Our recent webinar, Agency Hacks 2, included some of our most stellar secrets and favorite link building tactics:
Skip to a section by following our play-by-play below:
2:03 – Webinar Goals
3:05 – Hack #1: We Clearly Define Roles
4:48 – The Link Building Team Lineup
5:48 – The Link Strategist
This person needs to know what opportunities exist and what assets are available. And needs to understand what link volume opportunity may look like. Has to have their finger on the entire pulse of the campaign, but also brainstorms the initial campaign itself.
9:00 – The Link Prospector & Qualifier
You’re really looking for link opportunities or pages that would link to your content. It’s someone who’s highly capable of searching Google.
People talk about link building & relationship building – when you’re prospecting you can find potential opportunities.
12:06 – The Content Creator
They marry a topic with a client’s area of interest or focus. This person takes a spec, or creates a spec, and turns it into content.
15:50 – The Contact Finder
The scale at which you’re executing will determine if this is a small job or big job. At Citation Labs, we don’t trust WhoIs data, so we use a human team.
17:32 – The Outreach Manager
Makes sure the emails go out, and closes campaigns loops. She or he can help get you data on campaign feedback.
19:32 – The Reason Why We Call This Team a “Hack”
What we see is that link building gets passed off to the SEO team & they’re expected to build links in a magical vacuum.
20:30 – Hack #2: Seasons Change; We Use Them
21:11 – Seasonality Helps You Brainstorm
With a calendar in place, you can better prepare yourself for the seasonality effect.
And seasonal content is still evergreen.
You can earn more links with seasonal content; when you’re outreaching, you’re connecting in a more meaningful way.
24:09 – Planning For Seasons Examples (in the News!)
When you have planned link building well enough, you can be spontaneous.
Email justification = why are you in my inbox?
27:49 – Content Calendars + Mission = Relevant Outreach
31:00 Hack #3: Plan for Experimentation
We have a very “let’s try it” attitude on the agency side.
32:10 – Know all the rules, then deliberately experiment with their opposites.
Go back and read your favorite link builder’s stuff – Garrett French (of course!), Eric Ward, Brian Dean, Jon Cooper, Ross Hudgens, Linkerati, Page 1 Power, then make experiments of your own.
People create advice based on a niche, and they think it’s universal advice. But for every rule there is an exception.
36:55 – Campaign Experiments YOU Can Try
38:28 – Outreach Experiments YOU Can Try
40:02 – Want to get REALLY CRAZY?
(pitch multiple resources!)
42:40 – Hack #4 Put On Your “Type A” Hat & Make A Plan
This hack is for all the “idea people” out there who need a bit more guidance and extra help.
47:07 – Plan for Bottlenecks
If you’ve planned a concept all the way through with the right people, you’ll find where those bottlenecks are.
48:55 – Our Example Plan (AKA – the ridiculously crowded slides)
See our blog post on Content Calendar Creation for a better view.
If you create an outline (A PLAN) it helps people understand that links aren’t something you just flip on for a website.
51:00 – The BONUS Hack
When you help your company connect with a mission, you’re growing something new that isn’t just link building.