If you were starting a sports franchise, you wouldn’t start with the last player on the roster, right? You’d want to get a coaching staff and front office in place first before you go out and get athletes around them. You do this because you want to start a successful sports franchise, and because you build successful teams from the top down.

A link building team is the same way. You want to start at the top and work down from there, acquiring pieces that complement each other with their skills and expertise. So where do you even begin? Your first step is understanding what type of team exactly you’re trying to build (SEO, content, and link building can be slightly different after all), and then identifying the team members you need and how to get there follows shortly after.

What Exactly is a Link Building Team? It’s Not What You Think

link building team

First off, a link-building team is not just compiled to build links to your site. This is a big NO in the SEO industry. Links should be built only to help readers and not SEO, and for this reason the term “link building team” isn’t widely used or accepted. Nevertheless, when you get down to it it’s hard to argue that your SEO team doesn’t build links. Link building is a part of an SEO team, and even if you’re working to earn more natural links through visibility, guest posting, etc., that still counts as “link building.”

So again, a link building team does far more than just build links, especially because simply assigning several people to acquire backlinks would inundate your site to the point where the links would seem spammy instead of credible and valuable. A link-building team must understand the ins and outs of everything on the site, from content to social media to using judgment to determine which links are relevant and where sites should be backlinking to (hint: It’s not just the homepage. You want links all over your site, including to specific pieces of your content). In other words, link building can encompass both on-page and off-page links.

What You Need to Create a solid Link Building Team

The benefits become clear if you’re asking yourself several questions: Confused on a regular basis as to why your quality content is not getting backlinks? Disappointed with the level of views and sharing your content is getting? Do you wish you could improve your SEO in a timely fashion? That’s exactly why you need a link-building team. We all know the benefits of backlinks on your site’s SEO. It’s a time-tested strategy to improve SEO and boost your site’s profile and credibility.

Now, we understand that most companies don’t have the budget to afford an entire team dedicated just to building links and promoting content, so these can be people already within your company who can be trained in other areas and spent 10, 15 or even 20 hours a week on link-building. Train them in the several areas we’re about to discuss and have everybody chip in on a part-time basis. But once again, you need to start at the top. Maybe the best person to run the show at your company is you. If so, just make sure you know what you’re getting into.

The Link Strategist

This is your captain, your head coach, your main person.

A link strategist steers the campaign, comes up with the content plan (or gameplan if you want to keep the sports metaphor going) and manages the people on the link-building team, which would also include acting as a liaison between the link-building team and other teams either inside or outside of your company.

The job of a link strategist is a leadership role, so you need to pick somebody who can manage other people, present a solid face for your site and your company and understand how to deal with both failure and success alike.

The job of a link strategist must be:

A go-between

As we stated above, the link strategist needs to be a liaison between the link-building team and other teams. Within the company, your link strategist needs to work with and understand the jobs and purposes of the content and public relations teams, trying to do right by the company as a whole, not just one area here or there.

A link strategist also needs to make sure they are working well with outside forces and present a quality face of the franchise, so to speak (there’s that sports metaphor again). This gets into franchise SEO, which you can learn more about here if you’re in that situation. Link strategists may not be the only ones who deal with other sites or companies who may link back or help promote content, but you can rest assured that they will have to do that at least some of the time. It’s a necessary part of the job.

A people person

In the world of social media, interpersonal skills have taken on a different meaning than back in the day of landline phones and door-to-door salesmen. A link strategist needs to have the kind of social skills that can help work with potential link publishers and partners both online and in person. Networking is the name of the game, as it is with just about any job.

Aware of the audience

A link strategist must not only be aware of your site’s audience (just like the writers are), but also needs to be cognizant of the audience on the site where your content is going to be linked. You can’t always treat the other site’s audience the same as your own. Demographics may change, and with it, your content must change to keep up with the times.

Able to find a way to manage both your site and your partner’s site

You’re not going to become a managing editor or anything for the other site, but just as a link strategist needs to understand the audience for both sites, they also need to understand the purpose of each site and how they both operate. Gaining knowledge of the other site’s workflow is as important as knowing your site’s workflow, helping to maintain the relationship at a peak level and keep the partnership as mutually beneficial as possible.

Other Link Building Team Roles

To be honest, it doesn’t really matter what you title any of these roles. There are plenty of different names and titles out there, but they’re all generally the same thing—a bunch of people working toward the same goal of boosting SEO and promoting the site and its content.

That being said, you need people specifically focused on:

  • Searching for other websites or blogs to form a mutually beneficial relationship with and eventually send backlinks both ways
  • Actually building the relationship with other sites and companies (and the SEOs and writers that work for them). This can be a different person than the one doing the research for sites.
  • Following through with the other sites and companies, ensuring that a partnership/relationship with them will help your site and not hurt it.
  • Working with the content team within your own company to understand how you can work in backlinks from your site to your newfound relationships/partners.
  • Working with your content team to promote the content to the best of its ability, linking like subjects from your site to others, for example.
  • Working with your PR team to best find a way to promote your site and its content, whether that be through links, social media, etc.

Again, some of these jobs can be performed by multiple people or they can be performed by only one or two. It’s up to you to decide what works best for your company.

What experience do you have as a part of a link-building team? Have you ever heard of a link strategist? How do you think employing/training one at your company could work out? Let us know in the comment section below.