What do you remember the most out of your SEO experience? Many of you might address the link building strategy implied. After all, it is the longest & most substantial part of the search engine optimization technique. The Off-Page SEO ranking factors cover more than 70% of your overall SEO efforts. In the same way, link building covers a crucial portion of your Off-Page SEO efforts. As such, there are 3 different forms of link building you’re likely going to deal with running your search marketing campaign- Backlinks, Outbound Links & Internal Linking!
Where outbound links lead to other websites from your web pages, internal links are distributed within your own website pages. But backlinks are something else. They aren’t found on your website but on a referring domain that could bring effective website traffic. The aim is to fetch top search engine ranking & Off-Page SEO is the key to perfection.
A broken link is another form of backlink that’s not live anymore. The web page to which it is associated is not active, removed, or simply unreachable. It is often considered the most scalable link building technique. In this post, we’ll talk about broken links & a link building strategy you can draw from such online resources. The leading components of the post include:
- What do we understand by broken link?
- How essential a broken link could be?
- A complete guide to your broken link building strategy
- Closing thoughts on broken link building
Link building is a crucial part of Off-Page SEO & we don’t want you to miss any aspect associated with the same. We’re eGoodMedia, an award-winning social media & search marketing company based in Vancouver & we aim to assist numerous web business settings across the West Coast & other parts of the world!
What do we understand by Broken Link?
Broken links could be found on any website whether local or world-renowned. Broken links are dead links that are no longer projecting any kind of website content or page before the visitors. You can simply mold them to a link building strategy that is safe, quick & very easy to afford. As such, you have to reach your favorite referring domain & ask the webmaster for a broken link. Going through the article you’ll learn how you can build a fine broken link building strategy for your search engine optimization plan.
A broken link could be replaced with a live link consisting of a fresh piece of information along with the backlink to your web page. Webmasters often welcome such offers as they don’t want to nurture a pool of dead links on their website pages & posts. It is a fine opportunity for several emerging web developers & designers who want to shine on the SERPs ASAP.
How Essential a Broken Link could be?
Fresher digital marketing professionals like you may think whether taking such a short cut is going to pay out well in the future or not. The answer is yes. When you get into a digital marketing or web media profession you have to hold patience & wait longer to achieve exceptional search engine rankings. As such, knowing about various advantages of broken link building could intensify your patience & keep you believing in your link building plans. Take a look at the enlisted advantages of broken links:
1. Easy to Get
Most of the webmasters allow you to use broken links on their website. The foremost reason behind it is that too many broken links aren’t sound for a website’s search engine ranking & the webmasters know that very well. Another reason why they’d like to accept your offer is that they don’t need to approach you as it’s an outbound link building strategy for you. They could also get fresh content or information for their specified web pages & even paid requests for backlinks. Therefore, it doesn’t take too much time of yours as there are thousands of webmasters out there.
2. Enhance Link Building
As discussed earlier, link building is a long-run process and that’s why what you need to focus on is speed. You can conduct a link building plan along with your digital marketing team and set monthly or weekly targets of link building. Broken links could easily get you the link building targets you’ve set earlier. It is indeed a faster way to achieve an Off-Page SEO prominence. However, you have to take care of certain things & the primary reasons behind broken links:
- The referring domain must have high website traffic
- It should be free from online threats & malware
- The domain must have a considerable DA & page rank
- The website URL should be secure & free from Mixed Content Errors
- Make sure if the website has removed the resource from where you’ve linked back
- Analyze if the destination website has moved to a new web address
- Make sure if the destination website doesn’t exist
Your link building strategy needs to be faster, better & convenient from different perspectives, therefore, you should always follow the above-mentioned essentials for better performance. You can also visit eGoodMedia for dedicated support regarding conversion-centric creative website design for your business needs. We’re a Vancouver based web media service provider involved in designing, developing & promoting your online business model!
3. Improve Website Traffic
Broken links can become an alternative source of organic traffic on your website. If you’ve got a portion of content that suits the broken link on your selected referring domain perfectly, you’re good to go. Organic traffic is the foremost instrument providing for your website building & SEO plan. However, you always have to make sure if you’ve got the information, solution, products, or services as per the visitor’s prerequisites. Backlinks aren’t the ultimate solution if your website’s internal organization is not up to the mark. Hence, you should always maintain your On-Page SEO status from time to time.
4. Improves SEO
Your overall SEO efforts are interrelated with each other. If you’re planning for a guest posting campaign you surely have to concentrate on your website’s content & the content writing skills of your internet marketing team. That means you have to strengthen your On-Page SEO status eventually. Additionally, if you expect fine website traffic you have to make sure of the information structure, UX, UI, Navigation & overall design of your website. Or else you can face an unsound dwell time & bounce rate associated with your best website pages. SEO is the leading digital marketing strategy you have to apply whether being a fresh or experienced business figure.
5. Upgrades Search Engine Rank
Now here comes the most important part. Search Engine Ranking can be considered the ultimate destination for every website & search result out there. After reaching the top search engine ranks you’re most likely going to start over. It is a journey you have to have to walk through again & again. Website traffic is an indivisible part of search engine ranking and you have to maintain it ever after. You might switch to another aspect of your business plan but your website SEO needs to remain in the race. You can appoint a team of professionals or consult an online marketing firm to stand competent against your online rivals.
Broken Link Building- A Simple & Complete Guide
The approaching challenge is to set up an effective broken link building strategy. You see, knowledge could not bring appropriate results until undergoing proper application. There’s so much to learn regarding broken link building that couldn’t be recognized in the future until implemented once. Before heading to the link building procedure you must know about different potential sources & tools to find broken links that you can rely on. Take a look at the following:
1. Google Search Console
The best thing about this tool is that it’s absolutely free to use. Google has provided various online marketing & website optimization tools from time to time to help budding webmasters keep an eye on their website performance & take innovative actions accordingly in case of a corresponding problem. Termed as Google Webmaster earlier, the tool provides for all your search engine performance analysis. The same is accompanied by the popular Google Analytics Tool that lets you know about the user status on your website. Follow these steps:
- Go to the “Google Search Console” Tool
- Click on the “Search Traffic” option available in the right-hand menu
- Now go to the “Internal Links” option to figure out an important page that’s missing
- It will represent all the possible broken links within
- Go to “Crawl” followed by “Crawl Errors”
- After that, you can scroll to the “Not Found” option & click the same
- That’s it, you’ll get the report related to all the missing pages according
2. Xenu Tool
Xenu is again a free tool to analyze all essential dead links on your favorite referring domain. Unlike Google Search Console, Xenu Tool has nothing to do with the other factors affecting your search engine performance. It is essentially developed to figure out broken links for you. Therefore, the UI of the tool is amazingly user friendly & easy to grab. The tool simply delivers the report of all the live & dead links on a web page you want to review. Here’s a detailed guide:
- Opening Xenu, you’ll get to see a window carrying file & URL checking facility
- You can enter the URL of the web page you want to analyze
- You can also check for the broken internal links alone if you wish to
- Just “Uncheck” the Internal Links Box you’ve opened
Apart from that, Xenu also lets you export your file to CSV & build sitemaps for your website indexing. Moreover, the tool allows you to check a whole lot of URLs in bulk if you want to save your time & effort. Additionally, the option for checking local files ahead of your code upload is also available!
3. WordPress Broken Link Checker
If you’re too a WordPress designer & developer, you don’t have to go ahead of your plugin library. WordPress has brought a variety of solutions to your digital marketing concerns so far. The WordPress 1.2 Plugin Update was so revolutionary that it is considered the most functional one to date. The plugin is free to install & doesn’t let you leave your web designing, development, and content creation objective besides your Off-Page SEO goals. As such, you save a lot of your time & efforts focusing on multiple aspects of website development.
The tool is automated enough to examine your website for a variety of broken links within. You also get corresponding notifications on your WordPress Dashboard in case a broken link is found on your own website pages. Therefore, you don’t have to conduct specified research separately. You can also address your favorite referring domain to shoot down your chance of link building accordingly.
There’s no operating procedure you have to keep in mind in case you’re using WordPress CMS. However, if you have certain queries regarding your WordPress development challenges you can consult the ground-breaking team of WordPress Website Designers & Social Media Marketing experts from eGoodMedia!
Broken Link Building Procedure (Outreach)
The journey doesn’t end at merely finding the broken links. You also have to reach out to the webmasters & site owners associated with your target broken link. As such, you can follow a step by step guide and see for certain essentials that could make your link building quest quite result-oriented. First, you should make sure that you’ve got your list of URLs & website addresses related to your target broken links.
You should know about the webmasters you want to reach & request for broken link building. Furthermore, you should decide on the tools & techniques you need to make use of to reach out to your target webmasters. If you’re done, you can proceed to the outreach procedure as follows:
1. Reach Out the Right People
Webmasters often belong to various categories, just like you. If you’re a fresher website building professional, you’re most likely going to deal with a fresh to medium level webmaster. The rest won’t even reply to your outreach message simply by reviewing your website’s DA & PA. Infect, the things get worse when you’re making out through a guest post offer. High-level webmasters are very conscious of their website content. Anyway, here you have to act quickly & get started with your outreach campaign ASAP.
Decide on an efficient outreach tool like BuzzStream, PitchBox, etc. Approach other online tools like Hunter to scrape out the prospective email addresses of the webmasters. Remember if you’re unable to draw the right email addresses for reaching out, you’re simply wasting your time. When you’re ready with your list of prospective webmasters, create a message along with a catchy & easy to grab subject line.
You can reach out to eGoodMedia anytime in case you don’t find ample time to conduct your outreach campaign. At eGoodMedia, we cover everything to support your website’s Digital Marketing & Search Engine Optimization status!
2. The Messaging Portion
The next step relates to the messaging portion that could be a game-changer for all your link building efforts. You’re most likely going to conduct a bulk messaging campaign. As such, you must understand that your single impression is going to be your overall impression. So, take care of what you’re going to project in your message. Follow the enlisted guidelines:
- Don’t get pushy
- Entail an interesting & eye-catching subject line
- You can address a solution to a usual webmaster concern in the subject
- Add the name of the recipient if possible
- Mention your target broken link
- Reveal the location of the link to the webmaster
- Suggest your replacement plan & explain how it could resolve a website issue in a short & easy way
After this, you’re ready to proceed with your outreach campaign. You can also make use of an A/B Testing technique to assess whether your first format or second format was able to draw a considerable conversion rate. If you’re available with a small list of webmasters, there’s no need to conduct A/B testing crucially!
3. Following Up
Hold on, we’re not done yet. Don’t proceed without a decent follow up as the webmaster could probably miss the very first message you’ve delivered. It usually happens when the webmaster isn’t available to review his or her emails due to personal & work reasons. As such, you have to construct the follow-up message format accordingly. 2 follow-ups are enough for each webmaster. Make sure that the follow up isn’t pushy & addressing pity from your side. You can also include the broken link information just like the first message. However, make sure that your follow up message isn’t as lengthy as your first message.
A follow-up message is often considered more efficient to bring an adequate conversion rate for your broken link building plan so you must devote ample attention to it. All the best!!
Closing Thoughts on Broken Link Building
Broken Link Building is just another attempt of yours to strengthen your website SEO strategy and hence you must arrange certain parts of your time & effort to implement the same to your website building approach. We know it’s quite impossible to handle multiple aspects of internet marketing & website optimization and that’s why we advise you to build an SEO team or consult eGoodMedia today. Let’s talk!!
