6 Ways to Nail Your Ecommerce Link Building in 2022

Intro

Link building is one of the most important aspects of SEO. To rank higher in Google, especially in a competitive industry, you need to have links from high-quality websites pointing back to your site. But with so many changes to the Google algorithm over the years, it can be challenging to know which link-building tactics will work in 2022 with Profit Engine.

80% of marketers believe that brand mentions influence organic search rankings, and in recent years link building still has ranking criteria in the Google algorithm. That's why you need to create your link-building strategy today.

In this blog post, we'll share six ways you can successfully build links for your eCommerce website in 2022. So stay ahead of the curve and start implementing these strategies today!

1. Create Linkable Content Assets

One of the most effective ways to build links is to create linkable content assets. By creating informative blog posts, infographics, eBooks, and other types of content, you give other website owners something to link to. Not only does this help you build links, but it also helps you attract traffic and generate leads.

To ensure your content is link-worthy, focus on creating informative and engaging pieces relevant to your niche. In other words, don't write a blog post just for the sake of getting a backlink. Instead, write something that will genuinely help your audience, and they'll want to share with their readers.

Here are a few examples of eCommerce stores that have created linkable content assets:

• Made in CookWare: Due to Ahrefs, the e-commerce website has over 35,000 monthly visitors worth $17,800 and ranks for over 31,000 keywords. Made in CookWare has an active blog that attracts traffic and organic backlinks. In addition, they have backlinks from relevant high DR websites from the niche, such as Bon Appetit, The Spruce Eats, Wired, and Business Insider.
• Nordstrom.com: eCommerce giant Nordstrom is a great example of a company that knows how to create linkable content assets. Their blog contains informative posts on fashion, beauty, and lifestyle topics, such as "Hiking Essentials: What to Wear & Bring on a Hike" and "How to Set a Table Like an Expert". In addition to blog posts, they also have an extensive collection of eBooks, infographics, and other types of content.

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These eCommerce stores have built a strong foundation for their link-building efforts by creating informative and engaging content. As a result, they not only have something to link to but also produce content that other people want to share with their audience. Besides, with high-quality content, you’ll get a chance to attract organic backlinks, so you’ll definitely need to start working on content quality first.

Building backlinks to eCommerce stores can be a tricky job, especially if your idea is to build links to particular products. Most websites don’t like the idea of building links to product pages, especially if they haven’t personally used the products. That’s why writing valuable and informative blog posts can bring high returns. Make sure to create internal links to relevant product pages to share “link juice” to the most important pages that bring in high ecommerce conversion rates for your business.

2. Build a Relevant Prospect list for Outreach

There are numerous ways for executing a link-building strategy, and first things first, you need to figure out what tactic you will use for your eCommerce business.

For example, you can do the 'skyscraper technique, which means you find a relevant article in your niche in the first place on Google and do your best to write better content on the same keyword to beat that number one position. You can also use guest posting, link exchanges, listicle mentions, and broken link building. It takes some experimenting before you find an effective link-building strategy that works for your business.

Once you create a link-building strategy, it's time to build relevant backlinks from authority websites. Usually, link-building outreach starts with creating an appropriate prospect list. This way, you can target the websites most likely to link to your content.

You need to find their relevant emails when you have the list of websites. Numerous tools on the market help you find someone’s email address, but after you find the email address, it’s good to know if it’s valid.

You never know if the prospect will receive your email when you have an email address. It may fail just because the email address is wrong or old. That’s what you should always check if the email address is correct using email verification tools.

Finally, identify the decision-makers at each website. These people have the power to approve or reject your link request.

But how to find decision-makers in a company? Start with Google and LinkedIn. Once you find a company profile on LinkedIn, you can check the list of its employees and its positions. When building backlinks, the most relevant positions would be someone connected to the website’s content such as content manager, editor, head of marketing, and similar. If the company is small, the general email address or contact of the founders can work too.

After you have a prospect’s name and a company website, you can use one of the email finder tools to find their contact information.

By building a relevant prospect list, you can focus your outreach efforts on websites most likely to link to your content. It will save you time and increase your chances of success.

Once you have a list of potential prospects, it's time to reach out to them. The goal of your outreach email should be to get their attention and make them start a conversation. We are going to talk about it in more detail later.

3. Find Unlinked Brand Mentions

Another effective way to build links is to find unlinked brand mentions. It is when someone mentions your brand on their website but doesn't link to your site.

To find these mentions, you can use a tool like Mention, Ahrefs Alerts, or Google Alerts. These services will notify you whenever your brand is mentioned online.

What I like about the Ahrefs Alert tool is that you can specify the brand name and choose language, domain rating, and traffic. This way, you clear out the mentions of your brand from low DR sites that are not with your attention.

Once you've found an unlinked mention, reach out to the website owner and ask them to link to your site. This is an easy way to get high-quality backlinks from relevant websites.

You can quickly and easily build links to your eCommerce store by finding unlinked brand mentions.

A quick way to find potential unlinked mentions is by running a brand name search in Ahrefs Content Explorer. The query can look like this:

Make sure to add a brand name variation in_ “ “_ as you are looking for the exact word mentioned in the article. You can use advanced filters that will reduce the amount of data cleaning, such as filtering domains by Domain Rating (DR), website traffic, language, etc. Don’t forget to use the “Highlight Unlinked” feature and write a brand's domain name. That way, you’ll get highlighted results for all unlinked mentions. Later on, you can use the export feature and export only unlinked mentions, which will clean loads of redundant data from your list.

Once you exported the list, we recommend that you manually check all the pages since Ahrefs isn’t 100% accurate regarding unlinked mentions. You definitely don’t want to reach out to someone asking for linking to you if they’ve already linked to you. It sounds like a long process to manually check huge lists, but conversion rates are pretty high, so it is worth the struggle.

4. Write Personalized Cold Emails

Once you've built a list of relevant prospects, it's time to start your outreach. The key to success here is to write personalized cold emails.

A personalized email shows that you've done your research and are interested in building a relationship with the recipient. It's important to avoid generic and spammy outreach emails, as they will only lead to more rejections. While you can have outreach email templates to save time and automate processes, make sure you refine them according to your recipient. For this purpose, a sentence rewriting tool might come in handy to make the process more efficient.

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To write a personalized cold email:

1. Start by introducing yourself and explaining how you found the recipient.
2. Provide a brief overview of your eCommerce store and your link-building goals.
3. Mention a specific piece of content you think will be valuable for the prospect and ask if they would be willing to link to it.

Use ice breakers that intrigue your prospects. Icebreaker is a piece of content, like a video, that you can use to personalize your email and make it not cold. It could be a few sentences showing that you researched the company you are reaching out to. You can start by searching for company social media accounts or interviews with their workers.

Besides, you need to find words to explain to prospects how your article/guide can bring value to them. Use proper subject lines, email CTA, and email signature to hook the reader.

By taking the time to write personalized cold emails, you'll be more likely to get positive responses and build lasting relationships with other eCommerce store owners.

5. Automate Outreach Sequence

Now that you've built a relevant prospect list and written personalized cold emails, it's time to start your outreach campaign. The key to success here is to automate your outreach sequence.

An automated outreach sequence is a series of pre-written emails sent out automatically over time. This allows you to keep in touch with your prospects without manually sending each email.

There are a few different ways to automate your cold email outreach. Automation tools allow you to create and send automated emails directly from your email account. Automating your outreach sequence will save you a lot of time and energy, especially when you send over 100 emails. However, remember that quality always beats quantity, so you need to focus more on the personalization of your emails rather than thinking about how many emails you have sent this month.

6. Connect with Influencers and Link Builders in Your Industry

One of the best ways to build links is to connect with influencers and link builders in your industry. These people have a large audience and can help promote your content.

There are a few different ways to connect with these people. The first is to attend conferences and events. This is a great way to meet people in person and build relationships.

Another way to connect with influencers is to follow them on social media and engage with their content. This will help you start building a relationship and get on their radar.

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Finally, you can also reach out to influencers directly via email or social media. This can be a great way to get their attention and start a conversation.

As an eCommerce entrepreneur, you can offer your product to an influencer for a review and provide free samples for an influencer and as a giveaway for their followers. But, of course, most big influencers will ask for money for such kind of collaboration.

However, micro-influencers with less than 10k followers will agree to review your product just for a gift. MeltWater studies showed that free samples are the most common method to pay micro-influencers for advertising. Besides, influencers with minor followings have a significant impact thanks to their local community.

Wrapping up

It would be best if you created linkable content assets to increase your eCommerce website's link-building potential and, as a result, sales. This means developing high-quality content that is relevant to your audience and valuable to other publishers.

Once you have created these assets, it's time to start building a prospect list of websites that are likely to share them. Next, write personalized cold emails introducing your asset and asking for a link. Finally, connect with influencers who may be interested in spreading the word about your new content.

Don't be afraid to play around with new approaches in eCommerce link building; the key is constantly testing and measuring the results so you can continue improving your strategy. What tactics have been most successful for your eCommerce link-building practice? Share with us in the comments below.