Link Reclamation Process & Tools
What Is Link Reclamation?
Acquiring links through content marketing is not an easy task, it takes time, creative minds, and thoughtful implementation. Sometimes your company may have great brand mentions online, which is great for your brand. When those mentions pass link equity from the publishers site to yours; its a beautiful thing. When those mentions don’t have links to your site; now thats a shame.
Link reclamation is the process of discovering these brand mentions across the internet and acquiring links from the already published content related to your business. In many cases, these mentions are references to activities or events that were conducted offline around your business. A good example of this would be that your company did some fundraising for a local charity and that charity mentioned your company in their recent blog post. This is a great opportunity to get a valuable link from a company that has already mentioned your business.
So… how do you find out where your company has been mentioned if you don’t know about? Well, below is information on tools you can use to monitor your brand name, how to get these links and what the value is from them.
The Tools:
There are many free tools out there to discover when your business has been mentioned. Below are a few methods on how to discover brand mentions online.
Fresh Web Explorer by Moz.com
Fresh Web Explorer allows you to monitor your brand online by searching for keywords most commonly associated with your brand. Keep in mind that people won’t always use your business name directly, they may use your domain name, shortened name, your tagline or other commonly used phrases to describe your business.
Search Google By Date
Google indexes content every second of every day. Google knows when content is published and it is all indexed by date. In Google’s advanced search option, you can search by a keyword and sort by date. This is a great tool to use because you want to capitalize on the most recently published content, because it is the most fresh and the publisher will remember what the article was about and you will have a much higher conversion rate in your outreach process.
Google Reverse Image Search
People reference business by using their logo. This is a very common way to reference a business in an article, blog post, or even text link on a website. If someone is using your logo, you should ask for a link back to your website. You can use the image search tool by Google to find all “like” images as your logo. This is a very easy tool to use and the conversion rate is also very high in outreach when people use your logo.
Link Reclamation Outreach:
Link reclamation outreach is a much easier process that content outreach to publishers. You have to keep in mind, the publisher responsible for mentioning your business already knows who you are and has already mentioned your company. This makes the introduction much easier and the conversation less formal and more relaxed.
The individual or business that referenced your company most likely did it because they find value in your business and what you do. When contacting them, do your homework first. You will want to know who to ask for and understand their business. When talking about the link, be authentic and tell them you are doing brand monitoring and discovered that their website had mentioned you, but not linked to you.
The Results:
Link reclamation has a much higher conversion rate than content outreach, guest blogging, and other standard link acquisition methods. The conversion rate is significantly higher due to the fact that these publishers have already mentioned your company in an article, website, or whatever media they created. The results are great, and a very easy way to build out a diverse link profile.
