Sure, I might be jumping the gun on this, but I don’t see too much changing in the next three months and the links are flying in, so I decided to write an article on the top link building tactics for 2018. I will also discuss what still works and what you need to ditch.
1) Big Campaigns
Forget spamming out to a mass load of bloggers, you need to start thinking bigger. Build some contacts at the Metro, the Times or the Guardian and what you achieve in a single week would pass you on the same value as a year’s work doing guest blog posts. Other sites use newspapers as a source of information, therefore once you get an article in the papers, you are likely to see this story (plus the link) replicated into multiple other sources (with strong domains).
2) Facebook Video Publishers
Whether it’s Unilad, Pretty52, Ladbible or Brobible, these Facebook pages have 10’s of millions of active followers, while their content is duplicated across the globe. Once you get an article on one of these publications, you will normally see 10-15 more powerful links follow soon after. Just prepare for your conversion rate to go a bit whacky as you receive thousands of visits from all over the world.
3) Online Mentions
While handling some link building for a large paint and decorating company, I did a search for recent online mentions of the brand, where a link was missing. Searching for multiple variations of names for the brand, I managed to find 100 decent domains mentioning the brand through the past 30 days. I then sent them all an email asking whether they would mind linking through to the brand, highlighting a relevant page to the topic they are discussing, 30 responded positively.
Considering the small amount of time this took, it achieved some top notch results and could be replicated each month. It also helped to build a contact at each of the these sites, who has a strong interest in the brand and the industry as a whole.
4) Local Papers
I cannot express how easy it is to get into local papers. Whether it is a charitable campaign you recently did in the office (don’t judge me) or an interesting innovation in the company, local papers are always looking for news from their local businesses. This will offer a diminishing return if you are in the same paper every week, but it will certainly help you to rank locally, while you can also look at other cities and work out an interesting angle for those papers.
5) Chat On Twitter
So many link builders spam out hundreds of emails per day, with a ridiculously low open rate and an even worse link-ratio. This also leads to the email address being diverted to junk or even being banned. You could avoid all this by slowing down, setting a target and then having a chat with them on Twitter. Even just highlighting that you are going to be sending something over will increase the open rate by over 400%!
6) Responding To Journalist Opportunities
Journalists constantly require a case study, an entrepreneur, an example business or an expert in a particular area. This is where you jump in, offering yourself for virtually anything (within reason). It is the easiest source of links, yet so often overlooked.
7) Stats, Stats & More Stats
I won’t lie, they have always and will always work. Gather some stats, whether from your own internal data, or through survey results, and turn them into really interesting content. Bold them on the outreach email, so the numbers jump off the page, but choose the questions carefully before posting the email.
