How we built over 22,000 links. Part 3: Approaches that can drive organic performance
Actually, we’ve now built 23,600 links (and counting) for our clients. That’s a hell of a lot of links.
We’ve worked on over 180 campaigns across a huge number of industry sectors – including travel, finance, automotive and fashion – with a clear mission in mind: to improve the backlink portfolio of our clients with high-quality, natural links that’ll improve organic search results for key terms.
Our approach is built on providing a scalable alternative to digital PR. And one that gets results. Campaigns are structured to expand a client’s portfolio of unique, high-quality referring domains – including protected domains such as .gov, .nhs, .edu and .ac.uk.
Over the years we’ve learned a lot. So, we thought it past time to step out of the shadows and share the processes that help our clients achieve brilliant results.
This is the third part of a series of articles that break down our link building approach – this time focussing on the strategies and the types of links we build for clients.
The story so far
In our first post, we covered the crucial element of content. For any links campaign to be successful, it needs to be spearheaded by exceptional content that’ll turn heads and appeal to a wide range of audiences. The ultimate goal of any link campaign is to persuade and encourage webmasters, editors and bloggers to recommend you to their site’s audience.
In our second post, we talked about seasonality. It’s not as easy as creating your perfect campaign, lining up your prospects and hitting send. There are many other factors to consider – including the best time of year for a link campaign to land well. If you’ve not read it, make sure you go back and become well-versed in the intricate art of balancing seasonality.
With some of the technical aspects of link building ticked off, it’s time to turn our attention to a different topic – what types of links should you be going after? With 10 years behind us, we’ve had hits and misses when it comes to outreach converting into links, and have landed on a number of ways to build high-quality links into your website.
And remember, as always, diversity in your backlink portfolio is key.
Our core link building approaches
Today, we build four key types of links for our clients:
Resource pages
Guest posts
In-content
Unlinked brand mentions
There are additional strategies we employ on campaigns that we’ve had mixed success with (and I’ll talk about these in more detail later) – but for all intents and purposes, these four are the core products.
Resource pages
This is Reddico’s bread and butter.
Here, the objective is to build thematically relevant links on dedicated resource pages that already exist on the web. What do we mean by a resource page? Well, it’s very common to see pages (or sections of a website) dedicated to referencing third-party content.
For instance, if there’s an article about sustainability, a section of ‘useful links & further information’ may also be created – recommending thought-provoking or informative content that backs up, adds to, or has an entirely different take on, the original content.
The aim is to get a link to your highly authoritative, well-written content.
A bonus with this approach is that resource pages are common among protected domains. That includes websites such as .gov, .nhs, .edu and .ac.uk. Naturally, these domains are highly authoritative and will pass those all-important trust signals back to your site.
This type of campaign is also sustainable for a long period of time – as long as you get the right topic and execution. However, it’s also the element of link building we spot that’s most affected by seasonal trends because webmasters are less likely to respond to emails during holiday periods.
In a nutshell:
Contextual placement on relevant and dedicated resource page
Secure link placements on high-authority domains
The best approach for landing very high-authority backlinks (e.g. .gov, .edu)
Results are easier to scale and are generally more predictable
Easier to pivot/improve content assets in case of underperformance
Can be sustainable for a long period of time with the right topic and execution
Can get a link as soon as the first week of outreach
Most affected by seasonal trends
Delay in launching content assets can push back the start of a link campaign
Not scalable for building links to commercial/promotional content
Example target websites:
Why would webmasters want to accept links?
Our links become valuable signposts for readers to learn more about or find practical advice/useful information about a compelling topic.
Guest posts
Guest posts are an opportunity to control the placement of your link on a third-party site, but of course will take time and resources to create personalised, high-quality content.
Again, thematic relevance is really important, so you need to focus on approaching/targeting websites either related to your industry or talking comprehensively about the topic.
Our approach is taking an existing piece of content and referring to this within a guest post. For instance, if you have a really high-quality content asset that covers the topic of first-time mortgages, you may suggest writing a post such as “10 things homeowners need to know to reduce their mortgage payments”. Within that article you can reference a specific piece of data or a quote (etc.) and directly link to your content that explores a particular part in more detail.
And because you control the narrative (subject to the webmaster’s internal policies and approval), you can choose to use anchor text that’s branded, noise, or anything else.
Where resource pages are quite niche in their content, the appeal of guest posting is that you’ll find a wider range of topics, websites and audiences that can be outreached to.
Bear in mind, and as a word of caution, some industries and webmasters will ask for payment for guest posts. Proceed with caution and ensure you thoroughly vet the site to make sure it’s high quality and doesn’t display any signals of it being a pay-per-post arrangement.
In a nutshell:
First live links within 4-6 weeks
Organic link anchor integration via high-quality, bespoke articles
Potential to get backlinks to commercialised content (but not always)
Easier to leverage existing outreach relationships for future campaigns
Great for diversifying your backlink portfolio
Not all websites accept guest contributions and editorial requirements can sometimes be unfeasible (i.e. large word count)
Additional content production needed, so ensure you have the resources available
Example target websites:
Why would webmasters want to accept links?
Webmasters get free, genuine, well-written content that they can publish or use to fill gaps in their content calendars.
In-content
This strategy is similar to guest posting, but half the work has been carried out already. There will be an article that exists, talking about a topic you can relate to with your high-quality content.
Therefore, the plan of attack here is to simply get a link from this existing article.
It’s a strong approach if you have stats-driven content assets, as you’ll be able to pull these out to convince a webmaster to reference you.
In a nutshell:
Contextual placement on relevant and dedicated resource page
Secure link placements on high-authority domains
Wider range of topics, websites and audiences to outreach to
Works well with stats-driven content
First links live within 1-4 weeks
Example target websites:
Why would webmasters want to accept links?
Our assets add editorial value to the article (in the form of citable data, facts, statistics, and other compelling information) which enriches the reader's experience.
Unlinked brand mentions
This approach can be really valuable for brands with a lot of Internet footprint – that is, they’re referenced heavily on the web but often without a link pointing back. Similar to in-content link building, the approach itself is relatively simple as webmasters are already talking about your brand.
You can also pull a list of unlinked brand mentions from an SEO tool such as Ahrefs in a matter of minutes, giving you a list of prospects for review.
This strategy is often seen as targeting low-hanging fruit. It can be a quick way to build homepage and branded backlinks, whilst working on additional content strategies to focus on some of the above-mentioned approaches.
One element that’s crucial to success with unlinked brand mentions is utilising a client email address. Having a brand directly reach out to the webmaster creates authority and trust – it also plays on the ego of a webmaster, particularly if it’s a well-known company.
For that reason, whenever we engage with clients on this type of strategy, we always ensure to set up an email account specifically with this purpose in mind.
In a nutshell:
Helps to ensure a natural-looking and diversified backlink portfolio
1-4 weeks for the first live link
Quick way to build homepage and branded links
Best for large, national brands with a lot of media footprint
Branded email accounts necessary for authority purposes
Low-hanging fruit opportunity to complement wider strategy
Be mindful that brands with a common name (ie. Apple) will be harder to filter for relevant results
Why would webmasters want to accept links?
As a form of courtesy extended to the brand that a writer/journalist referenced.
Additional link building approaches
Whilst the above-mentioned strategies are the core link services we offer, there are additional opportunities we’re exploring and testing.
Link reclamation
Link reclamation is the process of gaining a previously lost link. What do we mean by that?
Well, it’s finding opportunities where a link used to exist, but at some point in time has become a ‘broken link’. In general, this tends to happen when websites remove pages or update their URL structure.
For many companies, this could have occurred during a rebrand or website redesign.
Similarly to unlinked mentions, the opportunity is bigger for brands with a large Internet footprint. And again, a lot of the work has been done – because a link used to exist.
Link intersect
This is an interesting process and is one where you’re piggybacking off of the success of your competitors. The simplest way of explaining this is with an example.
For instance, you work in financial services and have built an interactive online tool to help people find a mortgage. There will be competitors with a similar tool, who have achieved a lot of success gaining backlinks. Here, the plan of attack is to reach out to these third-party sites and explain why your tool should also be linked to.
Of course, you’ll be more successful if you can clearly demonstrate the benefits and XYZ reason why it’s a more comprehensive tool. However, you’re not trying to replace the competitor link (although that may happen as a byproduct of your outreach). Instead, you’re giving the webmaster diversity in who they recommend their audience to.
This type of strategy works really well when competitors have a large number of high-authority links pointing to tools or pages that are similar in content to your own.
Additional reading
About the authors
Luke Kyte joined Reddico in 2014 as a content writer. One of Reddico’s first employees, he was responsible for building our content marketing department and establishing processes across the agency – helping Reddico to win its first campaign award back in 2017. In 2024, Luke took on the role of Operations Director and is now responsible for the day-to-day management of the agency – supporting and guiding our approach to SEO and link building operations.
Ron Carandang joined Reddico in 2014. As our Link Building Product Manager, he leads our outreach projects and off-page optimisation campaigns, including content, PR and link building. Having been in the SEO industry since 2008, Ron has a wealth of experience managing the teams involved in delivering successful link building strategies.
If you'd like to discuss how Reddico can help you with link building contact us >
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