Andrew Dennis says, “There is no formal education or pathway into link building. Most professional link builders are self-taught or learned from a mentor who taught themselves — so if you want to enter into the SEO field (or need to bolster your own site’s link profile), it often means trial and error. Due to the lack of formal education available, it’s vital that SEOs share their experience and expertise so we can learn and improve as an industry. Today, I’ll share my own experience to (hopefully) help you improve your link prospecting so you can find better sites that translate... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “Link acquisition is hard. There are a number of unique challenges in link building, which are made even more difficult since most SEO programs only allocate a small portion of their budget to link building. Links are still not guaranteed, even when you have incredible, compelling content to share. According to a study conducted by BuzzSumo and Moz: When we looked at a bigger sample of 757,317 well shared posts we found over 50% of these posts still had zero external links. Thus (sic) suggests while many posts acquire shares, they find it far harder to acquire links. So... [...]

Anand Srinivasan says, “Digital PR and link-building is an evolving industry, so what worked a few years back may not necessarily work today. Last year, I wrote a piece, “7 Creative Link-Building Techniques To Improve Your Website SEO” where I detailed techniques such as building helpful tools for your industry, targeting journalists through Facebook ads and turning copyright violations into linking opportunities. Although many of these techniques remain applicable today, I recently queried entrepreneurs about the other strategies they’ve been using to build high-authority... [...]

Andrew Dennis says, “Securing real links requires outreach. No matter the site, industry or audience, the only way to earn worthwhile links is through some form of human-to-human communication. Google is continuously improving its ability to detect spammy tactics, reducing the efficacy of manipulation and increasing the power of editorially given links. As Jon Cooper pointed out in a SearchFest session earlier this year, future-safe links must come from one-on-one outreach. Outreach can make or break a link campaign. Fortunately, effective outreach only requires two simple ingredients: preparation... [...]

Lyndi Catania says, “When it comes to delivering content today, it’s important to deliver it in a way that best suits the message. For some shorter pieces of information or ones that are fact or statistic based, an infographic could be the most beneficial option. Infographics make the information easier to absorb, not only because it’s mapped out in a digestible way, it’s visually pleasing to the eye. This is why infographics have the chance of going viral and can help in the author’s link building endeavors and increase their exposure. Taking advantage of the following... [...]

David Farkas says, “Creating content for local link building can be intimidating. Sure, you know your business. You know your area, but do you know what locals want to read about? You can always guess, and you might strike gold. My guess is you don’t have the time, resources, or budget for guesswork. I don’t either, which is why I like to go in educated. Enter Moz Content. Even if you don’t have a Moz account, Moz Content allows you to audit any website and find its most popular content. You can figure out which pages and posts have the most shares, the most links, and the sort of reach... [...]

Julie Joyce says, “Awhile back, I wrote an article about how link builders need to do more than just build links. It’s not a novel concept at all, at least not among people who understand that nothing should exist in a bubble in SEO or marketing. However, no matter how hard Google cracks down on poor linking practices, linking itself is still essential. You have no idea how many business owners say to me that “we’ve got everything working right except for the links.” And they still assume that if we just throw about 10 links at their site, they’ll shoot up from page 3 to spots 1–3.... [...]

Samuel Edwards says, “You know to succeed in link building, you can’t rely on shady tactics or automated placement. You have to do your best to build links in a natural way. You may use a blend of smart link building through guest posting or co-op opportunities, but for the most part, you try to attract links naturally. You’ve read all the advice that says if your content is good enough, everyone will want to link to you on their own — you won’t even have to worry about it! But if you’re like most marketers, you’ve found that this advice hasn’t quite held up. You only earn... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “Backlinks (i.e., inbound links) are different from outbound links (links from your website to another website) and internal links (links from one website to another page on that same website). You can learn more about the differences between all three link types here. The right backlinks can do two great things for your website: – They can drive traffic to your website. If someone posts a backlink to your website on their website or blog, their readers might click on it — and you’ll benefit from that referral traffic. For example, many of you who... [...]

Lindsay Kolowich says, “There’s no question that building great inbound links to your site is hard work. While many site owners resort to spamming blog comment sections to get their backlinks, that’s neither necessary, nor effective for your SEO efforts. But it’s probably just a last ditch effort since, although there’s much talk about generating inbound links, the nitty-gritty ways to actually do that are rarely discussed. New Call-to-action But link building doesn’t need to be as tough as most people make it. Think of it like social media — if you’re a source... [...]