Link building is arguably the most challenging
part of SEO. It's a part that requires technical prowess,
a creative approach, and just straight up grit and grind. Now, if you're a beginner to link building
or you've tried building links without much success, then today's link building tutorial
is going to help you get backlinks efficiently so you can rank your pages higher on Google. Stay tuned. [music] Link building has built all sorts of reputations. But there are generally two dominant views. There's one party of SEOs that live and die by it. And then there's the opposition, that considers
it to be a spammy tactic. Now, in order to come to a conclusion,
we need to define what link building is. By definition, link building is the process
of getting other websites to link to a page on your website. And these hyperlinks are called backlinks. Now, while the end result might make sense
conceptually and seem simple, the part that people don't understand and can't seem
to get right is this part: The Process. And this ultimately boils down to execution. Now, the reason why execution is tough is
because people just focus on the end result: getting backlinks to their pages. But the process is actually very relational. And relationships are built by humans, not "borrowed"
templates from videos and blog posts. So let's redefine link building and set
the tone for the rest of this tutorial. Link building is the process of building relationships
with other relevant site owners who want and will link to your content because it enhances theirs. So this definition isn't just about you getting something. It includes relationships, relevance, and
a value exchange. All things we'll touch on later. Now, since effective link building is tough, you
need to understand why it's worth the effort. In short, backlinks are used by search engines
like Google to help rank web pages. And it's been this way since 1998 when Google
created PageRank. PageRank is a mathematical formula that judges
the "value of a page" by looking at the quantity and quality of other pages that link to it. And Google confirms the importance of backlinks
on their "How search works" page. Under their "Ranking useful pages" heading, they state: "If other prominent websites on the subject
link to the page, that's a good sign that the information is of high quality." We also found a clear correlation between
organic traffic and backlinks from unique websites in our study of over one billion web pages. So while getting backlinks may be harder than
let's say, creating a blog post, they're absolutely critical if you want to rank for competitive phrases. Now, you might be thinking...well, so and so
said not to focus on link building because high-quality content always attracts links. Well, how do you get that content in front
of people in the first place? Unfortunately, the concept of "if you build
it and they will come" is just pure fantasy. Or you might have heard other people say "I get tons of traffic without building backlinks,
so no need to go through the struggle." Yes, it's possible to rank pages without backlinks,
but let me say this one more time. Backlinks are absolutely critical, if you
want to rank for competitive phrases. And competitive phrases are usually the ones
that'll drive the most traffic and revenue for your business. For example, queries related to SEO are extremely
competitive, but they're also very lucrative. And if you take a look at our blog's backlink
growth in Ahrefs' Site Explorer, you'll see that the growth curve almost mirrors that
of our organic traffic. They're rising together. So how do you get backlinks? Well, there are three ways to get them. You can create them, buy them, or earn them. Let's go through each method. Creating backlinks means to manually add
links to your site. This can be done by adding your website to
directories, leaving comments on blogs, or adding a website to your social media profile. Anyone can do this with minimal effort, so
they're not that effective from an SEO and ranking perspective. Buying backlinks is exactly as it sounds. You pay webmasters or authors a fee and in
return, they'll link back to a page on your site. Now, this is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines
and can potentially result in a penalty. That could be anything from losing ranking
positions or even worse, getting your pages removed from Google's search index. Also, buying links isn't exactly cheap. We contacted 250 websites to ask if they sell links. And we found that the average cost of buying
one was nearly $353. And no, we didn't buy any. The final way to get backlinks is to earn them. And this is usually done by emailing other
website owners and editors and asking them to link to you. This is the hardest method of the three, but
generally speaking, the harder it is to obtain a link, the more valuable it'll be. And for that reason, we'll be focusing on
earning backlinks through email outreach. And I'll touch on a few tactics later. Now, not all links are created equal. Some will help propel your pages to the top of
Google, while others can actually hurt your site. So what makes a link actually good? To simplify it as much as possible, there are
two main categories you should look at. First is relevance. Ideally, you want to get backlinks from relevant
websites and pages. For example, let's say you have a page on
the best USB microphones. Getting a link from a page on the topic of video
conferencing would be much more relevant than a link on a page about gardening tips. And this also plays out at the website level. Getting a link from a tech site like Cnet
would likely carry more weight than one from a recipe site like All Recipes. The second category is authoritativeness. Now, if you're unfamiliar with "authority"
in the context of link building, it basically represents the so-called "link power" a web page has. And this relates to how PageRank works. As we discussed before, both the quantity
and quality of links matter. So the more quality links a page gets,
the more PageRank it earns. Now, PageRank doesn't appear out of thin air. It comes from other pages. This means that pages with authority, can
pass it to other pages through hyperlinks. So the more PageRank a linking page has,
the more it can pass to those outbound links. For example, let's say page C has two links:
one from page A and one from page B. Page A is stronger than page B and also has
fewer outgoing links. Feed this information into the PageRank algorithm,
and you get the PageRank of page C. Now, this is obviously a simplified version of
how PageRank works, but the key point here is that you want to get links from high-authority
pages because they'll likely have the greatest impact on your rankings. Now, while Google doesn't provide PageRank
or website authority scores, we have two metrics at Ahrefs that try to quantify it. Domain Rating is our website authority metric
and it represents the overall strength of a website's backlink profile. And URL rating is our page-level authority
metric, which represents the overall strength of a Page's backlink profile. We have a full video on assessing high-quality
backlinks, so I'll link that up for you in the description. Alright, so at this point, we've covered what link
building is, why it's important, three methods to get them, and some attributes of good-quality links. What we haven't talked about yet,
is the actual link itself. So let's break down the anatomy of a hyperlink
and the impact each part has on SEO. Here's what a link looks like to your website visitors. And if we look at the HTML code, then it
would look like this. Now, there are three basic parts to a link
that matter in SEO. The destination URL, anchor text,
and the "rel" attribute or lack of one. The destination URL is simply the URL the
person will visit when the link is clicked. The second part of a link is the anchor text. The anchor text is the clickable word, phrase,
or image attached to the link. So in our example, Site Explorer is the anchor
text, which is the name of our competitor analysis tool. Google uses anchor texts to better understand
what a page is about and what terms it should rank for. But building lots of links with keyword-rich
anchors is classified as a link scheme, and may result in a Google penalty as it looks unnatural. For example, if you had a post on the best
wireless headphones and had a hundred links pointing to it where the anchor texts were
all "best wireless headphones," then it would look quite unnatural. People often use anchors such as the company's
brand name, the title of the page, the URL, or phrases like "click here." And here's some proof. If we look at the anchors of backlinks pointing
to our data study on featured snippets, you'll see varying anchor texts like "old studies," "ahrefs,"
"research," and even specific stats like "99.58%," "8.6% of all clicks," and so on. In fact, there are only 14 websites that have linked
to us using the anchor text "featured snippet." With most earned links, you have very
little or no control over the anchor text, so over-optimization isn't something
you really need to worry about. And the last part is the "rel" attribute. Some links contain a "rel" attribute, which
is intended to tell crawlers the relationship between the linking page and the linked page. And the three "rel" values that you should know
about when it comes to link building are "nofollow," "UGC," and "sponsored." Historically, nofollow links told Google that
the linking page would rather not associate themselves with the linked page. And for that reason, Google didn't transfer
"authority" through those links. But then Google added a couple other "rel" values:
"UGC," which stands for "user-generated content," and "sponsored," which signifies a paid link. They also announced that going forward, they
would look at these link attributes as "hints," meaning, they may pass value through them
at their discretion. Now, if a link doesn't have any of these "rel"
values, then it would be called a "followed" link. Meaning, the link can pass PageRank and help
boost your rankings. Seeing as this is still relatively new, I'd recommend focusing on building "followed" links, although that's only partially within your control. One other thing I want to touch on is link placement. Prominent links are more likely to be clicked,
and it's believed that Google takes this into account when determining how much
authority a link transfers. For instance, an editorial link is more likely
to be clicked than a link in the footer. So, all else being equal, the former would
be better than the latter. Alright, so by now, you should have a general
overview of the more technical things that are involved in link building. But as I mentioned, there's also a creative
part that's required. And by creative, I'm talking about the content
creative as well as getting creative with your email pitch. Now, with enough willpower and determination,
it's possible to build links to any kind of page. But life is a lot easier when you have something
that people actually want to link to. So let's talk about the content side of things first. There are a couple of key attributes that
linkable content has. First, it's usually non-commercial. Commercial content, like product pages from
an ecommerce store or sales pages, are tougher to get links to. Why? Because no one wants to contribute to your
bank account without some kind of compensation or at the very least, having first-hand experience
with your products or services. So by creating non-commercial content, with
high utility, you're creating something that's more deserving of a link. That leads us into the second attribute. Linkable content is helpful. People want to link to helpful content because
it directs their audience to resources that complement their own. And helpful content can be in all different forms. For instance, well-written blog posts with
factual information can get lots of links. Healthline is a great example of this. Their blog posts are usually concise and as
far as I understand, many of their articles are vetted by medical professionals. As a result, all of their top linked-to pages are
informational blog posts, which individually have thousands of referring domains pointing at them. Calculators and tools can also act as link magnets. In fact, our free backlink checker has gotten
over 2,000 links from unique websites. Nerdwallet's retirement calculator has gotten
over 800 links from unique websites. And Bank Rate's mortgage calculator has over
3,500 links from unique websites. Data-studies and case studies are also
a great type of content that attracts links. For example, our study on featured snippets
has earned over 1,200 referring domains. And it doesn't even need to be your own data. This page has gotten 570 referring domains
and it's just a curated list of stats on coffee. Bottomline, if your content is a helpful resource
for their audience or it supports arguments they're making like a stat or fact, then your
chances of earning backlinks increases. Now, the second part to link building where
creativity is required is the pitch. Building links means you need to reach out to
authors and editors and ask them to link to you. Just like in sales, these people are called "prospects." Now, it's called a "pitch" for a reason. You can't just ask people to link to you without
a good reason. Let me put this into perspective. Imagine someone showed up at your door
and they asked you for money. That's it. You'd probably be speechless and just shut the door. Now, if they told you that they were raising
money for a good cause in your community, you might consider listening to them. And that brings us to the first part of the pitch. You need to have a good reason to contact people. Generally speaking, the better the reason,
the higher your chance of achieving your goal. So in that door knocker scenario, they might
say something like… "Hi Bobby, my name is Samantha and I'm a part
of the Ahrefs' Tigers soccer team. The reason I'm here is because our team recently
lost funding so I'm trying to raise money to help our team get new uniforms. Since your daughter Felicity played on our
team a few years ago, I thought you might like to help." I'm wondering if you'd like to donate $10, which
will pay for half of one of the Tiger's uniforms?" Now, if you were Bobby, would you give Samantha $10? Maybe. But another key point to note is that the
pitch is personalized, which can also help improve your link conversion rates. Now, how do we take this pitch from
a "maybe" to a "probably?" Let's add on to Samantha's pitch. "Since we're registered as a charitable organization,
we'd be happy to provide a tax receipt for any donations above $10." Now the pitch has just gotten stronger and
could even lead to higher valued donations. And this brings us to the final part of
the pitch and that's the value exchange. Yes, some people will likely link to you if you
have a good reason for contact and your content matches the criteria we went through before. But if they're getting something of value in
exchange for a link, whether that be a resource that adds value to their blog or free content
from a guest post, then your chances of getting a link increases. But remember, things like exchanging links
for money or doing excessive link exchanges is against Google's Webmaster Guidelines. The same goes for sending products to
a person in exchange for a backlink. So you'd need to get creative here to stay
in line with the rules. And I won't expand on this because it's just
so highly situational based on the page you're trying to build links to. But we have a full video on using negotiation
and persuasion for link building, so I'll link that video up in the description. Now, as you can see, link building is both
an art and a science. Pitches are also highly situational and
will vary from person to person. But there are quite a few link building strategies
that are streamlined and have been proven to work time and time again. So let's go through some of these strategies
and I'll explain what it is, why it works, and how you can do them. The first link building strategy is guest blogging. Guest blogging is when you create content
for another website. And the reason why this strategy works is
because there's a clear value exchange. They get great content for free, and almost
always, you should be able to get a link back to your site; whether that be within
the content or in the author bio. So the way guest blogging works is to find
other blogs in your industry, pitch and agree on a relevant topic, and then you would
write a post for them. One way to find other industry blogs is with
Ahrefs' Content Explorer. Just search for a topic related to your niche. Next, set the One page per domain filter since you
don't need to pitch the same site multiple times. You can then set a Domain Rating filter to
something like 40-60 to find websites that have decent website authority. Export the results and start pitching. The next link building tactic is called resource
page link building. This is where you get backlinks from web
pages that curate and link out to useful industry resources. Now, this strategy works because the sole
purpose of the pages' existence is to link out to helpful and useful resources. So if your content is great and you bring
it to their attention, you're actually helping them fulfill the page's purpose. The basic process is simple. First, you find industry resource pages,
then you reach out to them and suggest your resource for inclusion. The easiest way to find relevant pages is
to search in Google with a query like intitle:resources inurl:resources.html and
then a phrase related to your topic. Visit the pages and see if they're actually resource pages that link out to other external pages. Then it's just a matter of reaching out to
the ones you want to be mentioned on. You can also use Ahrefs' SEO toolbar, which
will show you important SEO metrics like Domain Rating, URL rating, as well as both page and
domain level search traffic estimations right within the SERP. The next link building strategy is broken
link building. Broken link building is a tactic where you
find a dead link on a page, create your own page on that topic, then ask everyone linking to
the dead resource to link to your page instead. The reason why it works is because webmasters
who care about their site don't want to lead their visitors to broken pages. So oftentimes, they'll replace the dead link with yours. Now, there are quite a few ways to find dead
pages with backlinks. The quickest way is to search for a topic
in Ahrefs' Content Explorer, then filter for broken pages. Finally, set a referring domains filter with
a minimum value of 10, which will show pages with backlinks from at least 10 unique websites. Now, after you've found a page, just click
the caret, and then view it on archive.org. This should show you the content that used
to be on the dead page, which can help you define your page's content angle. Finally, click the caret, and go to the Backlinks
report, where you can see all of the linking pages to reach out to. The next link building strategy is to use HARO. HARO is a website that connects journalists
with sources and sources with journalists. Basically you'll get emails where journalists
from media outlets are requesting information on a specific topic. Just filter through the topics and if you
find something where you can add value, respond to the journalist with your expert opinion. And if they use you as a source, they'll
usually link back to your site. The value exchange here is simple. You're exchanging your knowledge for a mention
and usually a link from an authoritative site. And there's no shortage of requests from mega
publications like The Huffington Post, Forbes, Inc, Entrepreneur, Reader's Digest, and the list goes on. Now, I've only given you an overview of these
tactics so I recommend watching some of the tutorials in our link building playlist which
will walk you through these tactics step-by-step. And if you enjoyed this tutorial, make sure to like,
share and subscribe for more actionable SEO and marketing tutorials. I'll see you in the next one.
