Help with a Link Building Audit

[Maximilian21]

A customer wants to have a better position with a keyword (he has already a great position, but he wants more...). So he need a bit of extra link building to have better position in serp(this niche is very competitive so on page is not sufficient).
He asked me to do a Link Building Analysis to find good link opportunities.
How can i structure a good report? I need something like a Seo Audit for link building.

That's my idea:
Identify what are the business objectives
Identify the brand strenghts and weakness
Find the strongest competitors and understand their tactics
See what are the top links that they have
Copy their best strategies
Find new strategies not used by the competitors
What else i can do for my link building audit?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

I only say this because I don't want you banking on acquiring links as the only way to boost ratings - there is SO much more that goes into increasing rankings than acquiring links - ultimately those tactics acquire links themselves. I put my thoughts below.

Your process should be:

• Identify business goals and objectives

• Align with customer and target audience goals (build a Venn Diagram)

• What unique value do you provide?

• Now, how do you best relay that value?

• Identify industry trends

• News

• Seasonalities

• Conferences

• etc.

• Identify content / content types that get the most traction

• Topics & variations

• Videos

• Images

• Guides

• How tos

• Blog

• etc.

• Create an online experience that caters to your target audience needs & goals

• Create an online experience that is dconsistent with your business voice and tone

• Distribute content where your audience is

• Social

• Partnership opportunities

• Business listings

• Email

• Blogs

• Set benchmarks to track progress

• Landing pages

• Time on site

• Bounce rates

• CTR

• Rankings

• Impressions

• Conversion rates

• Check OSE, GWT, and Majestic to track links acquired

• Use Moz Analytics and GWT to track rankings

• Rinse and repeat

I understand the desire to acquire links and boost your rankings, but you have to acquire links in a natural and organic process. You also have to remember that your website is completely different than your competitors. If you copy their strategies and links, are you really separating your yourself from them and offering unique value? Remember, you don't want to be the best, you want to be the ONLY. Everyone can claim to be the "best", but copying strategies don't get you there.

The only way you can find new strategies is by learning who you are as a company, who your audience is, building & distributing content that speaks to your targets, and measuring & tweaking your process to more fully fulfil needs and goals.

I would read the following resources as well**:**

• Content Audit - https://moz.com/blog/content-audit-tutorial
• Link Audit - http://searchenginewatch.com/sew/how-to/2207168/how-to-conduct-a-link-audit
• Link Removals & Risk Mitigation - https://moz.com/blog/link-audit-guide-for-effective-link-removals-risk-mitigation
• Competitive Analysis - https://moz.com/blog/illustrated-seo-competitive-analysis-workflow

Find where the industry and competitors are missing the mark and hit it yourself. Fill the gaps and the links will come to you!

Hope this all makes sense and helps. Let me know if you have any questions or need any help. Good luck!

[Maximilian21]

Thank you Patrick! Your advice is very helpful! I need some explanations, if you can help me you will have my eternal gratitude

My issues with that strategy is this:

1. My customer know very little about Seo, he thinks that having a bunch of extra link is sufficient to boost the rankings...the strategy that you proposed need other persons (a social media manager, a content marketer etc.) and i'm sure that he are mentally ready to pay so much

2. My niche is particular (=is a niche of automotive). It's not easy to earn natural links for this niche. Because the majority of blogs of rental in my country is owned by competitors, and i suspect that many customers pay also to have their brand mentioned on the autoritative sites of our indutry to pay to have your brand mentioned in automotive blogs...so you can image that is not easy to create a link earning strategy.

3. So i need to interview my customer to gain information. What information i have to know from him?

[calindaniel]

Hi Maximillian21,

I am going to echo much of what Patrick has already shared, I believe he provided excellent resources for you to follow. However, I wanted to address the three points in your second message.

1. I think any SEO consultant can attest to the fact that a large part of our job is education. If your client believes building a bunch of links is the only solution to building better rankings I would suggest taking a moment to educate him/her. Believe me when I say this will save you the headache down the road if the singular link building strategy doesn't have the desired result.

2. Earning links in any niche is difficult, especially today. As a service provider, it's a challenge to tie your services directly to the quantity of links you acquire. It's also, in my opinion, not the best long term strategy for you or the client. Link building is fickle. In some cases, a few directory submissions can have a positive impact on your rankings. In other case, even the most authoritative links seemingly do very little.

As Patrick alluded to, by layering other services, such as content marketing and social, you provide additional exposure for the business, traffic to the website and value in the services you provide. It's a challenge to be sure, however, I would be hesitant to initiate an SEO campaign that is focused purely on rankings, without at least considering content and social.

In this day and age, most people on the Q & A forum will recommend a holistic approach to an SEO campaign.

3. I believe your original list and the additional details provided by Patrick will serve you well.

A few additional questions I would include:

• What differentiates your business from your competitors (you may find a few gold nuggets you can use in content)
• Do you have resources, media, graphics, etc (can you quickly build resources from existing content).
• What are your customer's main pain points (can you build something to solve this problem).
• Do you have any partnerships, sponsorships or memberships that could provide a backlink (this tends to be low hanging fruit)?
• Where do your customers hang out online? (are there popular forums where you could distribute your content).

These are just a few additional ideas. Best of luck with your project.

[PatrickDelehanty]

Great stuff Calin!!!

[Maximilian21]

Thank you Calin! Great answer!