There are many things that links can do for one’s site.
As one of the leading providers of digital marketing in Singapore, Roots Digital values link building as a crucial part of every digital marketing strategy.
Finding and converting unlinked brand mentions is something we can take advantage of. This article will help you understand why finding unlinked brand mentions on your brand’s website is necessary and has a valuable advantage.
What are Unlinked Brand Mentions?
Unlinked brand mentions are brand references that do not include a link back to your website on published websites.
They are indicators that your brand has newsworthy content and that audiences love to talk about you. If you think of it, this is a good sign that your content marketing is doing well, especially if it comes from a reputable site.
A good review of your brand or company can be an excellent sign that your branding and marketing efforts are effective and carried out efficiently.
Backlinks are essential for increasing the authority of a website, especially from relevant groups. Although links have significantly greater SEO significance as the main off-page ranking indicator, Google does reward brand mentions even if they are unlinked.
Does it Have Potential Value for SEO?
Unlinked brand mentions are lost chances to obtain worthwhile backlinks. Although Google may still consider a mention to be valuable even if it isn’t linked, links have a higher SEO value.
Since Google’s Penguin Algorithm update targeted deceptive link-building strategies, quality inbound connections are now more crucial than ever.
Unlinked Brand Mention Can be a Backlink Opportunity
Every time your brand is featured online, there is a chance that the mention will result in a backlink.
Google interprets backlinks as a recommendation and an indicator that your website is significant, germane, and user-friendly. Each mention raises awareness of your brand even if you don’t get a backlink.
It’s crucial to keep in mind that not all connections are created equal, and some may even be harmful.
Unlinked Brand Mention Can Improve Your EAT
E-A-T is an acronym for Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness in a digital marketing setup.
It serves as the cornerstone of Google’s search evaluator rules and is one of the three criteria they use to evaluate every piece of content or webpage that is ever created.
How do unlinked brand mentions improve it?
Your website will gain credibility and authority as a result of the acknowledgement from websites that use the E-A-T principle. Likewise, by obtaining these high-quality backlinks, your website will be implementing the idea.
Expertise: Is the content’s author a subject matter authority?
Authority: Are the arguments and supporting data acknowledged by the majority of the field’s experts?
Trustworthiness: Does the author present accurate and truthful information?
You are assisting in directing potential clients to your website by getting high-quality backlinks to it. For sure that you know links from trustworthy and relevant domains are crucial.
How to Find Unlinked Brand Mentions
Let’s make life easier for you. Here are some of the ways you can spot unlinked brand mentions right away.
Use Google Advanced Search Modifiers
Google search is FREE.
Utilising Google’s advanced search modifiers is one option to quickly identify pages that mention your brand name.
Ensure to use the right search modifiers, you can discover brand mentions that are excellent possibilities for links.
Examples of search modifiers:
- Social Media:
To search social media, put @ in front of a word. Example: @twitter.
- Price:
Amounts should be preceded by $.
- Hashtags:
Add a # before the word. Example: #yolo
- Words to exclude from your search
Put the prefix “-” in front of any word you want to omit.
- For a precise match
Place a word or phrase in “quotation marks”.
- Inquire about a range of numbers.
Put .. involving two digits.
Combine your searches
- Separate each search query with an “OR.”
- Look for a particular website
A site or domain should be preceded by “site:”—for instance, site:youtube.com.
- Look for relevant websites
Add “related:” before a website address you are familiar with. as in the case of related:time.com.
- View a website’s cached copy from Google
Place “cache:” before the site’s address.
Take note that not all search operators produce complete results
Another reason for this is that you can then determine whether or not those pages are related.
Find your mentions by starting with these easy steps:
- Make a list of prospective brand names that warrant a search.
- Decide on and test suitable search terms
- Investigating the outcomes
This is also a key factor because it gives you an idea before registering for a paid tool, Google can help to determine how frequently your brand is truly discussed.
Use SEO Tools
The following three resources can help you with this:
- SEO spider from Screaming Frog;
- Free Link Checker Software (provided by Scrapebox);
- Buzzstream (read their link monitoring tutorial)
There are more SEO tools that you can use best for this, and the three are only some of the widely used tools.
Here’s how to check using screaming frog:
Screaming Frog > Configuration > Custom > Search
- Search using the “Does not contain” option.
- We strongly advise that you clear all of the boxes in the “Basic” tab of the Spider Configuration (Configuration > Spider).
- Never overlook setting the “Limits” tab’s crawl depth limit to 0. If you don’t do this, running will take a very long time.
- Run Screaming Frog and paste the URLs you created using the SEO content explorer you are most comfortable using.
- Select the “Does not contain” filter set from the drop-down menu under the “Custom” tab. This will display every page that does not link to your website.
- You will be given a list of URLs to take into account for your link-building plan after completing these steps.
Use Paid Backlink Service
Using a backlink service like Buzzsumo, Buzzstream, or Moz is another option to discover unlinked mentions. These websites can automatically discover mentions on a website and inform you whether or not they are linked.
Utilising BuzzSumo to Find Brand Mentions
1. Register for an Account
Try out BuzzSumo’s free trial first to see what it has to offer. You’ll be good to go for two full weeks after providing some information (name, work email, and password).
2. Make brand mention alerts.
You should now be in the “Content Research” area of BuzzSumo’s main dashboard. If this is your first time using BuzzSumo, select “Show me how it works! Button, to help you run the process.
3. Set Up BuzzSumo Backlink Alerts
You ought to have at least one alert set up by this stage.
- Visit the Monitoring tab once more and select “+Create New Alert”:
- Select “Backlinks.”
- Click next after entering your domain in the form field.
To track a new project or piece of content, you can choose to set up alerts for a specific URL, the full domain, or the domain plus any subdomains. Choose the one that best fits your requirements; in this case, I’ll pick the full domain.
Once more, you will be given the option of receiving alerts through quick email, daily digest, or not at all.
How to Turn Unlinked Brand Mentions into Links
Research
Search the internet using a tool for unrelated references to your brand.
Discover all the links that will be useful.
Make sure to look for any prospective changes to your business (e.g., Search Engine Journal, SEJ, SearchEngineJournal). This will guarantee that no references are overlooked.
You may find thousands of unlinked references if your brand is well-known.
Even while you can personally try to get a link on each of these websites, the best approach is to focus on the ones with the most authority.
Although there are unbiased methods for measuring authority, you may also utilise your judgement to do so. Prioritise the unlinked mentions that merit outreach by using these metrics.
Secure Site’s Pertinent Information
The owner of a website is the best person to contact, especially if the article contains external links but none that point to yours (for whatever reason).
Try conducting a site search for the keyword “webmasters” if you can’t find the webmaster’s email address on the website’s contact page.
Be aware that this could have a wide range of effects and end up being unnecessary. LinkedIn can be used to find the webmaster or another person in a relevant job.
Find the email address of the website editor or the article’s author to contact them next.
Use the general information email or the typical contact form if you can’t find any of the aforementioned contact emails.
Build Rapport
Find an advantage for the webmaster in spending the time and effort to add a link.
Word your request so that they understand how linking to your website will be valuable to them and their audience in addition to you and your brand.
Internal pages can occasionally be linked to more easily than your homepage. Be polite and express your gratitude for their time before asking for the link. You don’t want to appear overbearing.
Describe how including the link will benefit their audience more.
Reach Out
Always make sure to follow up if the link hasn’t been added and you haven’t heard anything.
Once you hear a yes or no, only then should you quit.
Don’t bother them either at the same time. It’s tricky to tread that line.
They won’t be as inclined to comply with your request if you pester them with it every day.
Maintain a spreadsheet to track your outreach efforts.
You never know, you could be able to establish a rapport with the more fervent commenters and possibly gain a guest post or featured article.
Things to Take Note While Doing Unlinked Brand Mentions Strategy
Choose Unlinked Brand Mentions with a Site with a Good DA Score
Domain Authority or DA is essentially how relevant or good a website is in the eyes of search engines.
A lower DA score can imply a low ranking and a potential loss of traffic, whereas a higher DA score increases the likelihood of ranking in search engine results.
Knowing your authority and the authority of others in your field can help you decide who to approach for backlinks and guest blogging opportunities because a link from a website with high authority is more valuable than a link from a site with low or no authority.
Between 40 and 50, domain authority is regarded as ordinary, between 50 and 60, as acceptable, and over 60, as great.
Try to Over Additional Value for Site Owner
Since link building is about strengthening and establishing strong relationships in the digital market, it matters that we know how to return the favour.
If we successfully get a reply from the webmaster or the author who used our brand as part of their content or page, might as well offer something of value in return.
This is not to bribe them to like us or convince them to build more links with us in the future, but this is a form of good business dealing with the digital community we are part of.
One thing is to offer a dofollow backlink to their website! If the offer is valuable to them, they will surely appreciate it.
Always think of better ways to establish good relationships online, and converting unlinked brand mentions is one of them.
There are numerous mentions to be on the lookout for, because not every mention specifically names a brand, these types can be:
- special goods or services;
- brand ambassadors;
- representatives of the company;
- Slogans;
- as well as everything else associated with your brand.
Finding all pertinent references to your brand can help you use keyword-focused content to provide semantic signals to search engines.
Final Thoughts
Unlinked brand mentions might be a fantastic strategy to get backlinks from previously available chances. These are premade opportunities; all that is required is a direct connection to your website since they are already referencing your content or brand.
Even while it can be simple to win, success isn’t assured. Because of this, you’ll need to constantly work on this strategy to make it effective.
Given the continued importance of backlinks in rankings, it is important to investigate this option if you want your site to perform to its best potential. The effort you put out can pay off when it does, though, and can be a wonderful approach to acquiring those crucial backlinks to your website.
FAQ
What are Unlinked Brand Mentions?
When another website happens to mention your company name or website in their blog comment, social media post, or document without including a link to your own, this is referred to as a brand mention.
This is possible when a company’s representative either provides a quote that is then cited by a website or when your website has content that someone else wishes to cite and includes your brand name but doesn’t hyperlink to your website.
How do you find unlinked brand mentions in Ahrefs?
You may use the Content Explorer tool by Ahrefs.
It is a small search engine that you can use to uncover unlinked brand mentions quite effectively.
– Log into your Ahrefs account and access the content explorer.
– Put the name of your company in the search field and select “everywhere” from the drop-down menu.
– Both connected and unlinked mentions will be displayed in the list of results.
– Ensure “highlight unlinked domains” is selected, then type the address of your website into the box.
– When you have a list of unlinked mentions, we suggest adding “domain rating” to the results.
– Lastly, go through the list and examine each link. Verify that your company name appears there without a link, then politely ask the author or webmaster to provide a link to your website in the article.
How do I find brand mentions?
Unlinked brand mentions can be found in a variety of ways. You may either maximise Google Advanced Search Modifiers or employ paid or SEO online tools.
