Have any suggestions for next steps in link building campaign?

[Ullamalm]

We are conducting SEO and white-hat link building campaign for a client that is in the national (US) fertility/infertility niche.

So far we've done outreach to potential websites that we found to be a good fit for the campaign, although the conversion rate for getting Guest Posts, even Sponsored Posts is quite low. Furthermore, the number of these potential websites is close to running out and it's getting harder to find other websites with relevant metrics that are outreach-worthy.

Besides Guest Post/Sponsored Post outreach, we've done Link Reclamation, Resource Links and Broken Link Building. Also, we tried expanding the list of keywords to try and come up with some new leads (in sub-niches) but haven't had much success.

One peculiar thing that is happening when we do start a communication with the blog/website owners is that they get interested in the topic at first, up to the point of asking us to send them a Guest Post article and then.. silence, no response from them. We do a couple of follow-ups, but in most cases we don't hear back from them. We realize that there could be some editorial changes that they might want to be done, which we would be willing to do, but they just simply do not respond at all.

When talking to other people in the SEO business we get different opinions on how to proceed, ranging from creation of web 2.0 properties and linking them up with video content and the client website, to even creating SEO link wheels. We are quite committed to our client and would love to get their site ranking, but we're reluctant to use tactics that might yield only short term results and might end up hurting the rankings on the long run.

Other part of our strategy is creating quality content on our client's blog (within their website) and doing outreach to bloggers to get them interested in the topics that we are covering. So far these efforts have also not been very successful.

Basically, my question is when you are doing a link building campaign for a client, what is your next strategy when the link opportunities run out?

[TammyWood]

Link reclamation for the client as well as the top competing websites. This can be a lucrative way to build up natural link profile, and obtain "new" links on older domains. I usually run Cognitive SEO with top three competitors, view links that are shared  and which are lost vs. live. This is an easy way to reach out to previously interested parties as well as build updated relationships.

[Ullamalm]

Thanks Nick. It's not just that blogger outreach isn't working - just that we're running out of opportunities to reach out to in our niche!

I'm very curious what other SEOs do when they reach this point, which surely they must do, when the number of relevant opportunities that have already been tapped outstrips the number of new ones hitting the Web...

[Chris_Hickman]

If blogger outreach is not working, I would consider re-focusing your efforts on the client's own blog and publishing high quality, compelling content and news that will naturally attract links. You should use charts, images, infographics or slideshows to make the post more authoritative and attractive to other content creators.

Hope this helps. Best of luck.

[EGOL]

they get interested in the topic at first, up to the point of asking us to send them a Guest Post article and then.. silence, no response from them.

Lots of people sent me content to consider and don't hear back or I send them an honest response that they don't like.  Why?  I don't want their content on my website.  It could be poorly written, well written but with no meat, well written but in a style that I don't like, well written but on a topic that does not fit into my website, loaded with links, linking to sites that I want nothing to do with, they send hardcore chest-thumping promotion.   In most instances, I provide guidance for the writer.  They ignore it.

So I give these suggestions....

A) Ask for guidance.  Don't dare send anything that goes against it.  They will reject the content and reject you for wasting their time.

B) Make sure that the content that you send is excellent.  Better quality than what they already have on their website.

C) Make sure that the content matches the tone and style of their website with titles, headlines, subheads, paragraph length, reading level, photos, captions in the same style as their website.  Make it easy to "drop into the site".

D) Send two or three pieces of content that are very different and allow them to pick.

Good luck.