Want to build links but not sure which pages to point them to?
Today I’ll show you how to find keywords for link building so you can rank pages that get you the best results.
Build Your Seed Keyword List
In order to build links, we need pages to point to them too. So how do you find the right keywords for link building?
There’s no one size-fits all approach here but a good start is creating a seed keyword list.
Seed keywords are typically 1-2 words long. They can be general or specific. They act as a starting point for generating a list of related keywords in your niche or industry.
For example, we sell link building services. Here are some seed keywords we could use:
- link building
- guest post
- niche edit
- backlinks
- off-page seo
- anchor text
Not sure where to start? Have chatGPT generate ideas for you.
Find Your Money Page Keywords
Next, use your favorite keyword tool to generate some ideas.
In this example, I’m going to use Ahrefs Keyword Explorer and click on “Matching Terms”.
Set the Traffic Potential to 100.
Then sort by the highest CPC.
Sorting by CPC shows us which keywords are the most lucrative.
If people are paying $30 for one click, there’s a good chance that keyword converts.
You now have a list of the most profitable keywords in your industry but our work isn’t done yet.
There are more than 842 keywords to choose from so how do you narrow it down?
How To Choose Your Money Page Keywords
Look for the sweet spot between Traffic Potential, CPC and Competition.
Let’s start with Traffic Potential (TP).
Ahrefs Traffic Potential gives you an estimate of search traffic for an entire topic.
Pages don’t rank for single keywords anymore. One page can rank for multiple keywords.
For example, let’s look at the SERP for “quality link building”:
You can see that the top 5 results rank for 300+ keywords and each result gets a varying amount of traffic.
Let’s drill down into those keywords to see what else we can rank for.
If we look at #1 ranking result for “quality link building”, WordStream also ranks for “seo links, “link building” and “links in seo”:
Creating one page ranking for these keywords would bring in a LOT of valuable traffic.
There’s just one problem. Targeting these keywords is going to be a massive uphill battle.
If we look at the SERP again, you’ll see that there are some heavy hitters competing for these keywords.
You can use DR and Referring Domains to measure competition relative to your website.
In this example, the top five results all have a Domain Rating (DR) of above 90 and ours is 51.
The amount of referring domains pointing to the top result is 1.4K so this one is a no go.
Ideally, go after keywords that are competitive but not too competitive. Competition is good and shows that there’s money to be made.
However, too much competition, like in this scenario, and you’ll want to pass.
Bottomline: Find the sweet spot between Traffic Potential, CPC and Competition. Then build links to that money page.
Find Your Linkable Asset Keywords
Only building links to just your money page is both short sighted and difficult.
Just about nobody naturally links to money pages because there are very few cases where it makes sense. Commercial pages aren’t amazing resources that people share across the web.
So here’s what you can do instead: build a linkable asset and internally link back to your money page.
When someone links to your asset, the link equity gets passed to the page that makes you money.
A linkable asset could be a blog post, calculator, interactive quiz or tool.
Here’s how you find one.
Enter your seed list of keywords.
Enter a minimum Keyword Difficulty (KD) of 40.
Then sort by Traffic Potential.
Create a list of potential keyword topics that people could link to.
How To Choose Your Linkable Asset Keywords
Linkable assets just need to be linkable.
However, the best assets have a combination of these five things:
- Decent traffic potential
- High link velocity
- Aren’t too competitive
- Unique data or differentiation
- Semi-relevant to our money page (mandatory)
Nail all five of those and you’ve got yourself a winner.
Let’s take “reverse image search” as an example.
The Traffic Potential is huge but how’s the link velocity?
In one year, this asset gained more than 240+ referring domains. Not all of these are dofollow but imagine earning 240 links without lifting a finger.
How’s the competition?
It looks like this could be too difficult to break into.
Not just from an SEO perspective but also the tools themselves are really well done.
Don’t stress if you can’t find the perfect linkable asset that checks all the boxes. It’s difficult.
Just make sure the traffic potential is decent and the topic is relevant to your money page.
From there, start building links to it.
Even if you don’t crack the top 10, the links you build to your asset will help rank your money page.
Divide and Conquer
Once your research is done, you’ll have a list of 15-20 keywords that make sense to target.
Create the pages, but don’t make the mistake of trying to build links to them all at once.
Develop a plan or a roadmap of how many links you need for your top 3-4 keywords. Then attack them one by one.
Word to the wise: focus is underrated.
If you try to build links to 15 keywords at once, it’s going to be a lot harder to get one page to rank.
Another point to consider is that some people won’t want to link to your money page.
If that’s the case, just point the link to your asset as a fallback.
Rinse and repeat your way to better rankings for your best pages.
Sounds Like A Lot Of Work?
That’s because it is.
Anyone can learn keyword research, but not everyone can build links.
Instead of spinning your wheels and spending hours trying to figure it all out, get a jump on the competition and contact us today.
