What’s up everybody? Welcome to Lesson 3 of Module 3. In the last lesson you learned all about Content Curator Link Building. That’s where you find pages that curate great content and get links from those pages.
And in this lesson I’m going to show you yet another highly-effective link building strategy: Renovation Link Building. So without further ado, let’s dive right in. As you saw in the last lesson, link building is relatively easy when you find pages where your link adds value to that page. In other words, when a Linkreator adds your link to their page, that page is better than it was before.
So that’s one way to add value. But there’s another way to add value that’s much more tangible. And it’s the basis of today’s strategy: Renovation Link Building. What Is Renovation Link Building and Why Does It Work? Renovation Link Building taps into something known as Reciprocity.
Reciprocity is a psychological principle that boils down to this. When you do something for someone, they feel obligated to pay you back. And make no mistake, that feeling of reciprocity is very powerful. Studies show that, when someone does something nice for us, even something small, we feel like we owe that person something. So what does this have to do with link building?
I’ll explain with an example. As you may know, I ran an SEO agency for years. This was way before I started Backlinko. And after testing dozens of link building strategies, I quickly learned that Renovation Link Building was one of the best. So I used this strategy over and over to build links to my own properties and for my SEO clients.
As luck would have it, about a year after I launched Backlinko, I learned that the Google Keyword Tool was changing to the new Google Keyword Planner. And I realized that I had a golden link building opportunity staring me in the face. That’s because I knew that thousands of sites still linked to the old Google Keyword Tool which made their links out of date.
And I knew I could nab some of those links. That is, as long as I had a Power Page that appealed to these Linkreators. Now I was already planning to create a keyword research Go-To Guidebook. But this announcement lit a fire under my butt. So I cleared my schedule so I could focus 100% on getting my Power Page finished. And it worked!
Thanks to Renovation Link Building, my Power Page racked up dozens of authority backlinks within days. And I hit the first page for the keyword “keyword research” within a few months. Plus, I used this strategy more recently to build links to Exploding Topics. And it worked great. Of course, I can’t promise the same results.
That wouldn’t be responsible of me. I’m just showing you these examples to illustrate how effective Renovation Link Building can be. And today I’m going to show you not 1 but 2 proven strategies that will help you get high-quality backlinks using the Renovation Link Building approach. Let’s jump right in.
Our first Renovation Link Building strategy is Broken Link Building. The simple fact is this. Most people never take the time to update their old content. Yes, over time, this makes people’s content get super out of date. But important for us, their links get outdated too.
In fact, according to a study published by HP, one out of 200 links on the web go dead every week. And as you’ll see in a minute, every broken link is an opportunity for you. So: how does Broken Link Building work? With Broken Link Building you simply let a site owner know about their broken link and offer your link as a replacement.
It sounds simple. And in many ways it is. But the tricky part is finding broken links. Reaching out with the right scripts. And knowing how to scale this whole thing up. Needless to say, I’ll show you all that stuff and more in this lesson. Starting with step one of this process, finding broken links. Finding broken links is the only remotely complicated part of this strategy.
Fortunately, here are three techniques that I’ve developed over the years that make finding broken links a cinch. Technique number one is the manual approach. Even though this technique is a bit tedious, I personally tend to have a lot of success with it. Here’s how it works. First, use search strings in Google to bring up pages that have lots of links like resource pages.
Why? Because more links on a page equals more potential broken links. I’ll have these search strings in the worksheet, but here are the types of pages you’re looking for. Next, run this Google Chrome Extension to identify any broken links on the page and when you find at least one broken link, you’re ready for step two.
Technique number two is the Site-By-Site Approach. With this technique, instead of looking for broken links on a specific page, you use a tool to find all the broken links on an entire site. I prefer to use Ahrefs for this technique. But you can use any SEO tool that works for you. Either way, to use this technique, grab the homepage of a site you want a link from.
Pop it into the tool. Then click on “broken links”. This will show you all the broken outbound links on that site. Simple. Technique is The Force Multiplier. With The Force Multiplier approach, finding broken links goes from a one-by-one system to a truly scalable approach. Here’s how it works. Grab the URL of one of the broken links you found using the techniques I just showed you. Then, pop that broken URL into your backlink analysis tool of choice.
This will show you all of the sites that are linking to that broken link. For example, here’s a broken link I found on Backlinko. Now you could reach out to me and let me know about my broken link. And then move on. But with this technique, you take this one step further. Instead of only reaching out to me, you can reach out to me and everyone else that’s linking to that 404 page.
For example, with the broken link that was on Backlinko, there are several other pages that have a link pointing to that dead page. That’s dozens of potential websites that you can reach out to. With that, let’s move onto step two, which is to identify a page on your site that you’ll pitch. So now that you’ve found a page with at least one broken link, it’s time to figure out which Power Page on your site you’re going to pitch. How do you know which page to choose?
Ideally, the page that you pitch should be a close replacement for the dead resource. For example, let’s say you came across a resource page about tennis. And you found a broken link to a dead page that used to list a bunch of forehand drills. If you had a Power Page about improving your forehand, you’d want to offer that piece of content as a replacement.
That said, your Power Page doesn’t have to be a 1:1 replacement for the dead resource. But the closer your content matches the dead resource, the better. Now: one thing I should point out. Even if you don’t have a Power Page to replace the dead resource. You can still use that broken link to get a backlink to your site. Here’s how.
Remember that Renovation Link Building strategies like Broken Link Building work mainly because of Reciprocity. And when you help the site owner find dead links on their site, you just did them a solid. So when you suggest that they add your link to another section on their page, they’re going to be super receptive. For example, let’s go back to our tennis resource page example.
And this time, let’s say you didn’t have a page on your site about hitting a forehand to replace the dead resource. But you noticed that the resource page has a section called: “How to Serve Like a Pro”. And you just published a Power Page about improving your serve.
Well, after you let the site owner know about their broken link, you can suggest that they add a link to your Power Page under the “How to Serve Like a Pro” section. And because you just helped them improve their page by letting them know about their broken link, they’re much more likely to link to you. So once you’ve identified which page on your site you’re going to pitch, it’s time to send an outreach email.
When it comes to email outreach, some people send a link request in their first email. And yes, this works OK in some situations. But after A LOT of testing, I’ve found that a 2-step process works great for Broken Link Building. Here’s how it works. First, you want to send an email called “The Feeler”. I’ll have the full script for you in the worksheet, but here’s the gist. As you can see, this email isn’t very personalized, which is usually a no-no in the world of outreach.
But in the case of Broken Link Building, you’re adding value by helping the Linkreator with their broken link problem. So there’s no need for a ton of personalization. Plus, the goal of the first email is simply to see if the person cares enough about editing their page to get back to you. If they do, you can wow them with an insanely-personalized second email.
Here’s how it looks. Let’s bring this all together with a real-life example, how I used broken link building to get a great link to one of my Power Pages. First, I used search strings to find resource pages that linked out to helpful content about infographics and infographic marketing. And I found this resource page.
When I ran a Chrome extension on that page, I uncovered a handful of broken links. And one of the broken links pointed to an article that was 404ing. And I realized that, even though my Power Page wasn’t a 1:1 replacement for the dead link, it was close enough. Now that I had a Power Page to pitch, I reached out with “The Feeler” email. Someone from their organization quickly replied to see what the broken links were.
That’s when I followed up with the second email that pointed out the broken links and pitched a link to my Power Page as a replacement. Because I added value and had a high-quality Power Page to offer, they happily added my link to the page and here’s the live link.
And now it’s time for Renovation Link Building strategy number two, The Moving Man Method. Like I mentioned earlier, a while back the Google Keyword Tool switched over to the Google Keyword Planner. And that was a link building opportunity I wasn’t going to miss. But here’s the thing. The links that pointed to the Google Keyword Tool still technically worked.
For example, here’s what happens when you run a broken link Chrome extension on a page with a link pointing to the old Google Keyword Tool URL. It doesn’t show up as “red” because it’s not a 404 page. It simply redirects to a Google Ads Login screen. Why is this important? No matter what industry you happen to be in there are links that technically still work but are outdated for one reason or another.
Just like with the old Google Keyword Tool. And sometimes these opportunities are better than what you’d find using Broken Link Building. With that, let’s break the entire process down, step-by-step. First, you need to find outdated links. Remember: these links aren’t 404 pages that show up with a broken link checker. So you’ll need to take a different approach to uncover them.
Here are three ways to find outdated links. Technique number one is to find outdated links in old content. Here’s where you find content that hasn’t been updated in a while. Then, look for outdated links in that old content. To find old content, just search for a keyword that describes your Power Page.
And set the date range so that Google only shows you content from 2-4 years ago. Then, check out each page in the search results and look for outdated links. Fortunately, this is a lot easier than it might sound. You just need to click on any links that look like they might point to an outdated, old, or non-functional resource. For example, look at this resource page.
When I scanned the page I noticed this link that looks outdated. According to my Google Chrome extension, the page still worked. But when I clicked on the link, the page redirected to a completely different page. Bingo! I just found an outdated link. Technique number two is the ear to the ground approach. The second way to find outdated resources is the “Ear to the Ground Approach”.
Now that you know about The Moving Man Method, you can view changes in your industry as potential Moving Man Method opportunities. For example, I heard about the Google Keyword Tool changing to the Google Keyword Planner from a blog post. Most people read the article and moved on to the next one. Fortunately, I had my radar frequency set for Moving Man Method opportunities.
So I took this tidbit of news and turned it into several high-quality backlinks. Technique number three is The Force Multiplier, Moving Man Method Version. This is how I took full advantage of the Google Keyword Tool change. Actually, this technique is the exact same “Force Multiplier” approach you use with Broken Link Building. This time, instead of reverse engineering the links to a 404 page, you reverse engineer links pointing to an outdated resource.
For example, when I learned about the change to the Google Keyword Tool, I grabbed the URL pointing to the old tool and put it into Ahrefs. And I found dozens of pages that linked to the old tool. Step two is to identify the Power Page you’ll pitch. This is the exact same process you use with broken link building. You can either use a page that’s a close replacement for the outdated resource or use the outdated resource as a way to get your foot in the door.
Step three is to reach out and get your links. Once you’ve found a page that links to at least one outdated resource, it’s time to give the site owner a quick heads up. Like with broken link building, I recommend a 2-step approach. But you can also use a direct ask here too. I used both approaches when I used The Moving Man Method to build links to my keyword research guide. So now I want to show you a real life example of what a direct ask email looks like.
Here’s a direct ask email that I sent out to people that linked to the old Google Keyword Tool. Because you provide value twice, first by pointing out a hard-to-find outdated link and second by showing them your awesome Power Page, you’ll find that people are more than happy to link to you. That’s all there is to it. To quickly recap, you learned that Renovation Link Building works mainly due to reciprocity. Specifically, you’re helping someone else clean up their dead links.
That way, when you offer yours as a replacement, it’s a no brainer for them to add your link. And in the next lesson, lesson 4, I’m going to show you how to use Roundup link building to get solid backlinks from other sites in your niche. But for now, go ahead and download the worksheet for this lesson. I’ve included lots more info and detailed steps for you in the worksheet. So grab the worksheet, and I’ll see you in the next video.
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