Goal: To identify the keywords that you should be aiming to rank for, find relevant link opportunities and reach out to the respective sites to grow your external links.
Prerequisites or requirements: Some sections are performed using tools like Ahrefs, KWFinder or Buzzstream, but similar steps can be performed using competing tools.
Why this is important: If you want to rank for competitive queries, you will need to build links.
When this is done: Whenever you want to build links to your site. The frequency will depend on how many resources you have, how competitive your niche is, and how much content you have.
Who does this: The person in charge of SEO / link building for your site.
Step 1 - Identify keywords your content could rank for
Keyword Research / Keyword Mapping. Find group keywords that people are looking for within your niche, and create a comprehensive keyword strategy that dominates search engines.
Outcome: You have identified the most promising keywords that you want to rank for.
Special instructions: In an ideal scenario you would have performed keyword research first, and then you would have created content based on the result of your research.
Since that is not always possible when you start working with an existing website, you will use these steps but with a small variation, instead of searching for keywords relevant to your business in general, you’ll search for keywords relevant for that page (while still being relevant for your business, of course).
Step 2 - Identify and reverse-engineer your competitors and reach out to relevant sites
How to Launch a Link-Building Campaign for Your Existing Content. Find link opportunities by reverse engineering links to competing websites, and reach out to the respective site owners and/or editors.
Outcome: You have sent relevant, bulk-outreach emails to publishers that were linking to your competitor’s content, and provided them reasons to link to your existing content instead.