How to Build Links for Ecommerce & Affiliate Sites in 2021

• Updated on: 2021-03-02
• Read original article here

Looking to boost your ecommerce and affiliate sites’ search visibility in 2021?

Building links to your category, product, and affiliate review pages may be just what you need to seriously move the needle.

But how do you get started?

On February 24, I moderated a Search Engine Journal webinar presented by Kevin Rowe, Founder of PureLinq.

Prospecting and securing critical category or commercial page links play a major role in driving rankings in competitive fields.

Rowe revealed the fundamentals of link building for ecommerce and affiliate sites in 2021.

Here’s a recap with his top takeaways, based on the proven approach that PureLinq has been implementing for their clients.

Any link building campaign begins with identifying the approach you’re going to take.

Unlinked mentions are an effective strategy for securing links to category or review pages.

Rowe and his team found that focusing on this approach is the fastest and most impactful among other tactics, with a conversion rate of 50-90%.

In this type of campaign, you have to find existing articles already mentioning your brand and reach out to the publisher to request that they link to your own webpage.

There are certain categories you can start to focus on, such as:

There are several ways to find unlinked brand mentions.

Here’s a detailed guide from the PureLinq team on different tools you can use to find brand mentions.

Analyzing top competing content and visibility will help you identify your target pages for link building.

Here’s an overview of areas to analyze.

Here are specific page types that are commonly linked to in ecommerce and affiliate sites:

Linking to the homepage makes sense in the following situations:

You can link to category pages when:

Linking to individual product pages or pages with specific focus is reasonable when:

Links to educational or informational pages if:

When evaluating potential linking partners, it’s essential to weigh each element. Some aspects of the site are more important than others.

Ideally, you want to build a footprint – not just one element. Examine multiple elements then decide on the site’s quality.

Remember that there is a difference between metrics and quality in link building.

Metrics (such as Domain Authority, Trust Flow, etc.) from third-party SEO tools can serve as guiding posts to narrow your target list.

They can help you support micro-decisions and reduce workload.

On the other hand, site quality can influence final decisions.

If you decide to manually review your prospective sites for quality, look at the following key elements:

Learn more tips on how to identify site quality for link building from this SEJ webinar also presented by Rowe.

Check out the SlideShare below.