Try our Manual Link Building Service for B2B and SaaS Companies
From 3 Leads Per Month to 16 Leads Per Month with Content Guppy's Manual Link Building Service
One of our sales pages was languishing around position 9 for a keyword that we new would increase our revenue. Within two months after hiring Content Guppy, we ranked #1 for the keyword and the page went from producing 3 leads per month to 16 leads per month!
Matthew Rathbone // CEO, Kickbox
Let's face it, if you want to rank your content, then you need to do manual link building. But link building is one of the most painful parts of SEO. It's way more fun to just optimize a blog post, fix some technical debt, maybe play around with some title tags and improve rankings.
That's why we created our manual link building service. That way you can make amazing content, move it up the SERPs, and not have to worry about building links.
What is Manual Link Building Anyway?
Manual link building is the process by which a person on your team reaches out to another website via email to acquire a high quality link.
So many companies have a "list of links to sell", and that's how they do their link building.
The problem with that, is EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOUR COMPETITORS is going to have the exact same links that you do.
And after a while, the value of those links are going to be diluted.
That's why, we created a manual link building service. We want to help you get the links that your competitors aren't getting. (We'll get you the links they are getting as well... we'll just reach out manually to do it.)
Why do Our Clients Choose Us?
When Content Guppy started, we were an all inclusive SEO agency. We created content in house, but hired freelancers and other agencies to help us build links.
The problem was, most of the links we got sucked. So, we pivoted to a link building agency because we wanted to get the highest quality links possible.
At Content Guppy, we manually reach out to sites to acquire links with our 3 non-negotiable filters:
DR 60+ Links Only
You don't want to pay for links with low Domain Rankings, right? You want to acquire links from established sites with a good link profile. That's why we never reach out to a site that has a domain ranking less than 60. We don't want to waste your time.
1,000 Organic Visitors Per Month
You also want your links to come from sites that search engines are already ranking. The second filter we apply makes sure that all sites you get links from have a minimum of 1,000 organic visitors per month. Most of the time, they'll have a lot more!
Links come from SaaS companies or Agencies Only
This is the third filter we apply to your links. And probably THE MOST IMPORTANT one. Every single link that we build will come from a SaaS company or an Agency/Service business in your niche!
We have found that the links that increase rankings most come from these sites - and not from content farms or link farms.
How Our Manual Link Building Services Work
Because we filter out so many possible link opportunities, we have to maximize every single email that we send.
Part of having a high success rate is targeting the right person - someone who is willing and able to give you a link.
We don't have a list of "sites we have access to". Sure, we have some relationships in various industries, but almost every single link we obtain will come from our manual outreach process.
After we've found the right person, and we've reached out, it's time to do the tedious work of negotiating the link.
Our team of experts will make sure that your link goes live with relevant anchor text.
Finally, you'll get an email every single week from our custom reporting software.
You'll also be able to log in and see all of the links we've acquired for you over time.
5 Insanely Effective Manual Link Building Strategies
I'm sure you're wondering, what are the manual link building strategies that we deploy. Here's the five most popular that we use to get you links.
Link Insertion
Link insertion is the act of reaching out to other websites in hopes that they will add a link to their already existing content and it's one of our favorite manual link building strategies we use.
This is the exact process we use most often to find acquire some of the best links for our clients.
Here’s how it works.
Step 1: Find Articles to Manually Reach Out To
First, we have to find a list of sites who might want to include our link in their article.
To do that, we use Ahrefs Content Explorer.
Then we apply all of our filters.
These are:
- One page per domain
- Exclude Home Page
- Site Traffic 1000
- Domain Rating from 60-90
- And we manually filter out any non SaaS or Agency sites.
Then we export the list.
Step 2: Find Person Closest to the Content
Now we have to find the person to reach out to.
We use LinkedIn to do this.
And that’s because we want to get the person closest to the content. We don’t want to send our pitch to the CEO or Founder or CMO if we don’t have to.
Instead, we want to send our pitch to the SEO manager or the content marketing specialist.
So you can search the companies, and then go to the “people” tab.
And then you want to find people with “Content” or “SEO” in their job title.
Step 3: Send a Pitch
Now, it’s time to send your pitch.
Three things:
- Make it personal. Use their first name at all times.
- Show that you’ve ACTUALLY read the content. This is important. (Actually read the content!)
- Ask for the link.
Here’s an email that worked for me.
Subject: Quick Question
Hey Victor
I was reading your article on the 6 ways your B2B Business Can Establish Trust with Your Prospects.
You mention creating content marketing assets as one of the ways to create trust. Far too often, brands think they can just buy some ads on Facebook or Google or whatever, and see success.
But I can't tell you how many times a customer has said to us "we've been reading your blog for 2 years."
The other idea that you had which is really good is making it easy to contact the brand. If I can't find a way to get in touch with someone, then I'm not buying.
We wrote a post called "how to set up a call center" that can help companies make it easy for their customers and prospects to reach out to them. It will fit perfectly in your article.
Let me know if you’re interested.
Greg
Guest Blogging
Another one of our favorite manual link building strategies is guest posting.
In 2008, when I started my first blog, guest posting used to be my primary traffic strategy.
I’d write a guest post on Copyblogger or Problogger and get thousands of visitors and hundreds of email subscribers.
Man, I miss those days.
These days, guest posting is best served as a link building strategy.
Yes, I know that Google has said that guest posting for links is a “no no”, but we have found that writing high quality guest posts still works very well.
Step 1: Find a blog to write your post
So, the easiest way to find a blog to write for is to use Google.
You can simply enter the terms:
- “Name of niche” and “guest blogger”
- “Name of niche” and “write for us”
- “Name of niche” and “guest writer”
And you’ll wind up with dozens, if not hundreds, of blogs who are accepting guest posts.
For instance, if I type in “Marketing” and “write for us”, I get pages and pages of blogs looking for guest posts:
Step 2: Pitch the editor
Now that I’ve found a blog to write for, it’s time to pitch the editor.
The first thing I do is look for blog posts that have been successful and come up
with an idea around how to spin a new angle.
For instance, if I notice a blog post called “10 ways to nurture leads” gets a lot of shares and comments, then I might do something like “A Case Study on How I Nurture Leads”. (Totally made up and a bad example, perhaps, but you get the point.
I’d write my article around lead nurturing.)
Then, I’d pitch them using this script.
And it works almost all of the time!
Step 3: Write a killer post
Now it’s time to write a killer guest post. It has to be really good! You want to endear yourself to both the readers of the new blog AND the editor of the blog.
You can go the extra mile of adding a couple of images to your post, this is an easy step with mockups.
You may not get tons of traffic from your guest post, however, if you do good work for them, they will be much more inclined to share a future post or partner with you down the road.
Guest Podcast
Let’s face it. As good of a manual link building technique that guest posting is, doing it at scale can take a LONG time.
Writing blog posts can take hours to write. Then you submit it for a few rounds of edits. Before you know it, you’ll have spent 7-10 hours writing one guest post.
When it comes to manual link building, guest podcasting can be just as effective as guest posting. And it's much easier.
It takes 15 minutes to write your pitch. An hour (at most) to be on the podcast.
Boom! You got your high quality link. (Not to mention you’ve been in the ear of your target audience for almost an hour. That’s got to be worth something too, right?)
As a link building strategy, it doesn't get much easier than that.
So here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Find a Podcast to Appear On
You can do this a couple of ways.
The first way is by using Google.
Look what happens when I search for “best marketing podcasts”.
I get a ton of “list posts” about marketing podcasts.
Then I can click on each of these lists to see which podcasts work for my business.
The second way to do this is by going through the podcasts that you already listen to.
If you’re listening to these podcasts, then maybe your customers are as well.
Step 2: Identify Gaps
Once you’ve found the podcast that you’re going to pitch, you need to identify the content gaps that you can fill.
With a podcast, you don’t want to pitch the EXACT SAME THING as someone else. The topic has already been covered.
You need to pitch something that is a bit different - an angle that will appeal to the host and the readers.
For instance, I was pitching the “Everything is Marketing” podcast. And they had a few episodes on SEO.
So I knew SEO would be a good topic. But I needed to find a bit of an edge.
I pitched the podcast on an SEO strategy that would take just 30 minutes per day.
Step 3: The Pitch
Now you need to send your email.
Here’s the email I sent to the “Everything is Marketing” podcast.
Hey Corey
I was listening to your podcast episode with Benji Hyam where you guys were talking about creating a bottom of funnel content using Alternative Posts.
LIke you said, they convert like gangbusters! This is such a great strategy that I’ve seen make a significant impact for other companies. Thank you for sharing this valuable tactic that more people should be utilizing to get ranked for their competitor’s alternatives.
Because you do such a great job of teaching your audience how to grow their business through practical marketing strategies, I thought they would also love to know how to create a huge boost in visitors through an seo strategy that just takes up just 30 minutes each day.
I’ve also found a really cool keyword strategy that helps me create content “easily” which I could share too!
Are you interested?
Thanks,
Greg
Resource Page Link Building
Resource page is a great manual link building strategy for getting links to your home page or service page.
At it’s core, resource page link building consists of two steps:
Step 1: Create a great resource.
Step 2: Get a link on a page that lists great resources.
Here’s an example.
Let’s say you have an incredibly in depth blog post about SEO. A “resource” if you will.
You can go to Google and type: “SEO Resource Guides” or “Top SEO Resources” or “best SEO Resources”.
And you’ll get a bunch of pages just like this:
In this article, Chris lists out free articles and tools that you can use to level up your SEO game.
Claim Branded Links
A lot of times, people will write about you or your company and not link to you.
It’s not intentional. So reclaiming branded links is a great manual link building strategy.
In the midst of a story, or a train of thought, the blogger will just simply forget to go back and link to you.
I do it all the time. Sorry!
You can set up a Google Alert to get a mention of every time a blog mentions you.
Here’s a for instance, Neil Patel wrote about me on his blog NeilPatel.com.
He referenced an article, but didn’t link back to me. Bummer!
Now, I need to reach out to him.
Subject: Quick Question
Hey
I noticed that you mentioned me in your article (article name), but didn’t link to me.
Would you be able to link that back to me?
Thanks,
Greg
Now you know exactly how our manual link building services work.
Frequently Asked Questions
We find that we are different from our competitors in two ways.
First, we aim to get only high quality links.
We have a very thorough filter process that is the cornerstone of our manual link building strategy.
Like we've mentioned a few times here, we make sure that every single link comes from a SaaS company or an Agency/Service company in your industry.
And second, we invest heavily in our own tools which we love to show off to our clients.
In fact, we consider ourselves a software company. And you will have access to our platform so that you can easily see all of your links in one location.
This depends on a couple of factors.
First, what is your budget? Typically speaking the higher your budget, the more links we can build.
Second, the type of content that you're looking to build links to affects quantity as well.
For instance, it's a bit harder to acquire links to a sales page, so we won't be able to build as many as a blog post.
Once you become a client of Content Guppy you will have access to our reporting system that you can log into whenever you want.
Also, you will get an email from us every Friday letting you know what links we've acquired for you.
Yes! Our clients love when we help them rank their service and sales pages.
One the best manual link building techniques we can use to build links to sales and service pages is resource page link building. So we tend to do this a lot.
Increasing the ranking for sales and service pages is the fastest way for you to increase your MRR, revenue, demos, free trials, sales calls, etc.
Yes, they are. We have some relationships with other SEO's and sites in a lot of the industries we serve. However, every single link we get you will be done via manual link building.
Ahhhh... the million dollar question.
The short, buy crappy answer is, it all depends. There are a lot of ranking factors and link acquisition is just one of them.
We start our manual link building process the day you give us the go ahead. It usually takes about 10 days or so to start to see links go live.
But things like your competitors, your content quality, your site's user experience, all factor into how fast you'll rank for your particular keyword.
However, when we do an analysis of your page, we'll be able to give you some indication for an approximate timeline.
I will say that we often see results in a matter of months with our manual link building services. So the ROI can be quite fast.
The industries we typically work with are:
- Marketing
- Financial/accounting
- Project management
- Product management
- Productivity
- Remote work
- Entrepreneurship
- Software
- And most other non-super niche B2B industries
The benefits of doing manual link building in these industries is that there are plenty of sites to reach out to.
You will never be charged for a site with a domain rank under 60. Search engines love links from sites with a higher Domain rank.
However from time to time, we'll come across a really good site, with good content, but the domain is under 60. In this case, we'll always take the link and give it to you free of charge.
When we do our manual link building techniques, we'll filter out any sites that do not have a domain rank of at least 60.
Yes! You can absolutely let us know what anchor text you want us to go after.
Because we are doing manual link building, we will have a conversation with the person adding your link. So anchor text suggestions are welcome.
We might not be able to match your criteria 100% of the time. In those cases, we'll make sure the anchor text is closely related to your recommendation.
Automated link building is the process of using software in order to build links. While this sounds like a good idea, the problem is the links you'll be getting are at best, worthless, and at worst, harmful to your search engine rankings.
Most automated link building services are getting links on Web2.0 sites or in the comments section of blogs or worse, on PBNs.
With manual link building services, we are actively finding the best and most relevant sites to reach out to. We manually pitch the person closest to the content and ask for the link.
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