Before reading up on the anatomy of an ideal link builder, you must read about the anatomy of the ideal link. If you are a part of the link building game, you already know that there are various kinds of links. Links don’t grow on trees; it is a long and intricate process which can be very beneficial if you put the right resources into action. Organic search rankings are the dream of every website owner, and link building provides this opportunity to you. The ideal link builder will make sure that your website finds its audience through organic ranking, rather than spending hundreds of bucks to bring them in. These people are sharp and always ready to pounce at the next big opportunity to create a quality link back to the site.
Google rewards the efforts of these ideal link builders by ranking their pages higher than everyone else on the SERPs. Before finding out the characteristics of the ideal link builder, let’s look at some facts about link building:
Link building is a major factor behind the ranking of your website on Google search results. If you are a business or charity institution, you need your website to show up on the top of search results. Link building helps you rank higher than your competitors when someone searches for a keyword relevant to your field.
Technical skills are important to run link building campaigns, but a non-technical link builder can also build links in the form of business development projects. It can be done by a seamless coordination between content marketing, PR and outreach. However, a link builder looks into the technical side of things and builds processes that are agile and support automation. He is fluent in HTML/CSS, knows one or two programming languages, can create and edit agile documents using Google Docs, can code their way out of 301 redirect issues and can upload via FTP. These people are always on their toes, tweaking one thing or the other to ensure smooth functioning of campaigns at every phase. You can’t achieve major success in link building without having ample technical knowledge.
The tech world is growing and evolving as you read this article. The best link builders are well-aware of the fact that they know nothing. They are open to challenges and the possibility of a new trend arriving the very next day. They can customize the campaigns around the latest trends so that they get the competitive advantage over others in the field. Link builders should not be mistaken as technical SEOs. SEO experts have their own world in which they are always reading up on algorithms and performing test crawls on site pages. Link builders, on the other hand, keep a lookout for a networking opportunity or a window of opportunity to push their content to a relevant and high-authority channel, be it online or offline. They are highly sociable tech geeks who keep a tab on everything. Moz puts it this way;
A sociable geek is the valuable combination of the introverted developer and the extroverted sorority girl.
Rand Fishkin and Will Reynolds are perhaps the best examples of sociable geeks in today’s link-building community.
Creativity and originality are hard things to teach to a link builder. This is something that comes from within. A positive culture and outlook can encourage and enhance creativity, but there are many people who are born with creative minds. The ideal link builder is very creative and likes to do things differently. Every other link builder knows the regular drill, what can you do differently? SEO and link building are getting associated with inbound marketing, which is a world in itself. Traditional marketing strategies don’t even come near the power of a solid inbound marketing campaign. Such strategies need a lot of creativity and originality in the execution phase. Also, there needs to be positive inspiration for the link builder to design the best campaigns. They must have the ability to pause, reflect and then refresh the whole process with new motivation.
Creativity itself is not enough. In link building ideas, the creative process needs to be channeled into an analytical framework to reap greater rewards. That’s why, ideal link builders major in mathematics, computer science programs and engineering degrees. Apart from receiving formal education in this field, link building can also be a side passion of a creative and passionate individual. Analytical skills are a must in the link building community. You should be able to process any analytical term in a short time and find ways to put it to use for your next campaign. The most important thing in this job is the tools a link builder uses for analysis and implementation. Some of the most valuable analytical tools include Open Site Explorer, Microsoft Excel, and Google’s popular Analytics tool. These tools give an accurate idea about the current standing of your campaign based on data and help you recognize possible trends that can arise in the future.
The best link builders are all round professionals who have worked in a variety of fields. They may even have worked in an academic setting! These professionals are not looking for a word of encouragement from the boss to feel validated for their work, neither are they in search for the top most position on the pyramid. They know that link building is an art, something which is perfected over the years. After all, every link which is obtained by these professionals is the only validation they need in their work. If they are succeeding in managing that, they are doing their job well. Neil Patel is a popular name in the SEO world. He also admits that the whole process is not as complicated as many beginners think it will be:
If you can develop and document your strategy, you’ll ultimately generate more authority links for your pages. Over the years, I’ve come to understand that a link building campaign with useful content and quality anchor text phrases is easier than most people think.
All the characteristics mentioned above are going to be useless if the link builder is not passionate about their work. They must be passionate about their goal. Otherwise, they are not going to see a notable difference in the statistics of their site. The best of link builders know that it is not just a day job, they take it as a challenge to prove their mettle. That’s how some small businesses win over multimillion-dollar businesses - because they do their job differently. Since link building is not going away anytime soon, find and hire people who have the passion to do something different in this field. Learn more about earning natural backlinks with this helpful article.