Day by day it’s becoming even more amplified that the traditional technique for link building is growing gravely out of fashion. The days of easily subscribing to blogger forums and bartering for link exchange will soon be dead . It’s now become an SEO’s mission to grab hold and retain possession of higher quality links. Moz recently published a blog post going further into detail about why we need to use data and tools to find these yearned for links. All being about quality not quantity and following on from Rand at Moz, below I have provided a simple cheat sheet that offers 3 very useful routes to being able to discover high grade homes for your content.
1. Open Site Explorer
Open Site Explorer is a Moz Analytics program created to research and compare back-links with competitors for intelligent, targeted link building. Recently the new tab ‘Just Discovered’ has been added providing valuable scope to all of you SEOs out there! Here’s how to use the tool successfully…
Input competitor web URL → Select the ‘Just Discovered’ tab → Search for links that include ‘anchor text’ and are the most recently discovered → Investigate authoritative URLs → Find contact details of the site and engage with the blog owner (ensure to illustrate advocacy and praise of their site)
2. Followerwonk
Followerwonk is a Moz Analytics program created to analyse and segment your Twitter followers, compare users, and find out how to engage your audience. They’re your followers so why wouldn’t they want to link out to you? Tweets are short and concise, a nugget of digestible outreach for your follower. So…here’s how to use the tool successfully…
Input Twitter login details → Select the ‘Sort Followers’ tab → Export the list into an excel sheet → Sort by ‘Social Authority’ in descending order (an immediate visual of how powerful each follower is i.e. assist in discovering a more powerful link) → Investigate the high authority URLs → Engage with the site owner (through twitter profile rather than website contact details in ofer to show recognition of their follow)
3. Fresh Web Explorer
Fresh Web Explorer is a Moz Analytics program created to analyse mentions of your brand, competitors, and industry topics to discover recent and relevant content on the web. You’re able to easily discover mentions of your brand that haven’t already been linked out to (that’s got to be the easiest, dreamiest outreach) Here’s what you need to do…
Input: brandname -rd:url → Sort by ‘Feed Authority’ (you only want to contact the most domineering sites) → Filter through and investigate the URLs to uncover your brand ‘mention’ → Find out the website contact details and begin engagment with the blog owner (chatting about their great site and your great brand – easy peasy!)
Conclusion
The growth of content marketing is inevitable and we can now be confident in the knowledge that the routes of finding those content sharing platforms are also on the up. Building links back to your site doesn’t have to be ‘black hat’, it’s now becoming easier and more natural to acquire back-links by sifting through your brand resources first. Mentions, followers, competitors…your brand has an audience, so don’t be afraid to approach them!
