10 Tips to Help You Outsource Link Building to Virtual Assistants

Stephen Turban
Co-founder of Leverage

What is Link Building?

Link building is acquiring high-quality backlinks, or inbound links, to your website. These are links from other reputable websites that point to your content. Backlinks serve as digital endorsements, signaling to Google and other search engines that your website is a valuable, relevant, and trustworthy resource. This helps improve your website's organic SERP position, increasing organic traffic and visibility.

In essence, link building is about building relationships with other websites in your industry. 

By earning backlinks, you're essentially getting a vote of confidence from other websites, which can significantly boost your website's authority and credibility. This can lead to increased organic traffic and ultimately, more leads and conversions for your business.

What makes it essential?

Search engines like Google use backlinks as a crucial ranking factor. More high-quality backlinks can significantly improve your website's search engine ranking, leading to increased visibility and organic traffic. Backlinks also help establish your website as an authority in your industry, building trust and credibility among your target audience. The net, and most important, result for your business is that organic traffic is the most powerful multiplier for profits because it has zero cost of acquisition and in fact can create a self-amplifying cycle of further increasing traffic and conversion.

Why should you consider outsourcing link building?

Link building is a time-consuming and complex task that requires specialized knowledge and skills. It involves researching potential link opportunities, crafting compelling outreach messages, building relationships with website owners, and monitoring link performance. Outsourcing this task to virtual assistants can free up your time and resources to focus on other core business activities.

Virtual assistants can provide cost-effective solutions for link-building campaigns. They can handle the repetitive and time-consuming aspects of the process, such as finding relevant websites, sending outreach emails, and following up on leads. This allows you to focus on higher-level strategic tasks and ensure that your link-building efforts are aligned with your overall marketing goals.

10 tips for outsourcing link building to virtual assistants

1. Be clear with your instruction and your goals

Effective communication is paramount when working with virtual assistants. You will need to clearly outline your link-building goals, including desired backlink types (e.g. guest posts, broken link building, resource page link building), target keywords, and ideal anchor text. The more specific you are, the better your VA will understand and execute your vision.
For instance, instead of saying "Target high-quality websites," specify the types of websites you're looking for, be they industry-related publications, authority sites, or niche blogs. Provide examples of websites that align with your ideal backlink profile. This level of detail ensures that your VA is on the same page and can identify relevant opportunities efficiently.

2. Establish robust two-way communication channels.

Ensure open and consistent communication with your VA. Use project management tools or dedicated communication channels to share updates, provide feedback, and address any issues promptly. Regular check-ins and clear expectations will help maintain a smooth workflow and prevent misunderstandings.

3. Choose the right VA

Selecting the right virtual assistant is crucial for the success of your link-building campaign. You will ideally have to look for a VA with experience in digital marketing or SEO, and one with a proven track record in link building, such as the VAs on Leverage Assistants! This will save you time and effort in training and lead to better results. Consider hiring the VA from a dedicated agency that can ensure that your VA has:

  • A strong understanding of SEO principles, link-building strategies, and outreach techniques.
  • The communication skills necessary to be responsive, proactive, and able to clearly articulate their ideas.
  • The working hours and project load align with your project timeline and requirements.
  • Glowing references and reviews.

4. Set SMART goals

Communicate your desired outcomes for the link-building campaign, including the number of backlinks, link quality, and overall impact on your website's SEO. Establish KPIs to measure success, such as increases in organic traffic, rankings, and conversions. Regularly review and adjust these metrics as needed.

5. Provide them with the right tools and resources

Equip your VA with the necessary tools and resources to effectively execute your link-building strategy. This includes:

  • SEO software: Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz can help your VA identify link opportunities, analyze competitor backlinks, and monitor link performance.
  • Email templates: Provide pre-written email templates for outreach campaigns, saving time and ensuring consistency in messaging.
  • Content management system (CMS) access: Grant your VA access to your website's CMS to manage content and implement link-building strategies.
  • Link-building guidelines: Develop clear guidelines outlining your preferred link types, anchor text, and outreach processes.
  • Competitive analysis: Provide insights into your competitors' link-building efforts to inform your strategy.

6. Train your VA adequately

Invest time in training your VA on your industry, target audience, and link-building strategies. While a skilled VA will have solid subject matter expertise, the nitty-gritty of your business, industry, and competitive situation may be new to them. This will help them understand your business better.

7. Have your schedule set up

Set up regular check-ins to track progress and provide feedback. This will help ensure that the project is on track and that the VA is meeting your expectations. It’s also a good way to mitigate or avoid potential issues as and when they may arise, rather than have them become a problem later.

8. Focus on quality over quantity

Emphasize the importance of high-quality backlinks over a large number of low-quality links. This has a much more significant impact on your website's SEO. Establishing quality backlinks is also a time-consuming task, and you want your VA to deliver the best results as efficiently as possible.

9. Diversify your link-building strategies

A well-rounded link-building strategy involves a mix of different tactics. Encourage your VA to explore various approaches, such as guest posting, broken link building, resource page link building, HARO pitches, and influencer outreach. By diversifying your link-building efforts, you can reduce your reliance on any single method and create a more natural and sustainable link profile. Remember, search engines value diversity and penalize websites with unnatural link patterns. By employing a variety of link-building tactics, you can demonstrate to search engines that your website is a valuable resource worthy of high rankings.

10. Measure and analyze results

Track the performance of your link-building campaign using analytics tools. Analyze the results to identify what's working and what's not. This involves monitoring key metrics such as:

  • Increase in organic traffic
  • Improvement in search engine rankings
  • Backlink growth
  • Domain authority
  • Conversion rates

By analyzing these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of your link-building efforts. Identify which strategies are driving the best results and allocate resources accordingly. Continuously refine your approach based on data-driven insights to optimize your link-building campaign for maximum impact.

Hire a 1% SEO Virtual Assistant.

Leverage Assistants is a white-glove service founded by serial entrepreneurs that helps you find 1% assistants and then teaches you how to build leverage with them. 

If you’re interested in a strategy session to learn how to use an assistant, click here.

Stephen is one of the founders of Lumiere and a Harvard College graduate. He founded Lumiere as a Ph.D. student at Harvard Business School. Lumiere is a selective research program where students work 1-1 with a research mentor to develop an independent research paper.

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