Broken link building is often underestimated as an SEO tactic that can greatly boost website performance. This strategy involves finding broken links on other websites and reaching out to their webmasters with content to replace any dead links with content they need instead.
Personalizing and following up will increase response rates by showing your interest in their site and visitors.
How to Find Broken Links
Broken links are an all too frequent problem that can have devastating consequences for both SEO rankings and user experience, not to mention waste time and resources from marketing teams trying to fix them. Therefore, it is vital that marketing teams establish an efficient process for finding and fixing broken links; among the various methods available are Ahrefs, SEMrush or Sitechecker which automatically scan your entire website to detect broken links that need fixing.
Once the tool has identified any broken links, you have three choices for every link identified: 1. Display list of broken links: This option presents all broken links along with their URLs so you can determine which ones to fix or ignore; 2. Ignore link: If an error was caused by temporary issues (e.g. server outage), this feature allows you to temporarily ignore it by not including it in future scans; this is especially helpful if temporary solutions cannot be applied (e.g. server outages).
3. Mark as Fixed: To mark an error as fixed and remove it from subsequent scans and return normality, this option marks it with “Mark as Fixed.” It will no longer appear in scans and should appear normal again – useful if the issue was due to HTML code changes or temporary problems like server outages.
If the broken link leads to an external source, you can use 301 redirects to take users directly to a similar page on your site, rather than them landing on an error 404 page and creating an adverse user experience. For internal links that have become irrelevant over time, consider replacing them with new links which provide more pertinent content instead.
If you are unable to fix a broken link yourself, other options include asking the webmaster or Google directly for assistance, as well as filing an official report with them. But this can be time-consuming and inconvenient; to save yourself this troublesome process it would be smarter investing in an automated tool such as ContentKing which monitors all pages 24/7 to detect broken links instantly, alerting you immediately when they pop up so they can be repaired with just one click!
1. Automate the Process
Broken link building can be an arduous task, but some tools exist that can aid your efforts. Ahrefs’ Site Audit feature helps identify broken links and notify you when they arise; another tool analyzes competitors’ backlink profiles in search of opportunities; it even creates a prioritized list of prospective prospects according to backlink count and domain authority.
Consider which tools allow for maximum customization when selecting them. Some have templates that make personalizing outreach emails simple – this could make the difference between accepting or rejecting it by webmasters.
One important consideration when selecting tools to use is how well they integrate with other SEO software. You should be able to run processes on a larger scale without spending hours of each week manually inputting data. You should also think about whether these tools will scale with your business as it grows.
Once you’ve identified broken links to pursue, the next step should be creating replacement content for them. You can do this by running them through the Wayback Machine to see their original form; then recreating or creating something similar based on that original material – creating content that closely reflects broken link content while providing value to its audience is key!
Provide value to website owners you approach is the key to winning their trust and obtaining desired backlinks. The more beneficial your replacement content is perceived as by them, the higher their likelihood is of updating their links to point back at you.
As is also important when providing content, avoid offering ever-evolving, ever-shifting topics like politics, currency rates and breaking news – these types of subjects won’t hold any long-term value for webmasters you contact and so won’t likely update their existing links with new links from you.
When choosing an automated broken link building provider, keep their experience and past successes in mind. Look for transparent processes with a desire to tailor outreach strategies based on each prospect’s individual needs.
2. Reach Out to Webmasters
At its core, broken link building involves helping website owners improve their websites while securing valuable backlinks for yourself. But in practice it can be unpredictable; sometimes sending out just a handful of emails will yield multiple links while other times it might take far more outreach before this task has been completed. Therefore it’s vital to create an organized, efficient broken link building process.
Prior to reaching out, it is key that you contact the right webmaster or page admin. Mistargeted outreach campaigns could wreak havoc by yielding links from sites you don’t even rank for! If unsure who the correct contact is, just conduct research to ascertain their role within their website.
Once you’ve identified the appropriate contact, make your pitch that emphasizes its value for their readers. Always strive for a customized pitch as site editors can detect when outreach emails use templates which could easily be ignored.
Outreach should focus on showing how your content can add value to the user’s experience by meeting specific informational or resource needs. By showing how it meets these needs and is an optimal substitute, trust will quickly build among broken links as they link out to it.
As your content offers performance improvements, it can give them incentive to switch over by replacing their broken link with yours. If they had an outdated resource page that provided less depth and presentation improvements with an outdated one of theirs, showing these factors increases chances that their dead link will be accepted as your content replacement and ultimately strengthen SEO authority in search engines’ eyes.
3. Document Your Outreach Processes
Broken link building is an ethical practice that provides value to website visitors while solving webmaster challenges. When executed carefully and efficiently, broken link building can generate high-quality backlinks from authoritative sites across a niche. As SEO evolves over time, however, broken link building must adapt accordingly; to do this efficiently in future instances it’s crucial that each step of this process be documented so your team can quickly recreate it without losing time in doing so.
Broken link building requires focused prospecting. Locate websites with broken links to your content and reach out to their editors/webmasters with an offer to create more pertinent ones. Target the About or Contact pages in order to discover email addresses for editors, content managers, digital media decision-makers, etc. You may use LinkedIn or similar services in order to discover any contacts associated with that website’s editorial hierarchy and leverage LinkedIn searches as needed to identify contacts associated with that particular website – targeting higher ranking staff will likely increase the chance that a response will occur!
Attach your pitch as the subject line of an email and follow up if no response is forthcoming from either an editor or webmaster. Introduce yourself and your company while noting a broken link to your content on their website; suggest replacing it with your customized page that offers better user experiences; highlight topical alignment as well as performance upgrades such as information depth, presentation quality and accessibility improvements as benefits from making changes.
Assessing the purpose and topical relevance of a broken link provides insight into which characteristics made its original page link-worthy, making your replacement content even more compelling to links by fulfilling or exceeding outreach expectations.
Once you’ve collected websites with broken links, export them as a CSV file and import them into LinkAssistant as outreach prospects. LinkAssistant automatically gathers email address data if it’s openly provided on domains as well as additional personalization variables in emails for you so that you can create messages that resonate with prospects.