Link building is arguably the most critical aspect of SEO if you’re a startup. Backlinks are a top ranking factor, and without a strong backlink profile from quality sites, it’s impossible to rank on Google.

Here’s the thing with building links.

First, you might underestimate the importance. In recent years, Google itself has made it clear that they want their users to get the best, most relevant results every time they search for anything. A big part of ensuring that happens and delivering the optimal experience is basing results on how authoritative and high-quality a site is.

How do you become a high-quality authority in your niche or industry?

You have other sites linking back to you. When sites link to your content, it shows Google that you’re creating things that are valuable for your audience. Your content is worth another site taking the time to reference in the form of a link. It’s enormous for current Google algorithms. Get in touch now!

There’s even an acronym—EAT.

Google’s EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. EAT in and of itself isn’t an algorithm—it’s the guiding principle behind the algorithms and the approaches Google takes.

You aren’t going to be meeting the standards of EAT without a link profile.

Not only is building out your link profile and ensuring it’s robust critical. You also need to be strategic when you’re prospecting links. This takes time. You need to research every site before you contact the editor or webmaster. The site needs to fit your content, but it also needs to be a quality site itself.

It’s better to get one link from a high-quality site than ten from spammy or low-quality sites.

Once you identify sites that could be valuable to you, the research doesn’t stop. You need to figure out how to create compelling outreach emails for each site you’re targeting. You need to offer a persuasive case as to why they should link to your content. You need to show that you’re a real person, and each outreach email needs to be highly tailored to the audience.

You might think it’s enough to create quality content, and then the links build themselves. Occasionally maybe, but not in a way that will get you where you need to be as a startup. If you’re not already ranking because you’re lacking the authority and backlinks, then it’s going to be difficult for anyone to find your content to link to it in the first place. You can see how this becomes cyclical.

Are you feeling overwhelmed yet?

When you’re a startup, you’re inherently at a disadvantage compared to big companies regarding marketing.

First, you’re probably operating on a tight budget. You don’t have enormous financial resources to dedicate to hiring a team of link-building professionals, yet that’s precisely what some large companies have.

If you think you can do it yourself, then you’re going to be trudging through a time-intensive process of sending out a massive number of emails. Only some of those are going to earn you a link. Along with the initial emails to start contact, you need to track responses.

You’re going to have to follow up and track those responses as well. You might be sending several emails before you get a response in either direction.

When you get the inevitable “no’s,” you’re going to need to think about integrating whatever feedback they offer in the negative response moving forward. From there, you refine your strategy.

As a startup founder or leader, be honest with yourself. Do you have time for this?

If you dedicate the time to link building manually, are other areas of your business going to suffer? Should you be putting your attention on strategic growth rather than building links? The answer is yes.

One of the big downfalls for a lot of startups is that leadership doesn’t know how and when to outsource. They get caught up in so much of the day-to-day that they can’t see the bigger picture. A good leader knows that outsourcing is critical for success.

That’s where we come in.

There are enormous benefits to outsourcing your link-building work, and it’s going to transform your overall marketing and SEO strategy completely.

Benefits of outsourcing link building if you’re a startup include:

  • Link building helps you build a strong link profile relatively quickly. For example, when you outsource to Upper Ranks, we already have the tools, resources, and relationships to get things done quickly. We can work with our partners to quickly get links across different niches because we’ve taken the time to build them. For an in-house team, building a single link can take anywhere from two to four months.
  • The more links you build, not only the more authority you create but, the greater your rankings and visibility. As a startup, brand visibility is essential. No matter your industry, you’re up against tremendous competition.
  • Links signal the importance of your content. Links have remained a constant in a rapidly changing SEO world because they are a vote of confidence in your site or content. There’s inherent trust in links. The average person seeing a link from a trusted source will naturally see you as also being trusted. It’s like a referral in the era of SEO.
  • There’s a natural complement between link building and other online marketing. One can’t be great without the other. For example, for link building to work, you need that original linkable asset, which is compelling content. All of the pieces go hand-in-hand with one another. Additionally if you work incredibly hard on the creation of great content but no one sees it, then you’re not getting ROI. Links deliver that visibility to raise your ROI on all of your content.
  • When you outsource the process of getting links back to your site, you’re freeing yourself and your team to focus on other areas of growing your business. You can’t do it all. You need to outsource what you aren’t an expert at and focus on the most valuable tasks for your startup.
  • Outsourcing is a lot cheaper than hiring an expert in-house or bringing on a team.
  • You might consider hiring an individual freelancer rather than an expert agency, but you’re likely going to find they don’t deliver. It’s a skill to build the best links, and it’s not one that a lot of people have.

As a startup, you have to do a lot with very little, highlighting the value of outsourcing specific tasks.

The Upper Ranks Process

Okay, so now you’re convinced—you have to outsource your link building. You’re ready to drive business growth, and you know you can’t do it on your own. You have neither the time nor the budget.

That’s where we become relevant to your strategy.

At the Upper Links, we focus on prospecting, analysis, content creation and outreach so that they all work together with one another. Whether you’re a small startup or an online publisher, we can create a customized strategy that will fit your needs delivering traffic, leads, visibility and, above all else, results.

Things we focus on include:

Step One: Analysis

What a lot of people don’t necessarily understand about link building and getting high-quality links is the fact there’s a lot of research goes into it.

That’s where we start—thorough analysis.

We have a research team that learns everything about you as a startup and brand, and your industry and goals. That analysis creates a strong foundation for everything we do moving forward.

Without taking the time to do an in-depth analysis, it would be otherwise impossible for us to find the best-targeted sites and ultimately acquire links on your behalf.

What are the differences between you and your competitors, and how will this be relevant to your link strategy? How can we take those differences, integrate them into building links, and then help you reach the top on search engine results pages?

There’s never a campaign that’s going to be precisely the same as the other. If you talk to someone who claims they have a surefire campaign approach they use across the board, it’s not going to get you where you need to be. There’s a human element in every step of our process that makes us different.

Step Two: Prospecting

The next step, once we feel we have a deep understanding of who you are and how to achieve your goals, is to begin processing.

We aim high when targeting sites for your campaign. To find the best targets, we combine manual research, prospecting tools, and our database of websites we’ve worked with in the past.

Our focus is on authority and relevance for the best results in a way that’s in line with your brand and goals.

Every target site is carefully vetted, looking at who runs it, the industry it focuses on, and the audience.

Step Three: Outreach

Okay, so now we’re at a point where we know what you need, and we’ve targeted the sites that will get you there. What’s next?

This is where it gets especially time-consuming and also where we can put our people skills to use.

We write an email by hand every time we reach out to webmasters, editors, and bloggers. There are no canned emails.

Our outreach experts know how to connect with the recipient of the email. They know that standardized templates aren’t going to do the job or break through the noise.

Our outreach experts also have pretty impressive existing relationships with many of the bloggers and webmasters we work with. We can leverage those relationships to approach the right people who are most likely interested in your content. We’re not salespeople in the sense that we’re pushy. Instead, we know how to highlight the value of your site and your content to the right people with a heavy reliance on human connections.

Step Four: Submit Content

Our writing and content team will create articles that can then be used to place your links. We’ll submit that content on your behalf, and once it’s published, we’ll send you a report.

From there, we’ll continuously work with you to refine the results and make sure we’re consistently meeting your needs.

What We DON’T Do

If you’re wondering what we refuse to do, it’s utilizing black hat SEO. Black hat SEO is a shady way of building links that’s likely to lead to Google penalties.

We’re also not going to promise you that you’ll rank number one. Link building is a major factor in the ranking algorithms, but not the only one. What we will promise you is that we’ll use white hat, effective strategies on our part. We’ll also be transparent with our objectives and timelines so that you’ll know what to expect.

What’s Next?

If you’re interested in learning more about link building for startups, we encourage you to reach out. We can talk a little more about our process and how it might fit into your marketing strategy. Any investment you make, especially as a startup, needs to pay for itself and then some. Your investment in link building will be reflected in search results.

We can discuss your long-term expectations, preferences, and goals.

We love working with startups and it’s an area we’re highly experienced in, so get in touch today and see the differences working with a team of link-building specialists can make.

Link Building for Startups

Link building is arguably the most critical aspect of SEO if you’re a startup. Backlinks are a top ranking factor, and without a strong backlink profile from quality sites, it’s impossible to rank on Google.

Here’s the thing with building links.

First, you might underestimate the importance. In recent years, Google itself has made it clear that they want their users to get the best, most relevant results every time they search for anything. A big part of ensuring that happens and delivering the optimal experience is basing results on how authoritative and high-quality a site is.

How do you become a high-quality authority in your niche or industry?

You have other sites linking back to you. When sites link to your content, it shows Google that you’re creating things that are valuable for your audience. Your content is worth another site taking the time to reference in the form of a link. It’s enormous for current Google algorithms.

There’s even an acronym—EAT.

Google’s EAT stands for Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. EAT in and of itself isn’t an algorithm—it’s the guiding principle behind the algorithms and the approaches Google takes.

You aren’t going to be meeting the standards of EAT without a link profile.

Not only is building out your link profile and ensuring it’s robust critical. You also need to be strategic when you’re prospecting links. This takes time. You need to research every site before you contact the editor or webmaster. The site needs to fit your content, but it also needs to be a quality site itself.

It’s better to get one link from a high-quality site than ten from spammy or low-quality sites.

Once you identify sites that could be valuable to you, the research doesn’t stop. You need to figure out how to create compelling outreach emails for each site you’re targeting. You need to offer a persuasive case as to why they should link to your content. You need to show that you’re a real person, and each outreach email needs to be highly tailored to the audience.

You might think it’s enough to create quality content, and then the links build themselves. Occasionally maybe, but not in a way that will get you where you need to be as a startup. If you’re not already ranking because you’re lacking the authority and backlinks, then it’s going to be difficult for anyone to find your content to link to it in the first place. You can see how this becomes cyclical.

Are you feeling overwhelmed yet?

When you’re a startup, you’re inherently at a disadvantage compared to big companies regarding marketing.

First, you’re probably operating on a tight budget. You don’t have enormous financial resources to dedicate to hiring a team of link-building professionals, yet that’s precisely what some large companies have.

If you think you can do it yourself, then you’re going to be trudging through a time-intensive process of sending out a massive number of emails. Only some of those are going to earn you a link. Along with the initial emails to start contact, you need to track responses.

You’re going to have to follow up and track those responses as well. You might be sending several emails before you get a response in either direction.

When you get the inevitable “no’s,” you’re going to need to think about integrating whatever feedback they offer in the negative response moving forward. From there, you refine your strategy.

As a startup founder or leader, be honest with yourself. Do you have time for this?

If you dedicate the time to link building manually, are other areas of your business going to suffer? Should you be putting your attention on strategic growth rather than building links? The answer is yes.

One of the big downfalls for a lot of startups is that leadership doesn’t know how and when to outsource. They get caught up in so much of the day-to-day that they can’t see the bigger picture. A good leader knows that outsourcing is critical for success.

That’s where we come in.

There are enormous benefits to outsourcing your link-building work, and it’s going to transform your overall marketing and SEO strategy completely.

Benefits of outsourcing link building if you’re a startup include:

  • Link building helps you build a strong link profile relatively quickly. For example, when you outsource to Upper Ranks, we already have the tools, resources, and relationships to get things done quickly. We can work with our partners to quickly get links across different niches because we’ve taken the time to build them. For an in-house team, building a single link can take anywhere from two to four months.
  • The more links you build, not only the more authority you create but, the greater your rankings and visibility. As a startup, brand visibility is essential. No matter your industry, you’re up against tremendous competition.
  • Links signal the importance of your content. Links have remained a constant in a rapidly changing SEO world because they are a vote of confidence in your site or content. There’s inherent trust in links. The average person seeing a link from a trusted source will naturally see you as also being trusted. It’s like a referral in the era of SEO.
  • There’s a natural complement between link building and other online marketing. One can’t be great without the other. For example, for link building to work, you need that original linkable asset, which is compelling content. All of the pieces go hand-in-hand with one another. Additionally if you work incredibly hard on the creation of great content but no one sees it, then you’re not getting ROI. Links deliver that visibility to raise your ROI on all of your content.
  • When you outsource the process of getting links back to your site, you’re freeing yourself and your team to focus on other areas of growing your business. You can’t do it all. You need to outsource what you aren’t an expert at and focus on the most valuable tasks for your startup.
  • Outsourcing is a lot cheaper than hiring an expert in-house or bringing on a team.
  • You might consider hiring an individual freelancer rather than an expert agency, but you’re likely going to find they don’t deliver. It’s a skill to build the best links, and it’s not one that a lot of people have.

As a startup, you have to do a lot with very little, highlighting the value of outsourcing specific tasks.

The Upper Ranks Process

Okay, so now you’re convinced—you have to outsource your link building. You’re ready to drive business growth, and you know you can’t do it on your own. You have neither the time nor the budget.

That’s where we become relevant to your strategy.

At the Upper Links, we focus on prospecting, analysis, content creation and outreach so that they all work together with one another. Whether you’re a small startup or an online publisher, we can create a customized strategy that will fit your needs delivering traffic, leads, visibility and, above all else, results.

Things we focus on include:

  • Manual outreach to build natural links
  • Working only with high-quality sites
  • Variety in referring domains
  • Anchor text variety

Step One: Analysis

What a lot of people don’t necessarily understand about link building and getting high-quality links is the fact there’s a lot of research goes into it.

That’s where we start—thorough analysis.

We have a research team that learns everything about you as a startup and brand, and your industry and goals. That analysis creates a strong foundation for everything we do moving forward.

Without taking the time to do an in-depth analysis, it would be otherwise impossible for us to find the best-targeted sites and ultimately acquire links on your behalf.

What are the differences between you and your competitors, and how will this be relevant to your link strategy? How can we take those differences, integrate them into building links, and then help you reach the top on search engine results pages?

There’s never a campaign that’s going to be precisely the same as the other. If you talk to someone who claims they have a surefire campaign approach they use across the board, it’s not going to get you where you need to be. There’s a human element in every step of our process that makes us different.

Step Two: Prospecting

The next step, once we feel we have a deep understanding of who you are and how to achieve your goals, is to begin processing.

We aim high when targeting sites for your campaign. To find the best targets, we combine manual research, prospecting tools, and our database of websites we’ve worked with in the past.

Our focus is on authority and relevance for the best results in a way that’s in line with your brand and goals.

Every target site is carefully vetted, looking at who runs it, the industry it focuses on, and the audience.

Step Three: Outreach

Okay, so now we’re at a point where we know what you need, and we’ve targeted the sites that will get you there. What’s next?

This is where it gets especially time-consuming and also where we can put our people skills to use.

We write an email by hand every time we reach out to webmasters, editors, and bloggers. There are no canned emails.

Our outreach experts know how to connect with the recipient of the email. They know that standardized templates aren’t going to do the job or break through the noise.

Our outreach experts also have pretty impressive existing relationships with many of the bloggers and webmasters we work with. We can leverage those relationships to approach the right people who are most likely interested in your content. We’re not salespeople in the sense that we’re pushy. Instead, we know how to highlight the value of your site and your content to the right people with a heavy reliance on human connections.

Step Four: Submit Content

Our writing and content team will create articles that can then be used to place your links. We’ll submit that content on your behalf, and once it’s published, we’ll send you a report.

From there, we’ll continuously work with you to refine the results and make sure we’re consistently meeting your needs.

What We DON’T Do

If you’re wondering what we refuse to do, it’s utilizing black hat SEO. Black hat SEO is a shady way of building links that’s likely to lead to Google penalties.

We’re also not going to promise you that you’ll rank number one. Link building is a major factor in the ranking algorithms, but not the only one. What we will promise you is that we’ll use white hat, effective strategies on our part. We’ll also be transparent with our objectives and timelines so that you’ll know what to expect.

What’s Next?

If you’re interested in learning more about link building for startups, we encourage you to reach out. We can talk a little more about our process and how it might fit into your marketing strategy. Any investment you make, especially as a startup, needs to pay for itself and then some. Your investment in link building will be reflected in search results.

We can discuss your long-term expectations, preferences, and goals.

We love working with startups and it’s an area we’re highly experienced in, so get in touch today and see the differences working with a team of link-building specialists can make.

In addition to working with many startups, we also specialize in link building for SEO agencies, personal injury lawyers, affiliate websites, drug rehab centers, and much more.

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Agency Partnerships

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