Do you actively link build?
Link building is one of my biggest weaknesses when releasing new projects. I usually just submit to the usual places (PH, HN, Reddit) and pray a blogger/reporter just happens to see it and links back.
I'm wondering if people here actively engage in link building, and what's your first step after launch after you've done the usual submissions?
Link building starts with building good relationships, it's not dissimilar from outreach for sales so the principles are the same.
Make sure the content you have is valuable, and that you are targeting the right person to reach out to and they will find your content valuable. This is pretty basic, but spray and pray hoping someone will respond to an email is not a good strategy, if your email is targeted you are more likely to get a response (like sales).
Be upfront, concise, and personal something like "I saw you had linked to <<similar article>> in <<article you want a link from>>, I just published <<article>> that goes in even greater depth on <<point of interest>>, I thought you might find it interesting." can go a long way.
At the end of the day cold outreach is cold outreach, it will be a numbers game, do your best to target who you are reaching out to and refine your sales pitch and you'll start getting some responses. When it comes to SEO, even a couple backlinks from high-quality can be extremely beneficial to jumpstart things so it's not like you need hundreds of links per article.
Don't pay for links from a website.
Thanks for the advice.
To me it is surprising that someone would add a link just because I asked for it. It feels like asking someone to do something for you, and get nothing in return.
It also seems to me that articles are often written by writers who don't own the entire site, so perhaps no longer have control over their content once it gets published on the blog they work for.
No problem! It's only valuable if the content you are providing is valuable.
Imagine an academic paper (because that was the inspiration for Google's algorithm), good papers cite quality sources to bolster their arguments. If you, a quality source, are lending a hand to someone with an article that can add unique insight to theirs it provides a clear benefit to them.
But it has to be a quality article and it has to be targeted, otherwise the benefit is minimal for the person you reach out to.
Yes, but always quality above quantity.
It's not easy and cheap, but I like a strategy with satellite sites. It doesn't mean that I am creating WordPress pages with weak articles.
I am looking for ways to create satellite sites around niche topics. Examples?
For a bicycle shop, we have created a website with bicycle routes in one of the tourist regions in my country.
Valuable content, good photos, cooperation with other bloggers made the site famous. Backlinks from it are priceless (not only SEO value but also sales).
Such a website must give real value to users. It cannot be an ad for the target website.
A much nicer way to call this is "side-project marketing". Nothing shady about creating other tools/sites around your main thing, which sounds like what you are doing.
Actually that's the one thing that worked for me. My website sells candy, so I made a tool which generates an animation of your name, rendered in 3D from candy. People really liked it, and it has boosted traffic to the main site as well.
Yes, "side-project marketing" sounds better. I named that in ugly SEO slang :)
For a long term project, I definitely would. Manual outreach to blogs / communities in the niche.
Actively? No. But at the minimum I look at my best traffic sources and reach out when I launch something new. Also, a quick google search or two may give you a couple of destinations to reach out to. I ended up getting added to already published articles that way.
So asking sometimes does work. Good to know, thanks.
Yes, if it's relevant. At the same time, your email may be completely ignored, that happens a lot too.
Here's my example where it did work. The article says 6 [examples] yet, mine is number 7 with a note about being updated... https://www.sitepoint.com/6-incredible-svg-pattern-generators/
Ooh, one more tip, instead of the site's main contact form, try connecting directly to the author... twitter, their personal website, etc... as the sitewide form, the message might never get to the right person.
Thanks!
Nop. I tried it and didn't find it to be worth the time investment. Maybe I was doing it wrong. Now, I just ensure my on-site SEO / UX is on point to keep time on site high and bounce rate low, and hope that makes Google happy. It seems to. Backlinks are growing organically as my user base grows.