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RENOVATION LINK
BUILDING

MODULE 3 LESSON 3
TRANSCRIPTION
MODULE 3 LESSON 3 TRANSCRIPTION RENOVATION LINK BUILDING

T RA NSCRIPT ION www.getwsodo.com

www.getwsodo.com
Renovation Link Building

Hey guys, welcome to Lesson 3 of Module 3.

In the last lesson you learned all about Content Curator Link Building. That’s where you find pages that
curate great content… and get links from those pages.

And in this lesson I’m going to show you yet another powerful link building strategy: Renovation Link
Building.

So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

As you saw in the last lesson, link building is (relatively) easy when you find pages where your link adds
value to that page.

In other words, when a Linkreator adds your link to their page, that page is better.

So that’s one way to add value. But there’s another way to add value that’s much more tangible. And it’s
the basis of today’s strategy: Renovation Link Building.

What Is Renovation Link Building and Why Does It Work?

Renovation Link Building taps into something known as Reciprocity.

Reciprocity is a psychological principle that boils down to this: When you do something for someone, they
feel obligated to pay you back.

And make no mistake: that feeling of reciprocity is very powerful. Studies show that, when someone does
something nice for us (even something small) we feel like we owe that person something.

So: what does this have to do with link building?

I’ll explain with an example.

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As you may know, I ran an SEO agency for years (this was way before I started Backlinko). And after testing
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dozens of link building strategies, I quickly learned that Renovation Link Building was one of the best. So
I used this strategy over and over to build links to my own properties… and for my SEO clients.

As luck would have it, about a year after I launched Backlinko, I learned that the Google Keyword Tool was
changing to the new Google Keyword Planner. And I realized that I had a golden link building opportunity
staring me in the face.

That’s because I knew that THOUSANDS of sites still linked to the old Google Keyword Tool…which made
their links out of date. And I knew I could nab some of those links. That is, as long as I had a Power Page
that appealed to these Linkreators.

Now: I was already planning to create a keyword research Go-To Guidebook. But this announcement lit a
fire under my butt. So I cleared my schedule so I could focus 100% on getting my Power Page finished.

And it worked!

Thanks to Renovation Link Building, my Power Page racked up dozens of authority backlinks within days.
And I hit the first page for the keyword “keyword research” within a few months.

Of course, I can’t promise the same results. That wouldn’t be responsible of me. I’m just telling you this
story to show you how effective Renovation Link Building can be.

And today I’m going to show you not 1… but 2 proven strategies that will help you get high-quality
backlinks with Renovation Link Building.

Let’s jump right in.

Our first Renovation Link Building strategy is Broken Link Building.

The simple fact is this:

Most people NEVER take the time to update their old content.

Yes, over time, this makes their content often out of date. But important for us, their LINKS become dated
too.

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In fact, according to a study published by HP, one out of 200 links on the web go dead every week. And as
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you’ll see in a minute, every broken link is an opportunity for you.

So: how does Broken Link Building work?

With Broken Link Building you simply let a site owner know about their broken link… and offer your link
as a replacement.

It sounds simple. And in many ways it is. But the tricky part is finding broken links.

Which leads us to step #1 of this process: finding broken links.

Step #1: Find Broken Links

Finding broken links is the only remotely complicated part of this strategy.

Fortunately, here are three techniques that I’ve developed over the years that make finding broken links
a cinch:

Technique #1: The Manual Approach

Even though this technique is a bit tedious, I personally tend to have the most success with it.

Here’s how it works:

First, use search strings in Google to bring up pages that have lots of links (like resource pages).

Why?

Because more links on a page=more potential broken links=more links for you.

I’ll have these search strings in the worksheet, but here are the types of pages you’re looking for:

Resource pages (keyword + inurl:resources)

Ultimate guides (“keyword” + “ultimate guide” or “keyword 101”)

“Embedded resource pages” (“keyword” + “additional resources” or “keyword” + “related links” or “keyword”
+ “further reading”)

I’ll have more info on these (and more search strings) in the worksheet.

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Next, run the Google Chrome Extension “Check My Links” to identify any broken links on the page:
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And when you find at least one broken link, you’re ready for step #2.

Technique #2: The Site-By-Site Approach

With this technique, instead of looking for broken links on a specific page, you use a tool to find all the
broken links on an entire site.

I prefer to use Ahrefs for this technique. But you can also use OpenSiteExplorer, Screaming Frog, or
whatever tool works for you.

Either way, to use this technique, grab the homepage of a site you want a link from. Pop it into the tool.

Then click on “broken links”. This will show you all the broken outbound links on that site.

Simple.

Technique #3: The Force Multiplier

With The Force Multiplier approach, finding broken links goes from a one-by-one system to a truly
scalable approach.

Here’s how it works:

Grab the URL of one of the broken links you found using the techniques I just showed you.

Then, pop that broken URL into your backlink analysis tool of choice. This will show you ALL of the sites
that are linking to that broken link.

For example, here’s a broken link I found on Backlinko using Ahrefs:

Now you could reach out to me and let me know about my broken link. And then move on.

But with this technique, you take this one step further. Instead of only reaching out to me, you can reach
out to me AND everyone else that’s linking to that 404 page.

For example, with the State of Search broken link that was on Backlinko, there are 75 pages that have a
link pointing to that dead page:

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That’s 75 potential websites that you can reach out to.

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With that, let’s move onto step #2, which is to identify a page on your site that you’ll pitch.

Step #2: Identify The Page To Pitch

So now that you’ve found a page with at least one broken link, it’s time to figure out which Power Page on
your site you’re going to pitch.

How do you know which page to choose?

Ideally, the page that you pitch should be a close replacement for the dead resource.

For example, let’s say you came across a resource page about tennis.

And you found a broken link to a dead page that used to list a bunch of forehand drills.

If you had a Power Page about improving your forehand, you’d want to offer that piece of content as a
replacement.

That said, your Power Page doesn’t have to be a 1:1 replacement for the dead resource. But the closer your
content matches the dead resource, the better.

Now: one thing I should point out:

Even if you don’t have a Power Page to replace the dead resource… you can still use that broken link to
build a backlink to your site.

Here’s how:

Renovation Link Building strategies like Broken Link Building work mainly because of Reciprocity.

And when you help the site owner know about their dead link, you just did them a solid. So when you
suggest that they add your link to another section on their page, they’re going to be super receptive.

For example, let’s go back to our tennis resource page example.

And this time, let’s say you didn’t have a page on your site about hitting a forehand to replace the dead
resource.

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But you noticed that the resource page has a section called: “How to Serve Like a Pro”. And you just
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published a Power Page about improving your serve.

Well, after you let the site owner know about their broken link, you can suggest that they add a link to your
Power Page under the “How to Serve Like a Pro” section.

And because you just helped them improve their page by letting them know about their broken link,
they’re MUCH more likely to link to you.

So once you’ve identified which page on your site you’re going to pitch, it’s time to send an outreach email.

Step #3: Send Your Outreach Email

When it comes to email outreach, some people send a link request in their first email. And yes, this works
OK in some situations.

But after A LOT of testing, I’ve found that a 2-step process works GREAT for Broken Link Building.

Here’s how it works:

First, you want to send an email called “The Feeler”. I’ll have the full script for you in the worksheet, but
here’s the gist.

I was looking for some information on [Topic] today when I came across your [Description of the page].

However, I did come across a few dead links.

Let me know if you want me to forward the short list that I jotted down to you.

As you can see, this email isn’t very personalized, which is usually a no-no in the world of outreach.

But in the case of BLB, you’re adding value by helping the Linkreator with their broken link problem. So
there’s no need for a ton of personalization.

The goal of the first email is simply to see if the person cares enough about editing their page to get back
to you.

If they do, you can wow them with an insanely-personalized second email. Here’s how it looks:

Sure, no problem.

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Here are the dead links that I found:www.getwsodo.com

www.getwsodo.com
[BROKEN LINK URL 1 (TYPE of ERROR + replacement URL if available)]

[BROKEN LINK URL 2 (TYPE of ERROR + replacement URL if available)]

[BROKEN LINK URL 3 (TYPE of ERROR + replacement URL if available)]

Also, I just published a guide about [topic]: [URL]

It might make a nice addition to your page.

Either way, I hope this helps you out and keep up the great work with [Site]!

Let’s bring this all together with a real-life example: how I used broken link building to get a GREAT link
to my Hero Formula Power Page. As you might remember, this Power Page was a case study of how one
of my readers used infographics to get traffic to their blog.

First, I used search strings like “infographics” + inurl: resources and “infographic marketing” +
intitle:resources to find resource pages that linked out to helpful content about infographics and
infographic marketing.

And I found this PA57 resource page about creating infographics:

When I ran Check My Links on that page, I uncovered a handful of broken links.

And one of the broken links pointed to an article on DoshDosh.com about promoting infographics.

And I realized that, even though my Power Page wasn’t a 1:1 replacement for the Dosh Dosh link, it was
close enough.

Now that I had a Power Page to pitch, I reached out with “The Feeler” email:

Someone from their organization quickly replied to see what the broken links were:

That’s when I followed up with the second email that pointed out the broken links… and pitched a link to
my Power Page as a replacement:

Because I added value and had a high-quality Power Page to offer, they happily added my link to the page:

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And here’s the live link: www.getwsodo.com

www.getwsodo.com
And now it’s time for Renovation Link Building strategy #2: The Moving Man Method

Like I mentioned earlier, the Google Keyword Tool switched over to the Google Keyword Planner a few
years ago. And that was a link building opportunity I wasn’t going to miss.

But here’s the thing:

The links that pointed to the Google Keyword Tool still technically worked. For example, here’s what
happens when you run Check My Links on a page with a link pointing to the old Google Keyword Tool
URL:

It doesn’t show up as “red” because it’s not a 404 page. It simply redirects to an Adwords Login screen:

Why is this important?

No matter what industry you happen to be in, just like with the old Google Keyword Tool, there are links
that technically still work… but are outdated for one reason or another.

And sometimes these opportunities are BETTER than what you’d find using Broken Link Building.

With that, let’s break the entire process down, step-by-step.

First, you need to find outdated links. Remember: these links aren’t 404 pages that show up with Check
My Links or the Ahrefs broken link checker. So you’ll need to take a different approach to uncover them.

Here are three ways to find outdated links:

Technique #1: Find Outdated Links In Old Content

Here’s where you find content that hasn’t been updated in a while. Then, look for outdated links in that
old content.

To find old content, just search for a keyword that describes your Power Page.

And set the date range so that Google only shows you content from 2-4 years ago.

Then, check out each page in the search results… and look for outdated links.

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Fortunately, this is a lot easier than it might sound.

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You just need to click on any links that look like they might point to an outdated, old, or non-functional
resource.

For example, look at this resource page about social media.

When I scanned the page I noticed this link that linked to a social media handbook. According to Check
My Links, the page still worked. But when I clicked on the link to the PDF handbook, it redirected me to
the homepage. Bingo! I just found an outdated link.

Technique #2: Ear To The Ground Approach

The second way to find outdated resources is the “Ear to the Ground Approach”.

Now that you know about The Moving Man Method, you can view changes in your industry as potential
Moving Man Method opportunities.

For example, I heard about the Google Keyword Tool changing to the Google Keyword Planner from a news
report from Search Engine Land.

Most people read the article and moved on to the next one.

Fortunately, I had my radar frequency set for Moving Man Method opportunities. So I took this tidbit of
news and turned it into several high-quality backlinks.

Technique #3: The Force Multiplier (Moving Man Method Version)

This is how I took full advantage of the Google Keyword Tool change.

Actually, this technique is the exact same “Force Multiplier” approach you use with Broken Link Building.

This time, instead of reverse engineering the links to a 404 page, you reverse engineer links pointing to
an outdated resource.

For example, when I learned about the change to the Google Keyword Tool, I grabbed the URL pointing to
the old tool and put it into Ahrefs:

And I found dozens of pages that linked to the old tool:

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Step #2: Identify The Power Page You’ll Pitch

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This is the exact same process you use with broken link building. You can either use a page that’s a close
replacement for the outdated resource… or use the outdated resource as a way to get your foot in the door.

Step #3: Reach Out and Get Your Links

Once you’ve found a page that links to at least one outdated resource, it’s time to give the site owner a
quick heads up.

Like with broken link building, I recommend a 2-step approach. But you can also use a direct ask here too.

I used both approaches when I used The Moving Man Method to build links to my keyword research guide.
So now I want to show you an example of what a direct ask script looks like with a real-life example.

Here’s a direct ask email that I sent out to people that linked to the old Google Keyword Tool:

Because you provide value twice -- first by pointing out a hard-to-find outdated link and second by
showing them your awesome Power Page -- you’ll find that people are more than happy to link to you.

That’s all there is to it.

Like always, I’ve included lots more info and detailed steps for you in the worksheet. So go ahead and
check out the worksheet, and I’ll see you in the next video.

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