The single most persistent concept of SEO is link building. Although PageRank now runs alongside around 200 other ranking factors, it is still a vital part of any SEO strategy. Without good links, a website will never rank brilliantly in Google. To get good links, good outreach is needed. So, what is it, and why is it so hard?
What is SEO Outreach?
Outreach is the original digital marketing method – back in the day before we had search engines, the only way websites became connected was from people linking to each other. The connections were often made through direct contact – people at the same university or working in the same field of research would link to each other’s sites, and this was usually arranged over a coffee while discussing their websites. In short, people only used to link to sites when they knew the owner pretty well. This is why PageRank was so effective – well-linked sites were those that were run by popular people! So, what changed?
After Google published its PageRank paper in 1998, webmasters realised that they could game the search engine by creating links to their website. The SEO consultant was born. This eventually led to link building automation and link farms. It worked great, until 2012 when Google launched the first of its spam-link killing algorithms – Penguin.
So, here in Google’s 20th year, we are finally going back to basics – communicating directly with relevant websites to win quality links. But, now that the Internet is 20 years older, this poses a huge problem – there are thousands of other people in any industry doing exactly the same. Most website owners and now blind to requests for links, and the whole industry is flooded with fake email accounts sending requests on behalf of cheap SEO companies, a vast majority of which end up in either the spam queue or the bin.
Effective SEO outreach now needs to be tailored to your specific business. It is no longer possible to win links with outreach email templates, instead every communication needs to be personal and very relevant.
Our outreach services are bespoke. We take the time to understand your market, your customers, your business partners and your competitors, and connect with site owners within your industry to collaborate on the creation quality content that they will want to publish and share with their own audience.
By building trust and demonstrating to other businesses that we are not “just another SEO company” we can help you grow your digital presence and become more connected on the ever more competitive web.
Of course, outreach is still not a guaranteed way to build links to your website. Some weeks our efforts result in nothing but a few polite refusals, but over time, we build up relationships with businesses who are happy to engage with the wider web community. Outreach and link building is very much alive and well, and when done well, it helps you build the best quality links that will persuade Google to rank your site at the top if the results pages.
Contact Freelance SEO Essex today to learn how our personalised outreach services outperform the cookie cutter approach every time, and help build our customers reputations within the industry and ultimately, help generate more website visitors from Google.