This is part of a series on using the Link Prospector. After creating a new campaign for your account (campaigns are essentially “folders” for organizing your link prospects) it’s time to click “Find Prospects” and pick a report type. The report types in the Link Prospector are roughly organized around tactics. Here are a list of the report types, the tactics they support, the resources you’re likely to need and any notes.
1) Guest Posting: you write and pitch content to publishers. This content includes links to your website.
- Resources Required: you will need writers, sources for great (or at least publishable) ideas and LOTS of prospects.
- Productive Research Phrases: Experiment with using your big head to mid tail SEO keywords as well as “category” keywords that broadly define your market. For example, use “heart health” instead of “Philips HeartStart Home Defibrillator.” Do try both though – you’ll never know what might turn up!
- Notes: this method typically requires large numbers of guest posts to be effective. Set aside the majority of your prospects for content you spend less time on – especially if these sites don’t seem to have large readerships. For larger, better-known sites expect to spend more time on content and look for more referral traffic and brand impact.
2) Links Pages: the tactic here is typically “begging” or “requesting” links to your content.
- Resources Required: Fantastic, non-commercial informative content and a stellar outreach person who also happens to be great at sales.
- Productive Research Phrases: Experiment with using your big head to mid tail SEO keywords as well as “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: legitimate links pages rarely occur at scale and you’ll find better success if you look for the pages first, see what actually earns links and make sure what you’re pitching really fits there. Broken Link Building is another great “foot in the door” for links page link building.
3) Content Promoters: pitch great content to publishers who write roundups and actively solicit news tips.
- Resources Required: you need great writers capable of creating content that’s “with it” and worth mentioning on industry news sites. Think infographics, ultimate guides and real news stories.
- Productive Research Phrases: Experiment with using your big head to mid tail SEO keywords as well as “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: think of this approach as content publicity – it’s best suited for industries with a large number of blog and news publishers.
4) Reviews: find publishers to review your products or services.
- Resources Required: you’ll need products or service bandwidth to giveaway.
- Productive Research Phrases: Try product categories as well as competitor’s brand names (that have gotten extensively reviewed).
- Notes: for the Link Prospector, reviews have been the single best source of new sales – not to mention links.
5) Giveaways: find publishers to give away your products or services in a contest.
- Resources Required: you’ll need products or service bandwidth to giveaway.
- Productive Research Phrases: Try product/service categories as well as competitor’s brand names (that you know have used the contest tactic).
- Notes: typically giveaways and contests require some compensation for the publisher.
6) Donations: sponsor charities and other organizations that run on donations.
- Resources Required: money, goods or services. But usually money.
- Productive Research Phrases: Here you want to stay far away from your SEO or even category terms. Instead try “condition” terms such as homelessness, or “what-it-is” terms like animal shelter. Alternately you can use geo-terms like the state or city or even neighborhood you’d like to concentrate on.
- Notes: You may have to negotiate + educate a bit for the link – not all sites are used to the idea of providing them.
7) Commenting: join the conversation on blog posts and articles that discuss relevant topics.
- Resources Required: someone with enough knowledge to add value to a discussion and not just drop links.
- Productive Research Phrases: Experiment with using your big head to mid tail SEO keywords as well as “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: this tactic is as much for the links as it is for a nice shot of relevant traffic to resources on your site.
8) Expert Interviews: find experts to interview on your site – or the writers that interview them.
- Resources Required: you will need someone with enough expertise to get writers interested in interviewing them. Or you’ll need some great questions to ask other experts in your industry (in hopes of getting links from them as well as their followers).
- Productive Research Phrases: use “category” keywords that broadly define your market at first, and then move on to commonly-interviewed experts.
- Notes: assemble several experts and conduct a group expert interview.
9) Directories: find sites that attempt to catalog all of the websites on the internet – or their niche.
- Resources Required: you need someone to submit to the directories and a bit of money as well. Some niche directories can get quite expensive.
- Productive Research Phrases: use “category” keywords that broadly define your market as well as any niche keywords that may relate.
- Notes: directories are considered by most to be “foundational” link building.
10) Forums: invest time and educate a pre-existing community of passionate users.
- Resources Required: someone who can educate without selling.
- Productive Research Phrases: use “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: this tactic is ideally more of a long term investment in a community than a quick links tactic. It will take time to earn trust. So make sure that the community or communities you’re targeting are large enough to get you a return on your time.
11) Topical Blogs: outreach and engage with bloggers from your industry.
- Resources Required: this will depend on how you plan to engage… whether it’s content promotion, guest posting, contests or news story pitches.
- Productive Research Phrases: use “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: this is the best way to find sites for guest posting that don’t necessarily call them guest posts…
12) Professional Organizations: joining industry trade organizations can help build links and credibility.
- Resources Required: Money, sometimes service hours.
- Productive Research Phrases: use “trade phrases” that define the practitioners in your industry.
- Notes: like directories, professional organizations fall into a “foundational” category. you will likely burn through those available fairly quickly, but they’re worth checking for.
13) Research – Content: search for your market’s how to content so you can find out what informational needs you can meet.
- Resources Required: research time + a content writer.
- Productive Research Phrases: use “category” keywords that broadly define your market.
- Notes: when you create content based on existing resources be sure to send an email to the site you’re linking to and let them know.
14) Custom: for any tactics not mentioned above, use custom.
- Resources Required: this will vary based on your creativity and understanding of prospecting.
- Productive Research Phrases: I’ve written extensively about link prospecting with queries…
Here are a number of resources on link prospecting:
- How Limiting Your Google Queries Makes You a Better Link Prospector
- 5 fundamentals of large scale link prospecting
- 3 Step Prospecting for Highly Productive Link Building Queries
- The Link Prospector’s Guide to the Tilde
- Link Building Query Theory: 7 Crucial Keyword Types for Link Prospect Querying
- Beginner’s Guide to Link Prospecting Using Google Search
More about the link prospector:
The Link Prospector Help and FAQ Page