How to: Broken Link Outreach Using an SEO Crawler
An easy to implement to succeed with outreach for SEO is so called broken link building.
To do that you simply look up which links are broken on a third party site.
Then you suggest your own resource as a replacement. Ideally they link to you!
Simple, isn’t it? Yet there is one caveat. How do you find broken links elsewhere?
How to find broken links on websites you don’t own?
Finding broken, redirected or otherwise faulty links is already hard on your own site.
In case you run a CMS like WordPress there are third party tools to install.
What happens when you don’t own the site though? You have to act like a search engine!
The best way to find broken links on sites you don’t own is to use a so called SEO crawler.
It allows to check out the site you want a link from: Only then it makes sense to reach out.
One fine day I’ve found the perfect tool to locate broken links on third party sites by accident.
It offered a free plan which was perfectly sufficient to find broken link opportunities to reach out to publishers.
Then I wrote this article. Sadly the tools is gone by now. there are other – mostly paid tools – though.
What is broken link outreach and how does it work?
Now let’s take a step back. What is broken link outreach or broken link building as some call it?
Aren’t we meant to build links that are not broken? Yes, indeed.
Links break though and website owners and especially bloggers are often unaware of them.
We build links and we replace broken links at once!
That’s a classic win to win situation for both of us the link builders and publsihers we approach to get a link.
Most sites have broken outbound links that is links pointing to third party sites they do not control.
That’s a real problem because bloggers often do not notice that the link is broken in the first place.
Even once you do know a link is broken it takes effort to find a resource to replace it!
As a blogger you need time for research to find a similar site or resource.
In many cases such a link will be fixed in a quick and dirty way (“unlink”) so that it disappears altogether.
Yet most bloggers do not engage in such high level research on existing content!
As a helpful SEO you can simply use the SEO crawler of your choice and help bloggers.
Then help those who can’t do it themselves. Simply check the third party site you want a link from with it!
Choosing the Site You Want a Link from
You have to find some sites first that you want to get linked from.
Ideally you search for [“your topic” + blog] and check out which blogs look good that is
- have a clean readable design
- have high quality current content
- get a decent amount of engagement
- get shared on social media frequently
- get referenced on other blogs/sites
Of course you can look up their backlink profile on a tool like Link Explorer but don’t consider SEO metrics first.
You need a good overall impression to make sure the blog is not solely built for search engines but has a real audience.
In case you are after organic links you need to find sites where they really grow organically.
Locating the Broken Link
In order to find a broken link on a site you need to simply check the website address using a SEO crawler. Sometimes you can or have to set up a “new project” on such a tool.
That’s a very easy process that only requires you to fill in a simple form.
You need to type in the website address you want to get a link from and thus find a broken link first.
I wanted to find out whether it the technique works universally even with pretty new sites. It does as you will see below.
Make sure to check the check external links. In case you forget an SEO crawler will often only test internal links.
Also note that I limited the number of pages to 200 in this case.
Some sites do not even that many but you want to make sure to stay polite.
SEO crawlers can even cause serious issues on a third party website! That’s rude!
Do not crawl thousands of URLs on a site you do not won because that may result in a heavy load on the server the site is hosted on.
SEO Crawler tools often usually limit the number of pages crawled for free.
200 – 1000 crawled pages should be perfectly enough to find a broken link in most cases though.
In my case I’ve found a broken link right away. I have selected the URL of the page in question.
It’s a wonderful editorial link inside the post itself with a rich anchor text saying “content marketing” on top of that:
Sending the outreach message
Now you want to make sure to have a good resource matching the link that is broken.
In our case it would be a resource on content marketing.
Write a friendly, on point and personalized outreach email.
I have published an outreach example to show how it’s done in detail.
Also send the message when the person you want to contact is actually online.
When they share vacation photos on their social profiles you’d rather wait.
More broken link building resources elsewhere:
- Broken Link Building for Content Promotion
- Link Rot – and the Most Amazing Free Tool to Find and Fix Broken Links
- Find Broken Links, Redirects & Site Crawl Tool
- Check for broken links on your website and get automated reports
Awesome guide Tad.
Yeah, thanks, that’s why I had to rescue it from the defunct site. On the other hand it’s the tool that’s awesome. I have just pointed out a possible use case.
[…] Monitorbacklinks is one of them. SEOcrawler is another one.I have written a post about that: http://seo2.0.onreact.com/easy-broken-link-outreach-using-the-free-seo-crawlerThey will notify or show you once they discover a broken link on a site you monitored so that you […]