Link building is ever-challenging but for a good reason.
Let’s discuss some of the quality link building techniques, aka advanced link building strategies to strengthen your link profile.
Natural links are worth than any others. But I don’t promise that these link building ideas are entitled to get you only natural backlinks. There is nothing to sugar-coat.
By the way, what are natural backlinks?
Let’s clarify that before getting into various expert link building methods.
Contents
Quality Link Building Techniques & Terms
Backlinks are one of the crucial SEO ranking factors – no way, you have to work for it.
In this advanced link building age, terms like natural links, quality backlinks, editorial links, in-content links, curated links, etc. are used like crazy.
If you are just new to these powerful link building techniques, you must get used to those terms.
Using any of these powerful link building ideas, you are entitling to get in-content links indeed—no doubt in that.
Still, there are two different perspectives further digging this term in-content link.
As you know, an in-content link is nothing but a link that surrounds a quality and relevant content.
In two different ways, you can secure those in-content links – attraction and proposition. Based on which, the terms are explained below.
Natural backlinks
A site that organically attracts backlinks producing link-worthy content refers to natural backlinks. Otherwise, let’s call it this way. Any site owner who voluntarily gives you a link when he/she finds your content deserves mention.
Also, experts prefer to call it as editorial links because it sounds perfect. Creating such linkable content or content that greatly attracts backlinks is called Link Bait.
Curated Links/Niche Edits
On the other hand, curated links are nothing but the in-content links that are asked for, paid for, or traded for. You are proposing the quality content to others and requesting for backlinks.
In layman’s language, we shall categorize it as acquired links.
I hope you are now clear!
Example
Editorial links – When you post an article on Reddit, a blogger sees it. Getting inspired, he/she likes to mention the story in their blog and links to your article above. You get a link here.
When you search in Google for YouTube SEO, SearchEngineLand’s YouTube SEO 101 ranks #1. You are just inspired by the content and linking the same in your article that deals about monetizing YouTube channel. Here SearchEngineLand gets an editorial link.
Curated links – Alternatively, you directly outreach to the target blogger, tell about your content, and get it linked. You get a link here too.
When SearchEngineLand, in its attempt of link building, outreaching you, detailing the values of the article YouTube SEO 101 and asking for a link in your monetizing YouTube channel article.
All good!
Without further ado, let’s explore the step-by-step link building guide – the advanced.
Most Powerful Link Building Strategies & Ideas
Indeed, the link building strategies I propose here requires breath-taking content and relationship building, in common. Linkable content can be a research project, statistics, evergreen guide, tutorials, impressive video, or anything. If you don’t have such, please keep in mind, you will fall short to succeed in your link building campaigns.
Content is king always!
Here are some of the popular link building methods that experts practice. For now, I’d help you with only a few techniques. But, we will keep updating the article with every quality link building techniques listed below –
- Building Curated Links
- Broken Link Building
- Pro linker Outreach Technique
- Skyscraper Link Building
- Google Alerts for Building Backlinks
- Link building using Influencer Marketing
- Testimonial Link Building
- Resource Page Link Building
- Infographics Backlinks
#1 Building Curated Links
As I said above, curated links refer to placing links in the existing content. Content that already exists is nothing but the one Google already loves the most and ranks better.
What happens when you naturally place your links on the high-performing web pages? You get a chance to tap the established authority.
Also, you don’t have to produce fresh content to obtain links like guest posting. Indeed, a little easier than to crack the opportunity.
But, keep in mind; securing links based on relevancy is super essential.
Further, curated link building is a white-hat strategy? Niche-edits are white hat?
It depends on how you perform it!
If you are reaching out to someone and says,
“Hey, I have come across your detailed article about growing YouTube subscribers.
Recently, I have published a step-by-step guide on “YouTube SEO.
I hope linking this article to your page adds more value to your content. Would you mind linking to?”
And, you are getting a link here is white-hat.
On the other hand, if you say,
“I have a detailed article on YouTube SEO. How much do I have to pay, linking it to your blog post?”
It’s absolutely gray-hat.
Niche edits are certainly safer than PBN links since you are obtaining links from real blogs. As long as you build it legitimately, you are all good.
Also, it’s easy for Google to determine if the only change happens on a specific page is a new link. Make sure to update the content and pretend Google that you naturally add links to the page. This looks more natural rather than just adding the link alone.
The curated link building techniques involve –
- Create an awesome content on a trending topic – detailed guide, statistics, tutorial, etc. or use the one you have already.
- Prospect a site in your niche that has a well-performing/top-ranking page on the related topic (or even parent topic).
- Outreach them to notify about your content and put in plain words, how it makes sense linking to.
You will get links only if your content really inspires them. If you do niche edits regularly, ensure that the blog owners add your links and update the page content too.
The next link building technique is my all-time favorite. Google has no problems with such links.
#2 Broken Link building
Broken link building refers to replacing the dead links with active/working links in a target page. Aka, dead link building. Indeed, you are getting a link here on the niche relevant website.
Let’s explore this most useful link building technique.
How does it likely impress the target blog or site owners to accept our proposal?
Unlike other link begging strategies, in this broken link building, you are first helping them out.
Here you go –
I use Check My Links chrome add-on to identify broken links on any sites.
Prospect a page in your niche and then click on the extension icon (keeping that particular page opened).
Within no time, the tool reports the broken links, redirecting links, etc. on that page.
But, how to select a page to run the broken links check?
A page that has more external links is likely to have at least one or two of them to be dead or broken.
So, hunt for a page that has abundant external links.
At the same time, be cautious. The link value, link authority, and the link juice will get distributed as much as links that page has.
Coming back to the point –
Use Google to identify some resource pages on a certain topic. (Indeed, there is an exclusive link building technique with these resource pages that we will see later in this post).
For now, use this search query, “keyword/topic” + inurl:resources
The resource pages in the SERP results are likely to have more links, undoubtedly. Click on a result and run through the test (using Check My Links).
Here is a sample –
{Image – Broken link on resource page}
Now, you have got one resource page that has a link to a dead page.
Now it’s easy to convince the blog owner notifying that their resource page is linked to a 404 error page.
Offer your link as a replacement then. They can’t deny your request. You get a backlink here, hurray!
But, there are also great opportunities to scale your link building in the same way. Don’t just stop with one link.
Now, you have a dead link handy. Identify the list of blogs where this particular 404 error page is linked.
You may use any link analysis tools like Ahrefs or MOZ for the purpose.
In the similar way (as you did just before), outreach to all those site owners, notify them about the broken link, and request a replacement with yours.
You get more link opportunities. Sounds good!
Ensure that you send individual and personalized emails to each blogger instead of bulk-sending.
Similarly, Wikipedia is yet another place that links plenty of resources. You can easily find more 404 pages.
Here is the search term to use Wikipedia dead link building technique: site:Wikipedia.org “keyword” intext:”dead link” intitle:”affiliate marketing”
To cut-shot the volume of results, I have used the child topic/keyword “affiliate marketing”.
{Image – Wikipedia dead link Building}
Run the test on this result page.
{Image – 404 page on Wikipedia}
But, don’t outreach to Wiki and try to get links over there. Two reasons –
- Wiki links are nofollow
- Anytime, the links can be removed or replaced.
So, what to do then?
Using Ahrefs, find other sites that link to that specific 404 error page.
{Image – Ahrefs link analysis}
Indeed, you don’t require any checks further as you already know that these target pages are linking to that particular dead page.
You can skip all these steps explained above using Ahrefs features alone.
Pop up one of your competitor’s sites into Ahrefs Site Explorer.
Just click on “Broken Links” under “Outgoing Links”.
{Image – Ahrefs Broken Links}
Just by a click, you have got a good number of broken links on that particular site. As seen above, discover the list of other sites that links to these 404 pages, outreach, and replace them with your links.
Also, you can get the list of 404 error pages on your competitor site. Click on “Best By Links”. The tool will display a list of all active, forbidden pages, etc. Filter 404 under “HTTP code” and get a list of 404 error pages.
{Image – Competitor’s 404 page}
Check the backlinks of those 404 error pages, just clicking on “backlinks” from the drop-down.
{Image – Backlinks of competitor’s error pages}
It’s super easy to request the target blogger replacing your competitor’s inactive link with your relevant page. Here, you are actually stealing your competitor’s link opportunity.
We have seen many ideas to identify the dead links and the pages linked to it. The most important thing lies in your email outreach.
Hey Jon,
Today, I searched for some articles about website speed optimization to read and found your article detailing the topic. That’s great!
But, I have noticed a link on the page seems not working.
{404 error page}
I recently published a guide on using CDN to improve site performance (your target URL}.
It might be a perfect niche addition to your article.
I hope it helps!
Thanks.
You helped them with a broken link on their site. When you throw a close replacement, it becomes easy for them to just replace the link with yours to fix the dead link.
To put simply,
#1 Identify the dead links – multiple ways you can do this
- Prospect resource pages with appropriate search keywords on Google and finds the dead links on any particular page.
- Discover a dead link on Wikipedia, and then identify the list of other sites linking to that dead page.
- Using Ahrefs tool, pop up competitor’s URL to identify the broken links on their site and also the list of dead pages
- And, even more.
#2 Outreach – helping them about the dead links on their site
#3 Offer replacement as a fresh content or live page
- Let them know about your existing detailed article on the similar topic or create a one if you don’t have one published already. Ask for a replacement.
It may be confusing for the start-ups. But, it is worth trying for its time and value. You get the most relevant but also dofollow backlinks in-content. That’s really awesome!
FAQ On Advanced Link Building Techniques
I’m readily available to answer your questions about the content-based link building techniques discussed here. Still, here are some of the questions I guess answering would help you in general.
How do I get backlinks on authority sites?
When your content speaks for itself, there is nothing to stop getting it linked to high-authority sites naturally.
Why should a blogger consider placing my link?
Make your emails more personalized. Don’t just ask for backlinks. Help them out in a way or either, build relationships, follow their blogs regularly, share their posts, befriending, and then request a favor. So, the site owners would find no harm in accepting your request.
What are the other powerful link building techniques?
There are plenty: Skyscraper technique, testimonial link building, guest posting, infographics links, etc. By the way, we will keep updating this article with all these quality link building techniques explained.
Final Words On Advanced Link Building Techniques
Yup, you need extra efforts to explore these advanced link building methods. You need a strategy. When it comes to link building, backlinks that are easy to build, don’t count as much as harder ones.
Firsthand, make sure your content strategy is up to the mark, offering value to its readers. Only then, site owners would love to link it.
These quality link building techniques are self-tried and proven to be fruitful. I insist, mix your link profile with some nofollow links too. Blog commenting can greatly help you with nofollow links and also to build a relationship with the bloggers. Turn out those relationships into links through these outreach link building methods.