Link building is one of the most challenging initiatives in SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
If you’re not familiar with it, it is basically acquiring backlinks from relevant and authority websites to point to target pages of your website and helping it to rank for its target industry keywords.
Different industries have different link-building landscapes. Other types of links are needed for specific verticals. Even so, you’ll find a huge difference doing link building for business-to-business sites (B2B) over business to customers (B2C). It requires some processes in place or even hiring a link building company for B2B websites.Â
In today’s article, we’ll cover three B2B link-building strategies to help you improve your search performance, and gain the desired traction for your brand.
Work with strategic partners
One of the missing pieces in B2B link building is a strategic collaboration with brand partners, whether those partners are suppliers, manufacturers, retailers or anyone working to support a goal or objective of the business.
While most business partners are geared towards improving operations, from an SEO and link-building perspective, these business partners can also help in securing valuable backlinks for a B2B site.
One way strategic partners can take advantage of is by collaborating on big content assets.Â
This is often called co-marketing, where two individuals or in this case, businesses work together to publish a comprehensive content piece.
There are many advantages when working with other like-minded non-competing brands in content creation. One includes having the valuable inputs necessary to make the content more appealing and informative for the audience.
Imagine working with a brand with solid data and information that haven’t been published yet in other publications. It’s a uniquely valuable asset you can benefit from without having to pay a huge amount of money — you only have to know deeply about collaboration.
Another strategic partnership for content creation is inviting thought leaders, influencers, and content creators to your blog.
It may be in the form of interviewing other people to your regular content (e.g., podcast) or letting them become regular contributors to your blog.
In addition, the good thing with co-marketing content assets is the dual-fold benefits of promotion.
Given that both parties will heavily promote the content asset (or any output thereof) to their existing audience (i.e., social media followers, email lists, etc..), the odds of getting more visibility for the content and both brands is higher.
Identify non-competing business sites you can collaborate with based on their existing authority, relevance, and following.
Leverage Linkedin for content promotion
B2B link building is different from building backlinks to an eCommerce website (where direct customers are involved). As you’re working with the business itself (for B2B), you need to determine social platforms and specific websites where your target audience engages in.
One particular platform you can leverage for content promotion these days is Linkedin. Its environment serving business people is remarkable.
For most organic content promotion campaigns, you’ll find marketers and SEOs reaching out to potential linkers and social shares through email.
While that is the conventional way of promoting content pieces, big brands are now maximizing the power of Linkedin when reaching out to thought-leaders and influencers in their industry.
Start by making a list of businesspeople on Linkedin who might be interested in sharing or linking to your content. These include thought leaders, industry practitioners, and experts who have their own websites (it is best to consider people with websites so they’d have the ability to link to your site).
You can use LinkedIn Sales Navigator to easily filter profiles with details you’d like to target (basing it on the target location, job titles, etc..). This way, you don’t reach out to random people but to targeted ones that are likely to amplify content piece once they see the link to your page.
A short message will do as your introductory approach to Linkedin messaging. You don’t have to tell these people to share your content. If they’re really are social sharers, they know what to do next after giving them the link.
Publish comprehensive industry guidesÂ
Most B2B sites have substantial resources in place. For example, it includes a content marketing team (a pool of content writers), solid inputs (i.e., industry data sources), and networks (for content promotion).
These are all needed to come up with industry guides for your brand.
Industry guides can help you target specific linkable audiences. Linkable audiences have the characteristics and history of linking to informative content that is good for references. In addition, they link to content to serve a particular group of people (i.e., students).
Linkable audiences include job seekers, parents, teachers, and people with disabilities.
So when finding topics for your blog, it is best to start identifying the linkable audience you want to target first. This will also be the basis of content promotion — as you’ll be reaching out to your linkable audience once your content assets have been already published.
B2B Link Building Is Network Building
As someone says this best, “If you’re not networking, you are not working.”
The same is true when building links to B2B sites. Whether you’re working as an in-house SEO/link builder of a B2B brand or as an SEO specialist in a digital marketing agency, you need strategic partners who can help you achieve your goals — these include backlinks required to help you rank your website for target keywords.
