Link building strategies for your startup

Effective strategy for startup link building

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Getting links is difficult, especially for newly launched websites. Here are some winning strategies for effective link building

In the current job market, 90% of startups go bankrupt and are forced to close their doors, as Forbes magazine reveals in a recent socio-economic analysis. This may seem like a dramatic scenario for anyone preparing to enter the world of startups, but in reality it is an opportunity to reflect on the winning strategies and techniques that can be used to achieve business success.

It is well known that brands' performances are closely connected to their image and reputation on the Internet. For this, identifying some winning tricks to improve online visibility can solve many problems in the performance of startups. So let's rely on the advice of web marketing experts, coming directly from the SEMrush international blog, to understand what to do.

In this article:

·        Building Effective Links Please Startup Success
How to build a link network from scratch?
Tips for building links with limited resources and time available
General SEO principles
Who can acquire paid links?
How to get links from authoritative domains without paying for them
An effective process for requesting links
The right type of link anchoring
Building links through infographics and videos

Here's how to start acquiring links with your new website

Building effective links please startup success

Being visible on the web means appearing on the first page of results (SERP, Search Engine Results Page) provided by the most popular search engines, such as Google. In fact, the vast majority of users, to be exact 75% according to data collected by the blog Search Engine Journal, stop on the first page.

There are several SEO strategies to increase your visibility and scale SERPs. However, starting a startup implies that you will have to manage the business with a very limited amount of resources, therefore it is necessary to identify techniques that have a favorable quality-price ratio.

What is an SEO strategy to make your company website appear effectively on the first page of Google? How can you promote your startup quickly and economically advantageous even with few resources available? The answer is the Link Building.

An important opportunity for reflection on the topic was the online seminar held by entrepreneur Jon Quinton, founder of the digital consultancy portal Overdrive Digital and great expert in the field of Link Building. The SEMrush blog took advantage of this opportunity to ask him some questions, so as to learn the tricks of the trade from a true professional. During his conference, Jon unveiled some of the strategies he used to be successful in the startup sector, and illustrated his personal vision on the Link Building theme.

Summarizing his words, according to Jon the recipe for building a successful link network, if you manage a reality just launched on the market, is composed of:

·         Identification of fast solutions

·         Verification of mentions without existing links on external websites

·         Building long-lasting business relationships, intensifying collaboration with existing partners

·         Analysis of competitors' behavior with the help of industry platforms and tools

·         Identification of web domains that mention the competition, but do not insert direct links to their website.

Of the many questions SEMrush asked Jon to go deeper into the Link Building topic, some are particularly interesting for anyone who wants to successfully promote their startup website. Here are his answers and his most illuminating comments, to be used as a handbook to be successful in SEO optimization of your company website.

How to build a network of links from scratch?

Where do you start? This is one of the most frequently asked questions that anyone who is preparing to create for the first time a series of inbound links to their website. Who has no previous skills, which path must follow to recover the gap with the competition? Starting from scratch can seem frightening and discouraging, and many find it difficult to understand which strategies to choose to get started. So here is that Jon Quinton revealed his opinion on this, retracing the early stages of his career to show his personal experience.

According to Jon, an extremely useful exercise is writing down a list of ideas, writing down all the strategies that are believed to be done fairly quickly. The focus in this phase must be the speed and certainty of concluding the operation, therefore it is appropriate to focus on techniques that are considered feasible in the short term without complications. For example, you can focus on business relationships already built in a solid way to see if these allow us to acquire a link quickly.

Another possibility is the estimation of new relationship opportunities with other partners, by performing rapid PR operations. Otherwise, the choices and practices adopted by competitors can be analyzed in order to extrapolate and copy some winning techniques to take advantage of them. Carrying out this process of reflection on the strategies that can be implemented in the immediate future is fundamental to establish which of the innumerable paths that can be followed is the most suitable to start with.

Tips for building links with few resources and time available

When it is decided where to start the Link Building process, the strategies devised begin to be put into practice. Since those who start a startup must try to limit costs and implementation times to a minimum, Jon Quinton responds to the needs of those who want to build links even if they have limited financial resources and time available. According to Jon, all overly complicated ideas, such as those requiring long content processing, should be discarded.

Jon believes there is always some opportunity to build a handful of links quickly without requiring any type of textual content. Otherwise, if you decide that the creation of content is essential for the company, you should still focus on texts, posts and topics that can be developed in the shortest time possible, while taking care of the readability and quality so that users want advise and share them. Getting the maximum result with the least effort, that's the key.

To give a concrete example, Jon remembers the personal experiences that allowed him to collect some links quickly. A noteworthy episode in his career has been the recording of some interviews with influential people and listed in the sector, content that he then advertised on social networks. In this way, he created unique and truly interesting texts for other Internet users, without incurring expensive costs or geological times: all that was needed was a half-hour conversation on the phone and the transcription of the recording.

In order to optimize efforts, Jon recommends evaluating which aspects of his Link Building can be delegated to external resources. Outsource the realization of some particularly long or demanding Link Building strategies is an economically advantageous choice that will give substantial help to reduce expectations and the consumption of company energy. For example, building a list of contacts to execute an SEO services strategy can take a significant amount of time, therefore outsourcing this operation is a positive choice to start benefiting the competition, at the price of a contained expense.

General SEO principles

One of the questions most requested by Link Building novices concerns the general principles behind SEO processes. What are the basic rules that define the overall SEO process? Jon Quinton replies that in his career he has met a number of principles confirmed true over time. One of the most obvious principles is having a full understanding of the keywords to target with SEO strategies, as well as making sure that the website is easily accessible and index able by search engines.

In general, Jon says that the first step is to put the website in order, optimizing the architecture of the pages and information, i.e. implementing the SEO On Page strategies first. Only later will the concentration on site promotion be moved through the creation of content and the Link Building.

In fact, Jon recalls that the key rule is only one: if the foundation of the website is not solid, its maximum traffic and profit potential will never be reached, it does not matter how many links are built.

Who can acquire paid links?

Many users wonder if it is profitable to buy paid links to strengthen the Link Building, if it is an unnecessarily expensive practice, or if it is even a choice that risks discrediting the image of the website. There are many conflicting opinions on this matter, and Jon Quinton also provided his views on the matter

According to Jon, getting paid links in the right way, without risking future repercussions, has now become particularly difficult compared to the past. This is because Google and the other search engines carry out more and more accurate checks on the nature of the links, on the type of pages on which they are inserted, and on the actual genuineness of their insertion into the contents. Only links that pass the checks and are spontaneous and natural are taken into account positively for the increase in the ranking of the website. The others risk being useless or harmful, for example if you make the mistake of inserting the link in a web portal on Google's blacklist.

Jon recommends building genuine long-term links rather than relying on paid ones, not because there are moral reasons that make paid links worse than free ones, but because in principle it is easier and more profitable to build natural links. Inserting paid links effectively requires having great analytical skills and abilities, it cannot be a simplistic and impulsive choice. Furthermore, it is not always clear which ones can be considered paid links and which are not. Some links are part of a gray category of not very clear nature, for example those included in the reviews of products or services offered to the reviewer without receiving the corresponding payment in exchange.

In principle, Jon suggests avoiding paid links unless there is absolute certainty that the economic nature of the link cannot be discovered in any way. If this is not possible, it is better to focus on other methods of obtaining links.

How to get links from authoritative domains without paying for them

If paying for links isn't always a viable option without the right skills, then other avenues are required. Many users are therefore displaced, unable to find an alternative to buying links. How can you get links from very authoritative and popular web portals in the sector without paying for them? According to Jon Quinton, the secret is to think like a PR and get to understand what journalists and editors are looking for who work on the websites they aspire to be mentioned.

Obtaining authoritative links is essential for a correct Link Building strategy. In fact, it is the reliability and fame of the website where the link is placed that will be reflected in the success of your website, much more than the total number of links. Having many links from low or low reputation web portals will bring little advantages, while a single link strategically placed on an important sector page can make a huge difference in the incoming traffic and in the ranking of the site mentioned. The logic of Google and the other search engines is the same applied in the academic field: not all mentions have the same weight without distinction, only those included in authoritative pages really have value.

Jon's approach to getting links correctly is to focus on the individual merit of the article being offered. If the quality of the content is worth reading and the attention of the users, then there will be no problems. Jon therefore recommends changing the method of investing your money and time. The resources invested in placing links must be reduced, and more must be invested in the creation of noteworthy content, interesting enough to push a journalist or columnist to spontaneously create a thematic article about it.

An effective process for requesting links

Many users are struggling to understand the correct process for proposing a backlink to an external website, and which aspects should be taken into consideration during promotion and collaboration proposals. Although there is an infinite amount of information on the Internet about how to request and obtain backlinks in general, and an equally large number of tools and tools are available online, for many business website owners it is difficult to move from theory to practice. Many wonder if there are any tricks to follow to overcome the difficulties. What are the key points to keep in mind when asking for links?

Jon Quinton knows perfectly the importance of building solid relationships with web portals and external journalists, since much of his professional success derives from the careful care of company relationships. The value of guest posts, interviews, press releases and editorial articles, which contain strategically positioned backlinks inside, is indisputable. But, as in any other interpersonal relationship, it is at the level of approach and proposal that problems may arise for startup owners looking for promotion.

There are no secret formulas for making effective proposals and requests, says Jon, but keeping some common sense principles in mind can be of great help. First of all, if you are preparing to contact journalists or contact industry website owners, you must necessarily consider what they want or expect. In other words, it is essential to put yourself in their shoes to understand their point of view, and thus formulate the best proposal.

When trying to present and advertise their content to an editor, Jon recommends taking a step back and doing a careful analysis to determine if the content in question is suitable for the publisher. The stories and posts previously published by journalists and the websites from which you would like to be promoted must be checked and evaluated, so as to understand which actually make pieces related to their own business sector.

We will then ask ourselves what the sources and authors of the articles published on the portals of interest are, which websites employ external resources and in what quantity. A portal that does not publish content created by third parties, such as guest posts and interviews, will hardly make an exception even in the face of the proposal presented in the best way. It is therefore advisable to discard this type of options and focus only on websites and publishers who regularly make use of external collaborations for their content.

Before launching into the collaboration proposal, Jon recalls that it is better to have a solid relationship with the website or the journalist of reference. Therefore, the methods to build a profitable relationship for both parties prior to the proposal of contents will have to be weighed. What the startup owner must ask is: what added value can my content provide to the manager of the external web portal? If you are unable to identify any value offered by your contribution, then the link request will certainly fail.

Finally, regarding the practical drafting of the proposal for websites and publishers, Jon recommends being clear and concise. Established journalists, bloggers and web masters continuously receive a large number of collaborative proposals of the same kind, so it is essential to be noticed and stand out in the mass in a positive way. We will have to briefly explain the content we offer, trying to be original and creative, we will have to highlight the potential of the content and explicitly communicate what are the winning reasons why the offer should be taken into consideration.

The right type of link anchor

One of the main unknowns when trying to place a link on external websites is anchoring. The type and text of the anchor is at the discretion of the owner of the web portal, who may not always be willing to accept specific indications or requests. If you want to have control over the anchor, you need to run for cover and take immediate action. Users therefore wonder if a specific anchor should be indicated or optimized directly at the time of submission of the proposal to obtain the backlink, or if it is better to leave the anchor entirely to the descriptions of the owner of the host website. Is it better to allow the external site to decide how to show the backlink verbatim, or make a specific request that could dissuade the recipient?

Jon Quinton also shares these doubts, and admits that he has invested a great deal of time and resources in managing Outreach's processes to ensure he gets the best possible anchors. Lately, however, his approach has changed. Since Google implemented Penguin, an algorithm to distinguish between virtuous and negative promotional processes, Jon has decided to leave the hosting website owners complete freedom in the matter of anchoring, so as to avoid any negative repercussions on the ranking. Since the decision is shifted to an external person, the result of this approach is a mix of diversified anchor texts, which appear more natural and genuine in the eyes of Google.

Building links through infographics and videos

The new frontier of Link Building practices involves not only textual passages, but also all-round multimedia content. To strengthen the presence on the web with backlinks and mentions, more and more users are applying themselves in the creation of content that includes images, animations and music, such as infographics and videos. This type of content requires higher times and costs than the production of ordinary mainly textual contents, since they require skills in design and direction, as well as software specialized in image editing and video editing. In many cases, implementing multimedia content has proven very beneficial for Link Building,

In this regard, Jon Quinton testifies that he has obtained very positive results from the use of videos and infographics, confirming their effectiveness when used correctly. Regarding the use, based on his experience it is advisable not to implement infographics and videos impulsively, but first to reflect on how they can enrich the company website. Before proceeding with the creation of videos and infographic, we must consider the objectives that we want to achieve with the new multimedia contents, and then what are the themes that will work best in visual form. Only these reflections will allow to make a weighted decision on the formats to implement.

Jon found himself facing a similar situation during his job when he collaborated with a yoga company. In that case, the company asked for his advice to perform a complete analysis of the web marketing activity and formulate an effective SEO NYC strategy that could be followed continuously over time. In his analysis, Jon paid particular attention to content, the real key in promoting an activity like the one in question, and presented some ideas to improve its nature or the impact received by users.

In the reported case, making video content would have been absolutely appropriate and effective. For example, the company could make a video with its teachers and subscribers where to show the workouts actually carried out in class. He could go as far as creating an entire repertoire of instructional videos with which to teach people how to do yoga in the right way.

 But in that context, an infographic would not have been as efficient. How can dynamic actions be shown through static images? It simply wouldn't have worked as well because it wasn't the right format for the promoted service. Creating an infographic in an impulsive way would have led to costs comparable to those of the video, but would not have been able to communicate the message in an equally direct way, natural and engaging. The key to understanding is therefore not in the abstract format in and of itself, but in the way in which the format interacts with the company's offer and in the characteristics that best adapt to the explanation of the message and the corporate mission.