When people think of SEO, the first thought that comes to mind is keyword optimization. While there is no doubt that the element is an integral part of SEO, not everything matters. Another important factor is building relationships.
In fact, according to Social Media Today, quality links are among the top factors in Google’s algorithm. Still, over 94 percent of online content gets zero links!
Why is networking important? Well, the more links your content has, the more authoritative and credible it is in the eyes of Google. That’s why just getting links doesn’t matter. Instead, you should strive to attract quality connections so that you can take advantage of their credibility.
When it comes to building relationships, there are a number of strategies you can implement to best improve your chances of getting referrals. To understand the importance of each strategy, studying the relevant case can be useful.
Here are some of the most successful link building cases from which you can certainly learn lessons.
Case Study №1: The Experimental Adventure of David Farkas
Instead of believing that link-building cases have already been shared by various experts, David Farkas set out to assess the effectiveness of link-building by creating a website in the health niche.
The beginning
After developing the website, Farkas and the team continued to develop 26 tracks and highly optimized content within six months. However, no efforts have been made to promote or build relationships. You could say that the first six months were the “control” environment of the experiment.
After the first six months of content development, the team waited another six months to see if the website would drive traffic based on quality content alone. In short, it is not.
The next step
After a year of almost no traffic, the team decided to launch its networking campaign. Each decision is based on the answers to two questions:
- Why would other websites want to go back to my website?
- What are the content parts of my website worthy of a link?
This helped the team determine which content was most valuable to the target audience. Since the website works in the health niche, Farkas decided to use his specialty as an attraction for content – an educational resource. This allowed the content to be accurate, in-depth and therefore useful.
After creating related content, the SEO expert supplemented it with an extensive promotion campaign. Here, efforts were first made to find reputable and relevant websites that would ideally find a healthy website as a linking asset.
The results
As a result of the efforts to build links, the site witnessed a jump in organic traffic by a whopping 2000 percent! And the website is already ranked on the first page for 2245 keywords. Here is the graph that best illustrates the outstanding result of the campaign.
Source: Upper classes
Real learning strategies
To summarize, here are the link building strategies you can learn from this case study.
- Develop valuable content that is related in nature.
- Use your specialty and your niche. Doing what you know best will ensure that you sound credible.
- Do not underestimate the power of outreach. Do research and email all relevant websites to return to your site.
Case Study 2: Chris Tsitsis’s Efforts to Build Client Website Links
Chris Tsitsis, another SEO expert, helped further increase the link building efforts of a client website that operated in a business / government niche.
The beginning
Chris began with an audit of the site, which surprisingly showed promising results. It uses one of the many SEO audit tools available, which highlighted that the website has:
- Simple but clean links, with links such as directories, guest posts and PBN.
- Ranking key keywords on page 6.
- Most of the links the website had went back to the home page.
Overall, while the website had a long way to go for effective optimization, it was certainly on the right track.
The next step
The budget allocated to the relationship-building strategy is approximately $ 5,000. Since the website already had some basic links, in the first month the SEO team focused on building naturalness to make the site look more credible.
Content types include guest posts and niche edits. Again, all links were directed to the home page. This reaped favorable results in the first month. Therefore, the team decided to continue with the tactics to build relevance and authority on the home page for the next three months.
In the fourth month, the team added other less authoritative links to the mix to help diversify the anchor profile – which at the time was based mainly on branded and URL anchors.
The results
Source: Sir Links A Lot
At the end of five months, the site managed to earn the number one rank for its main keyword. In addition, thanks to the growth of its organic traffic, the site also achieved an overall SERP of number 1. Compared to other top rankings, the site achieved this feat with fewer links.
Real learning strategies
The best strategies you can manage from this case include:
- Focus on the quality, not the quantity of the links.
- Diversify the type of connections you attract to make sure you cover all the grounds.
- The link to the homepage is a great success that every website should strive for, as it increases the chances of conversion.
Case 3: Pat Aren, offering B2B to success
After researching the various SEO agencies of SaaS, the hosting provider finally knocked on the doors of Pat Aren and his team. The brand has struggled to establish its online presence and uniqueness in the face of competitors such as HostGator and GoDaddy.
The beginning
Working on a minimal budget and within a highly competitive industry, Pat Aren certainly felt that the odds were against him. However, he and his team still managed to improve the online presence of one of their clients.
The SEO team began by conducting a competitive study, which revealed the possibility of marketing content for the B2B website. Many of the target audience, more than 10,000, sought information about DDoS attacks.
Aren took this as a hint to move the main keyword from a general phrase like “web hosting” to a specific phrase like “secure web hosting.” He then optimized the content of the website and moved on to creating relevant first-class content – this laid the groundwork for their link acquisition techniques.
The next step
After optimizing the content of the website, experts began to build links to improve the feedback profile of the B2B website.
The main focus of the networking campaign was on publishing guests. The team’s authors wrote valuable content for various reputable websites and blogs to gain high-quality links that the team could control.
To establish credibility as a secure web hosting provider, the team used tools such as SEMRush and Ahrefs to identify potential content topics related to DDoS protection. The tools were also useful in finding other links that wrote credible articles on the subject.
More than 1,000 reputable websites were included in the list and a corresponding premium article on DDoS security on the B2B website was shared with each of the bloggers. Those who responded with praise were encouraged to return to the content.
The results
By promoting a first-rate article to more than 1,000 bloggers, the B2B website was able to attract more than 43 links from a total of 15 different sites. This figure does not take into account the numerous shares in the received content on social media.
Source: Inter Growth
Now the premium article is one of the most effective pages on the website, with over 700 readers per month! It also increased the average time spent on the website to four minutes.
The campaign lasted three months and increased organic traffic by more than 55 percent.
Real learning strategies
You may think that this case does not teach us any strategy for action that we have not already discussed. Well, read it again! There is a very important insight that we learn from this case.
And that’s the power to find your unique positioning and then change your efforts to build connections around it. Instead of targeting all link-building websites, these experts focused only on those involved in online security – thus ensuring that the target audience of their website was in line with that of the guest posting platform.
In addition, it also demonstrates how, in the absence of a budget, you can easily improve your links with first-class content, a convenient SEO tool and special promotion efforts.
Now it’s your turn!
Are you inspired by the three brightly different but successful cases? Gain insights from these stories and use their tried and tested effective strategies to improve your relationship building efforts.
Who knows, maybe by the end of this year, your website will be the next study of every case that any SEO expert would admire. Until then, keep building connections!