Chapter 9: How to Build a Link Building Plan?

This chapter talks about what to consider when creating a link building plan.

Before we create a plan, we want to reiterate that the backlinks we look for should come from relevant niches, preferably. 

We would assume you have already worked on broken links and the toxic links from the previous chapter. But here you will find out:

1. What metrics do you look for when creating links? DA, Traffic.
2. How Many Links Should Be Created? Link Velocity.
3. What Pages to Target When Creating Links? Link Spread.
4. What keywords are to be targeted in the link plan? Anchor texts.

So, let’s start with the first one.

1. What Metrics to Look for When Creating Links?

When you work on a link building plan and find out where to get links from, it is usually from the higher DA websites. Now, that, of course, is a plan separate from how you earn links through the excellent content you create. (Reward Links)

But essentially, for an Opportunity link strategy, there is some level of control from where you can get backlinks.

Because you want to get better backlinks, and those too from high authority websites, a benchmark could be getting links from a higher DA website.  These are the ones you strive for, and you request other blogs through a process of prospecting and then reaching.

Ideally, for this plan, you would want to get backlinks from websites with a higher DA/DR than yours. Another benchmark is that you can find the range of your competitors., and where their DA/DR lies. Use that range to target similar DA/DR websites or higher.

Now, the next question you should be asking is.

2. How Many Links Should Be Created?

Link Velocity, as mentioned before, is the pace at which you should add links. But what is the ideal speed?

There is none because no one knows and you cannot simply control the flow of backlinks. You will be getting do-follow and no-follow links if you are creating content, and that is something out of your control. They could include the highest quality backlinks and toxic ones. 

For toxic ones, the best thing you can do is do link audits regularly, and disavow them at weekly or biweekly intervals, depending on the activity of your content.

But what you can do is set the velocity of your backlinking efforts, which could gradually increase the link velocity.

Here is a simple way to calculate how many backlinks to get started with.

1. Get the total number of links in the past three months.
2. Remove the automated/stats/toxic links from the total numbers.
3. Divide it by 3 to get the average number of good links per month.
4. Increase monthly backlink target by 10% every month.

It could be 15% or 20%, it depends on the results. There are a ton of factors that could be weighing your rankings down or lifting them up. But one of the most crucial ranking factors for backlinks is that you need to test the velocity and track the results.

That seems like a doable job, but.

3. What pages should you target when creating links?

This is an important question because it will show how quickly you can get results. If you are targeting random pages, you may not be maximizing your efforts. And all that you have been doing might go in vain.

Low hanging mangoes

Look for pages that are already ranking between 4-10 and 10-20. Because the top 3 results get the most traffic, and they are reachable if you’re at these positions. So, we try to push them up to maximize our efforts for search traffic. 

You can find them on any SEO tool by checking the top-ranking pages of your website. For Ahrefs:

1. Enter your website
2. Go to Organic Keywords
3. Filter the positions by 4-10, and/or 10-20. If you get many results, sort by Traffic or enter the minimum traffic as necessary.
4. The results show the pages you should start working on.

Low-referring Domains

Once you have worked on low-hanging fruits, you can work on pages with low referring domains. For Ahrefs:

1. Go to Traffic Value.
2. Sort by highest traffic (default).
3. Look for the rows or pages with the lowest referring domains, columned as RD.

If you find pages with zero backlinks, pick those. And if they are evergreen content pieces, then they should be your priority.

Commercial Intent Pages

Commercial intent pages are your service or product pages. Your real business. If you are wondering why these are to be seen as the least priority, it’s because we want to respect the anchor text strategy and keep things natural. We don’t want to show Google that we have an agenda to excessively push our commercial pages and exact match keywords that fall under money keywords.

Now that you have a list of pages you want to focus on, you can divide them into Homepage, Internal/Landing Pages, Blogs/Informative Pages on a Google Sheet.

Link Spread

Every month, try to keep them close to this Link Spread.

• Home = 20%
• Internal / Landing Pages = 60% – 65%
• Blog/Informative Pages = 15% – 20%

Your Link building plan looks like a plan for success, but there is one thing missing: what anchor text to focus on when creating backlinks.

1. What keywords to target when creating links?

When it comes to targeting keywords for backlinks, it is the anchor text strategy we focus on.  The keywords are usually driven in the keyword research phase. However, if you do not have done keyword research, you can do it here.

Else, if you have keywords, you should categorize them into:

Branded/naked: Link Building HQ, www.linkbuildinghq.com/.

Exact Match: Link building service.

Partial Match: Best ‘link building service’ in Florida.  

Generic: Click here. 

Once you have categorized them, you will know which ones to use in what proportion.

Putting it All Together