nk Building Techniques for Ecommerce //

Ranking brand pages, product pages, and category pages in ecommerce SEO should be the primary focus.

Websitewide conversion rates for Ecommerce hover around 2-3%, but product pages may reach more than 30% (average 7%), depending on the situation.

However, many in-house SEOs may find it difficult to get links directly to these pages.

This article focuses on six link-building strategies that are effective for ecommerce companies today.

Link building for ecommerce: The challenges and solutions

Driving traffic to product, category and brand pages on ecommerce websites can help you achieve greater returns.

Earning links to these pages can be difficult as most of the top quality publishers prefer to link only to informational content.

Many ecommerce websites don’t create long-form, useful content. This is because blogs and content hubs are not likely to generate direct sales and can take several months to rank.

Additionally, established brands are often outranked by affiliate sites that have strong link profiles for long-form content.

However, SEOs have discovered ways to overcome common ecommerce hurdles.

• Internal linking for ecommerce allows you to build content-led links that link to your target pages. This is crucial because long-form content can generate as many as 70% more links that short-form content.
• You can build profile images or homepage links by guest posting, podcast guest appearances and PR. You can usually get the podcaster or site to link to your homepage and even your headshot on your site.
• Although it is still common to pay for links, it is against Googles link spam guidelines.
• Establish and maintain relationships with publishers. A majority of cold email campaigns have a response rate of below 10%. Having a contact who knows you will help save time and ensure a better response rate.
• Look for content that mentions your brand, or brands that you sell.

Let’s take a deeper look at these ecommerce link-building techniques.

1. Mentions of brands that are not linked

Unlinked brand mention refers to an article or webpage that mentions you brand, your brands or your team members but does not have an active link to your website. These options can be used to create links to your homepage or brand pages.

Google Alerts and Ahrefs can help you find brand mentions that are not linked.

Google Alerts

Set up Google Alerts to receive email notifications whenever your brand name or variations is mentioned online. This will notify you by email whenever your brand is mentioned online.

Then, you can check if the mention contains a link to your site and, if so, contact the site owner to request one.

Ahrefs Batch Analysis and Content Explorer are both available

Ahrefs’ Content Explorer will help you locate unlinked mentions for your brand or brands.

These steps are easy to follow:

• Log in to Ahrefs and click “Content Explorer” at the top of the menu.
• Enter your brand name into the search bar, and hit Enter.
• To avoid multiple results on the same website, use the “One article per site” filter.
• Export the article list mentioning your brand.
• Check the list exported and manually verify that each mention links to your website. To search for your brand name, you can use the “Find” function of your browser (Ctrl+ F or Command+ F) and verify if it is linked.

Once you have a list URLs that do not contain brand mentions, Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool can be used to get more information about each site.

This will allow you to prioritize which websites you want to contact in order for them to provide link building opportunities.

• Click “More” from the Ahrefs top menu and then click “Batch Analysis.”
• Copy the URLs that have brand mentions but are not linked and then click “Start Analysis.”
• After the analysis is completed, metrics such as Domain Rating (DR), Ahrefs Rank(AR) and the number of referring websites for each website can be viewed. These metrics can be used to help you prioritize which sites you should contact in order to build links.

2. Reverse product image link building

Reverse image linking is the process of finding websites that use your images without proper attribution.

It is easy to find images that have not been properly attributed, but it can be time-consuming.

Identify your original images

You should choose images for your website that are unique and original, such as infographics or custom illustrations.

Perform a reverse image search

To find websites that have used your photos, use a reverse image search engine such as TinEye or Google Images.

Analyze the data

Manually go through the list and verify that they have included attribution and a link back to your site.

Collect contact information

Locate the contact information of website owners and content creators, such as email addresses and contact forms on the site.

3. Link building for resource pages

A resource page is a web page that lists and links to valuable resources, tools or content on a specific topic or industry.

These are the steps that typically go into building a resource page link:

Identify your link-worthy content

Begin by creating or identifying high-quality, informative, and valuable content for your website that will fit well on resource pages.

These could be blog posts, articles or tutorials, guides, infographics or tools.

Locate relevant resources pages

You can search Google for resources pages within your industry or niche that may be interested in linking your content. These queries can be searched on Google (replace “keyword” with your niche keyword or target keyword):

• “keyword” + “resources”
• “keyword” + “useful links”
• “keyword” + “helpful resources”
• “keyword” + “links”

Assess the resource pages

Analyze the relevancy and quality of the resource pages that you find. You should look for pages that have high domain authority, great user engagement, and relevant material.

Create a personal outreach email

Send a polite and personal email to the editor or website owner explaining who you are, why your content is valuable and how it could be added to their resource page.

Make sure you mention the benefits of your content and how they would benefit their audience.

4. Create a list of publishers

There are many tools that can help you build prospect lists for sites. However, not all of them allow you to upload your list and manage outreach to those contacts.

Pitchbox is my favorite tool for this. But, you can also use tools such as Buzzstream which are much more affordable.

Pitchbox is an outreach tool and link building tool. It makes it easy to find potential websites to connect with and automates outreach. It also helps you manage relationships.

Here’s how to build a site database using Pitchbox.

Create a new campaign

Click on the “Campaigns tab” in the Pitchbox dashboard and choose “Create New Campaign.”

You can enter a name and choose the campaign type you want (such as “Blogger Outreach” and “Link Building”)

Configure your campaign settings

You can customize your campaign settings. For example, the email account that you will use to send out outreach emails and the domains that you wish to exclude (e.g. competitors or sites with which you have already connected).

Do a prospect search

Click “Add Prospects” in the “Prospects” tab of your campaign and choose a method to find potential websites that you would like to add into your database.

Pitchbox has a built-in search that allows you to import lists from other tools like Ahrefs and Semrush or manually add new websites.

• You can use Pitchbox’s built in search to enter your keywords and choose your preferred search method (such “Blogger”, “Resource Page”, or “Guest Post”) Pitchbox will then create a list with relevant websites for you campaign.
• You can also import a list of websites from your favorite SEO tool. Simply export the list in CSV format to Pitchbox and then upload it to Pitchbox.

Filter and review your prospects

Once you have a list, go through it and remove any sites that are not relevant or of low quality.

Pitchbox has built-in metrics such as domain authority (DA) that can be used to evaluate each website’s quality.

Click on the checkbox next each website that you wish to add to your database, and then click “Add Selected Prospects.”

5. Podcast interviews

To pitch your podcast, you can either use simple podcast directories or search for a booking service. You will need to search for targeted podcasts that are relevant to your niche to prepare for a podcast.

You can search through TuneIn, Podbean or Stitcher to create custom outreach.

Identify your niche

Consider the audience you are trying to reach and the goals that you wish to accomplish by being on a podcast.

Research podcast directories

Find podcast directories relevant to your industry or niche, and create a list to help you choose the podcasts to pitch.

These examples can be used or you can do a Google search for additional directories.

Listen to the episodes

Listen to some podcast episodes before you pitch. This will help you to understand the format, tone, and style of the podcast.

Your pitch

Create a compelling pitch that explains why you are a good guest on the podcast.

Include a short introduction about yourself and your expertise. Also, explain why you are a good fit for this show. You can also mention any topics that you are interested in discussing or your unique perspective.

Send your pitch

Send an email or tweet to the podcast host/producer. Your pitch should be concise, personal, and professional.

6. Pages with statistical information curated by rank

This is my favorite way to secure links for ecommerce websites.

Ecommerce websites don’t always have the resources to conduct unique studies. This is why curating statistical pages is a great way to accomplish this.

You can compile a list from government data sites or primary data studies, and then spend some time aggregating them for the reader.

This list of 50 insane stats and facts ranks as “promotional product statistics” and will naturally attract links as bloggers and journalists search for statistics to refer to.

Conclusion

Ecommerce businesses must rank brand, category, and product pages in Google search results to achieve high conversion rates. Due to the nature and complexity of ecommerce, it can be difficult to secure high-quality backlinks for these pages.

These challenges can be overcome by combining content-led linking, strategic internal linking, and creative outreach techniques.

These strategies can help ecommerce businesses overcome the difficulties associated with ecommerce linkage and increase their search engine visibility.

The post 6 Link Building Techniques for Ecommerce was first published on Search Engine Land.