How link reclamation can impact your Digital PR strategy

Digital PR Article

Link reclamation is an integral part of any effective Digital PR strategy, however the process can seem a little intimidating if you are unaware of what it really means or why it is important.

Earning links is tricky business. Not only does it typically take a lot of work from a perspective of content creation, relationship building, and outreach – it is also vital to ensure that the links come from strong, relevant sources and are as natural as possible.

So, you might be surprised to learn that there is a way to get a large number of highly relevant, extremely natural links to your site very easily – and that is through link reclamation.

During a link reclaim, you’ll find all of the unlinked brand mentions online and potentially have them turned into valuable links (the Digital PR dream).

What is an unlinked brand mention?

An unlinked brand mention refers to any time your business is mentioned online, typically within an online news outlet or blog, without directly linking to any page on our website.

Unlinked brand mentions are unbelievably valuable due to the fact that most of the hard work has already been completed. Your business is being spoken about, producing some fantastic brand awareness, and you have a contact who is amenable to you.

You have a perfectly natural reason to reach out to that contact and politely ask for a link to be added.

What types of unlinked brand mentions can be targeted?

There are a variety of different types of unlinked brand mentions in which you can look out for during your link reclamation.

It is not only direct mentions of a business’ name, but also business products/ services and even members of staff who may have provided expert comments that can go unlinked.

It can be useful to produce a list of a business’ products/ services that could be searched for during link reclamation, as well as a list of each staff member and their specialist topic of discussion. If possible, including links to direct pages on the business’ site which could be linked to - not just the homepage.

How to find unlinked brand mentions

There are a couple of different ways to discover brand mentions of business’ online without having to do a full and in-depth backlink analysis.

To discover previous coverage of a business’ brand, this either be done by a manual search via Google in their news section, or there are a range of tools that can scour online for you.

At 43 Clicks North, we use BuzzSumo to search for any previous unlinked brand mentions in order to make our link reclamation more efficient, scaleable and less time-consuming. BuzzSumo will allow you to view coverage from the previous year and select a specific date range if you wish to analyse a particular time frame.

As well as searching for previous coverage, live media tracking will allow you to stay up to date with unlinked mentions and quickly jump on any opportunities that arise.

Setting up media alerts is the easiest way to stay informed. Alerts are provided through BuzzSumo however we recommend using more than one tool (in case any of those cheeky mentions sneak through the gap), such as Google Alerts and TalkWalker (which are both FREE!).

How to make contact during link reclamation

Once a prioritisation list of unlinked mentions with high traffic and high authority opportunities has been made, it is time to contact those sites to request them to add a link back to your website.

This is arguably the hardest part of the process and it is important to approach it sensitively and not to come across as pushy in your outreach.

Each email you send should be personalised about the specific mention on the site and include an incentive and explain the benefits of adding a link to the business, as well as of course thanking the contact for being aware of the business.

Here's a real-world example

Combining all of the tactics above, we were able to secure a link from a historic brand mention for one of our clients. Additionally, we managed to secure an exclusive interview through providing the journalist with valuable content that could be added to the article. Win. Win.

Most success in link reclamation comes from providing the contact with extra information or an added asset which can be included within a subpage on the site. A link reclaim will also allow for a relationship to be built with the contact, increasing the potential for further links in the future.

Link reclamation can be extremely time consuming, but it is definitely worth it in order to never miss an opportunity.