Manual link building is an indispensable component of building an authoritative site that performs well in search engines.
While the importance of links has been debated, each Google update makes it more apparent that authoritative websites are treated differently than their less powerful counterparts.
Take The Verge, for example, an authority site that ranks #1 for the affiliate search “best printers” even though they are blatantly poking fun at Google and the weight of content vs. authority.
They added AI content in large blocks and pointed out that the page’s authority, derived from link building, keeps it on top.
If you have been following news about the Helpful Content Update and the March 2024 Core Update, you know this isn’t an isolated example.
Long story short, links build authority, and authoritative sites are poised to excel in the future. If you are actively engaged in manual link building or some other link attraction tactic, it’s time to get started.
What is Manual Link Building?
Manual link building is the deliberate acquisition of links from other websites by actively locating and requesting placements.
A manual link-building campaign requires time and careful planning to deliver meaningful results and a solid ROI. However, when done right, it is far superior to the link-building automation tools and techniques of the past.
Why Quality Links Matter
When you get good links, they usually come from trusted websites with authority in the topic area related to your content. The link should be natural within the text, providing useful information or improving user experience.
It must also originate from a site that has consistently proven reliable for both users and search engines over time. In addition to these factors, it is important that links are followed—this means they provide link equity to your website.
Quality links play into what Google is looking to reward vs. trying to skirt the system.
Google’s Preference for Quality Backlinks
Google stresses the value of quality links. The search engine’s algorithms check the usefulness and power of backlinks, giving more weight to those originating from reliable sources related to the subject.
Those same algorithms will punish websites that use spammy link-building techniques, which could include those made using automated link-building tools.
Google’s suggestions for gaining links from other relevant and authoritative websites also emphasize the importance of high-quality content and its ability to attract links naturally.
Luckily, equipped with the correct information, you can design a manual link-building strategy that employs the right tactics and enables you to build valuable links.
The result?
Higher search engine rankings, more organic traffic, and a strong return on your investment.
Conversely, due to the issues we will cover below, an automated campaign cannot produce the same type of lasting results.
The Distinction Between Manual and Automated Link Building
Manual Link Building is the Most Effective and Sustainable Approach.
Manual Link Building Strategy
The method of manual link building is tactical. Every potential link is thoroughly evaluated.
It involves personalized communication and partnership creation, with the objective of placing links that deliver sustainable SEO advantages.
Automated Link Building Strategy
This method usually deploys software to generate links on a large scale, not paying attention to the quality or suitability of the link placements.
It emphasizes numbers more than quality, which could result in less effective SEO outcomes and possible penalties from search engines.
Risks Associated with Automated Link Building (ALB)
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Penalties and Rankings Loss
Search engines, especially Google, are getting better at recognizing link patterns that seem unnatural or controlled. When sites are found to use automatic link-building methods, they could be penalized, and their search rankings decline as a result.
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Low-Quality Link Profiles
Automated tools do not distinguish between high-quality and low-quality sites. This might lead to links from spammy or unrelated places, making your website’s link profile less potent and trustworthy.
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Damaged Reputation
Your connection with low-quality or spammy sites might harm your brand’s image in users’ eyes, decreasing your website’s trustworthiness.
If agree manual link building is the way to go, here is how to make the most of it, starting with a brief look at what to consider when vetting a link opportunity.
Key Principles of Manual Link Building
The distinct advantage of manual link building is that it lets you focus on quality backlinks meant to last.
But what makes a link worthwhile? Here are a few checks you should make.
Relevance
Links from websites with similar content are more beneficial. They drive more relevant traffic and are also favored by search engines.
Organic Traffic
Target sites with substantial organic traffic. Search engines view these as credible, enhancing the value of their links. Prioritize sites that rank for similar keywords or contribute to your optimized content strategies.
Traffic Consistency
Look for websites with steady traffic. This consistency indicates reliability and is highly regarded by search engines. This is easier said than done following Google’s series of updates in late 2023 and early 2024 – so you will have to consider those when gauging a site
Diverse Link Sources
A website with links from various trusted sources indicates a robust link profile. More varied sources of links suggest greater reliability and authority. This can easily be measured by looking at the number and type of referring domains pointing to a site.
Check out Backlinks vs. Referring Domains if you aren’t clear on the distinction.
While these checks just scratch the surface, they can help you start distinguishing valuable links from spammy ones.
We mentioned quality over quantity earlier, and that is true.
However, once you determine how many backlinks you need to rank, you may find that your niche requires many high-quality links.
Getting links at scale using manual link building techniques can prove challenging, especially without the right resources.
Challenges of Manual Link Building
Many businesses, including some SEO and digital marketing agencies, shy away from link building because it is one of the most challenging aspects of SEO.
At Stellar SEO, we specialize in link building and have been delivering high-quality links for over a decade, so we have seen many trends come and go.
If you are just starting your journey into link outreach, here are some challenges you will likely encounter:
Time and Resource Intensity
Manual link building is labor-intensive and time-consuming. It involves identifying potential link partners, strategizing outreach, executing these plans, and continuously monitoring and maintaining these relationships.
Scalability Challenges
Scaling manual link building efforts can be difficult as the complexity increases with the number of links and partnerships. It often requires exponentially more time and coordination as your network grows.
Quality Control Issues
Ensuring the quality of each link is a major challenge. Manual processes can lead to inconsistencies and potential errors, making it tough to guarantee that every link meets the required standards and effectiveness.
Keeping Up with Google’s Updates and Best Practices
Manual link building also demands staying informed about the latest Google updates and SEO best practices. Failing to keep up can result in outdated or non-compliant strategies, potentially harming your site’s rankings.
Streamlining Manual Link Building
We could have covered numerous additional challenges, but, instead, let’s discuss how to make your manual link-building campaigns easier to run and manage.
Leveraging an Agency
If your internal team lacks the expertise or resources to build backlinks at the required scale for your industry effectively, consider partnering with a custom outreach link-building agency. These agencies specialize in developing and executing comprehensive link-building strategies, utilizing their extensive network of website owners and content creators to secure high-quality links.
Utilizing Freelancers
For businesses operating on a tighter budget or needing support for smaller projects, hiring freelance SEO experts can be a viable alternative. Freelancers offer personalized services tailored to your business goals and are generally well-versed in industry-specific best practices, including white-hat SEO techniques.
Outsourcing Specific Tasks
If a full-service campaign is beyond your budget, consider outsourcing specific elements of your link-building strategy. This can include tasks like content creation, outreach, or data analysis, allowing you to manage costs while enhancing your link-building efforts.
Incorporating Content Marketing
Quality content is crucial for attracting valuable backlinks. Employing content marketing services to produce engaging and shareable content can significantly augment your manual link-building activities. These services help create content that naturally attracts backlinks, boosting your SEO efforts.
Having Clear Goals In Place
Regardless of which combination of services you decide on to acquire the links you need, taking the time to start with a clearly defined strategy and outlining your desired outcome from the campaign will maximize its efficiency and results.
Now for some bad news – even manual link building can result in Google penalties if you go about it in the wrong way.
Can Manual Link Building Result In Penalties?
Violating Google’s link-building guidelines, such as using PBN links and participating in link schemes, can lead to severe penalties. These might include significant drops in search rankings, removal from search results, or direct manual actions against your site.
What Should You Do If You Get a Manual Link Building Penalty?
A manual action penalty for unnatural links can be intimidating, but recovery is possible. As we’ll discuss below, some tactics are extremely effective, although discouraged by search engines.
If you end up on the wrong side of a link penalty, knowing which ones to keep vs. disavow is considerably more nuanced than just taking the ax to anything that isn’t “white hat”.
Unfortunately, some companies go so overboard during the cleanup process that they end up disavowing links that, while technically outside of Google’s guidelines, were actually helping the site rank. Unless you have significant experience, it is best to outsource this delicate process to an agency with extensive Google penalty recovery experience.
Guidelines Vs. Reality
On paper, 100% white hat link building sounds like the safest bet, but even sites that have never engaged in link building have been handed algorithmic or manual link penalties—after all, you can’t control who decides to link to your site.
This is where Google guidelines and practical applications diverge – giving rise to effective and widely used tactics such as buying paid links.
Between white hat and black hat link building lies the grey area, oddly enough called grey hat link building. This mixture allows for the fastest growth by balancing risk mitigation with more aggressive link building efforts like paid links.
One key consideration of these “grey hat” tactics is how natural they appear to search engines.
Importance of Manual, Contextually Relevant Links
Relevance and context are critical for effective link building. Links that are organically woven into high-quality, relevant content provide the greatest SEO value.
Manual link building ensures that each link is thoughtfully placed, contextually relevant, and genuinely enhances the content. Here are some tactics that you can use to get high-quality backlinks
Best Manual Link Building Tactics
Before you select the appropriate tactics, you should first have clearly defined goals, complete competitor research, and develop a strategy. This will ensure you choose the right tactics and enjoy the maximum return on your time and effort or investment with an outside agency.
If you haven’t completed those steps and aren’t sure where to start, get in touch to discuss our custom link outreach program, which includes all of the above. For those of you with a plan in place, here are some proven tactics for acquiring high-quality backlinks.
1. Blogger Outreach for Relationship-Based Link Building
This plan intends to channel genuine relationships with bloggers, experts in the field, and owners of websites in your specific area. The aim is to establish a group of contacts who can offer valuable backlinks by way of natural, authoritative content. Check out our blogger outreach service if you are looking for this type of link.
2. Guest Blogging
This involves writing articles for other top sites in your field of work, which can generate organic and valuable backlinks. Concentrate on contributing unique viewpoints and sound material that fits the hosting website while also subtlely including links to your site. The best way to go about this is by creating informational content in a “ghostwritten” style to avoid any footprints. Our guest posting service uses this approach.
3. Influencer Collaborations
Making content with influencers can help you access their audience and attract backlinks from fitting sources. This tactic could be potent if the influencer’s viewers match your target demographic and you get the content right.
4. Broken Link Building
Finding broken links on popular websites that relate to your industry is an opportunity for you to suggest replacing them with links from your site. This helps both parties since they get a working link again, and you gain a new backlink.
5. Niche Edits
Very similar to broken link building, niche edits are links added to existing content to replace an outdated resource or add additional value to the page. Generally, niche edits are relationship-based links, which makes them scalable. Our niche edits service can help you secure links from relevant websites by updating the existing page and including your link in the process.
6. Internal Link Building
Internal links are extremely valuable as part of your holistic on-page SEO efforts. Ensure each page has links to related pages on the same site so search engines can better understand its structure and you can distribute link equity more efficiently across key sections of the site.
7. Skyscraper Technique
With this strategy, you discover content that performs well online, make something even better, and then ask those linking toward the original piece if they would consider switching their link to yours instead because yours delivers more value. Sometimes, simple content pieces work great for this, so don’t think skyscraper link building always requires a massive guide.
8. Unlinked Mentions
Using online tools like Google Alerts or BrandMentions enables you to find when someone mentions your brand but hasn’t included a hyperlink yet. Reach out politely and ask them if they could add one, which creates useful connections while enhancing SEO.
9. Digital PR
Digital PR involves crafting compelling stories about your business and distributing them via press releases or by directly contacting reporters. This strategy can result in high-quality backlinks from reputable news sources. By highlighting interesting aspects of your company, showcasing innovations, and sharing data or statistics they would find useful, you can engage journalists and influencers who may feature your content, thereby enhancing your online presence and authority.
Dominate Search Engines with Professional Link Building Services
Although time-consuming and resource-intensive, manual link building remains one of the most powerful SEO signals in 2024.
If your company is ready to accelerate your growth, capture more SERP visibility, and increase top-line revenue, we can help. Get in touch today to find out how.
