After working in many SEO agencies I’ve realized that the #1 issue that comes up is an inability to build quality backlinks. It’s time consuming, costly and is hard to teach to new employees.

Throughout my time as an SEO I’ve figured out a few ways to build affordable links, at scale, that increase search rankings. Now that I’ve taken a job here at Agency Analytics, I’m willing to share some of the tactics I’ve used to get fantastic results for my clients.

Before we start I’d like to run over a few of the tools I use. Also keep in mind that no referral links are being used in this blog post. If I recommend a tool it’s because I dig it:

Agency Analytics – I was using it long before I took the job here. The software is a godsend for SEO consultants: rank tracking, backlink monitor, social analytics, automated reporting, all in one.

Scrapebox – Once upon a time it was used to spam blog comments. Now, savvy SEOs use it for many things. Check out Chris Dyson’s guide to Scrapebox if you have no clue what it is.

Pitchbox – Is my favorite way to manage content outreach. It’s a little pricey but worth it.

FindAnyEmail – Find email addresses by entering first name, last name and domain. I’ve been using it a while now but ContentMarketer.io is another option that I’m currently testing.

Majestic – My preferred backlink database tool. Ahrefs is comparable and it’s best to have both if you can afford it.

​Strategy #1: Hacking HARO

Yeah, yeah you’ve been using HARO (Help a Reporter Out) and you think this is the same old junk but hear me out. This is about SCALING the process for your clients to get your client links from Huffington Post, Entrepreneur.com, CIO, New York Times, INC, etc.

Your new client is most likely hiring you for a hands off approach. They want results but don’t want to put any effort in to it.

Problem is.. They’re the experts in their field! Most HARO queries are looking for experts and lets face it – you know nothing about plumbing or plastic surgery.

There must be a better way!

There is. It’s called Hacking HARO.

All you have to do is get freelancers to answer HARO queries on behalf of your client. Upwork is filled with freelancers who are specialists in different fields. Find doctors, lawyers… you name it.

I get at least 20 people applying to each job.

All you need to do is make a job title “Need [Industry] Expert to answer questions”. Here is the exactly job description I use:

I need an [industry expert] to answer questions on a daily basis through HARO (Help a Report Out). You will get sent 3 emails a day with potential questions to answer. You need to sort through these questions and send responses to the given email – we’ll pay you per question you answer $10 + a bonus $10 for getting featured on websites with your answers.

This is a quick and easy way to make some extra money every day. These questions do NOT take long to answer. You just need to send a paragraph or two to answer.

When answering the questions you must put your position as [expert position] and give a link to our website.

Now watch the applications fly in! You can ask applicants to answer sample questions from HARO to test them and pick the best one.

From there you need to set your new expert with a company email for your client. I prefer firstname@company.com. Also set them up with a nice signature with their position (ex. In-House Nutritionist). Something like this:

Register that email for HARO and give them an example email to run with:

Hi [Reporter’s Name],

[Answer Question]

My name’s [Expert’s Name] and I’m the [Position] at [Company’s Name]. I’d really appreciate if you could link to [Company’s Website] if you use my response. Thanks 🙂

Best,
[Expert’s Name]

Get your expert to log in three times a day and to answer as many questions as possible.

I’ve found that $10 per answer with a $10 bonus for getting a link posted has been sufficient motivation for in-depth answers. In my experience the conversion rate from answer to link is close to 20% which results in high-quality editorial links for under $100.

I’ve gotten some great links this way that are otherwise unattainable.

This is completely scalable and can be used for agencies of any size.

Strategy #2: Inverted Broken Link Building

Broken link building is one of the most used tactics on the SEO scene. There’s a reason: it works. Thing is, there’s a way to maximize your efforts and take broken link building to the next level.

Ahrefs has a full guide to what they call “inverted broken link building”. In essence what you do is find expired domains, get their most linked to content through Majestic or Ahrefs, replicate the content and get the broken links replaced.

Most of the process has been covered on their blog so I won’t repeat it. Go take a look. The problem I have with their system is their prospecting system.

They tell you to search through expireddomains.net one keyword at a time to find good opportunities. It can take a while to find a good prospect this way.

Instead I prefer to use the TDNam Clouseouts addon from Scrapebox. It scrapes the clouseouts and regular auctions from GoDaddy.

Just add in your keyword list, let it work for a minute and export the results.

Once you have a nice big list of expired domains you can put up to 600 at a time through the Bulk Backlink checker in Majestic.

You can then poke through the results and find thousands juicy dead backlinks that need replacing. Easy!

Strategy #3: Leverage Freelancers​ to Guest Post

Similar to hacking HARO this method is highly reliant on Upwork or another freelancing website. It works best with a linkable asset on your website, but you can work it without one.

All you have to do is post on Upwork asking for people to write about your linkable asset (or business). This is the job description I used:

We’re looking for people with business blogs to cover our story. You either need to run a relevant blog or write for a relevant publication.

You can check it out here: [link to post]

Please let me know what your credentials are and which websites you plan on posting to.

Simple! It works well because you can screen all of the websites before you pay them to post.

On one occasion this resulted in 40 people applying to the job, I hired five of them and got the website eight top notch backlinks. All for less than $50 each.

Strategy #4: Use A Reputable Guest Post Service

There are plenty of sketchy guest posting services available.. I get emails like this daily:

Yeah right Elizabeth.

Well you have another option for outsourcing guest posting! The only good service I’ve been able to find is Fatjoe.co. They do the writing and outreach for each guest post. You just have to tell them where to link.

Every post has been well written and was posted on a decent website with little risk of being penalized. Using a service like this also lets you specify your anchor text, which can be useful.

**Note: I’m just a happy customer they don’t even know I’m writing this post.

Also Linkredible is another option but I can’t speak from personal experience.

Strategy #5: Streamlined Infographics​

Every SEO under the sun has heard about using infographics to build links. I’m just going to share with you my process of scaling it out across many clients.

There are 3 steps to link building with infographics: ideation, design and outreach. Each of these parts can be done quickly.

Speedy Infographic Ideation

My favorite way to come up with ideas is to find other infographics that have already been magnets for links and use them in your industry. Sort the Visual.ly community by views to get some ideas, then reverse search the image on Google.

The most recent example I have is that I found an infographic on the “top apps to get you organized”. It was successful and received links from sites like Entrepreneur.com. I used this idea to create my infographic on health apps to get you in shape. See the connection?

I then went to Text Master and gave instructions to write an article on 14 health apps that would help somebody get in shape. I told them to three sentences for each one and include a link to the logo of each.

That’s what I used as the skeleton for the infographic. It took about 30 minutes of research and $20 to be written.

Infographic Creation

There are many ways to get your infographic made.. Some people have in-house designers, some prefer 99 designs, but I usually go with Upwork. Mainly because I’ve found a great designer through there already so I don’t need to rehire.

Simply give the designer your skeleton that’s been written and they should have the infographic done within a couple of days. It should cost between $150-300. The infographic creation process goes a quicker after you hire one or two designers because you can rehire.

Scalable Infographic Outreach & Submission

Nobody will link to an infographic that they haven’t seen. The idea here is to create an outreach process that’s quick and efficient. I break my outreach down in to two buckets: low value and high value targets.

Low Value Outreach Targets

This is sort of a spray and pray method and has worked well for me in the past. What you’re doing is getting a huge list of potential targets and email them.

I do this by finding websites using Scrapebox and then scraping emails from the websites. You can use the footprint “intitle:infographic” along with your keywords to find websites who have shared infographics before.

Scrape a list of websites and “grab emails from URL list” to compile a big list of websites with matching emails. With the spray and pray method it truly is a numbers game. A high number of the emails will bounce so it’s important to build a BIG list.