Whenever SEO specialists strike up a conversation and broken link building comes up as a subject, the mood of everybody often turns gloomy, as if they were talking about a terrible disease. And why wouldn’t it? Broken link building is a hard, confusing, and thankless job – or at least that’s what many newer people in the SEO industry believe. But the truth is that broken link building is one of the best ways to get links and build your site’s authority.
What is broken link building?
As its name implies, broken link building is a link building strategy that involves identifying dead links, recreating the dead page, and then convincing the referring domain to redirect the link to your content. Sounds easy, right? Well, the complaint many SEOs have with this tactic is that it takes a lot of work for a relatively small reward.
When done correctly, a broken link building campaign can certainly yield a conversion rate of 5-15%. However, when you take into account the fact that if it weren’t for you, those links would lie unused, it’s easy to see how targeting dead links can give you an advantage over your competitors.
How to find relevant broken links
The truth is that finding broken links isn’t that hard. However, to reap the full benefits of this technique you need to remember that broken link building is a numbers game. So the more dead links you can find, the higher your chances will be of getting your content linked. And when it comes to finding dead links in bulk, there are two methods worth considering.
Using keyword-based searches to find resource pages
Doing a Google search is the most straightforward method for finding tons of broken links. This method involves using long-tail keywords that are related to your site’s niche to find resource pages that are rich in external links. Once you have a list of resource pages, run them through a broken link checker to find dead links and then rate those links based on their authority.
When using a keyword-based method, you’ll want to use keywords that are relevant yet broad enough to throw plenty of results that are relevant to your audience and location. Don’t get too specific and try to find your exact product or a specific term. Instead, try aiming for a category in which your company falls in.
After you have made your keyword list, you’ll want to pair them with prospecting phrases like “intitle:links,” “inurl:resources,” or “useful websites” to get results with plenty of resource pages.
Look for resource pages in known authority websites in your niche
A more direct method involves looking for broken links in known authority sites in your niche. This is a no brainer which can get you a few really valuable links, so it should be your first option when building broken links.
To start, just think of which sites you have been dying to get links from but haven’t managed to find your way in. Once you have a list of places, scroll through their navigation box and look for their resources page. You can also use an SEO tool to analyze the site and get a list of external links.
After a few minutes, you should get a report that you can order by level. Generally speaking, the lower the level a link is, the older it will be. So don’t waste time trying to get links from old broken pages. Instead, try recreating the content for pages that are only a few months old, as these are more valued by domain owners because they bring the most traffic.
Write an awesome page that is worthy of being linked
Now that you have your link candidates, you want to focus on creating content that is just as good, if not better, than the dead page whose link you are targeting. To have an idea of what the original piece looked like, you can use the Wayback Machine to read an archived version of the page.
There is also the chance that you have a piece of content in your site that resembles the nature of the dead link’s content. However, even if both pages share the same niche, you should edit it so that it fits specifically with the tone and subject of the dead page. Furthermore, you’ll want your content to seem attractive to as many pages as possible, so you’ll need to write it in a way that appeals to a relatively broad range of broken links.
The best way to solve this catch 22 is to create attractive content that remains true to the spirit of the original while also adding value to it. If the old content had statistics and citations, you need to update them and add new ones if possible.
Use well-crafted emails to pitch your content
Now that the hardest work is done, it’s time you contact your target website’s owner or webmaster and see if he is interested in linking to your new content.
This is a tricky step because you need to write a compelling email that the recipient won’t feel like deleting out of hand. The best way to catch your target’s attention is to pose as a user who casually stumbled into a broken link.
Once you have used this story to break the ice, you can suggest several links which will include your own. However, if your content is high-quality, it’s often better to be more transparent about your intentions.
Regardless of which method you choose, remember to tailor your emails to each target website individually. Otherwise, you might find that most of your emails end up in the recycle bin instead of generating a conversion.
Conclusion
Despite its effectiveness, broken link building’s negative reputation means that few SEOs take advantage of this powerful link building strategy. So, don’t fall for the same trap that your competitors do. Follow the tips outlined in this article and you’ll see your links and traffic boost in no time!