Google turns up 100 billion results for link building businesses, so finding a link building service provider who achieves lasting results instead of instantaneous ones is certainly a challenge. It is possible if you can identify the green flags.
Building for Quality, Not Quantity
Link building has become an editorial art form. You will need to find your way onto respected sites, not as a marketer, but as a thought leader. High-quality links require you to produce excellent content and/or run a committed blogger outreach campaign. Tools such as Moz will help you determine which sites have the domain authority to produce quality links. Large publications like Forbes and Huffington Post have recently begun to accept guest bloggers, which will give you a shortcut provided your content fits their niche and editorial style. Be wary of sites that insist on โno followโ tags, which tell Google not to build on your link.
If youโre outsourcing, youโll need to find a white hat provider who puts content above numbers. This kind of blogger outreach tends to build rank organically, which takes time. If your service provider is promising you a first-page rank within a week, itโs safe to assume theyโre using black hat techniques that wonโt sustain themselves over long periods of time. Itโs easy enough to identify quality link-building content: simply request a portfolio with URLs. Youโre looking for immersive writing and cherished domains, not throwaway sites. Authority tools will support your assessment.
Assessing Relevance
Black hat hacks will have as much trouble assessing link relevance as they do building relationships with publishers. This process requires marketing skills, not IT-related expertise. If your service provider doesnโt develop buyer personas and their larger demographics, theyโll throw your relevance out of the window with all their other dying campaigns. Thereโs a reason Google includes detailed buyer personas with every content brief they order: their own search engine prioritizes relevance.
If youโre not outsourcing, establishing relevance can chew up your hours, but a few analytics tools will support your process. Google Analytics will help you to create buyer personas and comb through landing pages through the resultant filters. If your personas are vibrant and organic, your staff will have an easier time performing strategically sound blogger outreach.
Uncovering Black Hat Providers
Google can and does give out negative ranking factors for known link brokers. This is the simplest red flag to avoid. All you need is to run their website through Googleโs transparency report tool.
Establishing a Functional Partnership
Todayโs business evolves at a rate of knots, so SERP providers must offer more than mere service. Only a living, proactive partnership will keep up with the daily work involved in maintaining your brand presence online. This takes time, and time costs money. An excellent provider can charge such rates because they generate returns on your investment.
Red Flags
Distrust any provider who uses these methods:
- Mirror sites
- Cloaking
- Keyword stuffing
- Content spamming
- Link spamming
- Email spamming
- Link exchanges
- A promised number of links
An ethical and competent provider will:
- Carefully plot out a sales funnel before executing a strategy
- Define your target market
- Build brand awareness for each niche within your demographic
- Have a broad portfolio of outstanding guest posts
- Seek to understand your unique needs
- Work according to Googleโs latest algorithm
- Do outreach to one publication, and not 100 emails, at a time.
Your Service Provider and Your Reputation
When you outsource any task related to your company, youโre hiring a brand representative. Others will judge your company based on your service providerโs actions, so youโll need to approach your hire with due diligence. A thorough interview, telephonic references, and a portfolio of campaign strategies will help you assess whether they will add gravitas to your corporate identity.
Find out how often they follow up and which metrics theyโre using to assess their progress.
Outsourcing Tasks Over Projects
If youโd like to guide your campaign hands-free, you can outsource tasks instead of the entire project. You can create your own workflow and strategy and rely on a team of niche professionals to carry your project out.
Referral Traffic and Influencers
Excellent link-building generates a domino effect by inspiring others to share their knowledge of your brand. To bolster your content marketing strategy, youโll need to build links through traffic and customer influencers. These will help you to generate rank, but more importantly, theyโll build your social media presence and online reputation. Every aspect of your campaign should keep traditional marketing goals front and center. Thereโs no getting away from your branding duties, and this entails turning every link into a strong online presence. Social media listening tools will help you to make the most of every mention of your business.
Itโs easy to get lost in Google algorithms, metrics, and automation, but Google should never be the sole focus of your marketing campaign. The world is not made entirely of pixels, so nor should your campaign. Ultimately, link-building is about convincing others of the importance of your brand or concept. That process is a human one, and it should be treated as such. Build relationships, and youโll build excellent links.