Link Building Tactics for 2023

Link building is an essential part of any SEO strategy, yet many site owners shy away from it because they see it as an impossible puzzle. However, when you break it down, it's really not that difficult. In this article, we'll break down everything you should be doing to build links in 2023.

Shotgun Outreach

Shotgun outreach is the "spray and pray" approach to link building. It involves sending 100 to 300 emails per day to low to medium authority sites, generally in the DR 30 to 60 range, and asking if you can get a guest post.

To find prospects for shotgun outreach, use Ahref's Content Explorer and put in a niche-specific info keyword. Set a DR range of 30 to 60 and a minimum traffic of 5000 so you end up with sites that are not too big. Choose the one page per domain filter and export this list. This is your target list.

Use an email finding tool like Snovio or Hunter to bulk find email addresses for everyone on your target list. Enrich this list with first names using our free EmailName Finder tool, as starting your email with Hi Steve, rather than just Hi, can lead to up to 50% more links.

The key to successful shotgun outreach is to start slowly with just five or ten emails per day, and then slowly ramp up the numbers day by day. If you go too fast, you might end up landing all your emails in the spam box. Use a tool called GlockApps to check if this has happened. If this does happen, send a few emails out to your friends, ask them to click the "not spam" button, and reply to you. These signals will help get you out of that spam box.

To really ramp up the numbers, set up multiple email accounts and have them all sending out hundreds of emails per day. Your response rate will be low here, but you'll still get loads of links because the volume is so high. Be prepared to pay for many of these types of links.

Sniper Outreach

Sniper outreach involves sending a low number, maybe 5 to 20 per day, of heavily personalized messages to high authority sites. It's a little more manual work than shotgun outreach, but it can be very rewarding.

Go to Google and search for any niche-relevant keyword. Note down any relevant site. Relevant niche-specific sites are the best ones here, and using Ahref's toolbar can be helpful to quickly see the DR and traffic of all these sites. Use a Hunter Email Finder or Snovio Domain Search to find email addresses of people to contact at each of these sites.

The key to personalized sniper outreach messages is to research your prospect. Check their about page, their writer bio, their social media, even their own personal blogs. Find out as much as you can about this person. Then you can use AI to help you write the outreach message. GPT-4 is amazing at writing witty and engaging emails.

To keep track of all of this and manage your sending for sniper outreach, use a tool called BuzzStream. The downside of sniper and shotgun outreach is that you have to keep working to keep getting links.

Linkable Assets

Linkable assets refer to a piece of content that over time, will naturally earn links. It involves creating some kind of original research or data that is industry-specific. Reach out to sites that have outdated statistics or concepts mentioned without highlighting a specific statistic.

In our survey, we gathered insights into paid links and how they were being used. We found every site, every blog that was mentioning paid links, and emailed them to let them know that there was a missing stat from their article. The results were positive because we were offering true value, unique data which nobody else could provide.

HARO

HARO (Help A Reporter Out) is one of the easiest ways to quickly start building links from big newspapers and high authority publications. Register on helpareporter.com and you'll get three emails per day with hundreds of niche-specific questions from journalists and industry publications. Answer the question using your own personal experience. Share anecdotes and actionable tips from things you've actually tested.

Digital PR

The newish kind of kid on the block for link builders is digital PR. While it requires a bit more investment upfront, it can lead to high quality links and increased brand awareness. Consider partnering with influencers, brands, and other relevant websites in your industry to create content together.

In conclusion, link building requires effort and dedication, but these tactics can help you achieve your goals for building links in 2023.

Boosting Your Link Building Strategy: Techniques and Tactics to Try

Link building is an important aspect of SEO that remains crucial in 2021. It is essential to have a solid understanding of the Dos and Don'ts of link building. Successful link building only occurs when you have a well-thought-out strategy. In this article, we'll explore some effective techniques and tactics to help you boost your link building game.

HARO

The Help A Reporter Out (HARO) platform provides an opportunity to connect reporters with sources looking for expert opinions. However, to take advantage of this platform, you need to have a good understanding of the subject matter, and you must avoid attempting to mislead by making up answers. Success rates for HARO requests remained high in 2023, at around 15%. Besides offering the possibility of backlinks, HARO is a great way to get your brand's name out there.

Digital PR

If you are looking to improve your link-building strategy, then digital PR is worth considering. The process involves winning over journalists and online publications by pitching compelling stories. Journalists might not care for your AI survey statistics, but they will pay attention if a piece has unique, quirky, or heartwarming content that pulls at the reader's emotions. One example of this strategy in action is when Canine Cottages used a heart monitor for dogs in a marketing campaign that resulted in 200 high-quality links.

Baiting Local Newspapers

A simple way to secure backlinks from local newspapers is to create a list or ranking of different cities on something. For example, money.co.uk was able to land 93 links from local newspapers after ranking the best airports in the world. This approach is much more effective than trying to secure links via guest post outreach.

Link Swaps

In most niches, there are a few sites that actively pursue link building. A good idea can be to offer to build links to these sites from your guest posts. This approach is more realistic in many niches since it's possible to squeeze a few "easy to link to" information links into around half of your guest posts. This plan means linking to sites in your guest posts, and they return the favor by linking to your site in their guest post.

Fusing techniques and Tactics

Once you grasp these link-building techniques, there are several possibilities for combining them with other strategies. For example, you can leverage sniper outreach to land appearances on industry podcasts. You may also offer testimonials to SaaS companies that you are using, with the hope that they'll place this content on their site and link back to you.

Conclusion

Link building is a crucial task for any website. As you implement your link-building strategy, try these tactics to help secure backlinks and boost your website's visibility. Additionally, always prioritize authenticity and honesty when building links. By fusing these techniques and tactics, you can create an almost infinite number of possibilities to attract links to your website organiclly.