How to do Link Building for Ecommerce Website?
Is link building for ecommerce websites any different than that in case of any other website?
Is an ecommerce guest post any different than one that is written to get backlinks for a services based website?
What are certain characteristics of a backlinks acquisition strategy that one would go for in case of an ecommerce business?
These are some of the most important questions that we are going to discover in this blog post and we are going to talk about the importance of ecommerce SEO if there is anything like that.
Famous copywriter and SEO expert Brian Dean thinks that not only SEO for ecommerce websites is not the same, but the backlinks acquisition strategy (just a part of SEO) is also not the same as in the case of Services or non-profit websites.
So:
Let us just cut to chase and have a look at the most authentic and proven strategies of links building for ecommerce site.
This blog post is based on general strategies (that you can use for other websites as well) and ecommerce only back-linking strategies.
Guest Posting
As I said:
We would first talk of some general tricks of getting backlinks, and then without spending much time on them, we will talk about advanced and ecommerce only backlink acquisition strategies.
First and foremost trick to get backlinks is via guest posting.
There are two or three or more ways to get a backlink via guest posting.
- You can run a SEMrush check on your competitors and find out as to who gave them the backlinks and then offer those websites a much better piece of content in return for backlinks. This trick is linked to Brian Dean’s Skyscraper technique.
- All you do is write better content than your competitor. Then you send an email to the owner of the website that gave backlink to your competitor and persuade them to give a backlink to your site because you have more authentic content on same topic. Then you post your content on their website and get a backlink.
- The other way is to make a list of online magazines, niche authority blogs and websites that have really good PA and DA.
- Then you go to each of them and find out the email address of the control person. You do this via Hunter.io or similar tools (in case if the email ID is not already mentioned there). Once you get email addresses, send them emails asking backlinks in return for high quality content.
Write Content for Missing Pages
You must have been through this. You searched a term in Google, you noticed that a famous website with high DA PA has already a page on that topic, you followed the page only to find out a 404.
These are the pages that were deleted due to certain reasons or those posts (content) were moved to other URLs.
This is a golden chance. No website likes those 404 pages and they are always behind on their content tasks.
So, here is what you can do to get backlinks.
You reach out to the concerned authority on that website e.g. owner or content manager etc., and you offer them the missing content in return for high quality backlinks.
And if they know that you can actually generate high quality content on the topic, they won’t sweat. They are neck to neck in a competition with a close competitor and they would definitely like to fill up the “content gaps” to get a better position.
Your Blog Can Help
Apart from creating content magnets, what your blog can do otherwise is to help you get backlinks in other possible ways.
For example, you know that expert roundups are used to get quality backlinks. This can only help your ecommerce links building task in case if your products are associated to a certain walk of life.
For example:
Let us suppose that you sell wireless keyboards. Now you know that the community of tech bloggers, bloggers in general, copywriters and SEO guys etc. are the people who have a lot of interest in computer products and especially mechanical keyboards and wireless mechanical keyboards etc.
What you can do is to do an expert round up on this product or something else slightly relate to wireless keyboards and then publish that round up on your website.
All those bloggers, tech bloggers, SEO experts and copywriters will get backlinks to their websites when you will mention those websites in your round up.
They will definitely be willing to give you backlinks in return.
Blog Reviews of Your Products
Actually, this one is also from Brian Dean’s Backlinks guide.
All you have to do is to find out the people who are passionate about a certain product and who own a high DA PA website on the same topic.
Take a niche blog or hobby blog for example.
So, here are the steps:
You have a product, let us again take the example of wireless keyboard again.
You Google this word and you skip all irrelevant links like Wikipedia and videos and other stuff, until you notice a few webpages like “best wireless keyboards” or “how wireless keyboards work” etc.
People who own these blogs and websites are either into Amazon affiliate niche or they are just interested in this product.
All you have to do is to reach out to them via email or contact form on their blog and let them know that you want to send them your products for free and you would be glad if they reviewed your products.
Remember:
This trick will not work if your store does not have a single Private Label product.
Coming back to the point:
They will review your product and they will definitely give you a backlink because they would like their viewers to visit the product page.
This is the exact tip that many tech products and consumer products manufacturer companies try to get backlinks and reviews.
For example, consider famous hiking and outdoor vlogger Darwin. His channel’s name is Darwin onthetrail:
You can ferret around his channel and you will find reviews of a lot of hiking and outdoor products that he got for free.
You can try the same trick with a YouTube vlogger just like Darwin and you will offer a product for a backlink.
But remember, you cannot really write it like this. Google penalizes websites that offer reviews for products.
What you can do is play with words e.g. “I would love to see some review of this product coming from a famous YouTube vlogger”.
And in case you wonder the worth of a YouTube backlink? Well, YouTube is Google number 2. DA PA is 100 each and although links are no-follow, you can get ton of traffic and Google’s respect.
In case you wonder whether No Follow links are crap or you can make use of it, read MOZ and you will get to know that no backlink is useless.
Leverage a Relationship
Public relationships or private:
They are no good until you are able to leverage them in your favor. In this part, not only I will tell you how a relationship can give you a backlink, but most importantly, I will tell you as to how we can make and improve relationships with owners of influential websites.
Neil Patel, the SEO and growth-hacking guru included this tip in his lengthy posts on making backlinks.
The tip is simple!
Make relationships (if you don’t have already) with owners of high DA PA blogs and websites and ask them to give you a Do Follow backlink.
Also:
Make a list of email addresses or phone numbers of blog owners that you get to know on social media or the internet, and convince them to give you backlinks.
However:
This does not happen this way. You may get a few backlinks out of good relationships and courtesy, but not as many as you need to beat your competitors.
Here’s the bigger and better idea.
Are you aware of Dan Lok? Yes, the famous Canadian entrepreneur, high-end sales closer, writer, success coach and mentor.
Well:
He has a theory. He believes that you can succeed in a business and you have more chances to end up losing all your money than growing your business, if you do not have a high-income skill to support you.
For example:
Let us suppose that you are a graphic designer at heart and you have been doing this a lot. You should always be ready to face the meltdown (the end of your business) and you should always be ready to support yourself and your family with a high-income skill.
This high-income skill can also help you get backlinks, and here is the blueprint of this plan:
- Firstly, you make some good links in industry with help of social media and emailing.
- Secondly, you start noticing and making lists of websites that have high DA PA, but a bad design and they can use a designer’s help. (change this to your skill e.g. copywriting)
- Thirdly, you send them an email and offer a complete design overhaul. Once it is done, you can request them to give a backlink to your website and products.
Be a Scavenger
I know:
No one likes to be or called a scavenger. It is insane to expect from you to live off of the carcasses of other living beings.
However:
This was not what I meant. See dead websites and pages are also carcasses and you can make use of them in your quest of backlinks acquisition.
This is a very good tip for an effective ecommerce SEO campaign.
All you have to do is find the websites in your niche that are not functional anymore – simply expired.
These websites had to be the ones with lots and lots of really high quality backlinks.
Then send emails to people who gave backlinks to these domains and ask them to change the URL from their URLs to your new one.
The target URL for which you would like all the backlinks, should be a category or product page.
Here is how you would do this:
- Find a dead website with same niche as yours!
There are many different ways of doing this. One of them is to go to websites like GoDaddy or NameJet or Expired Domains to find out the domains that you will later check for number of backlinks. You need Google this exact keyword to find those domains: “This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com” + “Domain is for sale”, and you will find tons of results.
Take a look at this picture and imagine if you sold pretzels.
Another way to do so is to go to Google News and search “has closed” + “YOUR NICHE”. This may also help with finding a few dead websites related to your niche.
- Use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to run a backlinks check on the dead domain and to find out as to how many backlinks it has and who gave those backlinks. Don’t stop until you find out the best website.
What might be the best website in this scenario? One that has been selling or promoting exactly what your website is selling or promoting. And most importantly, one that has a lot of high DA PA backlinks.
- Now get some backlinks
Now that you know a few dead websites with high DA PA backlinks. You have to find out why they won those backlinks.
Go to Archive.org and run a check on the pages against whom the dead websites got the backlinks.
You will get to view the content that was on those dead pages. Now create a content much better than that, based on the product that your website and the expired website have in common and your job is mainly done.
All you have to do now is to reach out to each and every website that gave backlinks to those dead pages and tell them that the product has moved from expired URL to your URL and they may change the hyperlinks on their website.
So:
Website A (high DA PA website) will change the hyperlink of anchor text (wireless keyboards) and thus shift the backlink from B (dead page) to C (your page with same product and better content).
EDU Backlinks
How would you like some .EDU backlinks?
If you are into products (not services) and you’ve been in touch with the IT entrepreneurial eco-system of Pakistan, then you must have heard of Luqman Khan of 10Beasts.
He used a very clever trick to get .edu backlinks and Google absolutely loved his website.
Why?
It is because .edu domains are only given to educational institutes and Google really value when a university or college etc. give backlink to a website.
This means that that website is authentic, doing good in business or non-profit and away from foul practices.
So:
You need .edu backlinks, but more importantly you need to know where to direct them.
Your website is your brainchild but the pages that want the maximum attention and SEO efforts, are the product pages and category pages.
Best are the category pages; get backlinks for them and they will pass on the link juice to all product pages.
So:How to get .edu backlinks for your website’s category pages?
A guest posting service may not be able to get this done for you because websites of universities and colleges do not need guest posts. Many of them do not even bother to have a blog.
Well:
Here is the step by step ecommerce link building process that will land you .edu backlinks.
- Make the list of institutes – First step is to make a list of the institutes that have really high DA PA (50+) websites.
- Reach out – Second step is to use chrome extensions like Adapt Prospector or Hunter.io tool to find out the emails of the owners, deans, principals and relevant people who can make a decision.
- The offer – In a very catchy email, ask the control person to publish on their website that there is going to be a contest on your website and the first three students who would write best product descriptions, would get prizes (e.g. money, the same product or any other product).
That’s the catch. In the eyes of Google and that university, you are only encouraging the students to step into a very lucrative industry of copywriting and product descriptions, but actually you’re buying backlinks.
This is one of the best ecommerce SEO techniques and a win-win situation for everyone. University does not have to pay a dime and they still get their students into a healthy semi-academic activity, students win prizes and you get a gem of a backlink.
Charm Offensive
There is this Facebook page with this name.
The story is very promising and it urges us to think differently and to never give up.
A drunk and broke marketing and copywriting expert writes a funny and stupid email to marketing managers of big firms and offers his services. And guess what?
This type of funny and charming and frank and stupid writing gets him not one but motherlode of big jobs in his life.
Here is the link to the group – it’s now a movement in the circles of sales copywriters.
So: How can you use charm offensive to win more and more backlinks?
Well:
It’s actually a very organic and the most original way of getting backlinks. As a matter of this should be included in every effective ecommerce SEO guide.
Here comes the big reveal:
You make your page so awesome that authority websites within your niche cannot help but notice your charming work and give you backlinks.
Now wait a second if you think that this is not possible! It is perfectly possible. You can get a backlink without giving anything in return for it.How to do it?
Make sure that the products page for which you need a backlink is designed by an expert graphic designer and the copy is written by a seasoned copywriter.
Add more and more charm e.g. videos and 360 degrees’ photography of the products and you will get the most organic and natural backlinks.
Product Giveaways
This one is much more like .edu backlinks and is from MOZ ecommerce SEO guide to building backlinks.
The trick is simple, but you can do it more than one or two different ways.
Here is how you do this.
Remember:
This trick is only relevant in a “sales” situation. So if Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Thanksgiving, Easter or Christmas etc. are around or you are just having a sale on your website, you can try this trick.
- Target people who write blog posts about the products that you sell e.g. 10 best wireless keyboards, and tell them that you are giving away 3 wireless keyboards (the cheap ones definitely) for 3 of their readers who would beat others to sharing your web page (same that you need links for) on Facebook.
- Dying win more respect in the eyes of readers, those blog owners would definitely list your give away offer on some conspicuous place on their blog and they would definitely give a link to your page because otherwise readers would not know where to go.
- Give three crappy keyboards to “winners” and you’ve got a good backlink. You will get few more from other bloggers who received your offer.
- Just keep repeating this for every national holiday and you would be no more screaming for backlinks.
Industry Service Awards
That is a different tactic, but very similar to the one that I have explained above.
You need high quality backlinks. You want to get them from websites and blogs relevant to your industry but not doing the same as you do.
Definitely you won’t get any backlinks from your competitors because they don’t kiss your ring; they have their own rings.
[So what are these other blogs and websites relevant to your industry without being part of the game?They are the people who find hobby or interest (personal or monetary) in the type of products that you sell and they want to write about it.In this case, both: selling websites and promoting websites should be rewarded.Good idea! While you are making money by selling products and they are not, why not give them awards for serving the industry? However: This ploy is only for the websites that have been in an industry for roughly 10 years.If you launched an online shoes store only a few months ago, you cannot go giving awards to blogs in this field for 10+ years. Here is how you can do this:
-
- Announce the award and if you have experience in content marketing of ecommerce sites, do the same and do extensive marketing of the award.
- Write emails to the owners or control persons of the high DA PA blogs from whom you want backlinks, and let them know that as a gesture of acknowledging their service to industry, you are nominating them as a contestant of “Blah Blah Blah” award.
- Send similar emails to other websites’ owners and let all of them know that they can urge their fans to go to your website and take part in poll.
- All of them would give you plenty of backlinks (because they need to let their readers know of the prestigious award and URL location of the website)
- The three winners will again give you backlinks to let their readers know that their favorite blogs won.
Killer Content
In case you crave to explore the organic ways of getting more and more high quality backlinks, you must pay attention to the content and presentation of content on your website.
I am talking about 4K videos or DSLR quality photos, isometric illustrations and interactive content.
There are a lot of web design and content lovers who have entire blogs or websites based on topics like website design and development, diversification of content and entrepreneurship etc.
These bloggers are basically in love with different aspects of online business and websites that regularly generate content and sell.
They are eager to talk about you and if your design or content or website’s style is as attractive as //www.thenewmobileworkforce.com/ then they will make mention of it, just like I did, and you will get free backlinks – of really high DA PA.
Influencer Marketing
If you want to ask me what is the future of guest posting in 2019 and whether Google will consider this valid backlink acquisition method or not, I’ll tell you that it is risky.
Any time in near future, a Google update will throw guest posting out of the window. However, you have a better way to get backlinks.
Native ads.
Paint your native ads as true opinion of the influencer.
For example, if you sell lady sandals and you manage to get backlink on website of a female model, this influencer marketing tactic will land you more traffic as well as a high quality backlink.
You can go one step forward and based on how strong is your relationship with the influencer, make it a native ad.
She will write a detailed review of your product and most of the points will be very positive. Bingo!
Not only Google will not have any doubt on this type of backlinks, but you will get enormous fan traffic and sales.
However:
This depends solely if you manage to find a close or working relationship with an influencer.
From Brand to Community Hub
My 2 cents:
It does not matter whether you want link building for ecommerce websites or services websites, all you have to do is to make a small snow ball and make sure you push it down the hill.
It will grow bigger and better.
Take the example of a small brand. When your brand is small, you can only make a small level buzz and let people know what you do.
Then comes bigger and then the biggest brands.
Bigger the brand, louder the buzz about it. And backlinks are nothing but buzz.
All you have to do is to convert your brand into a big community hub. You need to develop discussion forums on website as well as on social media e.g. Facebook group.
The Facebook groups alone would spread enough voice about you and land you many organic and high quality backlinks from websites like Backlinko, Quick Sprout, HubSpot or MOZ etc.
Conclusion
There is a growing trend of looking at the rising businesses and from self-proclaimed gurus to real gurus and websites like Search Engine Journal, the chit chat about what’s new in business and which new brands are doing good in IT world has become a norm.
You should not wonder to find out 10 to 20 backlinks on a long blog post and if you create buzz the way it is supposed to be created, you will get a good number of backlinks to start with.
For the remaining number of backlinks, try other tricks given in this post. The only tactic that you should avoid is getting backlinks from scrapebox or similar outdated methods.
They are nothing but shortcut to getting permanently blacklisted from Google and this should be the last item on your to-do list.
