GPT: A primer for link building

I am fascinated by ChatGPT‘s potential to improve link building strategies, focus efforts, and deliver efficient campaigns.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can be used for client campaigns and more than 1,000 prompts. Here’s how ChatGPT can be used to build links.

ChatGPT created a nut graph for me to set up the article:

ChatGPT, an AI-powered tool that can be used to build links, is becoming more popular in SEO. This article will show you how ChatGPT can help with link building.

ChatGPT, prompted Kevin Rowe

Yes, I believe I will.

Before we get started, let me explain the anatomy and function of prompts.

ChatGPT can assist with a article about link building for SEO.

I refer to established models in books and universities when planning and executing campaigns. They are difficult to remember so I often have to refer to my book notes or use Google to search for templates. This usually involves several clicks and at least an hour of research.

Let’s take a look at how ChatGPT recommends a template for this article.

Prompt: “What 5 modern case study templates are from highly authoritative sources?”

These results are not bad, but I need direction to make them useful and actionable.

Prompt: Which of these case study templates is best for a 1500-word link building article?

Although I don’t believe it 100%, I am not a quitter.

Prompt: “Write a draft for the article about ChatGPT link building using this template.”

This outline is great for a quick 5 minute work. It is best to have a subject matter expert (SME) and some SEO love for the headings.

Let’s take a look at the structure of my article to see how it works.

ChatGPT and link building: A case study

Overview of case study

Why ChatGPT is so important for link building

ChatGPT was used for research and I tested it with my team. The business case for ChatGPT is:

• Develop a deeper understanding about specific tactics and tools.
• Focus your efforts in a narrow direction.
• Increase efficiency in research, planning, as well as on-site content to earn links.

ChatGPT Introduction as a Potential Link Building Tool

ChatGPT works like a junior SEO specialist, who reads a lot. Although they may not have the context and experience to fully understand the impact of a technique, you can still identify great ideas by using the prompts. That’s the beauty of being a leader and manager.

Ideal scenario is that all link building processes could be automated to comply with Google link spam guidelines. This would have a short-term effect that drives a 3:1 ROI.

It can be used to save time and money at different stages of a process, or it can help you quickly brainstorm new link building ideas.

You will need to create your own prompts in order to use the tool. This graphic by Rob Lennon is a great way to get useful responses.

This structure is not necessary for all prompts. As you will see, a prompt structure can be helpful in uncovering insights that would have been difficult to find otherwise.

An overview of link building

The current landscape of link-building

What link building strategy should you choose? This question is almost as controversial as the presidential election, at least for SEO geeks.

These are important considerations to make when developing a link-building strategy.

Link-building ethical considerations: There are many options. Each one has its own risks. You should be aware of Google’s views on link building ethics if you are concerned about your own.

Google’s POV John Mueller from Google suggests creating great content and sharing it with others through relevant blogs and forums and other online communities.

Google’s materials on link building are highly recommended, especially if you are in a You Money Your Life (YMYL) niche.

• For more information, see the SEO Office Hours.
• Check out their linkspam policies.
• Google’s latest documentation on SEO best practices .
• The search quality evaluation guidelines are a great resource for evaluating the quality of a website.
• Subscribe to Search Engine roundtable by Barry Schwartz to get his extensive coverage of Google’s search documentation.

Link building methods: These can all be classified as paid, organic/natural or earned. Backlinko’s list of link building strategies can help you gain direction. For outreach, I recommend that you customize your email templates.

This is a summary of some common approaches.

• Paid Links: Guest Posting is very popular. This includes content creation for trade websites or third-party blogs. These can be organic or paid. When choosing a site to work with, there are many factors that will impact the placement, including quality standards and context.
• Link earning – Creating content with a unique value proposition (UVP), or a unique Selling proposition and sharing it with a group to see if people like it and share it. It’s basically about going viral. It’s similar to product promotion, but with content.
• 
  Organic/natura
  
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  • Digital PR Using tools such as HARO to establish links through journalist outreach
  • Link reclamation – Includes unlinked branding mentions and unlinked thematic mentions (i.e. finding articles that have a contextual, but unlinked keyword).
• Niche strategies: There are many tactics, including infographic distribution, data-driven articles and coining new phrases.

Limitations of current link-building techniques

ChatGPT’s template can result in a long article. Let’s not make it complicated.

There is no guarantee that any link building strategy will work. They can be time-consuming. The economy of linking building is the most restrictive factor.

Limitations for ChatGPT

Before using ChatGPT in real-world business applications, refer to this list from OpenAI.

SEO-specific Link Building Challenges

Link building is one of the most difficult aspects in an SEO or content marketing plan.

After building thousands upon thousands of links, I have found that the greatest challenges in running an impactful and scalable campaign are the following:

Evaluating site quality

SEO is all about site quality and content. It’s possible with algorithm updates such as Penguin or the December 2022 linkspam update powered by SpamBrain.

65% marketers use third-party metrics like domain authority, page authority, and domain rating to assess site quality. Google doesn’t use these metrics. Instead, the quality rater guidelines focus on factors like contextuality, reputation and quality of site contributors for such evaluations.

This document was also updated on December 15, 2022. ChatGPT does not have information on recent changes as it isn’t connected to the internet.

Evaluation of impact

It is hard to determine which factor drove your KPIs forward at both the page and domain levels. Google stated that does not devalue links to sites and does not demote a site for link spam. This presents major problems for analysis.

Scalability

Both on-site content creation as well as off-site prospecting, outreach, and link research are time-intensive and resource-intensive.

ChatGPT is a tool for link building

Looking at the difficulties of link building, there are a few solutions.

Evaluating site quality

ChatGPT cannot evaluate your site’s quality. This makes it easier to interpret Google’s site quality guidelines.

Prompt: “Create an evaluation list to assess site quality for link-building against Google’s Quality Quality Evaluation Guidelines.”

Let’s dive deeper.

Well, well…

How do you determine expertise and reputation? I asked for more information about expertise and reputation and received:

Although not very algorithmic, it can be helpful for those who wish to build links that conform with Google’s guidelines.

Let’s be more specific and look for software that can help.

Okay. Now, I need to know how to use the tool step-by-step. Let’s use Ahrefs.

This guide has some value, and can be used to provide guidance for those new to Ahrefs link building. However, it is great for a starting point.

Evaluation of impact

ChatGPT is able to give you tool recommendations in the same way.

You can also ask general questions like “What tools are the best to assess a site’s Google ranking improvement?”

Although I didn’t use the best word, it was the most concise. But let’s see what happens.

Serpstat is my favorite tool, so let’s see how quickly I can identify a process for evaluating my keyword rankings.

That’s it. With these prompts, I am certain that we can dig deeper into niche tools and process with greater ease.

Scalability

To my dismay, I have been trying to automate natural link-building techniques.

What do you think would be incredible? ChatGPT could be a great tool for building broken links.

This is a great idea. It would have saved me hours of research. However, none of these links are very useful.

This seemed clever, but it was only internal links. This is not a good way to build broken links.

But, after some prompting, I was finally able to identify Ahrefs (again) and find answers to how to find broken link reports…

And:

It’s not bad.

You can also save time by using the “act as” or “step-by-step” prompts.

Let’s see if I can follow these prompts to get John Mueller’s view on link building. Brian Dean will then write me a strategy.

Let’s first see what Mueller has got to say about building links.

Now, I must design a link-building program that has a solid foundation in great content. (The above response suggests creating viral content. This is its own article).

Prompt: “Write me an SEO strategy as if Brian Dean was from Backlinko.

This is what I will do.

Although the step-by-step guide doesn’t give the exact steps, I was able narrow down the process and find some direction within 5 minutes.

ChatGPT is a promising tool for link building

Programming is not the same as content marketing or link building. It is difficult to find reliable research that can be used as a training tool.

ChatGPT is a great way to reduce research time if you have contacts, strategies, and tools that are well-known.

ChatGPT will provide greater automation and scalability, which I am excited about. It’s an excellent assistant for planning and research.

You might consider creating your own prompts that will show you how to use SEO/link building specific tools, or provide quick references to established processes.

The post ChatGPT to link building: A primer was first published on Search Engine land.