A Modern Guide to Non-Spammy Link Building

Link building. Did you just groan too?

Most people who are involved in digital marketing in some capacity are painfully aware that they should be doing link building of some sort. (“But I don’t wanna!”) Even the most accomplished SEO strategists aren’t fans of this task. The hard part is developing a WHITE HAT strategy that:

• Doesn’t come across as spammy and needy to those you reach out to and
• Isn’t a total pain in the rear end to execute.

Let’s try to take some of the sting out of link building with an effective, non-spammy plan to establish authentic relationships with brands that are going enhance your visibility. For more expert guidance from an Edmonton SEO company, schedule a free consultation with Smart WSI Marketing today.

What is Link Building?

Link building is a strategic process where a brand such as yours contacts another website, a blogger, an influencer, or a content creator with the goal of creating connections between your brands and increasing your credibility and visibility.

The more often your website is linked to by related businesses and brands, the more discoverable and reputable your business becomes online. Links from other businesses are like a vote of confidence, or like the business is vouching for you to the search engines. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen without effort as often as we’d like. Like, next to never.

That’s why you need to have a strategy in place to ask other businesses for links and make connections.

Reach Out and Say Hello

It seems rather strange that in such an automated landscape that the only tried and true way to get valuable links is to reach out with an email and ask another human to establish a connection! By today’s standards, that seems archaic and time consuming, but honestly, that is it!

Well, maybe there is a little more to it than that. There has to be some finesse in how you craft and approach the emails you send out, or they will end up in the recipient’s junk folder, unopened. We all know how easy it is to ignore an email you just don’t want to read.

Approach with Self-Assurance

Approach your outreach emails with confidence. You need to believe that you have something to offer when you make a connection rather than a meek, “please be my friend” approach. You’re also, obviously, an expert in your field! A link between your website and the one you are reaching out to will be mutually beneficial, and you know it. Don’t be arrogant, of course! Just don’t forget that you also have something to offer to the other party’s audience.

Crafting your Email

The parts of your email all have important jobs to do to get the other party’s attention and consider linking to your business.

•  The subject line grabs your readers attention and introduces the emails content.
•  Headers in the email should be scannable and give a preview of the content in the body of the email.
•  Also, a sneak peek of the value they gain by being linked to you.
•  The body is the meat and potatoes of your email. This is where you really get into what you bring to the table and how establishing a connection with your brand is mutually beneficial to the business you want a link from.

Don’t Get Left on Read

So, you’ve worked up the nerve to send an email and ask for a link. Here are some other elements to include in your email to increase your chances of getting a response.

•  When you are talking about your expertise, relate it to something that is currently trending or that fits the news cycle. If you aren’t relevant, your chances of getting a response are pretty low!
•  Frame your expertise in a way that is unique to you. You need to make your business stand out among the throngs of emails asking for links. You know that you have something to offer, so be sure to showcase what sets you apart.
•  Make sure that your email is tailored to your recipient! Not only should your emails be personalized, but they should also match your target audience’s knowledge level and their needs. You’re trying to prove that partnering with you is going to benefit with them. It needs to be framed in a way that they can relate to and understand. If you come in with technical language that is way too over their heads, they aren’t going to understand it. If your language is too simple and “dumbed down,” they aren’t going to see you as a worthy partner either.

Following Up

Sometimes you have to be a little persistent. Here’s some tips from SEO strategists on how to do it with out being annoying!

• When you send a follow up email, be sure to address common obstacles, such as dealing with a busy schedule, and trust and relevancy issues.
• Offer a fresh perspective on content or a new concept when you follow up. This gives the other party something else to think about that you can offer their customers. Remember, you are an authority on the subject in question!
• To stay on their radar and build familiarity, engage with the other brand’s social media content as well, but don’t be generic about it. Leave insightful comments about the content that show you actually read it and have something to say about it. Offering praise without specifics is empty and won’t help your cause.

Keep Track

Now, these are all tips for tracking down and securing one link. But, you don’t want one link! You want many links! Which means you need to do this many times over and reach out to many businesses! You need a way to keep track of all the connections you are making so you can keep them all straight, and don’t keep hounding the same businesses.

Much like email outreach seems like a dated method, SEO strategists employ another good old classic here: the spreadsheet. Though spreadsheets may be the bane of some people’s existence, when properly managed, they are an amazing tool for keeping track of all of your outreach efforts. In a relatively simple spreadsheet, you can record all of the businesses you’ve reached out to, the responses you’ve gotten, how many times you’ve followed up, and any other pertinent information. Sometimes you may simply hear “no.” Your spreadsheet is a place to keep track of this as well, so you don’t bug them again. Annoying someone into giving you a link is rarely a successful strategy.

What’s the Point?!

You may be thinking “but I’ve seen an ad that says I can buy links! Several! For cheap!” Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? It is. It always is. Check out the blog we posted just a few months ago for all of the reasons why buying links are not worth your while.

Those links you can purchase are going to link you to a business that is in no way relevant to your business. Which tanks your credibility, and your SEO. Consider it this way:

Hector has a sweet little business in Edmonton that sells hockey memorabilia, Cross-Check Collectibles, but he knows that he needs some links to really bump up his online presence and his Edmonton SEO. He falls for one of those ads that tells him he can get several links for a very small investment. But now Cross-Check Collectibles is linked to several businesses in languages he doesn’t speak. Using Google translate, he has learned that they’re a few nail salons and laundromats in the Philippines. Why would those businesses vouch for him? That doesn’t really make his little Edmonton hockey collectible shop seem all that credible!

When you purchase links, there is no way to guarantee the quality of the links. You have no way to know who you are forming a connection with, which is really the goal of link building!

Google Wants You to Work for It

Google wants you to work for your links and earn them. Buying your links is cheating their system, and Google is not here for that. They will find you out and penalize you. Not only are the links available for purchase most likely garbage quality that will actually hinder your online presence in the longer run rather than help you, but buying your links can actually have legal ramifications too! Learn more about that in our May 2024 blog.

Making Meaningful Connections

Though the phrase makes me cringe, we are living in a very digital world where everything is so automated. It is kind of refreshing that the best way to carry out such an impactful task is to ask another person to make a connection and make a link almost as manually as possible in this age.

Now that you know why you have to put in the work to build links and make meaningful connections, we hope our guide gives you a place to get started! For more digital marketing solutions, call Smart WSI Marketing, Edmonton’s SEO company, to schedule a consultation today.

Lynne Motkoski, Marketing Strategist

Specialty: Online Marketing Strategies
Education: MA Communications & Technology, BComm [U Alberta]
Author: The Online Marketing Handbook for Busy Entrepreneurs (coming soon)

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Lynne is known for her strategic approach to marketing communications, technologies, and lead generation. She has a passion for education, keeping up with current marketing trends and practices, and helping clients keep ahead of their competition.

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