Published on January 24th, 2019 | by Sunit Nandi

How to Build Links with Broken Link Building

Every day, links on the internet become broken. Hosting expires, typos occur, and sites mess up. Trying to click the link results in a 404 error. These broken links are an excellent opportunity for you to gain new backlinks and improve your SEO.

Broken link building is one of many link building techniques that require no guest posting. This specific SEO strategy that involves finding links on websites relevant to your industry or niche that are broken and offering your website as an alternative. This provides the website with valuable information and you get the back link to yours. Here are a few tips on how to build links to your site using broken links.

Search Out Top Pages in Your Niche

The first thing you need to do is create a list of top authoritative websites in your particular niche. You’re more likely to find more broken links on websites that have pages of recommended resources because they contain numerous links. There are a few ways that you can go about finding websites.

One way to find potential broken links is to search out some of your favorite sites that you would love to get a link from. You can go broader by searching out different websites that fall within your niche. Perform a search of keywords in your niche along with search strings to find different pages. For example, you can search “keyword + resources” or “keyword + related links”. Finally, you can also perform a search for potential sites by researching a specific keyword that you’re targeting.

Generate a list of websites you wish to target. Ensure you take a good look at each website carefully. Some websites could be low quality and you may want to avoid links from them. A good way to measure website quality is to see if they actually get traffic from Google. You can do this by using one of the many SEO tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush.

Check the Links

This next step can be time consuming. Once you’ve compiled your list of potential websites, it’s time to check to see if they have any broken links. There are tools available that can help to expedite this process, such as Check My Links (a Google Chrome Extension). These types of websites will scan links on the page and determine which ones are broken.

Once you have found the broken links, you’ll need to determine if your website and the content on it will be a good replacement. Even if the now non-existent webpage seems relevant to yours, it’s still a good idea to see what the content was before it was removed. One way to do that is with a website called “The WayBack Machine.” This is a website that is essentially an archive of the internet’s history.

There’s also another way to find potential websites to gain back links through broken link building. If one website once considered the now broken link to be a great source, there’s a good chance that other authoritative websites did too. The link will be broken on all of these pages as well, giving you several additional link building opportunities. SEO Spyglass can help you to find them.

Reach Out to the Website Owner

Now that you have your list of authoritative websites, it’s time to contact the owners of those sites. When composing your email, be sure to let the webmaster know about their broken link and that you think your website will be a great replacement. Address the recipient of the email by name and mention which link (or links) is broken. Provide them with links to pages within your website that you believe would be a great replacement and explain why you think your page is a good fit. If you don’t hear back after a while, send a follow up email. Keep it short and to the point, and never be pushy. Follow ups can be incredibly effective, but never send more than two.

Broken link building is an SEO strategy that has been around for a while. It might be a bit time consuming, but when it’s done right, it can be incredibly effective. It’s also extremely important to make sure that your website, and the information on it, is a relevant, valuable replacement for the broken link.

Tags: broken, build, how to, link building, links

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.