Broken Link Building Technique (Action, Strategies, Outreach Emails)

Broken link building- an undisputed strategy in Link building plans. Maybe it’s the 5th most used technique among all the link building methods but still, it’s a way that can’t be used for earning high-quality links that you can’t imagine!

It sounds broken but trust me this is one of the useful plans that has a success rate of 90%.

Today in this post, you will get a full in-depth guide about broken backlink building strategy. Also, you will know how to apply and execute them successfully.

What is broken link building? 

Well, a Broken link means a link that has been out of service or null. When you click on a broken link, a 404 message will appear. When you find this kind of link on websites that have relevant content that suits your niche, you simply ask them to replace it with the link to your content. Of course, your content will be relevant to their broken one.

This is absolutely a generous movement where you can be rewarded with high-quality links that will come of great help. This strategy is called the broken backlink building strategy.

So we can say the broken link building method contains three steps:

• Find a dead link in a website( relevant to your niche)
• Make a better substitution for that dead link
• Make outreach to the site owner for a replacement.

Is broken link building still an effective strategy for SEO? 

Well, this is a kind of tricky question in the SEO industry. Some say it is a dead method in recent days, some say they earned over 100 quality backlinks in their list. So as we see it’s a matter of argument.

Well, sites like Ahrefs, and Semrush made it clear that this method still works fine. They also identified it as one of the good white hat SEO tactics.

Let me clear you one thing. This strategy is not like any other strategy. You need to work hard and try a massive amount. Though you are doing webmasters a big favor, also they are doing well in SERP that’s why you are sending them requests.

So here competition is a fact, nobody wants to give you a boost up in SERP. Maybe your success rate will be 15-20% but what you get in return is worth 100 ordinary links.

Why Should I Use Broken Link Building as Part of Backlinks Strategy? 

Still, there is a question, despite having this low rate of success, why should you use it in your link-building strategy? well, maybe this plan will not bring success all the time but it will help you to see ways that can be used to make success in other link building plans. So we can say broken link building methods help the other plans in their process. The main facts are:-

• You are trying to reach for a link that already has a better authority than you. This is a huge opportunity to gain authority for your site.
• When they will interlink with your content, you can get a good flow of organic traffic which will prove your site is healthy for Google’s audience. That will give you some boost in SERP as it satisfies the Google algorithm.
• When you find a broken link, if they don’t interlink with you, you can still apply other plans to gain a link from them. Also by implementing skyscraper techniques, you can make it to your advantage.

How Can You Find Broken Link Building Opportunities in a Practical way?

There are many ways to find a broken link on the internet. You can apply them and get some good results. Some effective ways are:

• By using the advanced search console of Google.
• By using paid tools like Ahrefs, and Semrush.
• By finding a page that has a lot of links. there is a chance that it will have at least one broken link.
• Wikipedia is a good source to find a lot of deadlinks for your niche. You can use the Google search bar with some search strings to find links. The String is:wikipedia.org “keyword” intext:” dead link”.

In the next step, I will show you a detailed step-by-step guide on how you can do the broken link building effectively!!!!

Pick the right keywords for your niche

Keyword selection is the main process in any kind of SEO strategy. The broken link-finding process gives much value and lessens the workload a lot.

As I say, you must know your keywords and also their relevant keywords. Try some real variations when searching for them. The more you will be accurate, the better the result will be. A good way to find keyword results is using the Google advanced search console. You can use the following input to find them

• keyword + “resources”
• keyword + intitle:resources
• keyword + intitle:blogroll
• keyword + “blogroll”
• site:.gov keyword + “links”
• site:.edu keyword + “recommended sites”
• keyword + “related links”

Search for high-authority sites that potentially have broken links 

Sites that have gained much authority in a niche are called high authority sites. Google decides which site will gain more authority than others by some parameters. The parameters are link quality, link source, relevance, content structure, etc. by sorting out the high-authority sites in your niche, you can find broken links and tell them to replace them with your content link. If you get a link from these sites, they will increase your site’s authority also. Besides, you can gather some good-quality links.

Use tools to find Broken links 

• Use Ahrefs Content Explorer Tools: 

Though there are many kinds of tools to find broken links among them Ahrefs content explorer tool serves much better. To learn the whole step properly you can follow this blog to get more acquainted.

• Use SEMrush Backlinks Analysis Tools:

Another time-saving way is using SEMrush backlink analysis tools for gathering broken links. You can follow Brian Dean’s heavy informative content about it. He described it in a much broader sense.

• Use “Check My link” Chrome Extensions: 

Check my link is a free tool it’s a Google Chrome extension. If you have some spare time, you can use it. It gives much value as a free tool. To use this in its full potential you can read this article. there you can find all the processes in a nutshell.

• Use Other Tools: 

Besides these 3 popular tools, there are some other tools for finding broken links for your broken link-building strategy. Some of the popular tools are:

1. Domain hunter plus: Domain hunter plus works just like checking my link extension. But it gives some extra benefits as it will also provide info about how many broken links’ domains are up for registration and how many links are interlinked with the domain. Expert advice about this tool is to double-check it. Because sometimes it misses the result.
2. Xenu’s Link Sleuth: It is good for searching broken links on a massive scale. It is a dedicated Microsoft software that works well in a targeted niche. For a hand-to-hand guide, you can follow this post.

[short tip: In the following posts I refer to you for learning the usage of the tool, they are not particularly for those tools usage only. To save time, you can apply a simple hack. Just go to the post that you want to read, and press ctrl+f on that page. A search bar will appear. There you just type “Ahrefs content explorer”, and you will get your desired blog part instantly]

Find a dead outbound link on these sites

This is a strategy that expands the possibility of success rate in broken link-building methods. Let me explain to you how. The common practice includes finding dead links within a website and informing them to replace them.

You can benefit from it or not, but there is advanced technology that can be more useful. When you find an authority website with a dead link, check that link and find out how many links are connected to it.

By doing this you can already outreach to them also. At this rate, you can do a mass amount of broken link-building campaigns.

Recreate relevant content to the dead link’s topic or anchor 

As you finished searching your targeted dead links, now you need something to make a good approach. You need some killer content. But there are still some lackings, such as you don’t know how the previous content was.

To know about the topic and layout of the content that was in the deadlink, you can put the deadlink on a website named Wayback machine. From there you can find what was the content. by observing it you can make a better copy and when you will represent it to the site owner, he won’t refuse it at all. Instead, he will consider it a valuable asset for his site.

Outreach site managers and invited to fix the dead link by linking to your content 

This is the most important part that can’t be ignored. The most common mistake that everybody makes in this step is that they make a request. Well, though you need quality links from them, still you executed a long process to get it done. So make your approach in outreach email in a friendly tone.

You can appreciate his site’s design and content quality. Then you can humbly let them know about the broken link of their site. As you are doing a favor before wanting something from them, this is a much more positive game.

But make sure you are reaching out to the right person who controls the site. If you randomly outreach to a person that relates to that site but does not know anything about the site’s condition, your mail won’t give them any value.

Make sure the message is relevant, direct, and full of purpose. Make your movement boldly and with full confidence.

You can check out some effective email templates for replacing broken links in this post.

The advantages and disadvantages of broken link building in SEO 

As we discuss the whole process of broken link-building methods. We can see that this plan is effective in many ways. Despite this fact, we can’t ignore the disadvantages of this method. But if we consider the bigger picture, the demerits will feel less major.

Advantage

You can easily do a massive link-building campaign with this method. Also, the quality of links will be good because you are finding links on high-authority sites. You can accelerate the other side of your backlink steps with a broken link strategy. It will be a nice boost to increase the DA & PA of your website.

Disadvantage

The only disadvantage is that this process is lengthy and time-consuming. So to execute it in a short term, you need paid tools. If you are on a tight budget and limited schedule, that can hamper your whole plan.

Broken link building is an all in all strategy that can not only help you to find links for your website but also build relationships with the people that are related to your niche. This single type of strategy can be your assistance to make the proper branding of your niche also. So make use of this awesome technique to earn a lot of good links and some fame to build a better brand.

FAQ On Broken Link Building

Final Thought

In closing, broken link building remains one of the most effective SEO strategies when done right. By finding and reporting broken links on high-authority sites in your niche, you have a prime opportunity to earn a backlink by having the site owner link to your content instead.

Focus on high-quality sites closely related to your industry when hunting for broken links. Target pages that are relevant to your content and offer value to the site’s audience. In your outreach, be helpful and polite, providing Broken link suggestions without coming across as spammy. Follow up if needed but don’t harass site owners.

Craft personalized emails that highlight the broken link and recommend your content as a replacement. Make sure your content adds value for their audience and aligns closely with the broken page’s topic. Briefly explain why you’d be a good backlink and include a call to action to swap the link.

With persistence and an effective outreach process, broken link building can become a go-to SEO tactic that consistently generates powerful backlinks and new referral traffic. Just be patient – it often takes time and testing to get link placement. But over time, these high-authority backlinks from broken link building will compound to lift your site’s authority and improve search rankings.

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