Are you trying to get more organic backlinks to your site or build new ones? Having a great product and increasing your brand awareness could help you get some links, but they will only get you so far.
In order to maximize the number of links you can get/build, you’ll need something on your site that others are willing to share on their website or social media. Whether it be an infographic, an article with statistics on an interesting topic in your niche, or a tool, linkable content will help you earn high-quality backlinks through outreach (and also organically).
In this article we’ll go over:
- What Are Linkable Assets?
- What Types of Linkable Assets Are There?
- How to Earn Links from Linkable Assets
Let’s start by defining the term ‘linkable asset’ in more detail.
What Are Linkable Assets?
A linkable asset is any piece of content or tool on your website that is, well, linkable. That means that others think it’s worth adding a link back to it because it adds value to their site.
Links are often used to provide a site’s audience with resources or additional context about a topic that is mentioned on a page. For example, let’s take a look at the following excerpt from an article on tech.co’s site about the ways technology impacts people’s lives:
Here, the article talks about how video conferencing has changed the way people communicate in the workplace, and it presents a statistic from a McKinsey study related to the amount of Americans working from home to make a point about the impact. The article from McKinsey is a linkable asset because it supports the point the author of the article wants to make.
If you can build content that others will want to reference in order to prove or support ideas presented in their articles, expand on concepts or topics they mention, or share with their audience because of their uniqueness, you’ll be on your way to earning some good links for your site.
Before learning how to turn them into links, let’s take a look at the types of linkable assets that you can build.
What Types of Linkable Assets Are There?
As I mentioned before, linkable assets can come in many shapes and forms. Here are some of the best and most common types of linkable assets:
Infographics
Infographics are visual representations of information. They’re a combination of visuals and text that communicate information about a specific topic in a way that is clear, engaging, and easy to grasp. They’re perfect for presenting statistics or explaining difficult topics in a way that people can understand. Here’s an example of an infographic on men’s mental health:
Tools and Calculators
This type of linkable asset can range anywhere from a simple tool like a currency converter or an interest rate calculator to more complex tools like a PDF to Word converter or an image generator. Developing a tool that can help clients or people in your niche simulate or simplify processes can attract a lot of links.
Some examples of such tools are:
Awards and Rankings
This type of linkable asset refers to a ranking of items on a list within a specific niche. The higher your reputation within your niche, the more likely a ranking on your site will be of interest to others.
If, say, you are an authoritative travel blogger, and you create a ranking of the top restaurants in a city, local news sites or magazines may want to reference some of the information you provide in your list. Other travel bloggers might want to include your list in an article about the best things to do in that same city. And the restaurants that have made it into your ranking will be thrilled to share that they’ve been featured in your list.
Research and Studies
Original research and studies offering unique data on topics relevant to your industry can be a great way to earn links from relevant sites. Depending on the niche, the data can stem from experiments or surveys that you run.
Here are some examples of the data from a study on remote work carried out by Owl Labs, a company that specializes in remote meeting technologies:
The report includes infographics, statistics, and key takeaways on different aspects of remote work.
Statistics
This type of linkable asset is closely related to the previous one. However, in this case, the data doesn’t necessarily come from research you’ve designed and conducted. It can be a compilation of data and statistics from other people’s findings.
If you can identify trends and interesting topics and gather insightful data on them, you can create a statistics page that others may want to reference in their articles.
Surfpoint Recovery, for example, compiled several facts and statistics on mental health:
Guides
Guides that offer in-depth information about a topic in your niche are also a great way to get links. In order for guides to be good linkable assets, they need to be helpful, non-promotional, detailed, and offer unique information. Once again, the more reputation and credibility you have, the better these guides will perform since people will already trust your knowledge and be more willing to share it with others.
Now that we’ve taken a look at some of the most common types of linkable assets, it’s time to learn how these can actually be turned into links to your site.
How to Earn Links from Linkable Assets
In order to get links from linkable assets, you need to follow a three-step process:
1. Select the type of linkable asset that you want to build.
2. Create the content.
3. Do outreach.
Let’s take a closer look at these three steps.
Select the type of linkable asset.
In order to choose the right type of linkable asset that you want to create, you can follow a few different strategies.
First, you can take a look at what your competitors are doing and how their linkable assets are performing.
Secondly, you can identify any trending topics in your industry and compile any data or research that you’ve done in order to create an infographic, a statistics page, or a report with the information.
Another great way of coming up with linkable asset ideas is to search for broken links. Good linkable assets that have already gathered backlinks from other sites but are no longer accessible can open the door for you to reach out with a replacement of your own. Broken link building can be very effective when done correctly, and you’ll have a great list of prospects to reach out to.
Create the content.
Once you’ve selected the type of linkable asset and the information that you want to share, you’ll need to build the content. Remember that, regardless of the type of linkable asset that you’ve chosen, the goal is to create something unique, creative, and that others will want to share.
If you use linkable assets from your competitors as inspiration, make sure the content you create has a unique approach and is better than theirs in some way.
If you find a broken link and want to create a linkable asset that can be offered as a replacement, you’ll want to take a look at the existing backlink profile and anchor texts of the broken link to see how others are linking to it. Are they referencing a specific statistic? Or is it a specific term? Make sure you include that in your linkable asset.
Do outreach.
Though some linkable assets might earn you links naturally, you’ll still need to reach out to others in order to get links or social media shares.
You can use a tool like Ahrefs to search for prospects for resource pages, listicles, or articles and pitch your linkable asset to them.
If your linkable asset comes from a broken link, you can reach out to all the sites that are linking to the dead link, point out the broken link, and offer your piece of content as a replacement.
Depending on what your linkable asset is about, you can also do PR outreach and pitch your content to news sites, magazines, influencers, and bloggers.
Use Linkable Assets Smartly
We’ve learned about the most common types of linkable assets and how you can use them to earn high-quality, relevant links to your site. Now, it’s time to create useful content and develop a strategy to keep producing more linkable assets and keep strengthening your site’s backlink profile.
When used correctly, linkable assets are a very good time and money investment. For example, once you get a linkable asset to rank for certain keywords, you may also start getting natural links from other sites that find your content while researching for their own pieces of content.
If you already have linkable assets but are struggling to create links to them, don’t hesitate to contact us for a free consultation; we’ll be happy to help.
