The number of quality relevant links is one of the metrics Google uses as a ranking factor. There are so many legitimate ways of link building that works well, but you have to earn them now, instead of just buying them..

As Paddy Moogan said via Internet Sales Drive

You should be “focusing on building links that you won’t have to take down in 2014. :)”

Today, I want to contribute some of my link building methods and how to earn editorial links through email outreach.

1) Web Analysis for Link Opportunities

I believe analyzing the website properly is the best way to find the real link building opportunities for it. You need to spend some time on every page, whichmay help you uncover some new ideas on what can be done to improve it.

Let me explain

When I start working on any website. I analyze the entire website and start listing the points of what can be done and what needs to be corrected.

Recently, I was working on a client’s website and found they have been listing their engineers and consultants on it. Then I searched (Googled) all the engineers’ names individually and found where their work and names are featured on some .gov, .edu, and many other high authority websites.

I began sending emails to the web owners who were promoting their work and their names with “brand name” but who were not linking to the client’s website. It got me a lot of high quality editorial links.

Bonus tip:

Link building is not hard, but it does take time now. You need to find the opportunities around your brand. There could be some engineers, doctors, or reporters who are featured in magazines, videos, speakers profiles, and event pages but where there is no website link. Find the opportunities and get the trusted authority links.

2) Infographics of Others Cool Stuff

Content marketing is a must have to run a successful SEO campaign. You would agree with me that content marketing takes time, and building quality material consistently is hard. So, I sometimes use content by other people to build my infographics, which give me great success.

Let me explain

There is a lot of cool stuff published on the Internet (almost daily), and creating infographics for their stuff not only makes a cool infographic for your website that you can use with a blog post, but it also brings you a link from the author/publisher. By telling them about the infographic and asking them to put the link at end of the post  you may get a link (for viewing the visualized version of content).

It requires a little digging of some social networking and news websites, friends’ circles and groups to find the content that you want to share, pass love to it, and content that is complete, detailed, and authentic.  It could be a research, survey results, or case study that could be converted into an excellent infographic.

For example:

Moz published a survey of SEO Cost of Services and Pricing Models by 600+ Agencies, and the guys at AYTM represented the entire survey in graphical representation through infographic. They earned and deserved links from them.

Designing infographics is hard and takes a lot of time. If you managed to hire a designer, it will cost you $$$. But the return on investment would be good in all cases if you get the link or unfortunately don’t get the links. Eventually, you will have an infographic with authentic information that you can use for your blog, and infographic distribution websites do get more links in the long term.

Bonus offer:

No one has yet made the infographic of “25 Mind Blowing Email Marketing Stats” from the Salesforce Blog. Do it now! 😉

Note: You can apply this tactic with SlideShare.net presentations. Maybe you could attract the author by this?.

3) Infographics for Most Linked Pages

Every SEO wants to get natural links to their targeted pages from authority relevant websites. I want the same. So, I searched all the trusted relevant websites and published a post listing their pages that have great content which are linked from authority websites . I did attract links from those websites with an attractive infographic.

Let me explain

First, I listed down all the trusted websites, then found the pages that were linked to the number of authority websites, between 10 to 20. (You can set your own targets). Then, I had an eye-catching infographic designed, and put it up on the blog (sometime I do add more details to attract readers and links).

Now, the last and final step is to email the author, webmaster and owner (whenever I get all) to let them know about the graphical version of their content and add a request for them to add the infographic at a suitable place on the page (middle or end) or to link to the blog in the beginning or end of the page.

Bonus tip:

After reaching that website, contact all those sites that are linking to “that page” to let them know about the graphical content of that page. Get their consideration and turn the conversation into link.

4) Web Pages Translation

Everyone who produces quality content would be happy to see a transcribed version of their content and want it to be helpful for as many people as possible.You can actually contract to get web pages translated in a specific language or also contact websites individually for their specific pages to be translated.

Let me explain

I wrote a case study about web pages translation of .edu and .gov websites on SEJ and showed how a company translated the .edu and .gov content pages.

For example: Read this post for more help.

Bonus offer:

Once you get the link, you can then contact those websites that linked to the “original version” and offer the translated page link. If they are interested to  link to different language versions of the page, you have a linke. 😉

5) Outreach The Brand Mentions

This tactic works 9 out of10 for me. It requires little research for all your brand mentions (website, brand or CEO name) that doesn’t link to the brand website. Reach out to  the web owners for a link back.

Let me explain

List all the mentions of your brand that are not linking to your website or where the link is not perfectly placed (broken). Reach out to thank them for the mention, and then ask for a link back. (You may want to highlight the importance of links as well.)

Bonus tip:

It takes time to search each mention and open every URL to check whether it is linking to the website or not. So, the best move is to manage alerts for your brand name to get further new mentions directly in your mailbox. Read this post to manage your brand alerts.

OK, there you have some tips for reaching out via email to help in link building. Please share your feedback in the comments below. 🙂