When I look at link building, like the real, no hack way of link building, it all makes sense to me. But I’m somewhat introverted and so I think my only way may be to get some super great shareable content out there that then people may link to.
However, when I found out about this other way, it really tickles my fancy. One of my favorite things to do is to help people. Though I’m an introvert, if I’m either learning or helping someone my energy skyrockets.
So what is this neat way of link building I speak of?
Broken Link Building
You essentially look for others that link to info that you, yourself provide. But find their links that aren’t valid anymore. Now, some people do this same thing with links that ARE valid and they try to persuade the website owner that their link is better in some way to get them to replace the link.
But in this concept, you’re just saying – hey you have a bad link, and I just so happen to have some great content that perfectly matches what you need, would you mind using my link?
Now, make sure that your content is fantastic, up to date, and matches. Be polite when letting the webmaster know about the page. Send them your link and see if you can help everyone in the process of shoring up your own backlinks – in a helpful way!
How to Find Broken Links
Some ways to discover pages that may have broken links would be to search for your keyword along with terms such as:
- [keyword/keyword phrase] [sites, websites, urls, resources, links]
- [keyword/keyword phrase] associated [sites, websites, urls, resources, links]
- [keyword/keyword phrase] suggested [sites, websites, urls, resources, links]
- [keyword/keyword phrase] recommended [sites, websites, urls, resources, links]
You can also use online broken link checker tools. Some of these are standalone services, some cost money, and some are included in various key research tools.
Find Links to Bad Link
Also, you can reverse engineer some of this for a more effective technique. Find a broken page and then use a keyword research tool to find out what other pages link to it. Then have a ball reaching out to the site owners and sharing your help with them.
Research Bad Link
Sometimes it helps if you can confirm what the original page offered to ensure you’re truly helping the intent of the blog owner you’re reaching out to. If you need to do that, you try to look up the page in the Internet Archive’s WaybackMachine.
Effectiveness
There is some debate as to whether or not this is a technique that has been overused already and this is less effective now. However, with the web growing by leaps and bounds every day, there’s sure to be that many more bad links, right?
Know of more? Please do share!
