International Link Building: Surprising Aspects

When Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” he mustn’t have thought about its consequences (in a good way, though).

When you start a business, the entire world is your stage, so why perform in a confined space? 

Why focus on only getting popular in your local area when you can easily take up your business to an international level and gain a better target audience?

Well, saying all these, in this case writing, is easy, but implementing it in real life is a job that can literally break your back. 

But what’s the harm in trying, right? What’s worse is that you might still get some international clients and can work your way up from there.

If you have a big aim like ours, then we are here to help you. In this blog, we will give you the ultimate gift of expanding your business globally: international link building.

So, are you ready to board the ship and travel beyond the seven seas?

What Is International Link Building?

International link building is quite similar to a basic link building strategy, except the former applies globally.

In global link building, you need to acquire backlinks from reputed companies and bloggers of the focused country. Whether you want to make your name in France, UK, or Brazil, you need solid connections, links, and quality to get accepted by the people there. 

If you are not sure who is linking to you, make sure to use a solid backlink tracker that can help you get insights on websites referring to you.

But where should you start? How to reach the global market, let alone make your name in it? Don’t worry; we are here to guide you through the dangerous path.

Tips On Cracking International Link Building

We know how difficult global link building can be, so we have cracked down on these tried and tested methods that will help you conquer the globe.

Before you move ahead, make sure to go through this tutorial video on RankWatch’s link center as it would help you throughout the process.

1. Spy On Your Competitors

Spying on our competitors when we are stuck is quite a human thing. Why? Because it’s obvious that they are facing or must have faced a similar situation, and spying on them will give us a solution.

Well, RankWatch can help you a lot in spying on your competitors. If you want to get an overview on your competitors, then our backlink checker can help you with it. You can easily download the reports and use it for weekly audits. 

On the other hand, if you want to go in-detail, our link explorer will be your guide throughout the journey. Here’s how you can spy on your competitors using link explorer.

1. Create a new project with your competitor’s domain address 

   

2. Select the location and add keywords that best describes your competitor’s services
   
   
3. Click on the link explorer option from the side menu
4. The tool will display all details as to where and how your competitors are linking in foreign countries

In the link explorer dashboard, you can see the areas where your competitors are famous in the “Links by country” section.

It showcases the total number of backlinks that their website is receiving through multinational link building. You can click on any of the mentioned countries to get in-detail insights.

Once you click on a section, you can see local websites along with web pages where they have linked to your competitors. You can export these URLs and pitch the local companies with your services and blogs to get backlinks.

Besides, you can also perform in-detail competitive analysis for better results. Our competitive analysis gives you in-depth details on your stand amongst competitors. 

It will give you details on whether there’s been a change in rankings, the number of ranking URLs your competitors have, etc., so you can devise proper strategies.

Once you know where your competitors are targeting in the international SEO market, you will understand the areas you need to focus on to enhance your multinational link building game..

2. Localize with Local TLD

TLD, or top linking domains, is one of the most important factors of international link building and SEO. It refers to the last part of a website, like .com, .in, .ar, etc. 

Each of these aspects focuses on different countries and helps a website reach the target audience of that country easily.

While the “.com” suffix is considered quite universal, other suffixes are also used majorly by the audience of the focused country.

So, if you want to reach the global market, start focusing on making your website local. You need to acquire these TLD aspects and optimize your website accordingly.

If you want an idea of which TLDs will work for you, conduct a competitive analysis using our link explorer. The “Top TLD Distribution” section will show you the number of TLDs linking to your rivals.

You can get detailed insights by selecting any TLDs in the dashboard. It will show you the websites with those specific TLDs linking to your competitors. You can utilize this data and work on formulating effective worldwide link building strategies.

3. Include Thoughtful Anchor Texts

Anchor texts are words that basically summarize what the linked page is about. They help Google understand that the linked web page is indeed factual and trustworthy in the said genre.

Like backlinks are considered a vote of confidence, anchor texts are known as the guiding light for search engines and users, enlightening their path toward relevant information.

It is quite obvious that what works in one country might not work in others. Likewise, the popularity of anchor texts also varies from country to country.

But how to know which anchor texts will bring in the results? Do not fret, as we are here to save you from distress.

The link explorer feature of RankWatch will be your savior throughout your worldwide link building process. 

The “Top Anchors” section in link explorer shows which anchor texts have the highest backlinks.

You can also get better insights on how and where these anchor texts were used by selecting any one of them.

If you want more localized results, you can always apply filters. Here are two sample cases that will help you out.

Selecting the TLD Filter

1. Select the TLD or top linking domains option from the filters drop-down menu
   
   
2. Select the TLD zone that you want to focus on 

   

3. Create different groups for different TLD zones by using tags
4. Export the data for later use

Selecting the Country Filter

1. Select the country option from the filters drop-down menu
2. Select the country for which you want the anchor texts
   
   
3. Create groups as per different countries using tags
4. Export the results for future use

Based on the above information, you can understand what anchor texts will help you build an amazing worldwide link building strategy. You can export these anchor texts and use them for guest posting, collaborations, social media posting, and other global link building techniques.

4. Approach The Social Leaders Of The Country

Once you get details on your competitor’s popularity in other countries, you can start noting down the social leaders with whom they have a good relationship.

The link explorer can help you discover social leaders with whom your competitors knowingly and unknowingly collaborate.

Link Explorer’s “Writers who wrote about you” section shows all bloggers and people who mentioned and linked to your competitors across different social media platforms.

In addition to that, you also get to see the total number of articles where they linked your competitors along with their contact details. You can directly contact these writers and build relationships for future guest posting and link building.

There’s a high chance that these writers didn’t know about your services in their country or were directly approached by your competitors. 

Whatever the case, there’s no harm in contacting and building a professional relationship with them. 

You can also find authors who wrote about your website in the link explorer. There are chances that some of them might be from a different country, thus giving you a lead on your international SEO journey.

5. Location-Specific Keywords

As said earlier, what works in one country, might not work in others. That’s why you need to be very specific during global link building, especially while researching for keywords.

As keywords are the most important part of any international SEO campaign, you need to be careful. The best example here is the word “aubergine,” which is mostly used in the UK, but people call it eggplant in America.

That’s why you need to localize your keyword research for different countries. RankWatch’s keyword research tool is highly accurate in this area.

Thanks to the geographical-based filters, you get all the popular keywords of a country within seconds.

All you have to do is 

1. Enter your industry-based or primary keyword in the dialog box, 
2. Choose from the broad/phrase match option, 
3. Select the country for which you want the results. 

The tool will showcase detailed results within seconds.

The tabular data shows you all of the popular keywords in the country that match your primary keyword, along with their search volume, difficulty level, and CPC value.

Besides, the keyword research feature also provides the top local question terms containing those keywords.

You can easily export these results and use them to create quality content that local websites and influencers will link to.

6. When In Rome, Speak Like Romans

Though English is considered one of the most common languages in the world, that does not mean all countries have accepted it. Countries like Germany, Japan, Korea, etc., still prefer conversing and dealing in their local language.

You won’t be able to find many English-speaking citizens in such countries. That’s why localizing your website as per their language is important.

Let’s say you want to target the Japanese market. You have quality content, an amazing website, and services that will benefit your Japanese clients. However, you are not willing to translate your website into Japanese.

On the other hand, your competitor provides the same services as you, but they can’t match your quality. However, they did translate their content and services into Japanese and used local keywords for better reach.

Who do you think will acquire the Japanese market? 

Obviously, your competitor, because they know that a Japanese person will anyhow use their services instead of yours due to the language barrier.

Besides, they always have the chance to improve their products and gain fame at the same time.

Summing Up…

Multinational link building is a game of how fast you can please the locals of a country. Even if you have managed to make your name in a foreign land, there are chances that new competitors will come at you and snatch the throne. That’s why you need to be smart and improve your global link building game at every international SEO campaign.

Like we said before, if you have the aim and will to conquer the globe, link building and SEO will be your greatest allies, along with RankWatch.

Hope this blog was insightful for you!

See you soon!