Last Updated on by Artem K.
At LinksHero, where we help with E-commerce link building and link building for SaaS, we use competitor type link building a lot. However, there are 2 main problems with that:
- Problem 1: You are limited by the number of links you can get (+ only a fraction will link to you as well)
- Problem 2: Competitors often have no idea what they are doing
This is when shotgun skyscraper comes in.
How Does It Work
Let’s assume you have written a solid article on 13 unconventional back pain exercises.
All we need to do now is to show it to the people most interested in it and…
These are usually the people that already linked to similar articles in the past!
And here is what we would do in 4 steps:
- Step 1: We find relevant articles with a lot of links pointing to them
- Step 2: We filter them out for spammy/scammy and low quality links
- Step 3: We reach out to them with a killer outreach template!
- Step 4: We manage replies and negotiate links
See Also – Effective Email Outreach for SaaS
Ideal Type of Content for Competitor Link Building
The best way to maximize the amount of links you get is to provide content that’s above and beyond great, remarkable and outstanding.
People need to have enough reasons to go back and add your link to their website.
To give you a better understanding, here are some real life examples we worked with:
Real World Example 1: Iran Travel Guide
We helped to create this piece of content (here is the full case study) and used Linkshero: Competitors to promote it.
The idea was that travel guides (especially to countries of this caliber đ ) need to be updated regularly as the legislation + international climate changes all the time.
This was exactly the case – visa regulations were updated since when all the other guides were updated.
We used this angle while pitching and got enough links to get the article on Page 1.
Real World Example 2: Copyright Guide
Copyright legislation is also very tricky as it changes every once in a while.
A guide on copyright can’t also be too short – there are many different scenarios which would require specific attention.
Such an angle helped us to build some remarkable links for a client in the business creation niche (talking of DR/DA 50+ links).
Ok, What Are Our Next Steps?
Here is what you will go through, should you decide to give it a try:
- Step 1:Â Content Assessment. We will personally look at the content you got and make sure itâs suitable for competitor link building (we donât want you to waste your money on something that has sub-optimal ROI).
- Step 2:Â Order Processing. We send you an invoice and get the payment processed.
- Step 3:Â Prospecting. We start looking for pages that we can take links from, look for contacts and first names.
- Step 4:Â Inspecting. We check every single lead manually to ensure their quality (i.e. no PBNs and other shady stuff).
- Step 5:Â Personalization. We personalize each and every email so to increase your chances of getting links.
- Step 6:Â Reply Management. We manage all the “paperwork” and email replies, forwarding you anything important (e.g. business opportunities; we get those pretty often).
- Step 7:Â Link Negotiations. We have a ton of experience negotiating for links and we try hard to get them.
P.S. You have a 24/7 access to a reporting sheet which you can always check for the new links pouring in.
Here is what it looks like:
F.A.Q.
How long does the campaign take to run?
Depending on our load and your cooperativeness, we can start almost immediately after the payment is received.
We reserve approximately 7 days to finish the lead preparation part and start with the outreach right away.
The 2 follow-ups are sent every 3 days from then on, so the âsending processâ takes approximately 7 more business days.
The rest of it is reply management and link negotiations (sometimes that involves quite a lot of back N forth communication and reminders before we get it).
This brings the entire campaign to the absolute minimum of 21 business days.
Please note that negotiations are the lengthiest part and we did run into situations of following up for 45 days before we finally got the link placed (the person said yes initially but they got busy then so we were patiently pinging them during all that time).
What are the websites that might link to me?
The websites that will link to you will have some relevance to your niche (we do use âbridgingâ from relevant niches as well).
They will all be real – we don’t do shady things.
How many links will I get?
There are many factors in place but the conversion rates fluctuates between 1% and 6%, meaning that for every 100 resource pages that we ping, youâd get anywhere between 1 and 6 links (with 2 being the average).
Please note that we donât guarantee the outcome with this service but we will do our best to get you there (thatâs why we do initial content assessment â we donât want to waste your money and our effort).
What is âmanual personalizationâ?
For every lead that we find we have:
- The URL of their resource page
- Contact name (whenever possible but itâs not always available)
- Their emails address
The goal of manual personalization is all about making sure to have the above as complete as possible â this helps with actually getting the links BIG time.
What is â3 Email attempts for eachâ?
The majority of links come fromâŚfollow-ups.
This is why itâs extremely important to kindly remind people without pushing them too much (so we are still friends).
This is why we have 3 email attempts for every lead we find:
- Initial email
- Follow-up #1
- Follow-up #2
This email structure helps to maximize the number of resource links we get from each and every campaign.
Each of those emails is very personalized and very relevant.
Do you guarantee a certain DR/DA?
In reality, we end up having quite a number of different DR/DAs so this evens out.
Here is an example of what a typical set of results looks like:
As you can see, the first link we got live (at the time) was a DR 7.
This was the âtiniestâ DR link we got and…
The âbiggestâ DR was 51!
This is just as natural as it can get because if you are only getting DR 40+ links to your websiteâŚitâs suspicious.
What is âNo PBNs or other spam/scamâ and âNo web 2.0sâ?
PBNs are Private Blog Networks which is a spammy technique of ranking sites that Google doesnât like.
Web 2.0s are blog-like sites that anyone can have access to (e.g. links coming from Blogspot or Livejounal) etc.
These are typical manipulation-based techniques that are not focused on providing value but rather on tricking Googleâs algo (which is already insanely smart).
P.S. We do some custom things but we need you to reach out first.