When you think of link building, how often do you think about your brand? I guarantee it’s not as often as you should, as actually your brand holds massive link and outreach potential.
I know that link building is a bit of a dirty word in our industry, with many SEOs shying away discussing it with clients (and each other), yet we know from The Stone Temple Consulting study in July, that links are still a vital part of any SEO strategy; so why not start with the easy links associated with your brand?
There’s three huge advantages in using your brand for link leverage:
- Healthy anchor text profile
- It’s expected for your anchor text to be highly weighted towards variations of your brand, and is a lot safer strategy than being keyword heavy.
- Increased live link ratio
- No-one knows your brand better than you and as we know when the request comes from someone who is actually part of the business, the response rate is higher. This is why you should always get emails set up from the domains of each of your clients for outreach (quick tip!)
- Brand awareness
- More mentions of your brand, equals more people seeings & knowing about your company, so more awareness
Before I tell you the five easiest ways to generate links from your brand, you need to get some alert tracking setup, to save you hours of finding these mentions. Personally I love the alerts from Buzzsumo and social listening tools like TalkWalker, but Google Alerts is a great free substitute.
Brand Mentions
So simple, yet so effective; ensure that any time your brand is mentioned (positively!) online that you’re credited back with a link. The alerts I’ve mentioned earlier can inform you of any mentions, however an old school Google Search of your brand name works just as well.
Here’s a prime example of a mention of Starbucks on the Daily Mail, that doesn’t contain any links back…. So is a missed opportunity.
When contacting the sites, just be straight to the point with your email – I’ve sound that something similar to the below works best:
Hi [name],
Thanks for mentioning us in your [whatever the article is].
Could you do me a huge favour though and link back to our site? I’m intrigued to see how much traffic being mentioned in your article could bring.
Obviously I’ll share it through our social channels as a thank you.
Images & Logo
Reverse Image Search your logo within Google to find any sites referencing it and if they haven’t credited you with a link for use of the logo, then get in touch!
You can also use Reverse Image Search for other image assets such as infographics and blog images. Handy tip, if you include your brand name on all image alt tags (as well as your keyword), all your images will potentially show in the image results, making it easier for you to check where else they’ve been used.
Wikipedia Page
Wikipedia holds a lot of value from a link building perspective and will also help to add credit to your brand, as these pages are hard to keep live! If your brand has history behind it and references from news sources, you should have no problem in having your page approved.
When writing your Wiki page remember these tips:
- Be objective
- Back everything up with references
- Interlink to other Wikipedia pages
- Follow the template of similar Wikipedia pages (Summary, History, External Links, Resources).
- Don’t get greedy with links – the External Links link is enough!
Product & Service Mentions
When people talk about your product or service, it’s an easy way to request a link back, as they’re already featured you. Take this New Look feature in InStyle – they’ve included a number of New Look dresses, yet haven’t linked back to the store once.
How is it useful to the readers on InStyle to see these dresses, but not be able to click through and actually purchase them? That in itself is an argument to include a link back.
Reviews & Advocates
Actively asking people to review your brand or product in return for a link is now against Google’s Guidelines, however that doesn’t mean you can’t capitalise from people who have already done so!
Rofuto were very clever in the way they aggregated reviews of their restaurant and organised a blogger meet prior to opening. This meant they had the potential for a number of articles and reviews to be written about them. They were then able to chase these articles, thanking each blogger for attending and getting a link back in return – clever stuff!
So here’s your three takeaways:
- Utilise your brand for links
- Don’t be afraid to ask for credit when your brand is mentioned
- If you work with numerous clients, get domain specific emails set up to increase response rate.
Confused by outreach and link building? Give us a call on 0121 200 3336 or get in touch online.
