Running an
SEO campaign
Learn SEO in five steps
Step three - running a campaign
When starting an SEO or content marketing campaign, you firstly need to decide what keywords and topics you are going to target. SEO can help guide the content creation process by using keyword research to reveal what people are searching for online and what opportunities exist to improve on current existing content from other brands.
There are several different stages of keyword research and content creation:
- Finding keywords and content ideas to target
- Discovering popularity of topics through search volume
- Matching keyword types and determining search intent
- Commercial value and business relevance of keywords
- Content type and organic click-through rate
- Keyword competitiveness
- Finalising and choosing keywords
- Writing content and ensuring the page is optimised
- Promoting the content and building backlinks
An SEO campaign can be focused on writing content for your entire website or focused on just one product/service category at a time.
To start creating a campaign, you can sketch out the layout of your website (or product range) to provide guidance as to how keywords and content will fit across each product category.
For example, imagine if you are part of the Marketing team for a company which sells kitchen and laundry appliances, such as dishwashers, ovens, washing machines etc. Your content approach could look like this:
You can decide to focus on keywords which are applicable to the overall category of kitchen or laundry appliances or you can focus on keywords/topic ideas which relate just to individual product categories such as dishwashers, ovens, washing machines etc.
To begin with keyword research, there are several tools available to provide keyword and content topic ideas. At this stage, you are simply creating a list of potential keywords to target. Search volume, keyword types etc will come later.
Create a spreadsheet to keep track of keywords and their suitability for your brand. In the first column, use ‘Keyword’ as the main heading. The other columns will contain details relating to search volume, ranking difficulty, suitability etc which will be added later.
When using keyword research tools, you can add as many keywords as you like to your spreadsheet but keep in mind you will need to assess the suitability of each keyword across the previously mentioned metrics (search volume etc).
To start with, keyword research will be based on main/seed keywords within the overall category/topic of kitchen appliances.
Note: this completed spreadsheet template is available to download at the end of this section.
A web page (or content piece) can rank for hundreds (even tens of thousands) of keywords which relate to your main seed/targeted keyword.. The purpose behind initial keyword research is to understand what people are broadly searching for relating to what you would like to rank for.
The actual number of visitors who view a page/content may be higher than the search volume for your specific targeted main keyword (due to hundreds of related long-tail searches).
Keyword research tools and resources:
One of the best approaches to finding content ideas is to simply use your own internal company resources such as a customer service team or use your own experiences.
Ask your internal teams what kinds of questions they continually receive from customers. Chances are, if customers are calling in then they are also searching Google for answers to these types of questions.
You can use your own experiences to think about the questions people have when dealing with your type of product or brand. For example, if customers are looking to buy a dishwasher, they most likely want to know how much water it will use, how expensive it will be to run, what is the best type of dishwashing powder to use etc.
An easy initial approach to starting keyword research is to use SEO platforms to discover what keywords your competitors are currently ranking for.
The Afrefs content gap analysis tool can help discover keywords/topics that top-ranking competitor websites are targeting but your website is missing. This will provide a list of keywords which are overly-relevant to your brand and should be an easy way to start creating content (as you likely have the same knowledge as your competitors on these content topics).
SEMRush offers a similar tool called the Keyword Gap report which shows what keywords you are targeting vs what your competitors are targeting to see if there are other opportunities. Missing keywords indicate content themes or ideas which you don’t currently have on your website.
You can also enter your website into the Ahrefs Site Explorer tool and then select ‘top pages’ on the left menu. You can use the search box to find topics related to your website/brand. The report will show which topics/questions receive the most amount of traffic but have few backlinks (i.e referring domains – RD). This shows there is demand for a topic/keyword but it may be undiscovered by other websites.
By entering a competitor’s website into the Organic Research tool, SEMRush can show their top keywords and the percentage of traffic they receive from each keyword (along with how difficult it is to also rank for that keyword). This can not only provide keyword ideas but can also help you decide which keywords are more valuable than others.
You can also use Scout from Wordtracker to scan competitor pages for their targeted keywords.
Resource
Once you have an idea of what keywords your competitors are targeting, you can move on to discovering additional keyword ideas by using a variety of tools (both free and paid). When you enter your main seed keyword(s), these tools will provide a list of additional related keywords/topic ideas.
Our main seed keyword could be ‘kitchen appliances’ or ‘kitchen renovation’ (as people generally purchase new appliances during a renovation). The below tools will provide insight into what people are searching for in relation to the seed keywords (such as the difference between gas vs induction cooktop, how to install a dishwasher, cost of a kitchen renovation etc).
SEMRush, Ahrefs and Moz all provide keyword and content/topic research tools.
SEMRush features a Keyword Magic Tool as well as a Topic Research tool (within the Content Marketing Dashboard).
Ahrefs provide keyword ideas within their Keywords Explorer function.
There are also many other resources for keyword research and analysis.
Google Keyword planner
This is one of the most popular tools in finding keyword ideas. Keyword Planner is actually a tool designed for Google Ads keyword research but is perfectly suitable for SEO research as well. The data is generally reliable as it comes directly from Google itself.
To access the Keyword Planner, log in to Google Ads and under ‘tools and settings’ select ‘planning’ to find the tool. You simply need a Gmail address to create a Google Ads account, you don’t need to be running live campaigns or have payment details set up to access Keyword Planner.
Surfside PPC has an excellent video on using the full features of the Google Keyword Planner for SEO keyword research.
Video
Similar to Google Keyword Planner, Uber Suggest provides keyword and content ideas.
Soovle consolidates search results from various search engines into one place and gives keyword/content ideas across different websites.
SpyFu is a competitor PPC research tool which also provides insight into SEO keywords competitors are targeting.
This tool shows what people are discussing and searching for when researching a particular topic. This is one of the best SEO tools available and is excellent for longer-tail keywords.
This is a market research tool to ask customers how they search for your type of business. This can help show unknown keywords which competitors aren’t targeting.
There are dozens of additional keyword research tools. Simply search Google for some additional tools if you would like to find additional keyword ideas beyond what the above tools can offer.
You can also use non-standard techniques, such as the autocomplete feature, to find keyword extra keyword ideas.
Google autocomplete
When typing search queries (particularly long-tail), you can use Google autocomplete to find what people are searching for related to your initial/seed keyword.
You can also use the ‘people also ask’ and ‘similar searches’ information within the search results.
Google search tabs (e.g. images) and YouTube autocomplete
Similar to Google autocomplete, search tabs provide additional content ideas.
Message boards and forums for discussion topics
You can also use online forums, message boards and community-based Q&A websites to find questions and topics people are searching for.
If people are asking questions on these sites, most likely it’s because they couldn’t find the information on Google. This provides a good opportunity to be the first to create, or improve upon existing insufficient, content.
Google Analytics and Search Console
You can use Analytics to find the most popular pages on your website (via the Behaviour report) to then create content around those topics. For example, you may find category A is more popular than category B so content around this category type may naturally gain more traffic.
You can also review existing blogs to see what qualities make up your most popular articles such as content length, use of images, external links, referring websites etc. You can replicate these qualities for future content.
You can also use Search Console to find keywords and increase organic traffic coming to your website:
From the Performance report, download current queries (with clicks and impressions). Sort the impressions from highest to lowest. This will show keywords which your website is currently ranking for (i.e. Google considers your site to be authoritative enough to rank for these keywords).
If you don’t currently have content for these keywords, you can start developing new resources which should pick up traffic quickly as your website already ranks for these keywords.
Video
Trends reveal the popularity of a topic over time which helps decide whether a topic is trending upwards or downwards.
If a topic is trending up and you create content before everyone else, you may enjoy an eventual large spike in traffic. However, if you create content on a topic which is falling out of popularity, it’s just a matter of time before searches (and resulting traffic) drops. Generally, you want to choose topics which have a stable history so you can bring sustainable traffic to your site over the long term.
Similar to Google Trends – this tool will show new keywords/topics trending up
Google Alerts can set up automated emails when a topic starts trending or is mentioned online. A topic may not have enough search volume currently, but if there’s indication it may start trending then a content plan can be developed.
You can also use this tool to keep an eye on competing content which is related to your targeted topics/keywords.
Search volume:
Once you have a list of potential keywords to target, note them down in the spreadsheet. Add a smaller column next to the first which will contain a rating of how suitable the keyword is for your business. For example, a rating of 1 would indicate the keyword is a poor fit (i.e. doesn’t match your products/services) whilst a 10 would mean a perfect match.
Once keywords have been entered, you can start looking at how many people are actually searching for these keywords/topics each month.
Add ‘search volume’ to the next column of your keyword research spreadsheet.
Tip
Remember, if you create content (no matter how good) around topics nobody is searching for, there will be minimal traffic to your website.
Consider the competitiveness of short-tail and long-tail keywords when assessing search volume. Shorter-tail keywords will have much higher search volume, but much higher competition than longer-tail keywords.
If you have a smaller website, focus on topics built-on longer-tail keywords as you may not be able to compete with larger competitors for more popular terms.
Similar to keyword research, there are various tools available for finding keyword search volume.
Google Keyword Planner:
You can enter your selected keywords/phrases directly into the Keyword Planner to find monthly search volume figures.
An alternative tool to the traditional Google Keyword Planner.
SEO platform tools (Moz, SEMRush, Ahrefs etc) all provide keyword search volume insights.
Keyword types and search intent:
Once you have a list of keywords and associated search volume figures, add a third column to your spreadsheet named ‘keyword type’ to assign a category for each keyword.
Informational
Navigational
Commercial
Transactional
If you’re unsure what category your keyword(s) fall into, you can enter the keyword into a Google search and view the results. Blog-based pages would be more informational whilst sales-based pages would be more commercial/transactional.
You can also use SEMRush to enter the keyword and view the resulting intent classification.
By assigning keyword types, you are able to understand the search intent behind each keyword (i.e. what is the searcher hoping to achieve when they search for this keyword?).
This is an important step to take as this is how you can apply SEO content to the entire customer journey.
You want your brand to be present when users first start to research a topic (through an informational keyword). When they are considering between options, you want content focused around commercial-based keywords. Transactional keywords help guide how to structure your product and purchase pages.
Tip
At the transactional stage, SEO doesn’t necessarily relate to creating comprehensive written content. You can focus on content which helps promote the features and benefits of your products such as large images, videos, easy-to-understand specification/feature lists etc.
You also want to focus on maximising the user experience and making the purchase experience as enjoyable as possible. This can include making it easy to select product options, enter shipping details, having a quick checkout process etc.
Add another column, suitability, to your spreadsheet. This will outline how suitable the keyword is to target from a business perspective. Will these users/searches end up becoming customers?
Commercial value and business relevance of keywords:
Add another column to your spreadsheet – commercial value. This reflects how valuable the traffic coming from specific keywords will be to your website/business.
Informational-based keywords will send users who are just starting to learn about a topic (i.e. they are not close to purchasing). Comparison and transaction-based keyword traffic will send users who are much more likely to purchase and are hence greater value to a business.
It’s important to create content across each keyword type and user journey stage. If you’re targeting only informational based keywords, traffic may never eventuate into sales. As you only have a limited amount of time to create content, focus needs to be directed more towards keywords/content which will result in new customers and sales rather than general advice-based content.
The SEMRush Domain Overview report can provide insight into the current breakdown of intent-driven keywords for a website.
Ahrefs provides ‘organic traffic value’ insights (within the Site Explorer tool) to show how valuable organic traffic is to a website (i.e. if the business had been targeting these keywords through paid ads, how much would they pay for the traffic).
You can use Google Keyword Planner to find the average cost-per-click of each keyword which will reveal the commercial value of each keyword (i.e. how valuable it may be to your business). The greater the commercial value, the higher the CPC will be.
When it comes to assessing the business relevance of keywords, take into consideration Google’s EAT principle. Expertise, Authoritativeness and Trust are key metrics Google considers when assessing content and whether or not a website is suitable to be providing certain information.
Imagine if you are a home builder and, through keyword research, you discover users are searching for financial topics (e.g. how to apply for a mortgage) during their customer journey. Financial keywords are somewhat related to your business but is your website focused on providing financial advice and help?
This type of content would be better suited to more relevant and knowledgeable websites within the financial industry, such as banks and mortgage brokers. As your website is not as authoritative on the subject of finance as these other sites, even if you create great content, you may have trouble ranking.
Content type and organic click-through rate:
Now it’s time to determine how content is presented within the search results for each keyword. Simply enter your keyword/search term into Google to find what content formats are presented. Are the results all website-based (e.g. blogs), videos, local listings, featured snippets etc.
You can also use the Keyword Explorer tool within Ahrefs to view the SERP overview report for each keyword.
In your spreadsheet, add another column ‘content type’ and note down the content format shown in the search results for each keyword.
Content type can also provide an indication in to the search intent behind users search queries (i.e. what are they trying to achieve).
Content may be provided in a blog format but is it a comprehensive guide, a dot point list, a step-by-step tutorial with images and videos etc? Is the existing content aimed at beginners (i.e. written in simple, easy to understand language) or more advanced users (e.g. use of jargon and complex examples)? How can your content fit with what users are searching for and hoping to achieve?
Next, add another column titled ‘Organic click-through rate’. As mentioned in the SEO Planning section, search volume is important but the actual click-through rate from the search results is also an important consideration.
Search results can be made up of featured snippets, map listings, videos, ‘people also ask’ questions etc. If users enter a keyword and find an answer from a featured snippet, there’s no need to click on an organic result. So even if a keyword has strong search volume, there needs to be a corresponding high organic CTR to ensure traffic will come to your website.
You can use the Moz Keyword overview report to view organic click-through rate for each keyword.
Keyword competitiveness
Once you have added organic CTR to each entry, you can move on to understanding how difficult it will be to rank for each keyword (i.e. competitiveness).
You can use the Moz keyword overview report again which shows the likelihood (e.g. difficulty) of being able to rank for a certain keyword. This will take into consideration your website’s domain authority and the DA of websites currently ranking in the search results for a particular keyword.
You can also use Ahref’s Keywords Explorer tool, to view keyword difficulty.
Tip
Different platforms may provide varying degrees of accuracy when providing insights and results. Search volume and difficulty for the same keyword can sometimes vary between SEMRush, Ahrefs, Moz etc
The Chrome extension (MozBar) will allow you to view the Page Authority and Domain Authority of web pages in the SERP’s (i.e. shows the minimum levels you need to compete with the top websites).
Page authority can be a major factor Google considers which ranking websites. High PA webpages can be difficult to outrank but if the top results for a selected keyword is made up of low PA results, this can be a good opportunity.
Your spreadsheet will now look like this:
Next, start reviewing the content on the current ranking websites for your keywords. Can you create better content than what’s existing? Is the current content thin, fluffy and provides little value or is it comprehensive, detailed and useful?
If you can’t create content which is much better than what’s already ranking (especially if it’s from a strong DA website), you’ll have little chance of ranking highly for your selected keyword(s).
Selecting keywords:
Now you have a list of keywords and related columns to help determine how suitable they are to target. In the last column of the spreadsheet, use the SUM function to add up the ratings across each column.
Now you can sort the rating column from largest to smallest to find which keywords are the most suitable to create content for.
Keywords may have a high rating as there is strong search volume (with a high organic CTR), a positive match to what you business offers, strong commercial/purchase intent, a suitable content format (e.g. a blog post), low keyword difficulty and existing content is poor which is easy to improve upon.
Alternatively some keywords will have a low rating as they may be too informational (i.e. low chance of users becoming customers), high keyword difficulty or existing content is very difficult to outperform.
Remove any keywords which you feel are not suitable for your brand, too competitive, too challenging to create valuable content for etc.
When creating the keyword suitability spreadsheet, we were focussed on selecting keywords which were focussed on the overall category of kitchen appliances (opposed to individual product categories such as dishwashers, ovens, cooktops etc).
Suitable keywords can now be categorised across each type and stage of the customer journey. For example, informational keywords for when people are at the awareness stage, commercial-based keywords when people are at the consideration stage etc.
This provides a content plan for different types of content which can be created at each stage of the customer journey. By using keyword research as the basis for deciding content topics, you’re giving yourself the best chance of creating content which will attract traffic, rather than just sitting on the website undiscovered (or on the tenth page of Google).
Depending on how many keywords are in your spreadsheet, you may have enough to generate a years’ worth of content creation. Once you have a better idea of content which can be created for each keyword/topic, you can add these items to a content calendar which provides dates for creating, refining and publishing content.
Imagine if, instead of focussing on a broad category, you decided to focus on an individual product type for keyword research and content creation. If you decided to create content around washing machines, your content plan may look like this:
By using keyword research and evaluation, you are able to find the long-tail search queries/keywords highlighted in blue. From here you can start creating content pieces (highlighted in orange) for each keyword across each intent-type.
Below you can download the keyword suitability spreadsheet which includes the above content plan/structure.
Resource
Planning content and maximising the user experience:
Once you have a keyword list/content plan in place, it’s time to start researching and writing content.
When you start researching topics which relate to your keywords, think about providing as much value to your readers as possible. Understand why someone would be searching for those keywords and what they are looking to get out of the resulting content.
Ensure your content helps answer a question, solve a problem or improve their situation. The more help you provide, the more valuable the perceived quality of your content will be.
Content shouldn’t exist to act as an advertising piece for your business. Many companies mention their brand name on every second line and fill their content pieces with popups requesting users to contact them or sign up for their email list.
Use your content to demonstrate the competence, expertise and knowledge of your brand. When people purchase, they face the risk of having the items/services underperform or not meet their expectations. By demonstrating your knowledge through content, you provide people with peace of mind, knowing if they choose to use your business, they will receive a high-quality end product.
By solving a problem or providing value through content, you are building a sense of trust with readers. Use your content to create the demand for your products and services rather than directly trying to promote your brand. This non-promotional approach of using content to create demand for your brand is explained in greater detail in the ‘Planning a Digital Strategy’ section.
Once you have finished researching topics and deciding how you can provide value to readers (and outperform existing content from competitors), you can begin thinking about the layout of your content.
You can use the SEO Content Template feature from SEMRush which provides guidelines for creating SEO friendly content, including semantically related keywords, possible backlink opportunities etc. This feature also provides a list of websites which are already ranking well for the specified keywords (i.e. so you can review and produce better content).
Readability and user experience needs to be the focus of the content layout – easy to skim and understand. Subheadings, bullets, images (optimised for web), videos etc all help to break up the page and improve the user experience.
H1 (main title), H2 (subheading) and H3 (subheading) title tags are used to provide structure to an article or webpage. Heading structure helps both users and Google understand what an article is about. When searching for SEO keywords you can type ‘allintitle: keyword’ into Google and it will show how many websites have that keyword/phrase in it’s H1 title tag.
When brainstorming headline ideas for content articles, you can use a useful tool from Coschedule:
Resource
After deciding layout and structure, you can decide on-page SEO optimisation such as:
- Keyword placement (keyword in URL, title, first 100 words, above the fold and in content where relevant)
- Correct use of H1, H2 and H3 heading tags.
- Page loading speed and mobile friendliness (image sizes optimised for web, not cut off etc)
- Simple URL structure for article page.
- Internal and external links (helps add value to users by providing more content)
Video
An internal linking structure (i.e. pages which link to other pages on the website) is an important aspect of SEO as it makes crawling easier for Google and provides a better user experience (i.e. providing more information). When planning an article, decide what other pages are relevant and integrate these links throughout the article.
Linking to newer less popular pages from well-established popular pages can help pass ‘link juice’ to the weaker performing pages. This is known as the authority transfer technique and can help increase smaller page rankings and visitors.
Resource
Using the Ahrefs feature under ‘Pages > Best by links’ will show the most popular pages on your website. You want to place a link on the main popular pages directing to newer weaker pages (providing they are relevant) to help provide an initial boost for the page.
Linking out to external websites also helps improve SEO performance. Additional links help provide more information for users and also indicates to Google that your website is participating in the online community. These external links also help establish the topical relevance of your website based on the external websites you link to.
Using multimedia
Adding video to a content piece page can help users stay on a page longer. This can send positive user experience signals to Google (i.e. time spent on page) whilst also providing more value to users.
When images are used throughout your website or content piece, they need to be optimised for web use. This means the file size is not too large (so it loads quickly) and images make use of alt tags. These tags describe what an image is about if a page doesn’t load correctly (and the image doesn’t show). The tags also help Google develop a better understanding of what the image (and page) is about.
Writing the content:
Writing the content will merge keyword analysis, customer questions, thorough research and a clear solution/discussion into one easy-to-read comprehensive article.
When writing, you want to be detailed and useful but you also need to ensure articles are easy to understand. The general benchmark for ensuring readability is writing at a level which a grade 8 student would understand. This level ensures the presence of jargon and complexity are kept to a minimum so you can maintain the attention of your users.
Resource
Best practices when creating content include:
Follow the AIDA concept
Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. Use a strong headline (which includes your main keyword near the front) and meta description to attract people to read the article. Gain their interest by showing it’s relevant to what they are searching for. As they initially skim the article, subheadings and dot points will point out the key areas which will encourage them to read fully.
If the article appears relevant to their needs and is comprehensive enough to provide value (not fluff), they’ll likely take the time to read fully and click across to other parts of your website.
Use key headings and ensure content is easy to understand
Avoid using technical industry jargon and make it clear what your article is discussing. Be comprehensive but don’t try to fit multiple unrelated topics into the one blog. Have a clear purpose (i.e. answering a customer question) and answer.
Adding title modifiers (e.g. complete list, definitive guide, best in 2022 etc) can be a quick way of increasing traffic to a page/article. Having a higher CTR in search results (from an attractive title) can help the page rank higher in future.
Use short paragraphs and dot points
Whilst articles need to be comprehensive, large blocks of text put people off (especially online). Communicate key points via headings, subheadings and dot points so they are easily picked up as people initially skim.
Keep important content above the fold
Use the H1 heading and the first paragraph to reveal the solution and outcome your article will provide. Use the core of the article to outline research and reasons on why the solution was recommended. Don’t slowly build up to a solution as people will quickly lose interest and click away.
Ensuring content is optimised for both Google and website visitors
Once a new page/content piece has been created, you can use the on-page SEO checker tool from SEMRush to develop ideas and tips for improving the on-page SEO experience.
You can enter the selected keywords and relevant page and SEMRush will provide advice on how to best optimise the page for the target keywords. Tips can include strategy ideas, backlink ideas, technical SEO ideas, user experience ideas (connects to Google Analytics for bounce rates, time spent on page etc), SERP features ideas, semantic ideas and content ideas.
You can also use the Content Template feature which will provide advice around readability, originality, tone-of-voice, SEO etc.
Meta titles and descriptions:
Once your content piece has been finalised, you need to create the meta title (60 characters) and meta description (155 characters) for the new page. These will both show in the Google search results and will help users understand what the page/article is about.
Meta descriptions do not directly impact SEO (i.e. they are not a direct ranking signal) but they can significantly impact upon the click-through rate from the search results. Organic click-through rate is a consideration Google makes when assessing a website (i.e. when people see the website in the search results, is it relevant enough to their query that they click).
Including the relevant keyword(s) in the title and description can help users immediately identify that the page is relevant to what they are searching for.
Google does, however, rewrite meta descriptions 63% of the time so not a huge amount of emphasis needs to be placed on ensuring everything is absolutely perfect in your titles/descriptions.
You want to use your keyword as close to the front of the title tag as possible (ideally as the first word if it makes sense). The goal of a meta description is to explain how a user will benefit from viewing the page content – what do they get out of it?
Note: meta descriptions will be required for every page of your website, not just content pages.
Reviewing Google Search Ads to find the best performing ads (from a CTR perspective) can form a basis for writing enticing meta titles and descriptions.
You can also use the Domain Overview report within SEMRush to find copy which competitors are using within their Google Search ads.
Promoting the content
Many brands make the mistake of creating content but fail to realise promotion is just as important. Whilst SEO content will eventually start attracting visitors from Google, this traffic will take time to build up.
The importance of backlinks:
Backlinks to a website are one of the most important aspects to SEO. Backlinks provide Google with an indication as to the quality and trustworthiness of a site (if a site offers no value, no other website will link to it). Building backlinks/referring domains (as an ongoing process) is considered by many to be the most important aspect to successful SEO.
You may notice certain websites rank highly within Google search results, however little content appears on the site. Most likely, these sites have a strong backlink profile with hundreds of thousands (even millions) of backlinks and referring domains. This is common for major brands who already have strong brand awareness and invest heavily in other marketing channels, such as TV, print, radio as well as online.
Google considers, and often prioritises, larger brands within search results and will show content from larger, more well-known brands above smaller websites. Branded search (when a user searches for a brand name + their search query), helps Google determine which websites are home to well known brands.
Once valuable content has been created, you have something to share with other websites online. Your content can help improve the user experience of visitors on other sites, so you want to reach out to those sites to see if they will link to your brand/content.
Passive link building is about focussing on building content, allowing it to rank and then having other websites naturally link to it (i.e. it offers value) rather than reaching out directly. Whilst this approach helps build trust with Google (i.e. knowing links have been naturally acquired and have not been paid for) the process can be long and slow.
Building backlinks (or more specifically, the number of referring domains) needs to be an ongoing process, not just for new content pieces but for your website as a whole.
Backlink outreach has become such a large industry there are now entire professions who focus solely on SEO backlink building.
Many large authoritative sites now understand the value backlinks can provide (i.e. by helping a website appear higher in the search results and attracting more customers). These larger, higher DA websites recognise the value their websites can provide to smaller sites and will charge a fee in order to place a link on their site.
This is not necessarily considered buying links, but is more a form of ‘digital PR’ (i.e. instead of paying a magazine to have the brand mentioned in an article, the brand/link now appears on a relevant website).
Video
How to build backlinks to your content piece and website:
Moz’s ‘Link Explorer’ tool allows you to compare the link profiles of two websites (e.g. number of links, quality of links, referring domains DA etc). This can provide insight into which websites competitors appear on which may also be relevant for your brand.
The backlink analytics tool from SEMRush provides competitor research into where they have acquired their backlinks from. These can be relevant sites which may be interested in linking to your website.
You can also use the SEMRush Link Building resources to develop a better understanding of the linking profiles of other sites and why they may be outranking your site.
When earning backlinks, websites with a high DA and trust score can be the best (but most difficult) backlinks to acquire. During initial SERP competitor research, we reviewed the top ten websites appearing in the search results for certain keywords. These first page results have been deemed by Google to be the most useful and authoritative on those keyword topics.
Receiving backlinks from these top-ranking topic-specific web pages can be the best types of backlinks to acquire. For example, searching for ‘workout routines for weight loss’ may show a result from BodyBuilding.com – this would be a highly relevant high DA website for a weight loss website to try to receive a backlink from. Some of these top ranking pages, however, will be direct competitors so you need to be selective regarding who you contact.
You can also build backlinks by contacting websites which have mentioned your brand but haven’t provided a link to the website. Search Google for your brand/website by using the search query: Your Brand Name -site:yourbrand.com.au. This will show all websites (other than your main site) which mention the brand but may not have provided a link.
You can also use the Ahrefs Content Explorer tool to achieve the same outcome but in an easier way.
In the search bar, type (“Your Brand”)-site:yourbrand.com.au. On the results page, check the box ‘one article per domain’ then ‘highlight unlinked domains’ and enter domain name (yourbrand.com.au).
Webpages highlighted in yellow have mentioned your brand but haven’t linked to the site. Click the ‘Export’ button and export only highlighted domains.
By using the SEMRush link building tool you can enter keywords to find related websites which may be relevant to sharing your brand. The tool can also be used on competitor websites to view their backlink sources. Once a suitable partner website is found, several outreach options are available including:
- General
- Manual link
- Directory/catalogue
- Add link to article
- Product review
- Link from mention
- Guest post
You can also use the Brand Monitoring tool to listen for brand mentions of your brand name and specific keywords. You can then find websites which have mentioned your brand and add them to the link building tool for future outreach.
Organically promoting your content across Social Media won’t count as a follow backlink but can bring people to your site who can then send on-page signals to Google (e.g. bounce rate, time spent on page etc).
There are dozens of methods of building backlinks. A good resource to learn how to build quality backlinks is Backlinko’s definitive guide to backlinks. The guide also provides several outreach templates you can use when contacting sites for a backlink.
Resource
One of the best approaches to building a strong backlink profile is to use the Skyscraper technique.
This approach, developed by Brian Dean (founder of Backlinko), involves reviewing existing popular content pieces (which have now been linked to from a large number of sites) and making something even better.
Once you develop improved content, you can reach out to both the existing referring domains (linking to the original content) as well as any other relevant sites who may be interested in the content type.
Resource
When searching for existing content pieces which have already built up a strong profile of referring domains, you can use the Content Explorer tool from Ahrefs.
Video
This concludes step three of learning SEO (running a campaign). In step four (measurement), we’ll cover how to use Google Analytics, Search Console, Data Studio and more to measure the success of SEO campaigns.
Learn digital marketing in five steps
