can I create a successful link-building campaign to enhance my website’s SEO?

1. Understand Your Current Link Profile

One of the first steps you are going to take is to understand the link profile that your website already has.

There are many reasons that you may already have a good or bad link profile. Link profiles are built up over time from many initiatives. Perhaps prior employees sought out links for the website or maybe a web design company that did not know better added links, or a prior SEO vendor had a link-building campaign.

Whatever the reason, you want to get a clear view of it. Google ​Search Console is a good place to start gathering link data. ​Choose “Links” on the navigation menu to get a view of the top linked pages and more.

To get a fresher, more complete list to begin your link audit, add data gathered from several link-tracking sources: Bing Webmaster Tools, Majestic Site Explorer, Moz’s Link Explorer, Ahrefs, or our SEOToolSet.

Our SEOToolSet provides link reports to give you a better understanding of your link profile. The link report is integrated with Majestic, one of the leading link analysis providers.

Next, you need to evaluate the links — are they good or bad? Check out our article on a step-by-step guide to link pruning for more information on how to do that.

2. Build the Program Step by Step

A link-building program can be quite involved; however, if you have a framework to follow, that’s half the battle.

Here are some important steps in a link-building program:

1. Finalize keywords
2. Analyze link opportunities
3. Create quality content
4. Attract links
5. Using link attributes
6. Ensure search engines are aware

Finalize SEO Campaign Keywords

You will want to establish which keywords to target in your SEO program. This will guide your link-building efforts. As you are securing links, you may ask for specific anchor text with your keyword in the link from the site that is linking to you.

Earning too many links with the same anchor text may be seen as spam. So variety is key. Once you have the keywords established, you will:

1. Select the keyword.
2. Select the webpage it will be associated with.
3. Select the sites that you want a link from for that webpage.

Analyze Link Opportunities

First, you need to uncover potential linking opportunities. This requires research online and with SEO tools into the areas that are related to your business or services.

You will also want to know who your competitors are and who they link to or get links from. If a site links to your competition, consider getting that site to link to your site as well.

There are a few guidelines to keep in mind as you look for link partners:

• Look for a relevant partner site and keep your links targeted.
• Understand the link’s SEO value, the potential traffic and its contribution to experience, expertise, authority and trust. An SEO professional should be able to help you here.

Create Quality Content

Links do not exist without content. And quality links do not exist without quality content. This is a critical part of your link-building campaign. So before you begin the process of getting links, you need to have quality content that supports E-E-A-T.

Attract Links

While quality content is an important first step to getting the links you want, sometimes you need to be creative in getting that content in front of the right people.

There are several “old” approaches to obtaining links that are still used by many today. That includes the approach of begging for a link by email or paying for links (including guest posting — unless, of course, you are using a link attribute that indicates it’s a paid link, in which case it will not count).

Once you have done your research to analyze keywords and understand what target websites you’d like to gain links from, it’s time to get creative. If you spend a little time each week reaching out to the people who might benefit from your content, you can make good progress.

For ideas on how to do this, check out 50 ways to get quality links.

Use Link Attributes

It can be important to tell search engines what kind of links your website is obtaining. One reason is that if it is a paid link and it is not indicated as such, search engines might look at it as violating their guidelines.

You can qualify your links with Google by using certain technical attributes within the <a href …> HTML tag. These attributes tell search engines when a link may not be totally relevant to your site or other important things, like if the link is paid.

The attributes can hint to the search engines that you have a link but to not follow or count that link. That way, you can provide a useful link for your site visitors but steer clear of looking like spam.

Ensure Search Engines Are Aware of Your Links

As time goes on and you get more links, you want all the pages of your site and those linking to you to be crawled and indexed by the search engines. Search engines can find and crawl these links naturally and eventually, but encouraging a manual process can speed it up and get results faster.

To submit your own webpages to Google, go to the “URL Inspection tool” in Search Console, enter a URL, and click “Request Indexing.” For more details, see our article on How to Submit a Website to Search Engines.

3. Monitor Backlinks and Prune as Needed

A key part of the link program is to monitor your website’s link profile. Once you know how to find backlinks and evaluate them (see Step 1), you can remove the lowest quality links from your link profile as needed.

This is a proactive approach and complements Google’s Penguin signal (which is now part of the core algorithm). This particular signal analyzes a site’s link profile and devalues any links that look suspicious.

Once you have found links you don’t want, you can begin the process of removing them. See our step-by-step guide on link pruning for how to do that.

Get Started

With the link-building campaign framework outlined in this article, you have the necessary steps needed to start earning quality, relevant links the right way and to maintain your link profile for years to come.

For expert tips and strategies on how to build a quality link campaign, get our free e-book The New Link Building Manifesto: How To Earn Links That Count.

Looking for help with your link-building campaign? Let’s work together.

FAQ: How can I create a successful link-building campaign to enhance my website’s SEO?

A well-crafted link-building campaign is the cornerstone of effective SEO. Understanding the nuances of this process is crucial for enhancing your website’s visibility and authority in search engine rankings.

To commence, it’s imperative to comprehend your current link profile. Leveraging tools like Google Search Console and SEO analysis providers like Majestic and Moz can provide a comprehensive view. Evaluate the quality of existing links, distinguishing between assets and liabilities, laying the foundation for a robust strategy.

Building the program step by step is the next critical phase. Keyword finalization is pivotal in guiding your link-building efforts. Opt for variety to avoid the spam tag; choose specific anchor text for links, aligning with your overall SEO program. Analyzing link opportunities involves meticulous research into your business niche, competitors and potential partners. Identify and target relevant sites, ensuring each link contributes to experience, expertise, authority and trust.

Quality content is the linchpin of successful link-building. Without valuable content, acquiring quality links becomes a formidable challenge.

Ensure your content resonates with your target audience, establishing your website as an authoritative source in your industry. Creative promotion strategies, such as personalized outreach, can amplify the impact of your content, attracting the correct links organically.

Utilizing link attributes is a subtle yet essential aspect of the process. By qualifying links with Google through technical attributes in HTML tags, you signal transparency to search engines. This step prevents potential penalties for violating guidelines, adding a layer of trust to your link profile.

Lastly, continuous monitoring of backlinks is paramount. Embrace a proactive approach, regularly evaluating your link profile. Prune low-quality links to align with Google’s algorithm updates, ensuring sustained improvement in your SEO performance.

Mastering the art of link-building is an ongoing journey. By comprehensively understanding your link profile, strategically building your program, and continuously monitoring and adapting, you pave the way for sustained SEO success.

Step-by-Step Procedure:

1. Analyze your current link profile using tools like Google Search Console.
2. Evaluate the quality of existing links, distinguishing between valuable and potentially harmful ones.
3. Finalize keywords that align with your overall SEO program.
4. Choose specific anchor text for links, ensuring variety to avoid being flagged as spam.
5. Research and analyze potential linking opportunities in your business niche.
6. Identify competitors and analyze their link profiles for inspiration.
7. Create high-quality, valuable content that aligns with your SEO goals.
8. Promote your content creatively, using personalized outreach to attract organic links.
9. Use link attributes in HTML tags to qualify your links and signal transparency to search engines.
10. Regularly monitor your backlinks, proactively identifying and removing low-quality links.
11. Stay informed about Google’s algorithm updates and adapt your link-building strategy accordingly.
12. Continuously refine and adapt your link-building program for sustained SEO success.

The post 3 Steps To Create a Better Link-Building Campaign appeared first on Bruce Clay, Inc..

When some people look at the search results, they see blue links, images, and videos. I see countless ways to analyze how content is ranking on the results page. Using the search results for SEO research can give you precise instructions on how to approach your SEO strategy per keyword.

Let’s look closer at how to use the search results strategically, starting from a bird’s eye view of your competition all the way down to the nitty-gritty details of how to create a webpage based on the top-ranking pages.

How to Get Started

To get started on your SEO research, you’re going to use a mix of tools and manual work with the search engine results page (SERP) as your study guide.

For both methods, the assumption is that you’ve already done your keyword research. So, you have the words and phrases that you will plug in to analyze the search results. (If you don’t have your keyword list, check out this beginner’s guide to get you started).

For the manual piece, take your keywords, type them into the search engine, and start analyzing the results. Make sure to search while logged out of your Google accounts. And search in incognito mode in the Chrome browser or in a private window using Firefox, so that the results aren’t biased.

In this article, I’ll also show you how to use some of our tools to get even more data.

Next, let’s look at how to get started, step by step, using the SERPs for:

• Competition research
• Content research – bird’s eye view
• Content research – granular
• Links research
• FAQ: How can I effectively use SEO research strategies to improve my search engine rankings?

Competition Research

A good first step in analyzing the search results for SEO data is to see who is competing in the results for your target keywords.

It’s important to remember that who your competition is online may not be who your competition is locally or your defined market competition. So, the results may surprise you at first.

But keep in mind SEO is all about beating the competition in the search results, not beating the Google algorithms.

Now, to see who is ranking for your target keywords, you can do the research manually or use research tools.

To do it manually, enter the keywords into the search engine and check out the search results.

To do this step using our SEOToolSet^Ⓡ, take advantage of the Research Summary report, which generates an unbiased list of top-ranking domains and pages for your key terms.

Next, look at the websites and their brands to find out who is taking the top spots. Is it big name brands like Amazon, for example?

At this point, if you are a smaller company and are running into a lot of big brands ranking for your key terms, you might decide to abandon that term and go for a longer tail keyword that’s still related to what you offer.

Of course, it will always be challenging to outrank huge brands in the search results, but that does not always mean you shouldn’t try. (Here’s more about how to compete against big brands.)

If you have a website and brand that demonstrates expertise, authority, and trust in your niche, with the right data, it is possible to create content that is as good as or better than the webpages ranking for your target keywords. I’ll talk more about that in a bit.

Content Research – Bird’s Eye View

The next thing you want to do is to analyze the type of content that is displayed on the search results page. Remember, the search results page can look very different from query to query. This gives you clues on the types of content that Google ranks for each query.

To clarify: We know that there is a pretty standard set of search results features that can show up for any given query (think featured snippets, images, videos, knowledge panel, and more). Which combination of those features Google displays depends on the query itself and what Google believes is the best way to answer the intent of that query.

So, for example, here is the search results page for “how to train a cat,” which presents informational results:

In contrast, here is a search results page for “cat training supplies.” Labeling what Google presents on this SERP makes it clear that Google expects this query to have transactional intent (to purchase something).

Looking at the search results in this way is what I call a whole-SERP SEO strategy. A whole-SERP strategy analyzes the features and types of content that show up most in the search results for target keywords and then optimizes for them.

This helps you set a strategy for each keyword. Some of these strategies will require you to not only create and optimize the content on your webpages, but also create content for other search verticals that get pulled into the search results page.

Do you see images in the search results for the target keyword? Then, make sure you have an image optimization plan. Are videos showing up? Make videos for that keyword, too, and also don’t forget about YouTube SEO. Is there a featured snippet in the results? Try to optimize your content for featured snippets.

As an aside, for some useful data on how the features in the search engine results impact click-through rates, check out a recent study by SISTRIX. One interesting data nugget is that when you target longer tail keywords, you tend to see fewer of the SERP features that distract clicks away from the 10 blue organic links.

In the last section, I talked about the option of abandoning more generic keywords that are being dominated by big brands in the SERPs in favor of long-tail keywords. That’s something to consider if some keywords generate a lot of SERP features and you do not want to do a whole-SERP SEO strategy.

Content Research – Granular

Next, you’re going to get more granular in your content assessment. Look at each feature area on the search results (videos, images, blue links, etc.) and check out the top results.

You may want to focus on the top three, but particularly, the first result in each area is key. Click through and make a note of what type of content is ranking. For example, what attributes do the top-ranked videos share, if any?

For the regular “blue link” organic listings, what types of content show up there? Guides? Lists? Here, you’re looking for a common approach to the content.

And here is also where SEO tools can come in handy. Using the Bruce Clay SEO WP plugin, you can run your keywords through our patented tool and get real-time intel on the specific details of the top-ranked pages and their content.

This is especially important as you are planning and writing the content for your target keywords. So often, website publishers rely on generic data from one of those large-scale studies that says you must write so many hundreds of words to rank well. Or you need to include “x” amount of characters in your meta data.

Unfortunately, this data is not based on your specific keywords. So why guess?

Using our WordPress SEO plugin, you can get information like:

• How many words to include in your meta data based on the top-ranked pages (check out our article on meta tags to understand why meta data is important).
• How many words to write on the topic, based on the top-ranked pages.
• The readability score of the content you create based on the top-ranked pages.

This is a game-changer for your SEO program’s content strategy. To learn more about this, I suggest you check out our step-by-step article on custom SEO advice per keyword using our SEO plugin.

And, as you are writing your content, you can once again go to the search results for more ideas on what to include.

The “People also ask” (PAA) section on the search results page is Google’s way of telling you of other popular searches related to the target keyword. Use these as fuel for subsections within your content or create entire webpages around them.

You can use the exact phrases you find in the PAA section as either a subheading for a subsection in your article or as the title of a webpage. Be sure to answer those questions well, as it could be an opportunity to rank for a featured snippet (see this link for more).

Links Research

Once you know which websites are ranking in the coveted SERP spots for your target keyword(s), you want to know who is linking to them. Why? Because this is an opportunity for them to also link to your content once it is live.

You can use tools like Ahrefs or Majestic to get a picture of your competitor’s backlink profile.

Then:

• Identify the links to your competition’s webpage for your targeted keyword.
• Analyze the linking domains and choose the top most relevant domains and their webpages that might link to your new content.
• Make sure you are confident that you have better content than your competitor for your targeted keyword(s) before you do any outreach.
• Start promoting your new content with the target domains/brands by beginning to build relationships.

This is not about creating one of those “link to me!” emails. It’s about forging business relationships with actual human beings at the websites and brands that you are targeting for links. Maybe your strategy is quoting a business leader in your webpage from the target domain. The goal is to be creative here.

Summary

When you’re ready to start creating content for your SEO program, turn to the search results. There, you can get a blueprint for what type of content you need to create and how to create it based on what’s already ranking for your keywords.

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FAQ: How can I effectively use SEO research strategies to improve my search engine rankings?

Search engines are the lifeblood of online discovery, and mastering SEO research strategies is essential to secure a prime spot in search engine rankings. To embark on this journey, it’s vital to comprehend that effective SEO isn’t just about keywords but a holistic approach combining technical finesse, content quality, and user satisfaction.

At the heart of every effective SEO campaign lies comprehensive keyword research. Start by identifying a set of relevant and high-performing keywords that align with your content’s intent. Leverage keyword research tools to analyze search volume, competition, and trends. Integrating long-tail keywords can offer a competitive edge, as they cater to specific user queries and exhibit lower competition.

Content optimization is a cornerstone of SEO success. Craft compelling, informative, well-structured content that naturally incorporates your chosen keywords. Remember, quality trumps quantity. Search engines reward content that provides genuine value to users. Strive for readability, relevance, and originality while avoiding keyword stuffing—a practice that can lead to penalties.

User experience is a pivotal factor in modern SEO. A website’s loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and overall usability directly impact its rankings. Conduct regular audits to identify and rectify technical issues hindering user experience. Intuitive navigation and engaging visuals contribute to longer visit durations, reducing bounce rates and signaling value to search engines.

Backlinks remain a potent weapon in the SEO arsenal. Focus on acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable sources within your industry. Guest posting, influencer collaborations, and participation in online communities can help establish your platform’s authority. However, avoid dubious link-building practices, as search engines prioritize authenticity and relevance.

Stay vigilant and adaptive. SEO algorithms and trends evolve, demanding ongoing commitment. Monitor your website’s performance using analytics tools and adjust your strategies accordingly. Keep abreast of industry news and algorithm updates to stay ahead of the curve. Remember, SEO is a patient pursuit, and results may take time to manifest.

Step-by-Step Procedure: How to Effectively Use SEO Research Strategies to Improve Search Engine Rankings

1. Keyword Research: Identify relevant keywords using tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs.
2. Long-Tail Keywords: Include long-tail keywords to capture specific user intent and diversify your content strategy.
3. Content Quality: Create valuable, original, well-structured content that integrates chosen keywords seamlessly.
4. Avoid Keyword Stuffing: Maintain a natural flow of content and avoid overloading with keywords.
5. Technical Optimization: Regularly audit your website for loading speed, mobile responsiveness, and technical issues.
6. User-Friendly Layout: Design an intuitive and user-friendly website interface for enhanced experience.
7. Engaging Visuals: Incorporate relevant images and videos to make your content more engaging.
8. Backlink Building: Seek high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources within your industry.
9. Guest Posting: Contribute guest posts to reputable websites to expand your reach and authority.
10. Influencer Collaboration: Partner with influencers for mutual backlinking and extended audience reach.
11. Avoid Black Hat SEO: Avoid using unethical practices like buying backlinks or keyword stuffing.
12. Regular Updates: Keep your content fresh and up-to-date to show search engines your platform’s relevance.
13. Algorithm Monitoring: Stay informed about search engine algorithm updates and adapt your strategies accordingly.
14. Analytics Tracking: Utilize tools like Google Analytics to monitor your website’s performance and traffic sources.
15. Competitor Analysis: Study your competitors’ strategies to identify gaps and opportunities.
16. Local SEO: If applicable, optimize for local search by including location-specific keywords and information.
17. Social Signals: Maintain an active social media presence to encourage shares and engagement.
18. Voice Search Optimization: Consider optimizing for voice search by using conversational keywords.
19. Patience and Persistence: SEO results take time; consistently apply best practices and adapt to changes.
20. Continuous Learning: To refine your strategies, stay updated with industry trends through courses, blogs, and forums.

This article was updated on December 20, 2023.  

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