Link Building Trends For 2018

My relationship with link building started a little over a year ago. What began as just a few emails, dipping my toes in the water of offsite SEO marketing quickly began a torrid love affair with one of the most important tactics of marketing in 2018. I dreamt about link building. I had pictures of link building saved on my phone. Hell, I’d spend hours upon hours with link building. Okay, okay, I didn’t mean to get too spicy, but seriously, link building quickly became a passion of mine. It’s often seen as one of the most difficult aspects of a marketing initiative, but it was the problem-solving and communications aspects that drew me to this tactic. Well into my second year as a link builder, and I feel confident enough that I can pass along some useful information. Below we’ll take a look at some of the best link building trends for 2018.

Link Building Trends For 2018

Using Data and Research to Create Content

With such a saturated industry, it’s no surprise that the link building trends for 2018 are tactics that will push you above and beyond your competitors. The first tactic you should take advantage of is using research and data to create interesting and authoritative content. In an industry where “content is king,” there is no content more valuable than current, and previously unpublished industry insights. Holding creative control over this original research means earning backlinks whenever anyone writes a new blog article or social media post that references your findings.

Not only can the original data generate backlinks, but you can also recycle it into other forms of content. Perhaps you want to turn that data into a shareable infographic. Another way to repurpose that content is to create a video of the researchers themselves talking about the data they’ve found. Original research is a great way to provide important information while scoring a variety of different backlinks from recycled data.

Adjust Your Campaign For Mobile

We’ve already covered the rise of voice search in previous blogs, but many marketers will fail to consider mobile when link building. Your mobile-friendly content is going to be some of the most valuable link bait that you have. 20% of all web searches are voice searches. This is important on two fronts. If you’re optimized for voice search and landing some valuable rich snippets, this will increase the chances of snagging natural backlinks without lifting a finger.

On the other side, targeting backlinks from sites that rank frequently for mobile search is a great way to snag backlinks that are both valuable and relevant.

Backlink Reclamation

When it comes to some of the best link building trends for link building, reclaiming backlinks is often an undervalued but highly important tactic. As Google puts more and more value into links, losing them can be detrimental to your website. A good backlink reclamation campaign will ensure that there are few backlinks getting lost in the shuffle. A backlink analysis tool like SEMrush or Majestic will allow you to export all lost backlinks. The next stage, outreach, is as easy as emailing the link origin’s site owner with the updated URL. Pointing out dead links is going to be in their best interest as well because it improves user experience and SEO.

Link Building With Videos

We’ve touched on videos a little, but one of the biggest link building trends for 2018 is starting link building with videos. Similar to infographics, videos are a great piece of visual content that can garner a lot of traffic, views, and backlinks. Many experts have seen a lot of success in self-hosting videos on their website and/or sharing them on their social media pages. Users consume hours of video content via social media, so it’s a no-brainer that you should be taking advantage of those eyes. First, you’ll want to promote your videos via social media just like you would on any other. Next, you’ll want to use YouTube analytics to find out who is sharing your video or embedding it on their website. This is a great way to request a backlink from those who have been sharing your content.

These are just a few of the many link building trends for 2018. If you haven’t thought about a link building campaign, now’s the time to start. It will help boost those search rankings as well as increase traffic to your site. If you have any other trends or tactics you’d like to share, feel free to comment below!