Jasmine Birtles
Your money-making expert. Financial journalist, TV and radio personality.
Link building remains one of the most important pillars of any successful SEO strategy. High quality backlinks from relevant websites help boost your search engine rankings, drive referral traffic, and establish domain authority. However, link building practices that work well in your own country may not be as effective when targeting international audiences. Adapting your link building approach for different global markets requires an understanding of cultural nuances, local competitor landscapes, and language considerations.
Before outreaching to international websites for backlinks, research what international link building tactics are commonly used in that region. For example, guest posting on blogs may be a standard practice in the US and UK, but less common in parts of Asia. Paid article submissions to directories could be big in Russia but rare in Germany. UK agencies rely heavily on outreach for natural links, but Brazilian SEOs make greater use of social media and infographics to earn links. Understanding the local link building culture can help you use methods that international sites are more receptive to.
Analyse the backlink profiles of competitors targeting your international audiences. Look at their ratio of local to global links and where their strongest referral traffic sources originate from. This can give you an idea of whether most of their links should come from websites based in that country versus international sites. A travel company targeting Australian users, for example, may get more links from Australian city visitor sites rather than general travel portals. Use competitor insights to shape your ratio of local vs global link sources accordingly.
Imagery, examples, and references used in your link outreach emails and messages should resonate with each culture you are targeting. Avoid US sports analogies when pitching Japanese bloggers. Emphasise community values when reaching out to Latin American sites. Tailor your outreach tones and content references to be relevant to the local market you want links from. If needed, have native speaking SEO associates handle outreach and relationship building for each global region.
Earning links often relies on providing compelling assets like infographics, research reports, tools and videos for international sites to embed or reference. Be sure to have these translated into the local language wherever possible. If you are targeting multiple global markets, then prioritise larger areas like Spanish and French translations before less spoken languages.
Brainstorm link bait asset ideas that align with the interests, pain points, and hot topics in each country you want links from. Creating Germany focused tools, resources and infographics will net more links from German sites than content better suited to Canadian audiences. Think local and look at what content performs well on blogs, forums, and news sites in each global target market. Then build tailored link bait assets around those themes that resonate locally.
When prospecting for link opportunities on international sites, customise your outreach messages to be locally relevant. Comment on their blogs referencing trends in their geo-market. Share insights from researching their country’s SEO and marketing landscape. Message prospects speaking to local culture and showing knowledge of who their target users are. This helps build a common ground that makes international sites more apt to link back to you.
Adapting parts of your link building strategy for different global target markets can yield better results than a blanket one-size-fits-all approach. With the right global adaptions and localisation, your link building success can cross borders.
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