Broken link building is one of those link building tactics that is difficult to execute, as it’s time-consuming and the results can often be disappointing.
If you ask link building experts about their experience with this strategy, their responses will vary. While some say that it’s a waste of time, others insist that it still works for them.
This leads to comments such as these on public forums:
Truth is, a broken link building campaign will be effective and get you great results if you approach it the right way. Otherwise, you’ll just be wasting time and resources.
In this post, I’ll show you the exact process you can use to get results with broken link building, including:
How to find resource pages at scale
How to get broken link building opportunities from resource pages
How to analyze your competitors’ link profiles for broken links
Best practices that help you succeed with broken link building
What is broken link building?
Broken link building is the process of finding broken or dead outbound links on another website, informing the website owners/managers about them, and recommending a similar article you’ve written as a replacement for that broken link.
For instance, in this blog post on Mention about building an email list, I found a link to Neil Patel’s blog:
When I clicked on the link, I was redirected to this 404 page:
As you can see, the page no longer exists, but a reputable publication still links to it.
In this instance, this was a case study that was published on the blog about how their team increased Tech Crunch’s organic traffic by 30% within 60 days.
If you’re a marketing agency and have a similar case study you’ve published recently, you can reach out to websites still linking to this post and offer yours as a replacement. That way, you help them fix an issue on their website and get a backlink in return.
Broken link building is effective because it’s focused on adding value and reciprocity. You’re not just asking the other person to link to you, rather you’re giving them value upfront and even suggesting how they can make the user experience on their website better.
Even if they decide not to link to you, they’ll appreciate the help identifying broken links they may have missed.
Take this email I got recently as an example:
As you can see, they came across a post on my blog about conversational marketing and found a broken link in it. They reached out to inform me about it and suggested one of their articles as a replacement.
If I decide to link to them, it’s a win-win for both parties. From my end, I’m able to fix the broken link, which helps with a better user experience, and they’ve successfully secured a backlink.
How to find broken link opportunities at scale
Your ability to find broken link opportunities at scale will determine whether you’ll succeed with this strategy. The reason is simple: Broken link building is a numbers game. The more opportunities you can find, the higher your chances of getting backlinks in return.
1. Scraping resource pages
A resource page is usually a static page on a website that curates different resources on specific topics with links to the original sources.
Here’s a good example from Learning SEO, where Aleyda Solis curated the top resources and guides about SEO:
As you can see, she’s linking to other relevant articles about keyword research from this section of the resource page.
How exactly do you discover resource pages at scale?
To discover resource pages, you can make use of Google search operators. These help you uncover lots of resource page opportunities faster by extending the capabilities of a regular Google search. For reference, here’s a comprehensive list of 67 Google search operators.
Let’s use the intitle operator as an example. By typing “broken link building intitle:resources” into the search bar, the SERP shows pages that have “resources” in their title and are related to broken link building.
Here’s what that looks like:
How can you find broken link building opportunities from these resource pages?
All you need to do is open the page and start checking the links one after the other. Once you identify any broken link, you can note it down. Using that strategy definitely works, but it takes time.
Alternatively, you can use chrome extensions such as Check My Links or Link Miner for this process.
With Link Miner, I was able to spot these three opportunities on the page above:
When I clicked on one of those red links shown above, here’s what I found:
If you have a page that’s a match or similar in topic, you can reach out to Citation Labs, inform them about the broken link, and suggest your page as a replacement.
Here’s where it gets more interesting.
If there are other websites linking to that broken link page, you can reach out to them using the same process above. All you need to do is use any of the SEO tools such as Moz, SEMrush, Ahrefs, etc., to identify other websites linking to the page.
When I checked one of the broken links in the resource page on Moz, here’s what I found:
As you can see, there are about 15 other websites linking to this broken link. I’ve now unlocked 15 more opportunities from one broken link alone.
2. Competitor link profile analysis
Using SEO tools, you can easily analyze a competitor’s link profile to identify the broken links they have. Once you do, you can create a similar page, then reach out to all the websites linking to the broken page to notify them about the broken link, and ask them to link to you instead.
This is what the process looks like on Moz: Link research > Top pages > Enter root domain or specific URL > Change status code to “4xx - broken”.
For example, if you’re a prospecting tool, one of your competitors is Ontolo.
Using the process above on Moz, you can easily identify some of the broken links on the website:
As you can see, one of the broken links has more than 100 websites still linking to it. You can identify these links by clicking on “View Links”. Once done, you can use Wayback Machine to find out exactly what the page looked like in the past, and then recreate it.
Using the Wayback machine, I discovered one of the broken links above was a free tool to check duplicate URLs in a list.
So, let’s say this is your niche and you want to take advantage of the links to this dead page. All you need to do is recreate a similar tool, and follow the process outlined above.
Best practices to help you succeed with broken link building
Reach out to the right person
If you contact the wrong person, getting a response will be difficult. For a broken link building campaign, you want to reach out to someone who’s in charge of inbound marketing or manages the content publishing process in a company.
Reaching out to someone in a more senior role such as VP Marketing, Director of Marketing, Head of Content, etc., in a large company almost guarantees that you won’t get a response.
To identify the right person to contact, you can check the company’s About Us or team page on their website. Alternatively, you can check the company’s LinkedIn page.
After identifying the right contact person, you can use email finding tools such as Hunter, Skrapp, Voila Norbert, and so on to find their email address.
When sending a cold email, make sure you comply with the ethical requirements of the CAN-SPAM Act. This means that your cold emails:
Shouldn’t use a misleading subject line
Should have an accurate sender information
Should include your company’s physical address
Should make it easy for recipients to opt-out from receiving your emails
Send a great outreach email
Many outreach emails get marked as spam. So, sending an amazing, personalized outreach email that adds value for the recipient will make you stand out instantly and will put you in a better position to land that broken link.
To make your emails stand, you should:
Use a clear and click worthy subject line.
Address the recipient by their first name.
Mention something unique which you found about them on social media or elsewhere .
Compliment them if possible, but make sure it doesn’t sound generic.
Keep your outreach emails short and straight to the point.
Use the inverted pyramid style of writing. Begin your email with the most important points.
Be explicit about what you want.
Here’s an example email template you can use to acquire broken links from resource pages:
Subject line: Found this broken link on [website name]
Hey [First Name],
Just found out that the link on your website to [Mention website name with 404 page] doesn’t work anymore:
[insert URL of the broken link]
Here’s a screenshot of the page: [Insert link to a screenshot]
Came across this while going through some of the links you mentioned on [topic of their resource page]:
[insert URL of their resources page]
So, I recently created a comprehensive guide on [mention your website] that will be a perfect replacement for the 404 page. [Include additional comment on why your content deserves to make it on their list of resources].
[insert URL to your page]
I believe that your visitors will find it useful.
Either way, keep up the amazing job you’re doing curating the best resources on the internet about [topic of their resource page].
Let me know if there’s anything else I can help you with.
Thanks, [First Name]!
[Your Name]
Offer similar content as a replacement
The mistake most people make with broken link building campaigns is suggesting content that isn’t a good replacement for the dead page. If you do this, most people won’t bother responding to your email outreach, and even if they do respond, they most likely won’t link to you.
Before you begin that broken link campaign, make sure you find out what content was existing on the dead page. If you have something similar, you can send it to them as a replacement. Else, you should consider creating an amazing piece of content from scratch.
That way, you’re adding more value upfront, and stand a better chance of getting more website owners to link to you.
To figure out the exact content to recreate, you can use the Wayback machine.
All you need to do is enter the URL of the 404 page on the search bar in the tool, and click on “Browse History”:
Once you do, it’ll show you exactly what was existing on the dead page previously.
For example, this screenshot below is a 404 page on Drift’s website.
To know what was existing on this page, I searched for its previous history using the Wayback machine and this is what I discovered:
As you can see, the post is an in-depth guide on “Demand Generation” covering the following sub-topics:
What is demand generation?
Why is demand generation important?
Who’s responsible for demand generation?
How to do demand generation
Implement strategic demand generation tactics
Demand generation vs. Lead generation
Demand generation metrics: how to measure your efforts
Demand gen benchmarking: how are companies like yours generating demand?
Demand generation tools & technologies
To recreate this page, you'll need to write an in-depth piece of content on demand generation covering these sub-topics and more. That way, the website(s) linking to the broken link will be happy to link to yours instead. This is because you've provided a replacement that’ll add value to their audience.
In contrast, if you reach out to these websites and suggest your service page as a replacement for the broken link, they’d most likely not link to it.
Send follow-up emails
Don’t send one email and call it a day. Rather, you should have a follow-up sequence (think two to four emails) in place to remind the people you’ve reached out to previously about your email, and why a broken link on their page isn’t great for user experience.
Doing this helps you land more links. This is because the person you reached out to has a lot going on in their life, and might have skipped responding to your initial email. By following up with them, you’ll be top of mind, and if your pitch is a good fit, they’ll be more likely to respond to you.
Conclusion
It’s rare to find a website without a broken link. The reason is simple: most website owners and blog managers link to external content from their pages and don’t really monitor the content they linked to months and years ago.
In some cases, these pieces of content no longer exist online because they were created for a short-term purpose, or perhaps are no longer relevant.
This is a goldmine you can tap into as a marketer. By finding these broken link opportunities the right way, you can build relevant links for your website and pages to help you rank higher in the SERPs.
Join the conversation: Tweet your questions and comments about broken link building using #MozBlog!
When you hire an agency to help with the varied tasks of local search engine optimization and offline-to-online marketing, you’re hoping to take an experienced guide along with you on the journey from trailhead, to setting up camp, to making the most of your company’s stay in your neck of the woods.
Top of mind for your local business will certainly be increasing revenue. You know you’ll need better or broader local and localized organic rankings for this, perhaps more reviews, more clicks-to-call, more form submissions, more qualified website traffic, or an improved conversion rate to get there. But, I want to encourage you to start the search for a local SEO agency with a long-term relationship as the goal, rather than swift wins on specific metrics.
The best agency for your local business will be the one that’s there for you when things go right and when they go wrong, for many years to come, because you’ve made a mutual commitment to traveling together and are both sharing the rewards success brings. This article will equip you with tips for finding that kind of agency, warn you of danger signs, and help you to take your local business on the best possible trek into the future.
Your responsibilities to the local SEO agency you hire
Fundamental: be sure you’re hiring a firm with local SEOs on board rather than just a general digital marketing agency. But, beyond this, you need to see that your partner is making a real commitment to your business in order for you to trust them and act on their advice. The other half of the relationship equation will be the commitments you are prepared to make. These five responsibilities belong in your backpack:
1. Know Google’s guidelines
Before you begin your search for an agency, mark out 30 minutes on your calendar for slowly reading through the Guidelines for representing your business on Google. It’s as fundamental to what you’re about to do as looking at a trail map would be before heading off into Yosemite. If you don’t read the guidelines, you’ll be in danger of asking your agency partners to do things that would get your business into trouble with Google. More alarming, without knowledge of what Google allows local brands to do on their platform, you will have no idea if an agency you hire is engaging in activities that violate the guidelines, putting your company at risk of suspension, listing removal, and reputation damage.
Don’t skip this step. You don’t have to be an expert in all the minutiae of weird scenarios businesses encounter when seeking guideline-compliance, but you do need a rough understanding of what Google permits, so that you and your chosen agency start from the same entry point of making smart marketing decisions with business longevity in mind.
2. Be honest about past mistakes
If, through past ignorance of Google’s guidelines, you come to realize that your business made mistakes in its marketing, tell your agency partners. This could include mistakes that resulted in actions on Google’s part, such as listing suspensions or review removal. Or, it could include mistakes that Google has not yet noticed, such as creating listings for ineligible entities like P.O. boxes, or having staff post positive reviews of your business.
Your agency will have the task of cleaning up, either before damage has occurred or after it’s already happened. It can be embarrassing to admit mistakes, but unless you make your marketers aware of any errors and problems you know of, they can’t help you with them, and they may cast a long shadow over your business if left unaddressed, undermining success.
3. Do your best to deliver on your end
I’ve consulted with every type of local business from beekeepers to bookkeepers, and one of the most frustrating barriers to getting agency work completed is when clients fail to meet deadlines for deliverables. This widespread problem that can seriously strain business relationships because delays in delivery then delay expected successes. The client can end up blaming and quitting the agency for not meeting benchmarks, when failure is actually due to the local business missing deadlines. In fact, it’s a red flag to good agencies if a potential client has changed marketing firms repeatedly within a short timeframe, because enough time can’t have been given for the results of their local SEO work to bear fruit.
If you or your staff have agreed to provide certain materials, such as spreadsheets of business information, content for new pages on the website, photos, or access permissions, do your best to deliver on time.
Empathetic local SEOs understand that local business owners are some of the busiest people in the world, and an occasional delay is understandable, but if it becomes a pattern, it’s time to reassess the relationship. For example, if the business repeatedly fails to deliver text content to the agency, it may be that the business needs to expand the number of services for which it’s paying its marketers. Maybe the agency needs to provide a copywriter for the business so that work can begin moving ahead again at a good pace.
4. Base expectations on your expert’s appraisal of what’s possible
The internet is crowded, and unless your business model is unique in its geographic market, it’s going to take time to see maximum ROI from your agency partnership. Some local SEO tasks can literally provide same-day boosts, but for others, it will take many months to see your investments start to pay off.
Every marketing relationship should begin with a realistic appraisal of what experts at the agency believe is possible for the unique business — within a rational timeframe. This is the opposite of expectations like, “I want to rank #1 within two weeks.” Rather, it’s the foundation of a strategy that could take multiple years to fully roll out, meeting important benchmarks on a monthly or quarterly basis along the way so that growth is measurable and meaningful. It’s your responsibility to ask the experts you hire to map out what you should expect, based on your business model, your market, your market competitors, and the agency’s past experience.
5. When dealing with Google, expect change
Your agency’s backpack contains all kinds of specialized knowledge, but they don’t control the forest. It’s Google, with their near-monopoly on local search, that rules their powerful platform, and they are continuously altering the terrain in both small and large ways. New rules, new features, emergent bugs, ongoing algorithmic updates, and new competitors setting up shop or upping their marketing games mean that you and your marketers can always expect change.
It can be extremely alarming when Google alters something and your business experiences a drop in phone calls, traffic, visibility, or reviews. Communicate with your agency, and then extend a little patience while your marketers investigate the change and develop a list of actions, if any, that need to be taken.
Warning signs of an undesirable local SEO agency
As mentioned, local search marketing is a very strenuous hike, and what you don’t need in a traveling companion is an ill-equipped partner. There are three points of discovery at which you must assess whether an agency is a benefit or burden to your local business: before hiring, mid-relationship, and post-relationship. Watch out for these red flags:
Before hiring
Beware of any agency that cold-contacts you. You may receive phone calls or emails from marketing agencies claiming that something is wrong with your website or marketing that they can fix. You may be contacted by people claiming to have a special relationship with Google, or even to be from Google! People may follow you on social media and then try to sell you services.
While good agencies do engage in legitimate advertising, the best local SEO agencies may get nearly all or all of their work via referrals from happy clients, industry peers, and the reputation they’ve built, preventing them from relying on cold contacts. Rather than responding to anyone reaching out to you out of the blue, it’s better for you to do the finding of your future marketing partners through your own research.
A good way to start this process is to look up questions you have about local SEO in Google, see who has written answers that make sense to you, and then learn more about the author from their website, other articles, and social media profiles.
Beware of any agency that promises you any kind of results. “I can get you #1 rankings,” is a huge red flag of a shady firm, because honest SEOs know they can’t make promises about platforms (like Google) that they don’t directly control.
Beware of any agency that doesn’t meet your standards of accessible, prompt, professional communication. If a marketing firm is hard to reach before you hire them, expect this to continue even when you’re paying them, and never begin a relationship with a partner who is dismissive of your communications, unclear to you in their communications so that you don’t understand what they’re offering, rude, or inconsistent in their claims.
Beware of agencies that only sell packages. While some services can be packaged up for general use by most local businesses, all local brands are unique, and good agencies should be offering you a customized strategy.
Related to this, be cognizant of the size of the agency you’re considering. In my experience, small-to-medium local businesses are best served by small-to-medium agencies, rather than becoming just a number in an enormous client roster of a major brand. For example, a big website hosting company may offer a local SEO package, but you’re unlikely to have a unique identity to the people working at a brand this large, and shouldn’t expect to receive best-quality, personalized service when being fit into shoes thousands of others are wearing.
Finally, and crucially, beware of any agency that indicates they will engage in a practice that you’ve learned violates Google’s guidelines. This is one reason it’s so important for you to equip yourself with that essential reading, so you can walk away from this headache before it begins.
Mid-relationship
It’s quite common for local businesses to have to work with more than one agency before finding an ideal fit. Sometimes, a relationship can start well, but changes in personnel at the digital marketing agency, changes in expectations, or growth of the business beyond the agency’s skill set can require reassessment of whether the partnership is still the best choice for the business.
Take note if your agency becomes less communicative, fails to respond to emails or calls, or cancels meetings. If you notice a pattern, ask what has changed, give the agency the chance to correct course with you (including booking more of their time or offering you extra help to make up for past failures), but then consider moving on if dissatisfaction isn’t remedied. I’m personally such a local business fan that I’ve always considered it a tremendous honor to be brought into a good local business to advise them. Evaluate at regular intervals whether you feel like you and your business are being honored by your marketing partners.
Finally, pay attention if benchmarks are repeatedly missed. For example, if your marketing partners tell you that they typically expect investment in review outreach to have doubled the rate at which you’re receiving reviews within one quarter, and four months go by without any improvement, request an explanation and weigh it well. Local SEO is experimental and demands patience and leeway, but if stated goals are consistently not met, your agency may not be up to the task at hand.
Post-relationship
If changes on either side of the relationship make it necessary to part ways with your agency, the ideal scenario is a mutually-respectful adieu in which the marketers wish the client well on the next phase of their journey, and the client has done nothing that would make it awkward to potentially work with these partners again in future — if they’d like to.
I’ve seen from a distance some shockingly unprofessional business breakups, with accusations hurled on both sides, websites being held hostage, scathing reviews being left, foolhardy online revenge attempts, and even lawsuits. Unless something has happened to warrant legal action, it’s best to walk away with everyone’s dignity intact. There are many reasons why clients and agencies may be mismatched, but only edge cases warrant making a public scene that risks reputation damage to both houses.
When a top quality local SEO agency can’t fulfill a client’s expectations or needs, a respectful environment may prompt them to refer the business to another firm they know and trust. When a client grows beyond what an agency can provide but has been happy up to that point, polite openness can greatly ease the parting. Rather than burning a bridge, try to keep it open so that good feelings on both sides exist for any future potential work together.
Almost any agency will be sorry to see you go. You can remain an all-time favorite client of theirs if you agree to write a testimonial about whatever was good for your business in working with them, and they will love you forever if you refer other local brands to them that you think would be a good match for their services. If you stay friends with your former marketers, they may CC you when they see an opportunity for your business, and it’s definitely a plus for your brand if your marketers tell their big circle of colleagues, friends, and family about the great things your business offers. I’ve personally become a loyal customer of some of my best clients!
7 questions to ask a local SEO agency before you hire them
Before inviting a marketer or marketing team to partner with your business, you’ll need to walk a mile or so with them. Conduct a thorough interview of one or more prospective agency reps, and document their answers to these seven questions, so that you can do a comparison to identify the best possible match for your needs.
1. Are your marketing practices consistent with all of Google’s guidelines?
For example, if you ask the marketer whether you can get a Google My Business listing for a virtual office, they should tell you “no” and point you to the guidelines that forbid this. If a marketer knows the guidelines but suggests that you can get away with a violation because Google is asleep at the wheel, walk away. The marketer may be quite right, by the way, but they’re not a safe bet for your brand’s reputation.
2. Based on what you already know about my business and market, are my goals realistic?
Provide a clear, concrete list of goals to the interviewee. Be specific about how many more search terms you want to rank for, how many more reviews you want, how many more phone calls, form submissions, leads, sales, etc. you want within a set timeframe.
Before having an interview with you, a motivated agency will have conducted a modest amount of research on your business and its market. They may have run some reports. But don’t expect them to have done a full workup before being hired. What you want to hear at this stage is whether they feel your goals sound reasonable or are obviously unattainable, based on what they know so far. You want to hear them say that they will be able to provide a more reliable answer once they’ve put in the work as your hired partner. But also look out if they promise you everything off the bat — they could be overselling you just to get the job.
3. How much time will you invest in researching my market before creating my strategy?
You won’t be hiring a local SEO who is already marketing a direct competitor in your city, so this means your partner will need time to learn about the community you serve. And, unless you hire a specialty firm that only works with your category of business, the agency will need time to learn about your industry. Beyond this, they will need the time to study the specifics of your unique business: its goods and services, its staff (including any in-house staff that may be contributing to marketing), its policies, history, and more.
Time for all of this must be built into the informal agreement or formal contract. You should expect to be billed for it, and need to know how much time the agency considers reasonable for an initial period of study, with the understanding that they will be continuing to evaluate your brand and your market opportunities across time in order to continuously create strategy.
At the bare minimum, unless you are hiring an agency solely for some small one-and-done service, your work with them should begin with a full business audit and a complete competitive audit so that strategy is based on data rather than guesses.
4. What will you need from me?
Give the interviewee the chance to set clear expectations about the deliverables they will need from you and the time they may need to speak with you and your staff. Within this framework, establish what types and amounts of communications will be involved.
Some local business owners want their marketers to take care of everything behind the scenes and only come to them with reports of problems or growth. They may be outsourcing this work due to genuine lack of time to learn about local search marketing. Other clients hire an agency to train them and their staff to become more self sufficient at many marketing tasks, in-house. These scenarios cover an extremely wide spectrum of communications needs.
Be upfront about whether you want bare minimum communication, a regular schedule of strategy sessions, or formal training, and have the interviewee explain to you what commitments you’ll need to make on your end to facilitate this.
And, of course, now is the time to request a full explanation of costs. Agency pricing structures differ tremendously, from itemized price sheets, to packages, to monthly retainers. Be realistic and firm about your budget, and see whether what you can invest is a good match for what the interviewee can provide in your joint pursuit of meeting goals.
5. May I see an anonymized client report?
Every local business will have different expectations and needs concerning the reports their marketers deliver, but across the board, all brands need to be sure they will receive reports that are intelligible rather than simply overwhelming. Before you hire a local SEO, ask to see one or more anonymized, real client reports. Look at them thoroughly. Now is the time to ask questions about anything that’s in the reports that you don’t understand.
Some clients want exhaustive reports that capture every iota of traffic and every search language permutation on every day of the week. Others prefer to see only high-level data with action items for the agency or client. Whatever your needs, be sure the style of reporting the marketers offer is a good match, both in terms of content and frequency, and that customization is possible if you need something that isn’t being provided in the samples.
Feel free to ask the agency about the tools and software they use, and to do your own research of the quality of those products. You are also free to ask if the agency is white-labeling tools or has proprietary technologies. A good agency will be open and honest with their clients.
6. Can you show me the growth you’ve created for three other clients?
Due to NDAs and client privacy, this information may also need to be anonymized, but you want to see a convincing account of growth for more than one client. Be on the lookout for whether the agency reports on vague metrics like doubling traffic, or concrete ones like doubling leads and revenue. If there’s a particular type of growth your business is pursuing, you can ask the agency to show you wins they’ve gotten in this area.
If the agency keeps a public roster of their clients, ask if you can be put in touch with someone at a few of these businesses for a quick chat. Ideally, you’re hoping to hear a glowing recommendation from an existing client of the company you’re considering hiring.
7. What is your history and involvement in your own industry?
Consider it a fundamental part of your interview process to go online and research the reputation of any marketer you might hire. Look particularly at the degree to which they are involved in education in the local SEO industry, because you will be hiring this person or team to educate you.
Deeply-invested local SEOs will have a history of writing about this marketing discipline. They may have a blog, or contribute to industry blogs, have a podcast or videos, and speak at or host conferences. Look at their website, their social media profiles, reviews if they have them, and note what their peers and clients are saying about them.
In addition to doing your own online research, now is a great time to ask the marketer a little about their own history. Why did they get into local SEO and what do they like about it? Do they have a philosophy that they can share succinctly and does it resonate with your company’s culture? Throughout the interview process, be keenly alert to how well any prospective partner communicates with you and the level of comfort they create, because it will set the tone of any future relationship.
Mutual, sustained growth: so happy together
After a long hiring journey, you’ve chosen your agency and have now set up camp together. You’ve become sharers in one another’s fates, and that’s exciting! Unless your local business is taking a complete hands-off approach to marketing, you’re about to learn a lot about local SEO. There are three things you can do to get the most from this business investment:
1. Ask questions
I’m hoping that the agency you’ve engaged doesn’t communicate in jargon, but if they do, nip this unhelpful habit in the bud by being completely fearless about asking questions. Never, never be timid about this. If your marketer says, “We can increase CTR with a more compelling USP, but we need to focus on largest contentful paint first,” and you don’t hear the next three things they say because you got lost trying to parse this out, state clearly:
“I’d prefer you avoid acronyms and jargon as much as possible so that we’re speaking the same language, and I’ll try to do the same when explaining my industry to you.”
If there is anything your marketer says or sends you at any time that isn’t clear or contains words and phrases you don’t recognize, you’re the smart one for asking them to back up and explain until you’re completely comfortable with what’s being proposed, reported, or discussed.
2. Communicate dissatisfaction and satisfaction openly
Don’t let resentment quietly build over dissatisfactions you have with your agency. If something isn’t meeting your standards, please speak up early and often so that your marketers aren’t in the dark about how to best serve you. As a local SEO, I watch this silent curse fuel the majority of negative online reviews and think to myself how much distress could be avoided if customers politely voiced complaints at the time of service. In your relationship with your marketer, your frank feedback when something isn’t right is essential!
On the flip side, when a goal is met, take a moment to thoughtfully thank your local SEO. I’ve had lovely clients send me gifts as an extraordinary celebration for services rendered. That’s extremely kind, but a simple, “This really went well and I’m very happy with your work,” is an amazing psychological boost to the marketers who are working so hard for your brand’s success.
3. Grow your own local SEO knowledge
You’re paying your marketers for their expertise, but your business can only benefit if you develop a working acquaintance with local search marketing that enables you to brainstorm initiatives with a confident command of the terrain.
The best local SEO firms will do all they can to study your consumer base and geography, but they will never know your business or community quite like you do. If you can pair your deep market intelligence with some study of what’s possible online, you will become a much stronger company leader. Don’t know how to get started? Read The Essential Local SEO Strategy Guide and excite your marketers at your next meeting!
To round up, hiring a local search marketing partner is the first step toward the business growth you desire, and you’re expecting to learn a lot. What you might not know is that your agency is likewise planning to learn a lot from you. Local SEO is one grand experiment, and smart agencies learn from every single client. It’s through working on your website, listings, reviews, social platforms, and other assets that marketers make thrilling discoveries, hone skills, and experience gratifying professional success.
It’s this mutual hunt for success, in fact, that safeguards and inspires growth in the client-agency relationship. Teaming up can turn the very strenuous hike of local SEO into a navigable pathway strewn with exciting rewards. With commitments to earning trust over time, finding the right levels and styles of communication, learning together, and a basic grounding in reciprocal respect, this is a partnership you can build your local business on, and from, for years to come.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for businesses of all sizes. When used properly, it generates important information that can help to make valuable business decisions in online marketing or SEO efforts.
In this week’s Whiteboard Friday, guest host Alex Ratynski goes through five important steps that local businesses can take to configure Google Analytics efficiently. Check it out below!
Click on the whiteboard image above to open a larger version in a new tab!
Video Transcription
Hey, Mozzers. My name is Alex, and I'm the founder of Ratynski Digital. We are a local SEO consultancy for small and medium-size businesses. Today what I want to talk about is how to configure Google Analytics for local businesses.
Now Google Analytics is a super powerful and efficient tool when used properly and when configured accurately. This tells us important information about our website, our visitors, what pages are performing well, perhaps even what search queries we're coming from, especially when it's connected with Google Search Console. A lot of important information that can help us to make valuable business decisions for our online marketing or SEO efforts.
1. Exclude bots and spiders
Now there are five important steps we're going to talk about today for how we can configure our Google Analytics account the most efficiently. The first one is to exclude bots and spiders. Now this is important because some studies have found that upwards of 25% of all traffic is bot traffic. Any of us that have really gotten super granular into our Google Analytics account, I'm sure we've actually seen some of those examples of very obvious bot traffic.
So the way we can actually do this is Google actually makes a nice little tool within Google Analytics. You go to Admin > View > View Settings and there's a nice little box that says Bot Filtering. What this does is it pulls from the IAB, the Interactive Advertising Bureau and it actually makes sure that it pulls from the list of known spiders and bots and makes sure we're to filter against that.
2. Filter spam and personal traffic
The next step we want to filter spam traffic and personal traffic. Now the reason for this is inaccurate data is worthless data, right? If we don't have accurate information, we're really going to struggle to make accurate business decisions regarding our SEO efforts or our online marketing. I can't tell you how often I run into business owners who have wildly inaccurate numbers and they're trying to make decisions based off of it.
So it's super important that we get as accurate information as we can. There always will be some margin of error, but anything we can do to minimize that the better. The way we can filter out our own traffic is to go to Admin > View > View Filters and then Add Filters. What we want to do is make sure to filter out our own IP address, perhaps the IP address of our team, our home office, our physical main office location, things like this.
The way we can do that is to search "What's my IP" in Google. You'll actually be able to find your IP address, and then from there you can actually exclude it.
3. Set up goals
Number three, setting up goals. Goals are super important because setting up goals actually helps us to track our success, right? It's success tracking. So we can set up goals by going to Admin > View > Goals and then New Goal.
Destination based goals
There's a variety of different goal types that we might be able to set up, and it really depends on the business and what you're looking for. But one of the most popular ones is a thank you page or a destination based goal.
For example, imagine you're an HVAC company who's trying to acquire new customers and you want to see how is your website performing, which pages are bringing the traffic, and what's kind of the URL path or the goal path if you will.
So a way we can track that is by using a destination-based goal. We want to make sure that after somebody fills out a form, they actually are sent to that thank you page, and every time somebody interacts with that thank you page, they land on it, it can actually be counted as a goal. This is really helpful to kind of see the success of what we're looking for, whatever it is, our business goals, what we're trying to achieve that month or that quarter that we can track that accurately.
Event based goals
Now another type of goal, there are more than two, but we're just going to talk about two today — destination based goals versus event based goals. Event based goals are a little more advanced to set up, not too tricky, but a little bit more so than destination based goals. Event based goals have nothing to do with a specific page or URL, but actually, as you might guess, the actual event that happened.
So, for example, if a user fills out a form or they click a specific button, those are examples that can be tracked to an event based goal. Now there are some pros and cons to each. A destination based goal, if you have any specific parameters within the URL and it doesn't match exactly, you might not be able to be counting for that goal.
A way around this is you can change it from "equals to" to "begins with." Another option, it's probably a little bit more of a better option, is to learn regular expressions. That can help us to kind of filter out those different options and get us more accurate information. With event based goals, another little caveat that we want to watch out for is to make sure that we have proper validation set up.
So, for example, if a user starts to fill out a form but doesn't actually fill it out, when they first click that button, it might have been tracked as a goal, even though they didn't actually complete that goal. So there's a couple extra steps we want to make sure that we can figure out before we kind of publish it and leave that. That way we can get accurate information.
4. Connect GA to GSC
Number four, connect Google Analytics to Google Search Console. Now we have these two powerful resources of reporting and information, and we want to make sure they can talk to each other efficiently. As we all know, Google Search Console has a lot of valuable data regarding our organic search, what specific search queries, specific pages, how they're performing, the average position, lots of information like this.
We want to make sure that it's connected to our Google Analytics account. Now a way we can do that is by going to Admin > Property > Property Settings and then there's a little choice there for Search Console. Now before we do this, always make sure that you actually have your Google Search Console account set up. That's always step one. So if we can get that set up, then it's going to be a lot easier to connect those two.
In fact, you can't do it unless you've set up your Google Search Console. So make sure that's set up and then make sure you can connect those.
5. Use UTM tracking codes
Then last but not least, use UTM tracking codes. UTM tracking codes are a really powerful way for us to track the effectiveness of specific campaigns, where did our users come from, our website visitors come from, and what specific sources or mediums or campaigns were effective in that regard.
An example of this is you can add a UTM tracking code in your Google My Business link profile so that any users that come from Google My Business, in your Google Analytics account you'll be able to accurately see that categorization of website visitors that came specifically from Google My Business. Now this needs to be done regularly, not in the sense of Google My Business, but it needs to be done regularly for each campaign.
So if you're a smaller, local business who maybe has a limited amount of time or budgets for whoever might be working on this, maybe it's better to focus on just some of the larger campaigns, anything that's a little bit more permanent or any specific large campaign. Perhaps you're doing a local event or you have a special promotion a couple times a year. Those might be events that we really want to track the effectiveness of these campaigns and using UTM tracking codes.
We can actually set this up, for anyone who's interested in setting up their UTM tracking code, you can use Google's Campaign URL Builder. We will make sure to link to that exact page here in the notes below. But there's a couple of different components of a UTM tracking code. Now we're just going to focus on three today, those being the medium that they came from, the source, and then the campaign name.
So an example of this might be the medium being email, the source being whatever specific newsletter was sent out, and then the campaign name would be what you actually want it to show up as in Google Analytics, how you want that campaign categorized. So those are the three different sections of what might be included in your UTM tracking code. You can enter all that in within Google's Campaign URL Builder. There's also a variety of other URL builders. But Google provides one that makes it nice and easy for us.
Pro tip: learn Google Tag Manager
One last pro tip. Learn Google Tag Manager. There's a bit of a learning curve to Google Tag Manager, but it's definitely possible. I guarantee you can do it. When you learn Google Tag Manager, it makes a lot of these other things a lot easier, especially with setting up things like event based goals and connecting some of our different accounts, like Google Search Console and Google Analytics even.
Google Tag Manager is a super powerful tool. That's all we have today for this week's Whiteboard Friday. Please feel free to reach out, ask any additional questions on Twitter at @alexratynski. You can also reach me at ratynskidigital.com. Feel free to send me an email. I'm more than happy to speak to the Moz community. I absolutely love everybody who's here.
Really appreciate your guys' time. That's all for this week, and until next week when there's another edition of Whiteboard Friday.
As we anxiously await the return to in-person conferences, with a little ingenuity and virtual elbow grease, we can still forge new professional relationships over an internet connection rather than a cocktail. Read on for tips on how to bring your best self to digital events, and for networking while remote!
Speaking of online conferences, don’t forget to snag your ticket to MozCon Virtual 2021!
To get the most out of your online event, you need to go in with an intention. That way you’ll be more likely to gain something from the experience.
Ask yourself, what are you hoping to achieve? Some examples could be:
Gain a business opportunity
Learn more about how to recover from the latest algorithm update
Find ways to increase efficiency within your SEO processes
Feel more confident selling your services
2. Schedule accordingly
Many events will provide you with schedules ahead of time — look at them! (Pssst...if you haven’t yet, now is the perfect time to check out the agenda for MozCon Virtual.)
These schedules can help you go into the conference with a clear idea of how you’re going to spend your time. Going in with a plan will allow you to focus on the content of the event and your intentions each day, as opposed to wasting time frantically trying to decide what sessions you’re going to attend.
Choosing your sessions
Once you know what your intentions are and you have the event schedule, determine what will be the most beneficial content for you. This can be especially helpful when the event has multiple tracks, very few break times, etc.
Choosing your sessions may come down to a process of elimination, and it’s much easier to eliminate sessions when you have some sort of goal in mind.
Things to consider when choosing your sessions are:
The topic
The speaker
The time
The availability of on-demand videos post-conference
Your intention may be to broaden your horizons this year, so instead of opting to see presentations with the same topics or speakers that you saw last year, you may see someone new discussing something you find interesting but haven’t had time to explore. You may have a tight schedule and not be able to make anything past 3pm. If some of the sessions will be available after the conference, it may be worth checking out topics you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Know when to take a break
When you’re planning out your schedule, you need to make sure you build in time for breaks. This means time to eat, time to decompress, time to refill your coffee cup, and time to do work or home stuff.
Conferences usually have a lot of breaks and that’s for good reason. Ideally, you’re going to be learning a lot. But if you try to learn it all at once without giving your brain a break, very little of it will stick.
So, be sure to listen to your body. If you start to feel foggy or overwhelmed, take a break, grab some water, and move around a bit.
Build in networking time
Something else you want to account for when planning your virtual event agenda is when you’re going to network. Some conferences will have time to network built in, but others won’t.
You’ll want to dedicate time to get to know the other attendees by joining conversations and adding people on social media. This will look a bit different in the virtual space, as you won’t be meeting for coffee or chatting in the lobby, but try to stay creative! Zoom chats and video calls are a great way to connect with new or old friends.
Recap at the end of the day
At the end of each day, take some time to reflect. Think back to what your intention was, what you did throughout the day to fulfill that intention, and what you can put into action moving forward.
This is a great exercise to ensure you’re making the most out of the event. Far too often, we take in all of the information and do nothing with it! That’s why we like to suggest creating at least three action items at the end of each day.
3. Gather the essentials
Okay, it’s the first day of the conference and you’re about to jump in front of the computer. BUT! Before you do that, you need to make sure you have everything you need to be successful.
Get a clean notebook or start a fresh doc
Having a clean slate for notes will help you stay focused while attending any conference (virtual or otherwise). So grab a new, crisp notebook or create a new document file on your computer before you get started.
If you decide to go the computer route, be sure you close all other tabs and turn off notifications! You want to be sure that your attention stays on the conference.
Taking notes during a virtual conference
With that new notebook or document of yours, you’ll want to take the most effective notes possible. With that in mind, here are a few things to take note of:
What you learned
How can you apply it
What can you share with your team
To ensure that you’re on track to capture each of these things, when you go into each session, write your intention for the session at the top of your notes page. Then, divide your pages by “what I learned,” “how to apply,” and “what to share.” This will keep your notes nice and organized and give you a visual cue on whether or not you’re getting what you expected out of the session. It will also make your end-of-day recap much easier.
When it comes to virtual events, one of the biggest benefits is that you often get the slide decks and video bundles afterward. We suggest finding out whether the event you’re attending offers those things before you start taking notes, as it may lighten your note-taking burden a bit.
Have some snacks, water, and coffee (or tea)
Perhaps the most important things to have during a virtual conference are the snacks and drinks! As you know, at MozCon, we take this part very seriously, so we expect nothing less if you attend our virtual event.
Brain food can help you stay focused. Some of our favorite snacks are granola bars, nuts, veggies, and of course, donuts. However, you have full control over the spread this year.
Be sure to also have plenty of water and your favorite caffeinated beverage as well!
4. Look for networking opportunities
Depending on which virtual event you attend, the networking opportunities will look different. Keeping a creative eye out for opportunity is key to your success!
Live chats
Much like during regular conferences, there are bound to be live chats happening. They may happen on the actual event platform, or they may take place on social media. Some events will use a platform like Zoom that allows viewers to chat with each other within the platform, while others may have more of a broadcast format where chats happen on Twitter with a hashtag.
Joining Q&As
A super valuable aspect of conferences is being able to speak to presenters after they give their talk. Sometimes this happens during a predetermined time slot, such as right after the presentation, or it may happen when you catch them in the lobby or at an event later on. Either way, this time to ask questions about their expertise is a huge value-add to the experience.
With conferences going virtual and live chats happening publicly during the presentations, this Q&A time has shifted a bit. Instead of having to wait for the presentation to be over, in some cases, presenters will reply to questions from the live chat as they're speaking. Some panels are pre-recorded, giving speakers a chance to interact on various platforms during the event itself. Some events will even have specific “presentations” that are more like facilitated Ask Me Anything-style interviews or panels where questions are taken from the audience and posed to the speaker(s).
Networking at MozCon Virtual
Every year, we hear from attendees about how networking is one of their favorite parts of the conference. We made sure to keep it an integral part of this year's virtual event, too — check out all the ways you can connect with speakers, industry experts, attendees, and thought leaders at MozCon Virtual 2021! Beyond the opportunities for social connection within the conference itself, we will also have a virtual photo booth where attendees can snap a selfie, add some fancy circus-themed backgrounds, frames and stickers, and share them out on social media!
In-session Q&A chat
Mid-presentation, pop into the Q&A chat with your real-time questions and get them answered by speakers. You'll also be able to chat with other attendees about the content and provide your own insights about the session and topic. Speakers will be available to answer questions during their scheduled session times, so it's a perfect opportunity to get clarification, further insight, or forge those all-important connections!
Birds of a Feather "table" discussions
Birds of a Feather tables are one of the biggest MozCon hits year after year, and we didn't want anyone to miss out! We'll facilitate 30-minute-long group discussions each day of the conference for you to connect with those interested in specific topics via video and audio chat. Each discussion will be led by an industry leader, giving you all the opportunity to say "hey" to the folks whose work you admire and collaborate with them on ideas, theories, obstacles you've faced, and more.
MozCon Virtual partners
This year, we have a curated lineup of trusted partners who can't wait to meet and network with attendees of MozCon, including 97th Floor, Crowd Content, PageOnePower/PAGES SEO Magazine, and Wix!
Attendees will be able to visit and chat with sponsors within the MozCon Virtual platform, and sponsors will also be hosting Birds of a Feather sessions, plus taking part in presentation chats!
5. Get active
No matter where online networking is happening, be sure you're a part of it! The more you interact, the more likely people are to recognize your name when you reach out after the event. The only caution here is that you have to be sure your interactions are meaningful — don’t just comment with clapping hands. Add something to the conversation.
Add insight
The best thing about people is that we're all different and have fresh perspectives to bring to the table. Don’t be afraid to add on to someone’s thoughts.
Let's use a fun example. If someone says that the best mascot hug ever was from Mickey Mouse at Disneyland, you may jump in and ask if they’ve ever met Roger MozBot, famed hugger and robot dancer extraordinaire. Or you could build on the thought by saying something like, “Mickey is a great hugger, I think it’s because he goes over instead of under!”
In both of these instances, you’ve joined the conversation and added value.
Add clarification
Speakers often try to fit a lot of information into a relatively short time frame. That said, questions will likely arise in the live chats. This could very easily be your time to shine! If you've got knowledge to share, feel free to answer the question to the best of your ability and try to add clarification.
This is absolutely one of the best ways to position yourself as an expert and form a relationship with someone you’ve never met. It allows you to prove you’re knowledgeable and give the person something they value for free.
Add sources
Whether you are asking a question, answering a question, or just chiming in with added insight, adding resources in conversation is extremely beneficial. This could mean that you recommend a tool, a person, or an article link. These resources for the other viewers can be extremely beneficial and help you establish your credibility.
Now, we don’t suggest trying to come up with a source for everything, but if you have one right off of the top of your head, dropping a link in the chat may really help someone.
BONUS: Add people on social
While this one's not necessarily about adding value per se, it is about adding. Adding influencers, presenters, or other attendees after interacting with them (even if briefly) may increase your chances of getting a follow-back or accepted request as you'll still be top of mind. Try to add people no later than 24 hours after your last interaction, and consider sending a friendly "hey!" with a note about what you spoke about to keep the connection fresh.
6. Perfect your follow-up
After connecting with people during the online conference, you'll want to follow up with them and stay in touch.
The most important part of following up is the first impression. You don’t want to come right out of the gate with a request of any sort. Instead, look to build a relationship first. This could mean shooting a quick follow-up message recapping your conversation with the person, telling them that you appreciated their time and that you look forward to more conversations.
After sending your initial follow-up, be sure to interact with the person at least once a week to stay top-of-mind. This is easiest on social media as you can like, comment, share their content, and ensure that your name is showing up in their notifications. However, direct messages, emails, and even phone calls are sure to be more impactful.
The best thing you can do when following up is to stick to what you're most comfortable with and be consistent while continuing to add value.
7. Have fun and be yourself!
The number-one thing you have to offer is yourself. Your experiences make you unique and others can learn from that! So when you are attending online events and connecting with others, just remember to be yourself. And of course, have fun!
We're thrilled to welcome Joy Hawkins back to the MozCon Virtual stage! Local SEOs know Joy as a GMB expert, and for her work leading Local Search Forum, Local U, and the amazing team at Sterling Sky.
Ahead of the show, we talked with Joy about her research into Google Posts, what she loves most about her work in local SEO, and what she’s looking forward to at MozCon Virtual 2021. Check out the interview below!
And don’t forget to grab your ticket to see Joy and our other incredible speakers at this year’s MozCon!
Question: 2020 was quite a year, how did the Sterling Sky team adjust? What were some of your favorite projects?
Joy: We were really fortunate. Because we have clients in so many industries, we didn't have a huge number of cancellations when COVID first hit last year. We had a couple of rough months, but most of our clients that did pause their services ended up unpausing after a few months.
We actually saw a lot of growth in the second half of last year and were able to actually hire six more staff in 2020, two of which had lost their previous jobs because of COVID. So overall, I feel really blessed and saw a lot of good come out of a bad situation.
Question: What do you think was the biggest challenge for local SEOs this past year? What changes or trends stood out to you?
Joy: There have been a lot of technical issues and bugs to deal with when it comes to Google My Business. They launched a ton of new features to try and adapt to the ever-changing environment, and I find whenever that happens, stuff breaks.
Question: Local SEO is constantly changing. How do you and the team stay on top of algorithm updates and changes?
Joy: We track everything. I make a habit of trying to know everything that is going on in the industry, and part of how I do that is by moderating the Google My Business forum and our own forum, the Local Search Forum. I also find the local SEO community is really active on Twitter, so often new things get shared there.
Question: You founded Sterling Sky in 2017. Could you describe what it was like founding and building an agency? Was there anything that surprised you?
Joy: When I started, I thought it was just going to be me, and maybe a few others. I never envisioned having this many staff (19 currently) or clients, so that has definitely been an exciting piece that I never planned.
I remember when I hired my first full-time staff in 2017, I wasn't even sure I had enough to pay him and had a plan to cut my own salary if needed. Literally, the same month he started, we had an influx of new clients that was unexpected, so it all worked out perfectly.
Question: You are extremely well-respected in the Local SEO industry — what steps did you take to get to where you are today? What recommendations do you have for others looking to elevate their personal brand in the SEO space?
Joy: Never be afraid to help people or share things that you've learned. I started in this space by writing articles. It started as my own blog (which morphed into the Sterling Sky blog), but then I started writing for other publications and becoming a lot more active on social media. Forums played a huge role in how I learned and shared knowledge. I also made a habit of attending conferences and meeting the people I looked up to. I'll never forget the first time I met Mike Blumenthal and how intimidated I was. Networking in this space is really important and MozCon is definitely one of the best places to do that.
Question: What is your favorite part about local SEO work? What is the hardest part?
Joy: I love the challenge. It's like solving a really difficult puzzle. I've always loved strategy board games and doing SEO often feels like that.
The awesome thing about working with SMBs is that changes can get implemented quickly and you don't have tons of hoops to jump through to get stuff approved. Seeing the impact from our work quickly and watching clients' leads increase is insanely rewarding.
I'd say the hardest part is dealing with algorithm changes. A huge majority of the time, algorithm updates are a good thing for our clients, but it's definitely frustrating the times when you feel Google gets it wrong.
Question: At MozCon, you’ll discuss a study you and your team conducted where you analyzed more than 1,000 Google Posts. Why Google Posts? What sparked your interest in this topic?
Joy: Google posts are something I get asked about on almost every webinar I'm on. People always seem to be wondering what they are supposed to post about. I think I get asked if posts impact ranking several times a month.
Question: What insights are you most excited to share with our MozCon audience?
Joy: I think people will be surprised to see what types of posts performed best. It definitely wasn't the outcome I was expecting. Based on posts that I see regularly on Google My Business listings, I'm not sure everyone is aware of what types of content performs best.
Question: Why should Local SEOs invest in a Google Post strategy?
Joy: It's a really easy win. You can drive more traffic and conversions with posts with minimal effort. It's one of those low-hanging-fruit strategies that every business should utilize.
Question: Who in the MozCon lineup are you most excited to watch this year? Anything else you are looking forward to?
Joy: There are so many to choose from. Wil Reynolds has a way of always blowing my mind every time he talks, so I'm definitely excited to hear his. Dana DiTomaso is another of my favorite speakers. She's one of the smartest people I know in this industry. I'm also very excited to see Noah Learner's name on the list. I actually met him at a past MozCon and couldn't get over how much energy he had. I'm not sure where his energy comes from, but I need to find out. I heard him speak recently at one of our LocalU events and was really impressed at his knowledge and ability to analyze data.
A big thank you to Joy for her time! To learn more about Joy's upcoming presentation, see details on our other speakers, and to purchase your ticket, make sure you click the link below!
Earlier this month, we launched our annual State of Link Building Survey, which aims to give the SEO industry insights into the way link building is currently being done, how it’s measured and perceived, and the future of link building.
This year, we asked a bunch of additional questions related to the content-led link building process, one of which asked respondents to tell us which steps of the process they found most challenging. Here are the results:
Today, we’re going to talk through each step of this process and look at ways to make them less challenging, thus leading to more successful results.
1. Getting links from outreach targets
I wasn’t too surprised to see this picked as the most challenging part of the process. After all, the crucial part of succeeding isn’t in your control. You’re asking someone else to do something for you, and all of the work up until this point will be for nothing if they just don’t want to do it. Not to mention that bloggers and journalists can often get hundreds of emails a day, meaning that standing out can be difficult, even if you have a solid campaign idea. As Stacey MacNaught, one of the contributors to our report, says:
“Naturally, as more and more people turn to content marketing and digital PR tactics, the space gets more crowded. Journalists are getting HUNDREDS of emails a day. So even if what you have is brilliant, there's always going to be that element of things that's out of your control.”
There’s another crucial element in the process here that is rarely, if ever, talked about: luck. As Stacey goes on to say:
“What if your email just lands in that important inbox just as they're getting a response to something really important? What if it lands on a day they just happen to be out of office? What happens if they login and there's 400 unreads in the inbox and yours just gets scanned over? Yes, you can have tactics and strategies in place to chase up, or optimize timing. But let's not fool ourselves into believing that there isn't an element of this that's luck even after you've produced something wonderful.”
One scenario I often think about is the fact that many of us will check email on our phone whilst on the move, or even when taking a break from our desktop and making a coffee. What if a journalist reads your email, likes it, but by the time they get back to their desk, something else has grabbed their attention?
The thing is, as we’ll discuss a bit more later, that the seeds of success at this point in the process are sewn long before you send that message to the person who you’d like to link to your campaign.
With all of that said, how can we improve our chances of getting links at this point in the process, and overcome this challenge?
Don’t treat outreach as a numbers game
It’s 2021 and we’re long past the point of link building being a numbers game. I’m not just talking about outreach here, I’m talking about the effectiveness of links themselves on your organic search rankings. Long gone are the days when raw numbers of links were the key driver, at least over the long-term. You’ll still see some websites ranking off the back of high volumes of low quality links, but it’s not something that a legitimate brand should build their search traffic on.
“This right here is the reason why trying to scale content-led link building campaigns is a waste of time. I've read people saying what we do is a numbers game but it's not.”
Gisele mentions an important word — scale. Once you scale anything, quality can start to suffer, and this is the same across many processes. Of course, some quality can be maintained, but when it comes to link building, scale often means a number of things:
Emailing as many link prospects as possible
Using email templates with minimal personalization
Automating follow-ups
None of these are a great way to represent a brand online, let alone be effective at link building.
Gisele went on to talk about the importance of putting time into content instead of worrying about scaling outreach:
“No matter how many emails you send or how many sites you add to your target list, if your content is not link-worthy then you will struggle getting links. Grab all the time and effort you're dedicating to scaling link building and put it into the content you're producing.”
So, the question becomes, how can you be more effective at outreach? Let’s look at a few ways.
Focus on key relationships in your sector
Much has been said about the convergence of SEO and PR over the years, and I don’t want to focus too much on that today. But one thing that PR professionals are good at is building relationships, and I think that’s something that has often translated well into the SEO world.
You don’t need to have a campaign in your hand in order to start building relationships, either. You can start any time with a simple email, and many journalists or bloggers will welcome an authentic message from you where you might be starting a conversation about their work or views on a specific topic. Our team at Aira has done this many times over the years, and real friendships have developed as a result.
Look at your sector and ask yourself how you can engage with key people — without asking for anything in return. You’ll be surprised at how receptive those people are.
The key point to remember here is that you’re putting time and effort into this up front, knowing that you’ll see the rewards later. When the time comes to share a campaign that could be genuinely useful to your contact, they’re going to be far more likely to open and read your email. Even if the campaign isn’t for them, you’re likely to be told that, and have the chance to get feedback rather than having your email completely ignored without knowing why.
Find the right person to contact
When link prospecting, it’s very easy to go to a domain and make a note of the first name and email address that you find, and then continue on. This is fine for small blogs and publications, but you should take time to do more research for the medium to larger ones.
Bigger publications, especially top-tier newspapers and magazines, will have whole teams of people who cover different topics. Even specific topics can often have several people working on them — check out the travel section of any large newspaper and you’ll quickly see just how many writers there are.
It’s worth taking a bit of extra time to find out if there is more than one person who you could contact, and if so, making a note of all of them at the same time. You can then dig into each one a bit more to see who may be the most appropriate person to contact.
Keep an eye out for a few things in your research:
How often they publish content: do they seem to be a regular writer or more like a guest writer?
Are they on Twitter and if so, are they active? If they are, this may open up a way to engage with them and learn more about what they like writing about.
What specific topics do they write about? Don’t write down “travel”, write down the specific niche within travel.
Look at the headlines they use: are there any patterns in them, or anything you can learn about their reporting style?
Yes, this takes time. But it’s worth it because when you need to do outreach, you’re more likely to contact the right person and increase your chances of getting a reply and a link.
If you still find that your outreach is failing and you need to fix it quickly, check out this process and framework from Shannon McGuirk in her Whiteboard Friday.
2. Coming up with ideas for campaigns
Second in our list of challenges with 23% of respondents was coming up with ideas for their content campaigns. I fully understand why this is a challenge for many people, because knowing if an idea is good or bad can be very subjective. Not to mention, there’s a huge difference between a good idea and a good idea that will get links.
You may well come up with a solid idea for a piece of content that sits on your website and may get traffic, but it may not quite provoke someone to link to it over and over again. It’s important to understand this difference when coming up with ideas.
So, how can you overcome this challenge and come up with ideas that will work?
Develop a process and methodology
Not everyone will describe themselves as a creative person and unfortunately, those who describe themselves as not being creative will assume that they aren’t going to be very good at coming up with content ideas. Even if you’re at the opposite end of the spectrum here and believe that you are creative and can come up with ideas, having a solid process that guides you is a great way to ensure some consistency and save time.
Coming up with link-worthy content ideas can be hard, doing it over and over again is even harder — a process and methodology will help with this because it can be used repeatedly and across different sectors.
There are multiple processes that you can use here and there is not a single right answer, so here I just want to share a few that we use at Aira which may be helpful to you and point you in the right direction.
Content strategy framework
Our content strategy framework is designed to provoke ideas that are tied into the themes and topics that are most important to the brand that you’re working with. It also helps you understand which content formats are available to you and what the associated KPIs should be.
The last point is important because whilst links may be the focus, a great content campaign will add much more value and this should be acknowledged. For example, a campaign may also help you drive referral traffic to your website which could have value.
On the flip side, this framework also helps you demonstrate that some content campaigns will not lead directly to leads or customers — something that can be a common misunderstanding with some stakeholders. Using this framework lets you be explicit on what the primary KPIs for the campaign are, and when driving direct customers or revenue isn’t one of them.
Here is the framework itself, along with pointers for what each line means:
And here is an example of how it may look if we were working with a company who sell products to help you get a good night’s sleep:
Whilst this won’t define every single topic, it gives a solid starting point and importantly, keeps your ideas focused by making sure that they fit within the overarching themes and are linked to the right KPIs.
Audience pain points framework
Another methodology that we use at Aira revolves around the pain points of our client’s target audience, then connecting those pain points to solutions that the client can provide or create. There are there parts to this framework:
Audience: we work with the client to determine their core target audience for their products and keep this as tightly focused as possible on who they want their content to get in front of.
Pain points: we carry out research on this audience to understand what their main pain points are when it comes to the service or product that the client is offering.
Solutions: this is where we look at how the client currently solves these problems with either their products, services or content. This gives us a steer on where we ultimately need to be driving traffic to or if we need to create a new page.
Here is an example which imagines that we’re working with a company that helps people buy a home:
Once complete (although it’s never 100% complete, it’s an ongoing process) we can start to connect the dots between these three areas which can lead to campaign ideas.
For example, we may join the dots between these:
We could then base our idea generation around the target audience, their pain points and the solution offered by the client. This means that a campaign idea will be closely tied to the business and audience of the client, not going off on a tangent and reducing the value of the idea.
If you want to take a deep dive into the creative process, my go-to is always this deck from Mark Johnstone who also recently produced this report which picks apart 31 campaigns from different digital agencies to see what made those ideas work.
3. Getting approval for campaign ideas
Third in our list was getting approval for content ideas, with 20% of respondents saying that this was a challenge for them.
Having pitched many ideas to clients over the years, I understand how this can be a challenge, but it can also vary massively on a number of factors. The projects where I (or the team) have struggled most with sign-off are when we haven’t fully understood client expectations for the ideas.
The truth is that a lot of these expectations should be understood up front either when you sell a project or when you kick the project off. If you put together a creative brief, it should include questions that will help you ensure that the ideas you come up with are as likely as possible to be signed off.
Let’s look at the kinds of questions we need to be asking up front in order to do this and hopefully avoid pain further down the line.
Core topics and teasing out objections
Asking a client up front what topics they are happy to talk about can be useful, but won’t always unearth potential problems. Start by asking basic questions such as:
What topics do you want your brand to be famous for?
What topics would you say you’re credible to talk about?
What topics does your audience resonate with?
What questions do your customers always ask you?
This can give you a really good starting point but once you hear the answers, you need to go deeper. This involves a bit of thinking on your feet, but you should start to test the client at this point to see where their limits are and what they will and won’t sign off.
Take one of the topics they’ve mentioned and throw out a random example of using that idea, then do it again and again. Start to get a feel for how they react to ideas and listen carefully to what they say. They will start to give clues as to how they respond to ideas and what questions come into their mind.
For example, a reply may be “yeah, that would work but….” then they will give you a glimpse into potential problems. So this may become “yeah, that would work but we’d need sign off from our compliance team” or “yeah, that would work but Jenny in our data team would need to review it first.”
Off-topic ideas
Following on from this, it’s important to get an early understanding of what topics they want to steer clear of. Again, from experience, usual answers here may be fairly typical and not that helpful, such as a client wanting to steer clear of content that may be a bit risky or mention competitors. It’s not uncommon for companies to want to avoid political content being produced by a third party, even if the company doesn’t generally mind talking about political issues.
To try and dig deeper, repeat the process above and give some examples to test the boundaries a little and see how they respond. One way to do this is to ask about any previous campaigns that have gone wrong, not worked or caused issues for them internally or externally.
If you’re not dealing with the CEO, perhaps ask something like “if we wanted to produce an idea on this topic, what would your CEO say? How would she react?”. The additional benefit here is that you can start to see how internal dynamics between teams and the people above them works too.
Brand guidelines and tone
You need to ask how much they expect a piece of content to adhere to brand and tone of voice guidelines. Chances are that they want to make sure that content is consistent with their brand, but the extent of this can vary a lot depending on the business. Some will ask you to stick very, very closely to them whilst others will give you more freedom.
Knowing this is important because it can affect the ways in which you can execute an idea and sometimes, it will mean that some ideas aren’t feasible.
Format of presenting the ideas
When writing up and planning to present your ideas, don’t underestimate the importance of choosing the right format for delivery. This will change based on the client and quite often, how long you’ve been working with them.
At Aira, we have some clients who we’ve worked with for many years who know our process and team very well. These clients may only need a simple email with a summary of each idea in order to sign off or to ask a few questions.
This will be different for a client who is brand new and perhaps hasn’t run any campaigns before. This one will need a lot more detail and probably a full presentation with details/data attached so that they can fully understand everything.
Getting the format wrong up front is a sure fire way to put yourself on the backfoot, no matter how good the ideas may be.
4. Finding enough domains to get links from
Fourth on the list from our respondents, with 13% of them saying it was a challenge, was finding enough domains to get links from. This appears to be a relatively small challenge and even in competitive sectors, there are usually plenty of domains out there that are relevant to the campaign that you’re producing.
There are plenty of guides out there which give away lots of techniques and processes for finding link prospects, here are a few:
To add to these, I want to encourage you to also think carefully about the attributes of the domains that you’re trying to find and not to obsess too much over “SEO metrics”. Let me explain.
I believe more and more that Google passes value across links in very different ways than they used to. Essentially, Google can pass more or less PageRank across a link based on a number of attributes associated with that link. The concept of this has been around for many years and Bill Slawski has written about how Google may do this here.
Whilst not new, this is one area where I believe Google can (and does) refine more and more as time passes. If we assume that links will remain a core ranking signal for a while yet, it stands to reason that Google will refine the signals within it, of which, there will be many.
Side note: our State of Link Building Report also asked respondents if they felt that links as a ranking signal would still exist in five years time, many believed they would:
The belief reduces a little if we look ten years into the future, but the majority still said yes:
Back to our core point, I believe that it’s important to think about the attributes of links that Google may look at in order to define value, but also to think about what is valuable to you beyond pure SEO or ranking value.
Here are some examples:
Links that send traffic to you
Links from domains that your audience frequently visits
Links from domains that you don’t already have
Links from domains that your competitors have (and don’t have)
Links from domains that have high levels of traffic
When you start to do link prospecting with these kinds of attributes in mind, you start to think a little bit differently and you naturally lean toward quality over quantity. These are the links that Google wants to reward now and in the future.
5. Design and development of ideas
Finally, in last place in our survey was getting the design and development of ideas. Only 10% of our respondents listed this as a challenge.
We don’t spend too much time on this but here are a few tips for making sure that your content campaign doesn’t fail at this point.
Don’t start with the format
As tempting as it can be, try to avoid any bias toward a certain format or type of execution before your idea is fully fleshed out. For example, try to avoid starting by saying “I want to do a map” or “I want to do an interactive infographic”. Let the idea lead to an appropriate format by asking yourself what the best way to communicate your idea is.
This could lead to a range of options:
Blog post
Long-form guide
Infographic
Tweet thread
Video
Slidedeck
Whitepaper
The list can go on and you get the idea.
You should still be aware of what content formats can work and keep an internal log of your campaigns to see which ones work best, but don’t let yourself get caught up in the format. A successful campaign that was an interactive piece most likely worked because the idea behind it was strong, not just because it was interactive.
Don’t let the idea get lost
Leading on from the previous point, it’s very easy for a core idea to be lost when it goes through the process of being designed and developed. If we imagine that the core idea has come from one or two people, who have then passed it along to a designer, maybe a developer and also other stakeholders who have given feedback, it’s very easy for the core idea to be diluted.
It’s important to be clear about the core idea and why that idea is so crucial to the success of a campaign at all stages. When you brief a designer, start with the idea. When you pitch the idea to a stakeholder, start with the idea. When you start to do QA on designs and development environments, keep the core idea in mind.
Be aware of restrictions
The design and development of an idea can fall down very easily if you present something that can’t be executed on the company website. For example, if you’re unable to upload interactive content or you have to publish content within an existing template, this is going to cause blockers with design and development. It’s important to be aware of these up front so that you can design and build content that can be published.
To wrap up: every step is a challenge, but is also important
Despite some steps being harder than others, the truth is that you need all steps to be doing their bit and pulling their weight if you’re going to end up with a successful campaign.
Outreach becomes easier when you have a great idea.
Coming up with ideas becomes easier when you have a good brief.
Implementing a design becomes easier when the idea is clear and compelling already
You get the idea. Take time to understand the process in full and optimize each step as much as you can, whilst allowing for flexibility and for people to be creative and do what they think is best.
