Did you know, relationship-based backlinking is becoming popular again? What with Google rolling out updates to its Penguins, a lot of common (and often shady) SEO practices are being stamped out. And good old legit backlinking is now coming back, which is somewhat of a relief. We recently shared some great tips on getting high quality backlinks, so today, we decided to share some tips on relationship-based backlinking. A relationship-based backlink is a high quality backlink from a related authority site, or a niche influencer in other words. So suppose you have a site about SEO. What better backlink can there be than one from a reputed site such as SearchEngineLand or SEOMoz Blog? Here are 5 great tips for scoring relationship-based backlinks.
Identifying authority sites
Okay, to start off, you first have to know who the top influencers are in your niche. These are high ranking, high authority websites that have content similar to your site. But they lead the niche, such that other sites like yours look up to them. You're probably much better off with a single backlink from these high ranking websites, rather than from multiple backlinks, all from sites of the same calibre as yours.
To find niche influencers, you'll have to do a bit of homework. But there are tools that help the process. The FollowerWork tool by Moz, for example. is a good example. It is basically a Twitter analytics program, but you can use it to find profiles with a high social authority relevant to a specific keyword. All you have to do is, search for a keyword, and then rank the results according to Social Authority.
You can also use tools such as Topsy, and Twitter Following to the same effect. Combine these thee tools for maximum effect.
Get in touch
So now that you know who you want to target, you now should start working on building contacts. But don't go ahead and shoot an email. Try to be more subtle. You don't want to impose. You first have to make an impression before you ask for anything. Commenting on their blog posts is a very good idea. But please, for heaven's sake, don't leave the "I live this post" comments along with your signature link. It really buzzes the blog moderator and author off. Rack your brains, and think of something really insightful, so that the author would have to respond to your comment. An intelligent comment leave a pretty good impression.
You can then extend this to other platforms, such as social media. Comment on Facebook shares, Google Plus posts, and reply to Tweets. If the author sees you on these different platforms, it'll make your name stick in their brain. Keep this up until the author is able to recognize you by your name. You can then go ahead, and write emails of appreciation. A good and intelligent suggestion here would help.
Write for them!
Writing guests posts is a great way to score backlinks fast. Once you're sure that you know the other guy, and that he knows you too, you can offer to write a guest post for them. By now, they already know that you make insightful comments. They'd be interested to know what you have to offer. To be on the safe side though, first check if they accept guest posts at all. Their website might have a 'Write for us' section. If there is, go ahead and read the guidelines. And then ask for a guest posting opportunity. If you get the green light, you've struck gold.
Update their content!
Sounds weird? It might at first, but hear me out. Most bloggers don't look over at their old content, because it is too time consuming. Many won't update their content, and most won't update the links. And there's an opportunity for you right there. In all likelihood, there might be tonnes of external links in their posts that were working fine an year ago, but not the external site has moved, or is now dead. So what do you do? You offer to help!
Screaming Frog is a great tool that'll show you a list of all broken links on a page. First, find really old articles from the site you want a backlink from, and then start checking them using Screaming frog. Make a list of all the pages you check, the broken links you find in them, and find alternate links to those broken ones, so that the blogger you're going to contact has very little work to do. Email them this list, and you'll most probably fall into their good graces. Now, they might link to you, which is good. If they don't, you're still in a very good position to ask for a guest posting opportunity. If that's not an option, ask them for a link in return for some more broken-link correction from your side!
Use BuzzStream to track your relationship
BuzzStream is a great app that makes it easier to track your online relationships. Sign up for a free trial, and install their toolbar. Then add your site. After that, you can use the app in a lot of different ways.
For example, this tool will help you contact a site owner you'd like a backlink from by collecting the necessary contact information for you! And just like a productivity app, you can use this one to track your relationships, and your progress for each. Another great feature of this tool is, for Google Searches for which you enter keywords, it will collect contact information, and social media accounts information automatically! Hence, long story short, it's a pretty useful app for you if you're looking to try something new and different.
So, how do you like these tips? Hope you found them helpful. If you have questions, please feel free to shoot! Cheers :)
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