Should you invest in backlink building? Many owners of an online store or commercial site ask such a question to optimizers, do not understand why they should spend their budget on this. However, external optimization is still an important factor in site ranking. It helps to promote the resource and achieve more global goals: sell products, receive applications, increase the customer base, etc.
The backlink building for foreign sites requires special attention. Not everything is so simple here. You need to carefully consider the steps of link building to achieve real results. Everything is shaky in this matter. Overdo it a little – get penalties from the search engines. You will be wrong with the choice of the site – you will attract empty traffic (or nothing at all).
We offer 4 real effective strategies for building a link mass that will help owners of foreign projects in the e-commerce niche.
Topics Covered
Strategy # 1 – Useful Content
Develop a blog site. And not just a set of texts, but really useful and interesting articles for the audience, manuals, instructions. It is advisable to add thematic content, especially for complex niches.
For example, in this way, a section with useful articles in a jewelry store has been implemented. Here they talk about the basics of diamonds, describe in detail the unique production processes in the company.
Such a page is a valuable resource for related sites. These can be weddings, fashion blogs, and other venues. Good material is readily cited by other resources. If you have enough quality content, you can get a lot of quality traffic.
Strategy # 2 – brand mention
Do your research and find sources that mention your brand without backlinks. To do this, you can use the SEMrush tool, BuzzSumo and others. If your searches are successful, try contacting the webmaster to arrange to insert a link. This will bring additional weight to your site and help in overall link building.
There are four types of brand mentions to start your research with:
- Thematic: These are references that do not specifically name your company, product, or brand. They have a thematic meaning.
- Straight: Direct reference to a company or brand with a name. You can try to agree to insert a link, but only if the message is not negative!
- Grocery: These mentions do not refer to the company, but to the product, you are selling. If the content fits your product perfectly, try getting a backlink.
- Branded: For example, if your site features Gucci products, you already have a link to one of the largest and most popular brands in the world. All you need to do is go to sites that mention these or similar terms and offer them links to your products.
Explore and Explore again! The more quality links you get, the better.
Strategy # 3 – Coupons, Discounts, and Affiliate Marketing
Who doesn’t love discounts? Just look at the lines in stores when Black Friday kicks off. Be sure to use coupons and discounts to reward shoppers. You can coincide with special offers for some holidays, thus attracting new customers – there are many options.
It’s important to offer different types and levels of discounts and track your purchases to see which approaches yield the best results. Such A / B testing will help you find the most attractive solutions for your target audience.
Recommendation: Don’t overuse coupons and discounts. Otherwise, buyers will simply get used to them and will take them for granted, ignoring regular purchases.
A store owner can offer their affiliates unique discounts and landing page links. Partners will share the promo code/discount coupon with their audience by linking to specific store pages.
One of the fashion stores did this: it offered discount codes to partners and added fragments of UTM tags to the URL.
As a result, the company was able to track the success of the affiliate program for each of the partners, to accurately determine the effectiveness of such a traffic channel.
You can also send notice of available codes to sites like RetailMeNot, Honey, and Ebates for the best coupon and code deals.
This way you get additional links and traffic to your site from external sources!
Strategy # 4 – gifts and prize draws
Only free products are better than discounts! Giveaway may seem counterintuitive because your goal is to sell, not give. But with the right approach, it can be a great strategic tool for building your brand awareness.
You can arrange a giveaway directly on the website, on social networks, or in partnership with opinion leaders: bloggers, celebrities, etc. In the latter case, it is important to choose the right person who will have the majority of your target audience. When arranging a giveaway, make it a prerequisite to share your website link with friends in the same social networks or messengers.
Give gifts to bloggers for unpacking deliveries with a mention of your store on social networks. Here is one such example – a review of a noodle brand with a gift:
Be sure to include the UTM tag in the link you are asking to share. Then you can analyze the results of this particular marketing activity and how it affects traffic and sales.
conclusions
Do not limit yourself to standard approaches to increasing sales. Experiment with link building to improve performance while building customer loyalty, building valuable relationships with them, and improving your brand reputation. Today’s 4 link distribution strategies are sure to help those working in the e-commerce business overseas.
