In today’s complex organic search landscape, backlinks and press mentions remain one of the best ways to drive referring traffic from across the web.
So, you probably want to know how to consistently get links to your site, and do it in a way that’s totally white hat.
In this article, I’m going to go over six ways you can build over 50 links to your website each month.
What You’ll Learn:
1. Unlinked Mentions
If you have a company or personal brand–there’s a good chance someone is mentioning you online without linking back to your website.
For example, I can find out everyone who has mentioned John Lincoln or Ignite Visibility and reach out to each of these sites.
So, how do you find unlinked mentions?
Well, any number of tools can help you out, here. Ahrefs, SEMRush, BuzzSumo, Moz, Mention, are all good choices, though you’ll have to pay for a monthly service.
You can also use Google Search Operators to find mentions like Joshua Hardwick of Ahrefs has done here:
If you’re lucky enough to have pages on pages of unlinked mentions, you can filter your results using Google’s Tools found at the top of the search.
I’ve found that for every 20 or so mentions, about 10 will get back to you and link. So, that’s about a 50% conversion rate for every email I send. So, okay, let’s say we’ve sent the 20 emails and got 10 links for our trouble.
Let’s move on to the next section to get closer to 50.
2. Outreach
Item number two is email outreach.
The beauty of email is, you can email anyone anytime you want. You can build a list. Email people, individually, whatever.
So let’s say you’re promoting a blog post, infographic, or industry study (my personal favorite), you email about 300 people who have written a related article on the topic.
Let them know about your resource, ask them to link to it, and explain that this would be a great source of information for you to link to within their existing article. The key here is, explaining the value that this resource offers your recipients’ audience–what are you offering that these blog posts don’t cover?
I’ve found that for every 300 people, you can expect about 10% of them to link back to your resource–so 30 people based on these numbers, which puts us at 40 links in a 30-day timeframe.
3. Pitch a Story
Okay, this is a big mistake that I see a lot of SEO pros make. Like, why can’t you just pitch a story?
If you found a new way to get traffic to your website or discovered a repeatable process for landing in the featured snippets, why isn’t that a story? Why not pitch that to editors so they can cover that story?
I’ve actually done just that. What I would recommend is that every month, come up with just one or two really great pitches that highlight what your company is doing. From there, reach out to different industry news sources, podcasts, and other “journalistic places.”
Keep in mind, these channels want stories–they’re trying to break news and cover new topics, so why not give them something to talk about.
My recommendation is to send those pitches to about 100 channels each month. I’ve found that per every 100 outlets, I get about four press mentions—placing us at 44 links.
One quick note here: take your time and create a really high-quality pitch, then spend time researching the channels that make sense based on the audience, the topics they cover, tone, etc.
4. HARO
If you’re not familiar with Help a Reporter Out, or HARO, it’s a website that offers journalists a database for securing sources for the stories their writing.
Essentially, journalists can use HARO to find quotes for an upcoming story by submitting a request. A bunch of press queries come out, and you can respond as a source by answering questions related to your industry and expertise.
I use this all the time and respond to requests almost every day. HARO sends request updates to your inbox three times a day. So, let’s say you answer about 10 requests each week, then you’ll probably get between two and ten press hits a month.
For me, personally, I usually get between five and 10 links from this process–across a wide range of publications. HARO is used by journalists from sites like The New York Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal. But it also includes business-oriented publications like a Forbes-type site as well as more niche websites. For this one, I’ll low-ball it and say you might expect to get two links, placing our count at 46.
5. Guest Blog
So guest blogging is something I’ve done throughout my career. You may have seen me on sites like Search Engine Land, Forbes, or Entrepreneur. It’s a great way to make yourself a regular contributor to the biggest sites in your space.
Now, you’ll want to do this on a consistent basis to ensure a steady stream of links. But, it’s also important to be selective, as you don’t want to overextend yourself.
So, let’s say you write two guest blogs a month for a couple of big-name websites. You’re going to get four links a month from those efforts.
Why four links, as opposed to two?
Well, typically, guest posts include a link in the bio. But, you might also link to another resource in the body of the article. Now, you’ll want to be super careful about this, as many sites have strict guidelines about linking back to your own website, as it can come off as overly promotional, and ultimately, alienate the host site’s audience. Appropriate links include something like an industry study that readers will find useful.
So, let’s put our count at 48, links, again erring on the low side, and move into this final section.
6. Broken Links and Sourcing Data
I’ve grouped two concepts together for this last tip.
The first is finding opportunities by tracking down broken links.
So you can use a tool, like Dead Link Checker (It’s free) to find other sites with broken links on them. From there, you can reach out to those websites by saying “hey, I noticed you’re linking to X resource, and it looks like its broken, you might want to link to Y resource instead.”
Essentially, you’re helping the website owner identify a problem, then asking them to link to your content as a possible solution.
The other thing I’d like to mention is sourcing data. So if someone has stolen information from your website, be it using a photo without permission or scraping content from your site, you can find that information then ask them to your website to properly source it. That’s exactly what they should be doing anyway.
So for this one, I’m adding in another four links you might get from the process. Still, this approach can net you anywhere from 10-100 links a month, depending on your efforts.
Finally, How Much Time Should You Spend on These Efforts?
Ultimately, getting backlinks does require time and energy investment.
I’d recommend breaking it down as follows:
- Unlinked mentions–if you’re going after 20 items a month, it shouldn’t take more than about five hours a month.
- Outreach demands a bit more of a time commitment. If you’re targeting 300 sites a month, set aside about 40 hours, as you’ll want to personalize each message.
- The same goes for pitching. In this case, I’d say allocate about 20 hours a month (or five each week) for both the pitch and a message tailored to each recipient.
- Guest blogging & HARO–20 hours for each strategy. You’ll need to give yourself enough time to write and edit each post.
- Broken links and sourcing–about five hours each month.
Okay, so that’s how you build 50+ links a month. Follow these steps and you’ll soon be driving traffic and rising through the SERP rankings.
