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Link Building for Dummies

Link reclamation can be done right or wrong, there are a few ways to screw things up if you cut corners and don’t gather enough data about your links.

  1. @DavidIwanow
  2. Link Reclamation for dummies
  3. Who am I? I’ve been doing SEO for over 10 years and I’m currently the Director of Strategy at BlueGlass, a London-based digital marketing agency with a focus on SEO and Content Marketing. We also have BlueGlass offices in Zurich and Tallinn.
  4. The Drum 2016 Content Marketing Agency of the Year 5 x Search Awards winner
    1. Building links are hard 2. Do you need to update links? 3. Why should I do link reclamation? 4. Why should webmasters care? 5. What data to source? 6. Set quality guidelines on links 7. What to send? 8. How can webmasters might react? 9. Improve your campaign results Link reclamation done right or wrong There is always ways to screw things up if you cut corners or don’t gather enough data
  5. Building links is hard! Why make things harder than they should be?
  6. Already have enough links? 1. How many links resolve in 404 errors? 2. Have you moved domains? 3. Have you rebranded the business? 4. What % of your links redirect? 5. What % of your links land at 404 error pages?
  7. Are inbound links current?
  8. Do your links redirect?
  9. How many links to update?
  10. How many can be reclaimed?
  11. Why should I do it? Webmaster need a good reason to action your request
  12. Personal attacks may not be ideal
  13. Negative emails don’t motivate
  14. Should they care? You are asking them to do something that might require their time
  15. Give them detailed background
  16. Cleaning up past SEO mistakes?
  17. Cleaning up past SEO mistakes?
  18. What data to source? Success relies on gathering as much data as possible before outreach
  19. Gather as much detail as possible 1. Does the page still resolve? Status code? 2. Google Cache Date 3. Scrape IP address 4. Whois details 5. Adsense & Google Analytics ID 6. Domain extension 7. Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Referring Domains, Backlinks 8. Is the Page or Domain indexed? 9. Does the website have too much adsense? 10. Does the website have links to Porn,Pillz, Casinos 11. Type of link? Mention, Redirect, 404, Affiliate Link 12. Classification? Forum, Blog, PBN, Directory, Aggregator, Affiliate
  20. Group URLs with same owners 1. Check whois details company details 2. Check whois email details 3. Check IP address 4. Check Adsense & Google Analytics 5. Check if page is mirrored ie Blogspot.ie & Blogspot.fr
  21. Set quality guidelines! Consider the strictness based on why you are doing it
  22. Which websites to contact? 1. Focus on ccTLDs that match your website (ie .CO.UK) 2. Focus on authority domains next (Gov,Org,Edu,AC.UK) 3. Focus on the links based on this priority a. Pointing to old domain or anchor with old brand b. Pointing to error pages (500,503) c. Pointing to dead pages (400,401,403,404,405,410,414,415) d. Pointing to redirects (301,302,307) e. Pointing to parameters (Gclid,UTM,Internal tracking)
  23. Which websites to avoid? 1. Domain or page is not indexed 2. Page contains malware 3. Site has links to Porn, Pillz or Casinos 4. Suspect site is part of a blog network 5. Domain has same whois registration details 6. Domain has same IP or DNS as other domains 7. Links are sitewide 8. Domain uses same Adsense or Google Analytics code 9. Anchor text is SEO friendly/suspicious 10. Content is low quality 11. Content about your brand is negative 12. Link is from a spam domain like XYZ or CC
  24. What to send? You will have to balance between being polite and getting action
  25. What should your email contain? 1. Who are you? 2. What is your relationship to the website? 3. Why are you disturbing them? 4. Why should they care? 5. Why do you want them to fix the link? 6. What is the old link you want fixed? 7. What is the anchor text, as this helps them find it? 8. What is the new link you want in place? 9. When will you follow up if not resolved? 2 weeks?
  26. We had several rounds of review
  27. Webmasters react? Why do I need to better measure what we’ve done?
  28. Sometimes webmasters react
  29. Manual checks and balances
  30. If you mess up…. then apologise
  31. Sometimes they ask for money
  32. Sometimes they get angry
  33. Sometimes they remove the link
  34. Improve results! You are doing the hard work, why not go the extra step?
  35. Go above and beyond Geachte Mijnheer, Beste, Mijn naam is David, medewerker van Domain.be. Eerst en vooral wil ik u bedanken voor het geweldige werk dat u doet met uw website. Het viel me echter op dat uw pagina (…) nog geen link naar onze website bevat. Om het aanbod op uw site verder te verbeteren, raad ik u aan om deze link(s) toe te voegen … • URL 1 • URL 2 Het zou fantastisch zijn, mocht u dit even updaten. Indien u nog vragen hebt, dan kan u mij altijd contacteren. Met plezier help ik u vooruit. Vriendelijke groeten, David
  36. Improve your success rate 1. Don’t send to [%First Name%] 2. Don’t use a generic Gmail address 3. Be honest & sincere 4. Use real contact details 5. Ensure you get their name right 6. Ensure you get the website details right 7. Provide them with the right details of link to update/fix 8. Provide them with what actions you want them to take 9. Try not to spam same webmaster with multiple requests 10.Localised your email template where relevant 11.Test different subject lines 12.Use alternative email templates 13.Consider how to deal with spam filters 14.If doing bulk send provide unsubscribe/feedback option
  37. Thank You!

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