Even though link-building is a fundamental part of SEM marketing, there are still a lot of Singapore business owners who don’t spend as much time as they should on this strategy. Sure, they know that link building is important and they do their best to build as many as possible, but ultimately, they have no real plan. What most marketers don’t realise is that not only can a well-structured plan help them build more links, it can also ensure that their campaign runs more smoothly and efficiently.

Start With a Plan 

It’s no secret, when it comes to search engine marketing advice, you can find countless tips, tactics, tricks and strategies online. Many of which are effective to some degree. And there is nothing wrong with trying out a new strategy that you think will be best for your particular campaign. However, the problem comes in when you become distracted by every strategy that comes along. If you settle on a link building strategy, only to be pulled into another after another before you truly see success or failure with the first, then you won’t reach the level of link building success that you are after.

The Benefits:

Creating a solid plan is not an option, rather it is a necessity. It will help you to keep your campaign focused. It also helps to reduce the amount of energy and time you need to spend. You could easily equate this to having a road map on a car trip. Sure, you may know the destination that you would like to reach, but if you do not have a clear route in mind, then you will likely get lost.

How to Do It:

So if you would like to get the most out of your link-building, create a strategic plan. You can start by making a note of everything that you would like to accomplish. You should also record all of your most important milestones along the way. Not only should you talk about your goals, but also what you plan to do in order to achieve them. Sometimes it’s more than just a numbers game, sometimes it’s about your actual strategy and the planning that goes into it.

Focus On a Tighter Niche

It’s common knowledge that in order to have a successful link-building campaign you must build links that are related to your niche. However, what many don’t realise is that they could make a lot of progress if they would focus even further on smaller niches. Instead of chasing links that are even remotely related to their content, they should refine their search as much as possible.

Let’s say that you are building links for a graphic design firm. You would typically go after links from web designers, photographers, and graphic designers. The problem is, each of these sources are different. Each of these sources would link to your website for entirely different reasons. Each has its own purpose. And this means you would need to create different types of content for each of them. This is not the most efficient strategy.

The Benefits:

What’s great about targeting even further is that it gives you a chance to develop content that is specifically for a certain audience. This means that your content would be more valuable. This also means that your outreach strategy would yield much better results.

How to Do It:

Instead of focusing on every website that happens to be associated with graphic design, you would instead choose one of these niches. You would focus on creating content that would appeal exclusively to web designer websites.

Follow a Process

Another aspect of link-building that Singapore marketers sometimes struggle with is switching from one activity to the next without ever really completing anything. Not only is this inefficient, but it makes it next to impossible to measure or replicate your results. That’s why it’s a good idea to create an assembly line process.

The Benefits:

There are two things that make this particular strategy ideal. First, by identifying the topics you need to cover, you can plan your posts months in advance. Second, if your business grows, then a process will make the transition more smooth.

How to Do It:

Work as if you are an SEM agency. Document your entire process. Identify your objectives and then figure out which topics your website needs to rank for in order to accomplish these goals.You can then decide from which websites you would like to earn your links and then follow up with them until your links are earned.

Document Your Campaigns

Things can be a little chaotic when you are trying to monitor a campaign. This is especially the case if you are working on more than one at a time. So if you want to ensure that your results are consistent, you also need to document the actual results of each campaign. This means that you need to keep a log of any and all communications you have.

The Benefits:

Documenting gives you the ability to interact with each brand more efficiently. For instance, when you put your contacts into categories, you will know who you have already worked with before. And this lets you know how much of a chance you have of earning a link from them.

How to Do It:

A great way to do this is to use a project management system. Linking it with your Gmail account will help you to keep up with all of the emails that are being sent back and forth.  In fact, there are a lot of marketers who rely on customer relationship management systems, also known as CRM.The benefit of using these types of systems is that they can give you a bird’s eye view of each your contacts. You will be able to assign specific contacts to certain campaigns. You can even use tags so that you can more easily organise and put them into categories.

Leverage Your Contacts

As you can see, organising your contacts can be very beneficial. It helps to ensure that your plan runs smoothly. However, not only should you organise your contact, but you should also do your best to leverage your contacts. Use your current contacts to gain more.

The Benefits:

What’s great about leveraging your contacts is that it gives you a chance to create a great network. These are people that you can reach out to in order to spread your content and vice versa. The more influencers and thought leaders you know in your industry, the further along you will be. And this can really help to give you content and instant boost whenever you release something that is particularly valuable.

How to Do It:

First, you should use a crawling tool that can help you to identify what links are present on your contact’s website. You should then analyse this data and pick out any opportunities there are for links. You can then ask your current contact if they could introduce you through email. Tell them that you notice that they had a link to the website that you are interested in. Ask them if they know anyone who works for the website. And then ask them if they could introduce. Let them know that you happen to cover similar topics to their and think you would be a great contact for them.

However, there is something that you should keep in mind when using this strategy. It’s best to only try this approach with someone with whom you have already had conversations. It would be even better if they happen to owe you a favour. In fact, make it your mission to do favours for them, because you ever need something.

Conclusion

Singapore marketers should keep in mind that good link building is about more than reaching out to websites that cover the same topics as yours. It’s about being very strategic in your planning. It’s about zeroing in on the niches that matter the most so that you can create the most valuable content. It’s about creating a step-by-step process. It’s about documenting and analysing the results of your campaign. It’s also about forming tight networks. Good link building requires a holistic approach.