In the world of SEO, one of the most important assets a website can have is a strong backlink profile. A backlink profile is a compilation of all of the domains that link back to one's website. At Mad Mango Marketing, we develop our client's backlink profiles over time through a process of white-hat, manual outreach as well as other link building strategies.

To be more specific, these steps and strategies consist of reaching out to other websites in your niche via email or phone in hopes of reaching the owner. From there, we work to develop new content, provide expert opinions for those sites, or recommend other types of media creation. We do this with the end goal of providing this backlink prospect valuable information for their visitors in return for a link from their website.

While making a concerted effort to build as many backlinks as possible may seem to be the best strategy to grow your backlink profile, be wary of some potential pitfalls. The fact of the matter is that, while some backlinks will help progress your SEO efforts, some may not help your website at all, or even hurt your website. This is where our hiring a professional SEO team or doing some serious manual filtering of potential prospects comes into play. Agencies like ours take into account the following aspects when analyzing a potential backlink:
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1. Relevance
2. Ranking & Volume
3. Relationship
4. Requirements

​These four R's are a quick tool you can use when inspecting potential prospects and deciding where to focus your own backlink-building efforts.

When reviewing a potential backlink for one of our clients, the first thing we check is the website's relevance to our client. Google takes into account the quality and relevancy of the site's content you have a backlink with. When it comes to relevance, we focus our efforts on a few key areas:
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• the website's URL
• the overall content relevance on site
• the top pages their website is currently ranking.

Each and every one of the above-mentioned metrics has a direct influence on the way Google interprets a website's content. For this reason, we must take these all into consideration when selecting prospects to reach out to.

There will always be websites that are extremely eager to collaborate and while they many offer very appealing terms, the best backlinks are never this easily found. An example can be something as easily spotted as a coupon code site or a domain name ending in a .xyz. However, there are also sites that may seem appealing after a quick look and may even have your keyword target in its URL but upon further investigation, you can find other red flags.
The URL can also give you an indication of where the website is focused, such as having ".nz" for New Zeland or ".eu" meaning it is a European domain. These are considered "Country Code Top-Level Domains", or ccTLD's. It is especially important to take these into consideration if a client is based out of the United States and does not provide services or their products outside of the US, in which case we would want to stay away from domains that are not US-based.

Another Metric that is very important when filtering potential prospects is the overall content and the particular keywords that the domain is ranking for within the content. Similar to what I described previously, a lot of websites will look to rank for keywords that are easy and that might quickly increase their DR. Even if the website is hyper-focused and very relevant to your client's space and keyword focus, it may rank for a keyword that could potentially work against your SEO efforts.

For example, a URL like, "ShoeShopping.com", may rank for a few terms that relate to your client, but might also rank for some pretty negative keywords. We make sure to check that there are no peculiar outliers that might hurt our backlinks effect. I have encountered several examples of these keywords in the past, such as:

• "Free Movie Streaming Websites"
• "18+ Chat Rooms"
• "New Weight Loss Techniques"

​Google might see these keywords as negatives and that would in turn take away from our backlink's effectiveness.

Similar to a prospects ranking keywords, the website's "Top Pages" play a huge role in how Google might read a website's value and our backlink as an extension of that prospect's domain. It is crucial to take a deep dive into the prospect's top pages due to the fact that even if the website comes off as strictly Shoe related, their top pages might be about completely irrelevant topics. The best performing backlinks come when our prospects have well-developed pages that are relevant to our client's industry and the keywords we are working to have them rank for. ​

While building a perfect backlink is our goal with every prospect we reach out to and every collaboration we partake in, the truth of the matter is that perfect backlink opportunities are rare and hard to come by, even when using quality backlink outreach strategies. Preferably, we look for prospects that have top pages, top keywords, and a URL that relate to and are relevant to our client. With that being said, if a prospect has very strong, industry-specific top keywords and relevant URL, but has one or two top pages that might not be perfectly relevant, that prospect is still a viable option. As long as those top pages are not inappropriate or completely out of line, the benefit of the domain's other metrics will outweigh the irrelevant aspects.
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Another way to look at link building is to know that there are going to be prospects that might not initially seem like a good option, but upon further research, can connect back to our client's field. For example, a women's fitness blog might not seem very relevant to a client who works in the online shoe sales space, but if we are able to get in touch with an editor on their team and propose a guest blog post relating to "The Best Shoes for Women's Running", it could be a great opportunity to place a backlink and expose your client to a new demographic or industry they may not have had any influence in. Some of the best opportunities we have earned for our clients have been in fields that at one point might have seemed irrelevant, but in fact, tied directly into our client's target audience.

Another important metric that influences our choices in prospecting is a website's rankings and its volume of traffic. This can be dissected by looking at a few key metrics:
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• Organic Traffic
• Domain & URL Rating
• Domain & URL Rating of Referring Links

The Domain Rating (DR) and the URL Rating are the two primarily "rankings" we take into consideration. These two ratings determine how strong search engines interpret a website as a whole and the strength of each page within that website. These rankings have a direct impact on an increase in visibility from search engines like Google.
Organic Traffic and Domains are the two "volume" metrics that we take into consideration. These metrics not only depend on the sheer quantity of volume, but the quality and origin of the volume play a huge role as well.

Organic traffic can prove to be one of the biggest indicators of a website's true value. Organic traffic is developed when a user with specific intent searches for a certain term, or keyword, and is directed to what Google sees as the best possible pages for that search term. This means that the more organic traffic a page has indicates that page having been ranked higher in Google's eyes.
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We always take a domain and a page's organic traffic into consideration when determining whether or not to reach out to a prospect. If a page has quality organic traffic, that means Google looks favorably on the domain and as a result, a link on that domain would likely perform very well. That stands true with a specific page's organic traffic as well. If you are unsure about how Google might see a particular page, organic traffic can be a good indication of whether it is ranking well.

Location of traffic might seem like a no-brainer, but the truth is it is a very important metric that must be kept in check. A domain that appears to be based in one country might receive most of its traffic from a completely different country.
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Most clients that are local or that only operate within the United States will not benefit with a backlink from a prospect who mainly receives traffic from a different country. Google might even see these links as not being natural and the link could be used against you.

Domain Rating, or DR, is a proprietary metric developed by AHREFS to help identify the value of a website based on all of the SEO data AHREFS collects on a site:

The Domain Rating of a website, or DR, is based on a multitude of different Metrics, some of which include:

• Referring domains (how many other domains reference the website),
• Organic Keywords
• Organic Traffic

When building backlinks, we do take a website's DR into consideration as a fairly accurate evaluation of the website's value. With that being said, a good backlink opportunity does not need to have an outstanding DR. While a website with a DR anywhere between 20 to 50 does have good potential, a website with a DR of 5 that is hyper focused in our client's sector and has seen promising growth over the past 30-90 days might just as good, if not a better option.
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We do shoot to earn backlinks from websites with high domain ratings but are not above considering all of our options. We have seen just as much success with a link from a lower DR website that is much more content-focused and relevant. While everyone is shooting to earn links from high DR domains, there are a lot of quality, less recognized websites that could be an amazing place to earn a link or start a collaboration.

The URL Rating, or the UR, is another proprietary metric developed by AHREFS to determine the value of a particular page within a domain. Similar to the DR, the UR is determined using several metrics:
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• Backlinks Pointing to the URL
• Unique Referring Domains Point to the URL
• Organic Search Traffic
• Organic Keywords Ranking in the Top 100

Like the website's DR, a higher UR will likely impact the effect a backlink on that page will have. Even if a website has a lower DR, a page on that website with a very high UR can be a potentially great opportunity for a backlink. For this reason, a page's UR is as big, if not bigger a factor than DR when taking a prospect into consideration on whether or not to move forward with a collaboration.
As described earlier, all metrics must be taken with a grain of salt, as a website with a low DR and great site metrics that has a page with a very high UR could be a great opportunity to earn a link. We have seen a backlink on a page that has an extremely high UR which is on a website with a low DR increase our client's DR by several points.

A referring domain is a website that refers to our prospect as an expert source. The amount of backlinks a website has is another factor that not only plays into the rating of the website but also shows how well a backlink to our client's website from that prospect will perform. Typically, a backlink from a website that has more domains referring to it as an expert source will perform better than a website with less.
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Looking into which domains refer to this prospect's website is also another technique to see how relevant the content on the site is, and will help you if other respected names trust this site as well.

While the referring domains are very important when it comes to vetting a prospect, the number of domains that the prospect links to plays just as big of a role. A website's Domain Rating trickles down through the backlinks it has included on its website, which is one of the aspects that bring value to earning backlinks. This is what some consider "Link Juice", which is the portion of the referring websites Domain Rating that makes its way to your client's website through a backlink.
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A website DR is distributed equally to all of the backlinks on its websites, so for example, a backlink on a website with a DR of 30 where the website only links to 10 other domains would be a stronger backlink than one from a website that has a DR of 70, but links to 5,000 other websites. For this reason, it is also very important to take into consideration how many domains that prospect is linking to, as a website with a higher DR may look appealing, you have to take into consideration how many other domains you are sharing that "Link Juice" with.

The biggest aspect of our link-building process that makes us stand out here at Mad Mango is our ability to reach prospects, display our worth and potential for collaboration, all while maintaining lasting relationships. There is no benefit to finding a link prospect if that prospect is unreachable after building. On top of that fact, a lot of these prospects receive countless inquiries on a daily basis, and our ability to make ourselves stand out is crucial. So collectively, we see the following aspects of our prospect relationships as carrying the most weight:
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• Reaching the Prospect
• Maintaining Contact with Prospect
• Proposing Further Collaborations

We have found that a lot of relationships established in this space are limited to one-time collaborations or projects, and there are always amazing opportunities left on the table.

All prior background research, filtering, and prospecting are pointless if we are not able to reach out and successfully contact the prospect. We are able to maintain a very high contact rate by incorporating several strategies into our outreach:
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• Displaying Worth
• Personalizing Outreach
• Commenting on Prospects Domain
• Proposing Collaborations
• Offering Great Content
• Much More

A lot of our prospects receive numerous emails every day, but our ability to express the fact that we are real people looking to collaborate along with the value we bring to each collaboration allows us to operate with very high response rates.

The biggest benefit of our customized outreach strategy is our ability to track backlinks and the fact that we preserve and maintain each relationship in which we earn backlinks. We have the contact information, previous correspondences, and all link details for each backlink we have ever built.
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We track each and every backlink that we build on a monthly basis. If we ever run into an issue with a link we have built, whether it be the link not connecting or the linking page having been taken down, we are readily able to contact the prospect we collaborated with in building the link to mend the issue, to establish a new backlink, or whatever is necessary to recoup the missing link. This allows us to keep a current list of all of our client's backlinks as well as the information necessary to update or mend broken links.

The best SEO is SEO that is developed naturally. The best examples we have of natural collaborations come from relationships we have that we have established from link building. A relationship can flower from a simple backlink collaboration into a full-fledged podcast episode, product review, website feature, or much more.
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What separates Mad Mango Marketing from the rest is our pursuit to gain the most out of each relationship we establish. There is always opportunity left on the table, and it is of the utmost importance to investigate every avenue and propose further collaborations that go above and beyond simply earning a backlink.

When developing content for a website, the prospect may have parameters that we will have to follow. One of these is almost always the word count of an article if we have been tasked with creating content. While word count usually doesn't pose an issue, there may be a situation where the word count a website requires for a guest piece of content might be more than what we are looking to provide. Since we develop all of our content in-house, the size of an article does play an important role. With that being said, we rarely ever run into an issue with the word count for a piece of content we have been tasked to create. ​

This ties directly into word count, as the larger the article, the more natural it is to have more than one backlink included on that page. This will not only include backlinks to our client's website but backlinks to other expert sources as well. Google will read an article that has too many backlinks relative to its size as a bad thing and will weigh the backlink accordingly.
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Some websites may restrict the number of backlinks allowed in the article regardless of the word count. While this may not make or break a collaboration, it is definitely something to keep in mind when choosing a prospect to work with. Sometimes this can even prove to be a good thing since it is showing that the prospect pays attention to every detail of the content and is working to build the highest quality pages. This ties directly into the "linked domains" metric we discussed earlier, as we look to avoid backlinks on websites that have pages that appear to be "stuffed" with backlinks.

A lot of our prospects will have their own checks and balances in terms of the content we provide. Some websites will have their editorial team review and approve of our content before posting it. We have run into issues in the past where the website we are working with is not very clear on the direction of the content and has denied the article that we have provided. In this case, we will either edit the piece to fit their needs or we will look for a different prospect that is interested in publishing a similar article. It is very important to be on the same page with the prospect you are collaborating with, and understanding what both parties expect to get out of the relationship is key. ​

Every once in a while, a prospect will need to inspect our client's website to approve of a backlink to that domain. This is quite rare and I have not run into this more than a handful of times. While this may seem frustrating, I see it as a good sign. It shows that the website is cautious and does not collaborate with just any website. The only issue I have ever encountered with this level of quality control is that it might take the prospects team several days to pass the approval.
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As I stated earlier, we have never run into an issue where the prospect has turned down our client's website, as we are constantly developing our client's domains and making sure our clients have the best possible websites. We typically see websites inspect our client's URLs when we are working together on a more serious collaboration, such as a series of multiple pieces of relating content or interviews with our clients as expert sources.

While having a large backlink profile is great, the quality of the backlinks that lie within that profile is more important. Even more important than the quality and quantity of the backlinks built are the relationships that we maintain with the prospects we worked with directly to establish the backlink. The truth of the matter is that having 10 high-quality, white-hat backlinks that we can actively track, manage and repair will benefit our clients more than 100 blackhat links that are inorganic, irreparable, and overall unhealthy for our client's backlink profile. This link building strategy has allowed us to successfully develop all of our client's backlink profiles into extremely beneficial assets that will continue to bring them traffic well into the future.
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Our backlink prospecting strategies, as well as our ability to capitalize on opportunities that many might leave on the table, allow us to maximize our potential with each prospect and earn our clients the best possible collaborations. If we put in the work, follow the metrics described above, as well as pay attention to all of the facts laid out in front of us, choosing the best prospects to reach out to becomes clear and obvious. From that point on, the possibilities of each collaboration are endless!

SEO is made impossible if there is not a constant line of communication for which the client can express wishes and/or concerns to us. We also must be able to relay information to the client regarding their SEO progress. There are several different mediums that can be easily used to keep an open line of communication:

• Email
• Phone Calls
• Text
• Discussion Boards
• Video Calls
• Daily/Weekly/Monthly Meetings

​While some individuals wish to be hands-off and leave the SEO development up to us, the truth is that true, successful SEO requires involvement from all sides. While some success can be found without the client's input, the truth of the matter is that SEO moves much quicker and is much more effective if the client is working alongside us. Whether we are working with the client's marking team, their office manager, or even the business owner, keeping them involved will make the SEO process much more effective.

While some of the client's goals might be very obtainable and are realistic goals, some may not be. It is important that the client is transparent with us, and us with them. We are always honest and clear with our clients, making sure they understand what to expect and time frames that come along with the work they wish to have done. ​

With communication now in place, it is very important that the client is very clear about what their goals are, as well as us being transparent about how realistic those goals are and a timeline associated with those goals. ​

We cannot even begin down the road of SEO development without thoroughly understanding what the client wishes to get out of the relationship. All clients are different, and each may require additional services to bolster the performance of an SEO campaign, such as the following:

• Website Construction
• Website Development
• Software Development
• Digital Marketing and/or Advertisements
• Comprehensive and/or Local SEO

​Nothing is worse than when a business comes to us thinking they just need SEO, when really they need a new website and better-focused ads before they should ever consider SEO. While this is a tough conversation to have, it is necessary.

Once the client has given thought to our recommendations and we thoroughly discussed what kind of SEO campaign we are going to run with, we can then settle in and start digging into what needs to be done and the time frames associated with the SEO campaign. ​

With clarity comes identifying necessary changes. Some clients have a hard time hearing “You're doing it wrong”, but the truth of the matter is that there is almost always something the client is doing that is inhibiting their SEO performance. The client needs to be open to new ideas and, in almost every case, some level of change. ​

A lot of SEO clients are experts in their fields and have been for countless years. With that being said, they may not know what does not work in terms of SEO. Our job is to come in and make observations on what is holding back the client's SEO development. The client then needs to be able to recognize that their SEO agency is not telling them that they are wrong, but that some of their practices may be holding their organic search traffic back. ​

After identifying the underlying issues with a company's SEO strategy (Or lack thereof), the next step is taking a look at the options available to help make their site more valuable. Whether they need to spend more time in keyword research or identifying their target audience, we can help point them in the correct direction as well as explain our process on our side of the ball. We further back up these hypotheses by A/B testing these ideas, collecting data on how our client's users interact with each idea, and then making a data-driven decision. Being able to identify the changes that need to be implemented is key to achieving a higher ranking on Google as well as bringing in new customers., the A/B testing is what keeps them there. ​

With Communication, Clarity, and Changes in place, Consistency is needed to keep everything moving forward.  SEO is not a one-time effort, but rather a long-term commitment. While we may have set goals and implemented changes, it can all be rendered irrelevant if consistency is thrown by the wayside. The most challenging aspect of SEO is maintaining a constant pace and continuing to move forward when you might not see much change in the first few months

One of the most important aspects of a successful SEO campaign is following through with the tasks and goals that have been laid out. While some aspects of SEO might seem repetitive and confusing, trust is key, and maintaining faith in the system will ultimately lead to stronger results and create better traffic. ​

Committing to goals is one thing while following through with them is another whole concept. Ensuring that you stay on schedule and maintaining a consistent pace is crucial. Realistically, general and local SEO development is not a sprint, but rather a marathon. In order to find success in the SEO space, we must use the tools we previously decided would best fit that particular campaign. While there is always room for improvement and adaptation, the bulk of the SEO effort must be constant and consistent.
Clients may feel discouraged if they do not see progress, especially if they are in extremely competitive markets, but patience is important. If you are just starting SEO and the current sites that rank in the 1-3 position for your keywords have 10k page websites with blogs dating back years, you can't expect to be trusted by search engines over them for at least 18-24 months. Even a local contractor needs to give 12-18 months to start seeing consistent valuable traffic visit their site.

The client should always be the main point of concern when developing an email outreach campaign. This can be broken down into two aspects: maintaining communication and transparency with the client. ​

When working on putting together a successful outreach campaign, communication is key. It is imperative that we have a thorough understanding of what pages and/or tools our client wishes to build links for. While we will have recommendations tailored specifically to each client's needs, it is ultimately the client's decision as to which pages they would like us to build links for. ​

Keeping the client informed is critical. Maintaining an open line of communication is key to keeping the client informed on any progress made or issues that have arisen. ​

Almost as important as the client, the next aspect of link building is the prospect. Whether the prospects are journalists, bloggers, or reporters, each prospect needs to be vetted thoroughly and cross-referenced against what the client wants and needs out of a prospect. To develop a truly successful link building campaign, you must take into consideration the prospect's relevance, filter out sub-par prospects, as well as ensure the prospect's page or site is relevant to the client's target keywords. ​

While this may seem obvious, it is crucial to ensure that our outreach prospects are relevant to our client's needs. The prospect's content does not need to be perfect, but must be relevant enough to bring some value to our client's page. Some points of similarity can be:

• Clients Industry
• Clients Location
• Clients Consumers

With that being said, diversifying the backlinks you are building for a site is never a bad idea. Building backlinks from websites relevant to your client's industry are always beneficial, but sometimes working with prospects from different industries could bring your client's products or services into a new light. For example, a service that a client might provide in one industry could potentially meet the needs of someone in a completely different space. Exposure is key.

While there are a lot of prime websites to build organic links through, there are pages that, if they were to link back to your client's page, could potentially hurt your client's ranking. These are considered "Blackhat Links". Google will see these links as "Pay-to-Play" backlinks and could penalize your client's site for the use of them. It is crucial to build backlinks organically and ensure that your client is receiving "Whitehat Links" to their site. This will promote purely organic growth and will help to increase your client ranking for the particular keyword we are shooting for. There are also several Ahrefs resources and metrics that we take into consideration when reviewing a prospect:

• Organic Keywords
• Site and Page traffic
• URL Rating
• Domain Rating

All of these Ahrefs tools and metrics help determine a site's worth, and how beneficial a certain page can be.

When it comes to drafting an outreach email template, your use of language is instrumental to increasing your response rate. If the prospect reads your outreach email and determines it to be spam or a targeted solicitation, they are most likely to dismiss the email and not respond. The outreach email needs to include language that displays understanding, interest, and expertise in the field. The email also needs to be clear and concise, as even a small typo or discrepancy could lead to a missed opportunity. ​

Grabbing the prospect's attention is extremely important. This can be done by using a hook or explicitly stating what we can offer and bring to the table. This will open a dialogue that will hopefully lead to collaborating on a guest post, a blog post, or building quality backlinks. It is crucial to express to the prospect that we can provide value to their website. ​

When drafting emails to be sent out to prospects, an extremely helpful strategy is to personalize the emails. Below I have listed a few items that, if added to an outreach email, could greatly increase the chances of a response:

• The company name
• A name drawn from the email address
• Website URL
• A particular post or article that might have drawn you to their site

This language will help show the prospect that you have thoroughly vetted their website and have made the conscious decision to take the time to reach out. Even if you are not getting directly in touch with the website owner, your contact will see how the email is specific to their team and will likely consider our proposal more than an email that comes off as automated.

This follow-up email should remind the prospect of what potential we are bringing to the table:

• Content (Blog Posts, Articles, etc.)
• Exposure
• Affiliate Marketing
• Outbound Links

The prospect must be reminded of the potential benefits of our client guest posting on their website. This will inevitably lead to you finding more success in building links.

All of the hard work devoted to prospecting, filtering, and content creation is pointless if you do not put an equal effort into closing the deal with the prospect and getting the best possible outcome for your client. Rather than putting in all the above-listed work just to get a link, you owe it to the client to take a deeper look into the potential that each collaboration could bring. In order to do so, you must be willing and able to negotiate, establish relationships, and maximize the potential of each collaboration. ​

Negotiations are extremely important when attempting to land the best possible backlink for your client. While some prospects are hyper-critical about their collaborations, some are more willing to work with you to find the best possible outcome for all parties involved. Whether you are looking to land a guest post, blog post, or a different form of content, there is always a better outcome if you take the time to ask or look. ​

We always make sure we do our absolute best to maximize our potential with each prospect we get in touch with. Whether we are collaborating on a guest post, a blog post, etc., we ensure our clients that we will provide the best quality content and will not waste any resources on something that wouldn't directly benefit them. Another way to maximize potential is by choosing the best possible anchor text for the backlink. ​

Once we have collaborated with a prospect and have developed some backlinks, it is crucial to remain in contact and maintain a positive relationship with the prospect. Firstly, if we ever run into an issue with a broken link, we need to be able to promptly reach out to the prospect to correct any issues with broken links. Secondly, the prospect very well may be an asset in the future. The same prospect may bring several opportunities to us over the course of several months, which could easily be missed if the relationship isn't maintained or if it is left on bad terms. ​

I have listed here what I have found to be the most important aspects of building a successful outreach campaign. Each and every client we work with has specific needs and requires custom-tailored outreach strategies. Going through all of the above-listed aspects with each client and putting together a custom outreach format and schedule will help ensure a successful SEO campaign, as well as help our clients outreach their competition. ​