In this video, I’m going to show you how to turn your backlink analysis into actionable
link building strategies…
fast.
Stay tuned.
[Music]
Hey everyone, Sam Oh here with Ahrefs.
This is the last video in our 3 part series on backlink analysis and link building using
just Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool.
Now, in the first two videos, we went pretty deep into link prospecting and competitor analysis.
But today, you and I we're going to be focusing on link building efficiency and cover 5 tactics
that you can execute quickly from just a single site analysis.
If you haven’t watched the first two videos, then I highly recommend going back to those
right now so that you can get the most out of this baller tutorial.
Some of these strategies that I’ll be covering may be very familiar while others may be completely new.
And I’ve got some cool link building tactics in here for everyone, no matter what stage
you’re at.
I am absolutely pumped, so let’s jump right in.
First, I want to set some context.
So throughout this tutorial, let’s imagine that I have a new and upcoming content marketing
blog called Content Marketing Hackers and I’m looking to build links to it.
So with that said, let’s get started with link building strategy #1:
Piggyback off of your competitors’ homepage links.
Here’s the skinny:
When you’re analyzing a home page’s backlinks, you’re going to find that the majority of
links will have an anchor text to the company’s brand name, the domain name, or the founder’s
name, even.
And with branded anchors like this, it’s usually a general mention of the company.
So by looking through these ‘general mentions’, your job is going to be two-fold:
First, we need to find out why your competitor was mentioned and you weren’t.
And the second thing we need to do is, we need to find out how to squeeze your way into
that post.
So let me show you a few examples:
So I’ll go to Site Explorer and enter in contentmarketinginstitute.com here and I’ll
set this setting to the exact URL.
Now, if we scroll down to the bottom of the overview page, you’ll see that over 80%
of their backlinks have branded anchor phrases.
Now, let’s scroll back up and look at the backlinks report for CMI’s homepage to see
where these links are coming from.
First, I’ll set one filter here for now to just the dofollow links.
Now, if you look at the first batch of links, you’ll notice that some of these sites have
linked to CMI’s homepage thousands of times.
This to me, looks like site wide links, so we’ll skip over these for now.
And as we scroll down, we’ll come down to this post from Social Media Examiner:
"20 Social Media Marketing Tips From the Pros."
In the referring page column, you can see that it was an expert roundup from the title.
Then looking to the anchors and surrounding text column, you can see that the anchor text
is on Joe Pulizzi, the founder of CMI.
Just a little bit below that, you’ll see this link that CMI got from Top Rank Blog’s
“BIGLIST of Marketing Blogs.”
Now the question boils down to this:
Why did they link to Content Marketing Institute, but not Content Marketing Hackers, which again
is my imaginary blog that I need to build links to?
So, in many cases, it’s because they don’t know that my awesome and imaginary blog exists.
So as an example, I could reach out to Top Rank Blog and be like… "Hey!
Noticed your big list of marketing sites doesn’t include Content Marketing Hackers, but we
seem to fit all of your requirements.
Mind vetting our blog and adding us to your list?"
Now, as you continue to filter through this list, you’re going to find all sorts of
other opportunities that could be easy and big wins for you.
So check out this example.
You can see from the anchor and surrounding text that they interviewed Joe where he spoke
about generating revenue with content.
So I could reach out to this site and ask to be interviewed in a future podcast episode,
assuming I have something unique and valuable to offer.
To help narrow down your search, you could scroll back to the top and then look for specific
keywords.
So if I wanted to get interviewed more, I could look for keywords like “podcast”
or “interview” in the search bar here.
A few other common types of links that you might find by analyzing a competitor’s home
page are testimonials, quotes, and guest posting opportunities, since the author box almost
always has a link pointing to the writer’s home page.
Once you’ve filtered through the list, you could start sending your own pitches to these
site owners to have your brand mentioned alongside your competitor’s.
Okay!
Onto the second link building strategy:
build links to your existing pages that need the extra boost.
Now, there’s a good chance that both you and your competitors have pages with similar
content, products or services.
And that’s probably what makes them a competitor in the first place, right?
So here’s the skinny on this tactic.
This is a simple 3-step process.
Step 1: pick a page on your site that you want to build backlinks to.
Step 2: Find a competing page and analyze the backlink profile to find relevant link prospects.
And step 3: send a unique pitch that shows how your content, product, or service is different
than the one mentioned.
So let’s say that I have a great post on my blog about link building, but it’s not
getting the attention it needs.
First, I would change this URL search to a full domain search.
Next, I’ll click on the “best by links report” in the sidebar to see the most linked
to pages across the domain.
Lastly, I’ll use the search bar and look for a relevant keyword.
So I’ll type in “link” and then run the search.
Right away, you’ll see some hyper-relevant posts that have a solid number of unique linking
domains.
And if we were to add up these referring domains, you could potentially find hundreds of link
prospects almost instantaneously from just this single competitor.
Next, we can click on the corresponding number under the “dofollow” column and open up
the individual backlink reports.
Now, we would perform a backlink analysis, exactly the same way we did in the second
video in this series and send our pitch to the various site owners.
It’s important to note that when you’re pitching these sites, you should provide some
kind of unique value in your pitch.
So in this case with link building, are you sharing new tactics that no one’s talking about?
Do you have a unique case study with your results or a creative process that you follow?
Do you have unique data or insights you can provide that the page that they’re currently
linking to doesn’t?
Basically, you need to ask yourself this question:
Why should they take their time, just to add your link to their post?
And if your only answer is, “out of the goodness of their hearts,” then you may
want to rework your pitch.
One thing to note is that when you’re looking through your competitor’s best by links
report, you can look for older outdated posts.
In general, it’s easier to steal your competitor’s backlinks when you have brand new content
with information that’s relevant today.
In our example, CMI happens to include the dates in their URL, so it’s really easy
to identify outdated posts with a quick scan.
There are a couple other ways that you can find competing pages.
The first is to go to Google and type in a keyword phrase that you want to rank for.
So in this case, if it was “link building”, then I could go through the top 10 results,
copy and paste each URL into Site Explorer and analyze the individual backlink profiles
to create an even bigger list of prospects.
Now, the great thing about this tactic is that it’s not limited to just blog posts.
The exact same logic and principles apply for product and service pages.
For example, if we were to create a marketing automation software, then I could simply take
one of my competitors’, so let’s say Mailchimp’s feature page and then paste the URL into Site Explorer.
And from here, you can see that this URL has 615 referring domains linking to this page.
Now, I can click on the backlinks profile here in the left sidebar, and then look through
the list of people who are linking to this product page.
Looking at this result here, the anchor and surrounding text tells us a lot.
It says, "tools such as Mailchimp’s marketing automation software can help with personalization."
So the question that comes to mind, is why aren’t they mentioning my marketing automation software?
And the most probable answer again?
Is that they don’t know it exists.
So in my outreach email, I could offer them a free account and show them unique value
in how my tool is superior, easier, and better than Mailchimp’s.
Alright, onto one of my favorite tactics and that’s because it is one that is easily scaleable.
Seriously! Easily scaleable.
Tactic #3 is broken link building.
Here’s the skinny on broken link building.
You find a dead 404 page from a competitor’s website that has backlinks.
Next, you recreate that page with your own twist.
And then you email everyone who is still linking to the broken page and ask them to replace
the dead link with yours.
There are a few ways to find broken pages with backlinks using Site Explorer.
The quickest way to do it from a domain level search is again in the “best by links” report.
The only thing we need to change here is this one filter to find only the 404 - not found pages.
And boom!
We now have a list of over 23,000 broken pages from our competitor’s site that has backlinks.
From here, you can click on the referring domains column to sort the list in descending order.
You can see right here that their .aspx version of the site was never redirected properly.
And this broken link here on “what is content marketing” has earned over 400 Dofollow
backlinks from 188 unique websites!
The one below, seems to be a list post of the top 42 content marketing blogs which has
91 referring domains!
And the one below that...
drum roll please...
[Drum roll]
Is the same post without a proper redirect, so that 91 referring domains, now turns into
157 unique linking websites.
A.K.A. 157 new link prospects!
Now, if you already have a solid replacement, then it’s just a matter of pitching the
owners, editors, and webmasters with your piece.
And you can use the search filter here again to look for topics that are similar to ones
that you’ve already published.
So let’s say that I have a great post on content marketing tools.
I can search for the keyword “tool”, and you’ll see all of the relevant broken pages
with the keyword in the URL.
But if you haven’t created the post yet, then you can do something cool right here
within this report.
First, I’ll clear the search filter.
And now, let’s look at one of these pages that seems to lack context.
This one here has a URL permalink that reads: “repurpose one video” and has 32 unique
linking websites.
What you can do is click on the caret here and if there are any records inside of Archive.org,
which is a free service that lets you see what pages looked like in the past, then you’ll
see a shortcut link here.
Click on the link and it will load up the page and show you what the page looked like
when it was live.
Now we know that this post is a case study done on their podcast where they repurposed
one video and got X results.
So if you have a similar case study on repurposing content, then it might be worth creating.
After your content is pitch-ready, you can click on the number in the dofollow column,
which will open up the backlinks report with the dofollow filter set.
Now, you can see all of the pages that have linked to this broken page.
Now, it’s just a matter of reaching out to each site owner, editor, or webmaster to
let them know about the broken link and to pitch your post as a replacement.
One side note that I want to make is regarding outreach.
When you’re pitching the different site owners, you want to make sure that your replacement
article is actually relevant to the context of why they linked to the broken link.
For example, if we look at this broken page’s backlink profile, which is on content marketing
spend, then you can see from the anchors/surrounding text column that the context of these links
is largely because of stats.
So if you were recreating a similar page to this one, you should be prepared to use your
new and up to date data as part of your pitch.
And if you don’t have the data, then don’t recreate the post.
Alright, on to link building strategy #4, which I don’t think many people are using.
And that’s link building from irrelevant 301 redirects.
Here’s the skinny:
When a website decides that they want to consolidate content, meaning, they're going to take some
of their less popular posts and then redirect to ones they want to rank for.
And the result is going to be completely irrelevant redirects that you can capitalize on.
Within this same report, which is the best by links report, we can change the 404 filter
to “301 moved permanently.”
And you can see that they have over 6,700 articles that have been permanently redirected.
The one that stands out to me is the blog post here.
It looks like they’ve redirected a post on headline click through rate to their headline
tips and tools post.
This might seem like they’re completely relevant, but if we click through to the tips
and tools article and then search for the word “click”, you’ll see that there
are only 3 occurrences.
The first shows "cheesy click-bait headlines".
The second reads, “The winner gets the clicks”.
And the third says “most clicks.”
Looking at the archive.org page, you can see that the original topic was on tips to improve
your headline click-through rate, which the new article clearly doesn’t help with.
From here, you would go to the backlinks report, skim through the anchors and surrounding text
column to see the context of the backlink.
And here, we can see that the majority of links are coming from a stat that was mentioned
related to click-through rate.
And if you look at this one here, it says that the stat comes from “the folks at Outbrain”
which you could also link to in your post so that your article is relevant when you’re
pitching these sites.
Pretty neat twist to 404 link building, right?
Alrighty, link building strategy #5:
Guest blogging on sites where your competitors are posting (with a twist).
And the method that I’m about to show you is a pretty creative one that I haven’t
seen anyone talk about.
But first, the skinny on guest posting.
First, you find a website you want to write for, you pitch them with some topic ideas,
and if accepted, write a post that will most likely lead to a link back to your site.
And I’ve covered a lot of effective ways to find guest posting sites in my Content
Explorer video.
So if you’re using or plan to use guest posting as a promotion strategy, then I highly
recommend watching that video.
Now, before I teach you this new tactic, let me start with a story.
[Dreamy music]
It was a dark and stormy night and I was just sitting at home reading through some of my
favorite blogs, minding my own business.
And for whatever reason, blog after blog after blog after blog...
This guy’s name and face kept popping up on my screen.
Ryan Stewart.
He seemed to be on some kind of relentless guest posting blitz.
So I followed him on Twitter and literally binge read everything he had written.
[Slow clap]
Well done Ryan...well done.
Here’s the thing: if I was noticing him everywhere, so were others.
And when it comes to anything online, there are always footprints.
The main one footprint for guest posts is the author bio.
And in it, you’ll normally get a link to your website and some links to your social profiles.
So what you can do to find guest posting opportunities is to open up Site Explorer and search for
a popular guest blogger’s Twitter profile URL.
I’ll put in Ryan’s twitter URL and click submit.
And you’ll see that 128 unique domains have linked to his twitter profile.
Let’s look at the backlink profile.
If you skim through the referring page as well as the “anchor and backlink” column,
then you can almost instantly see why they got a backlink.
For example, this one from an amazing blog that I absolutely adore was an expert roundup
which you can see from the title.
Then you’ll see this one here on local-seo that looks like a naked URL.
And if we click through to that article, you’ll see that Ryan was the guest author.
Now where does this link come from?
Right here.
So you could skim through this column and look for naked urls, empty anchors, or even
links from images, which often suggests that it was a guest post.
By using these 5 link building tactics that I just showed you, you should be able to build
a large enough list of prospects and get backlinks to get your pages ranking with the big boys.
And that’s it for this SEO tutorial and actually this entire backlink analysis and
link building series!
If you haven’t watched the other videos, then I highly recommend going back and working
through these videos at your own pace.
Make sure to hit the thumbs up button and subscribe for more actionable SEO tutorials.
In fact, let me know in the comments if there’s anything that we haven’t covered that you
would like to see in action right here on YouTube.
Now, I’ve got some links that need to be built and I’m sure you do too.
So until the next video, keep grinding away SEO friends and I’ll see you soon.
[Music]