We'll
admit it, building links for your Ecommerce
store
has got a bad rep. With Google penalizing bad techniques, it's
understandable that you'd be cautious when approaching this topic.
The
truth is, link building is still one of the best ways to move your
store up the search rankings. But these links have to be
high-quality, they have to be valuable and they have to come from
authoritative sites.
So
how do you build high-quality links for your Ecommerce store? You're
about to find out...
1.
Start guest posting
Gaining
links from high authority websites can be a difficult task, but
that's why guest posting can work to your advantage. There are many
influencers and bloggers out there who have high ranking websites and
are looking for people like you to write a post for them. It helps
them create unique content that drives traffic, and it helps you get
a valuable link back to your store.
When
researching influencers make sure that the person you are writing for
is relevant to what you're selling. You can easily find people who
rank high for blogging about your product on places like BuzzSumo
or Traackr.
To make your post even more valuable, make sure you link to other
authoritative domains and remember that it's best practice to only link back to your site once in the post.
Top
tip:
If you aren’t sure how authoritative a website is then check out
tools such as Alexa
or Moz's
Open Site Explorer to find out its page rank score.
2. Interview
an expert
An
interview with an expert is another awesome tip – and we've got
Neil Patel from QuickSprout
to thank for this one!
In
fact, Neil is actually asked to do an interview at least 4 times a
week and he never says no! So imagine if you can find an expert
within your niche and interview them for your blog? Presumably this
expert or influencer will have a huge following, so once you've
conducted the interview, it's likely that they will share your post
with their own followers – either on social or on their own
website!
Neil
states that 90% of the time, influencers will share the interview via
Twitter and Facebook, and 40% of the time they will link from their
website to the post. When approaching somebody to ask them for an
interview, make sure you do your research. Find out everything there
is to know about them, go with ideas in mind that you'd like to talk
about, and make it your goal to build a long-lasting relationship
with them.
Top
tip: Use
TwtrLand
to search for influencers in specific skills, so you can base it
around the products you sell.
3.
Ask your manufacturers
The
manufacturers that you work with can be a great source to link back
to your page. You probably already have a good relationship with
them, so send them a quick email and ask if they'll link to your
product pages.
Many
manufacturers will have a list on their site that states where
customers can buy their products from, so this is the perfect
opportunity for you to ask for a link to your site. It's a win-win
situation for both you and the manufacturer, so it's definitely worth
asking the question.
Top
tip:
Ask them if they will add you to their 'Authorized Retailers' page,
as most manufacturers will use this to direct people to their
products.
4.
Create valuable content
We've
already talked about writing a guest post, but blogging on your own
site can also help you gain links! How's that? Well, if you start
creating valuable content that people are interested in, you will
help encourage other people to link to that content.
The
trick is to become the influencer within you niche – and it all
starts with the content you create. Your niche is essentially the
product you sell, and you will have an audience who is interesting in
reading about content that is related to that.
But
how do you create content that people will link to?
Your
content has to be awesome. Now this is not easy - but with the help
of the skyscraper
technique
– it's possible. Made popular by Brian Dean, the skyscraper
technique is a great method to creating awesome content. The idea is
that you find the top performing content in your niche, and then
build upon that content to make it better.
Come
up with a different angle for the argument, update the post with the
latest findings, or find something within the content that is missing
and add to it. Whatever you can do to make it better, will help give
the content more value.
But
don't just stop there. Once you've posted it on your own blog you
need to outreach it to those people who originally wrote about the
topic in question. Let them know that you've added a different
insight to the debate, or updated their content. This can help
encourage them to link back to your post which will in turn create
another valuable link to your online store!
Top
tip:
Don't just stop at blog posts. Find out what your audience likes and
create different types of content such as infographics, e-books, videos and whitepapers.
5.
Find broken links to update
This
is another Brian Dean technique, but one that works so well. There
are plenty of links across the web that have broken links. The aim
here is to locate these links and ask the author if they will update
it with your relevant link.
Many
website owners probably don't even realize that their links are
broken, so essentially you are doing them a favor by asking them to
do this! A great tool to help you do this is Chrome plugin – Check
My Links.
It does exactly what it says, helping you locate links that are
broken.
Top
tip:
If you're struggling to find the website owner's contact details then
check out Whois,
as it will give you the contact info that you need.
Final
thoughts
Building
high quality links isn’t easy, but it's one of the best ways for
search engines to understand how valuable your site is. Your goal
should be to gain links from authoritative sites – such as those
from influencers and experts. Make sure you don't focus any time on
gaining links from spam sites,
as Google prefers quality over quantity.
Looking
for an Ecommerce
solution
with pro-grade tools? Then contact us today to see how we can help
you sell more stuff!