In this lesson, you will learn what a link building campaign actually is and what it’s comprised of. Watch the full course for free:
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Here’s where we tie together everything else I’ve talked about in the past lessons.
You start with your link profile, add in your link research and competitive research, add those to your link building tactics, and when you mix them all together with a little or a lot of effort, you end up with some awesome links!
You’ve got to be sure to set goals – you could build links forever, and really go down the rabbit hole. If you set a goal, it’s much easier to feel like you’ve accomplished something – not only will you have a sense of completion, you’ll have something measurable.
I like to set a timeline for a link building campaign, with a second timeline for measuring the results. You can set any timeline that works for your business, we typically pace a campaign to last two to three months.
You spend the first half of the campaign doing your research, uncovering new opportunities for potential links. Once you know which links you’re going after, you do your outreach and go get them. Once the campaign is finished, you scrub your list of opportunities, removing the links you acquired and any that are no longer opportunities, and then you start your next campaign with the updated list.
During each campaign, you measure the performance of the previous campaign. So, for example, if you’re on a 2-month cycle, during your second backlink campaign, you’re also measuring the results of the first campaign. And during the third, you’re measuring the second – and so on.
I suggest creating a spreadsheet to keep track of backlink opportunities. SEMrush Link Building Tool allows you to keep track of opportunities and even send emails through the system, but I like to keep more data about each opportunity, and the ability to sort the opportunities makes it easier when you’re deciding on links and doing outreach.
So, I create a spreadsheet, listing each link opportunity. I list the source website, and, if I know it, the URL of the page the link will come from. I list the cost of getting the link.
I also note the timing of the link – is it a permanent link, or is it on a page that gets refreshed every year? I record the authority of each link, as well as a note on whether it’s a local link or an industry-relevant link.
Finally, I list the contact information of the person we’d need to talk to in order to acquire the link. Finding the right person to talk to is the key – if you’ve done link building before, you know how it goes. It saves time to find the right person during your research phase – that way, when you’re ready to get the link, you already know exactly who to call or email and it’s much easier to lock the link in quickly.
You’ll also need to organize your list based on the tactics you’ll be using to acquire the backlinks. If you’ve got awesome content that already exists, then there’s much less effort involved than creating the content for a specific opportunity. When you make a list of your assets, you’ll be able to sort your link opportunities based on which assets might be used versus which opportunities need additional assets.
Once you finish the research phase and you’ve got your spreadsheet ready to go – or if you’re using the SEMrush tool, you’ve got your list of potential links ready – it’s time to decide which of the links you’re going after.
When you’re doing outreach, it’s important to remember that you’re contacting a real person. In many cases, that person may have no idea what’s going on with the website, or even what a link is or why it’s important.
Don’t sell them on giving you a link – sell them on the value you’re providing for their users. They don’t care about links – but they do care about their audience or their customers. If you show them that you’re genuine, and not like all the spammers they constantly hear from, AND you show them the value you’re providing, you’re much more likely to get the backlink.
Once you’ve gone through every opportunity and gotten every link you’re able to get, it’s time to scrub your list. If you got the link, remove it from your list. If you got a no, remove the opportunity from your list but keep a note of any feedback you got from that contact – you can adjust your strategy in the next campaign. If you never got a reply, leave the opportunity in the list, unless there’s another factor that makes it no longer an opportunity.
You should now have a list that includes the opportunities you didn’t pursue, the opportunities you didn’t hear back from, and the opportunities who told you no, but provided feedback. Use this as your base list in the next backlink campaign, adding to it in your research phase.
And then it’s simply rinse and repeat. When one campaign ends, another begins.
#linkbuilding #linkmanagement #backlinkmanagement #howtobuildlinks
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