How To Turn Unlinked Brand Mentions into Backlinks

Unlinked mentions can send direct traffic to your site, but they’re more like billboards or radio commercials. You rely on someone to see your name, enter your URL, go to Google for your brand name, and click on your site.

Therefore, you want your brand mentions to be backlinks to maximize their value.

We’ll walk you through how to turn your unlinked mentions into links.

What Are Unlinked Mentions?

Unlinked mentions — also called fresh mentions or just brand mentions — are textual references to your name, website, or anything directly related to your brand on a website that doesn’t link back to your website. Unlinked mentions are an indication that your name/brand recognition is developing (or already strong), that you’ve done something noteworthy, or that you are relevant enough to other websites and audiences that they are talking about you. These can all be wonderful for your marketing and branding efforts, but for them to genuinely improve your SEO, these mentions must translate to links.

Though comparable to nofollow links in that they do not pass the total equity of a conventional link, unlinked mentions are not hyperlinked whatsoever. This suggests your brand equity is developing, but your site is not receiving any link equity. Links play a significant influence in Google’s search algorithm — some would say they are one of the most crucial parts of ranking in the search engine results page (SERPs).

While internal links can help transmit semantic signals to search engines about the context of material on your site, backlinks from other domains can help develop authority for your website. Link-building can take time and effort, as content providers must convince site owners that their work is worth posting on their site. Creating unique, linkable material can help open the door, but it still often involves manual outreach and advertising to encourage other sites to host links to the content.

The benefit of unlinked mentions is that people — or other sites — already talk about your brand. Outreaching these sites to turn such mentions into backlinks can be a powerful, effective way to earn more links.

Why Are Unlinked Mentions Important?

Mentions without links are lost chances to obtain essential backlinks. Even though a mention without a link may still be valuable to Google, links offer more search engine optimization (SEO) benefits. Quality inbound links became even more crucial after Google’s Penguin update, which targeted manipulative link-building strategies. Links coming from reliable and relevant domains are vital for SEO campaigns.

Google emphasizes the significance of high-quality websites in line with the E-A-T concept:

• Expertise: Is the content’s author an authority on the topic?
• Authority: Are the arguments and supporting data endorsed by the majority of experts in the field?
• Credibility: Does the author present accurate and truthful information?

Acknowledging E-A-T concept-compliant websites will give your website authority and credibility. Likewise, by obtaining these high-quality backlinks, your website will be adhering to the idea. You also assist in directing potential clients to your website by obtaining high-quality backlinks to it.

Types of unlinked mentions

Not every unlinked mention is a specific mention of your brand online. There are other types of brand mentions, including:

• Mentions that relate to your product or service offering.
• A list of any brand ambassadors or representatives you may have.
• Mentions that include your company’s representatives.
• The slogan associated with your brand.
• Anything else related to your business.

3 Steps to Convert Unlinked Mentions into Backlink Success

There are some straightforward steps you can take to ensure you convert unlinked mentions into the quality backlinks your website needs.

It’s important to remember that each of these steps requires some patience. Like any good thing, quality takes time.

Step 1: Find unlinked brand mentions

The first step you need to take to convert unlinked mentions into valuable backlinks is to locate these mentions.

Without knowing where these unlinked mentions are, how will you be able to pursue them and turn them into SEO value?

This is arguably the most time-consuming aspect of converting unlinked mentions.

There are numerous techniques available to find unlinked mentions. Some examples are:

• Ahrefs.
• SEMrush.
• AppSumo.
• Brand24.

Although slightly more complicated, you can also use advanced search modifiers in Google to find unlinked mentions.

Keep in mind that you don’t only want to search for your brand name. You’d also like to search for keywords that will likely appear on the page where your unlinked mention is.

So, think about the words that would be listed on a website in addition to your brand name. This can help you narrow your search.

For example, if your brand name is L’Oréal, like the example above, relevant keywords could be a particular type of mascara that only your band carries.

Once you identify your unlinked mentions, it’s best to start building a list of where these mentions live so that you can continue on to stages 2 and 3.

You can utilize the SEO tools to prioritize your unlinked mentions depending on the websites that have the highest Domain Authority (DA) and PageRank (PR).

The more authoritative the website that mentions your brand, the bigger the payoff of converting the unlinked mention.

Step 2: Finding the contact information

You must ascertain who to contact before you can actually contact the websites that mention your business without providing connections.

Sure, you could use the website’s “contact us” form, but how can you be sure you’ll get in touch with the proper person?

Instead, take some time to locate the contact information of a suitable person who indeed possesses the power and capability to add your backlink to your unlinked mention behind the website.

We propose using a tool like Snov.io to find contact details since it connects to LinkedIn as well. Again, patience is crucial.

Also, avoid calling literally everyone that you find who works at the company to try to convert your backlink.  Instead, target one individual at a time. If you don’t receive results, move on to the next person.

Step 3: Crafting a compelling pitch to increase your outreach efforts

Now that you have found, listed, and prioritized your unlinked mentions, you can begin your outreach activities. Reaching out entails getting in touch with the webmaster and requesting that they add your hyperlink to the page where your business is mentioned.

But it’s more complicated than just sending a fast email to a random email address you discovered online. Instead, you must write a strong and persuasive case that provides the owner of the website with a convincing argument for using your hyperlink in their online material.

Here are our top dos and don’ts for your backlink outreach efforts; it may take some trial and error to find what works best when it comes to targeting these organizations.

Avoid being obstinate.

The goal is for your pitch to be so strong that the owner believes adding a backlink to your website is the best course of action.

You don’t want to coerce them into doing it, though.

Pushing too hard could even cause the owner of the website to remove your unlinked mention altogether, which is something you really want to avoid.

Do: Provide extra benefits.

Make sure to indicate in your pitch whether there is anything of value you can provide the website owner to persuade them to add your backlink to their content.

Naturally, you want everything you give them to be morally righteous.

You can offer to provide them with a hyperlink from your own website (provided their link is appropriate to your brand, of course).

You can also contribute value by identifying any misspellings, grammar errors, or broken links that you’ve spotted on the website. However, you should be aware of how you communicate these website faults to the website owner. More about this is below.

Do: Be nice

The finest thing you can do in every part of your exchange with the website owner is to stay kind and respectful at all times.

Your presentation should be phrased in such a way that it demonstrates how incorporating your backlink would help the website owner, but you should do so in a respectful manner.

Being nice could also involve complementing their webpage and thanking them for their time. If a website owner goes ahead and places your hyperlink on their website, make sure to give them a thank you message.

Personalize it

It’s pretty easy to determine when someone has taken an email and copied and pasted it again, merely altering the name of the person they’re addressing.

The best pitch is one that is suited to the reader and the website that you are reaching out to.

Don’t Wait too long to follow up.

While you don’t want to be unduly pushy, it is a good idea to send a follow-up letter to the website owner if you don’t hear back from them within a few days.

Keep your backlink request at the forefront of your mind for the person who is receiving your pitch. This is a fantastic illustration of a pitch email that an Ahrefs employee sent to a website that mentioned their brand without providing a link:

This presentation is courteous and non-pushy, highlights the advantages of having a backlink, and offers the website owner additional value.

Do: Maintain your organization.

Use a spreadsheet to keep track of every piece of information related to your outreach efforts so you don’t forget who you’ve contacted or what their response was.

It will be much easier if you maintain organization throughout this procedure. Links to the locations of your unlinked mention, ranked by priority, the website owner’s contact information, and any feedback they may have had on your proposal should all be included in your spreadsheet.

Why are mentions without links problematic?

In the modern world, links have a significant impact on Google’s algorithm.

You may even argue that links are the most crucial contributor to your position in search engine results pages (SERPs). While internal links present on your website give signals to Google about the context of your website, backlinks from other domains—especially authoritative domains—can assist in strengthening the authority of your website and improve your search rankings.

When should I not pursue unlinked mentions?

While it’s vital to address any unlinked mentions that you uncover, there are specific scenarios where you shouldn’t take action on unlinked mentions.

These circumstances include when a site comments poorly about your brand, when they offer you to pay for links, when the mention is on a private blog network (PBN), or when the mention is a part of a link farm.

When it comes to being asked to pay for connections, you’d need to evaluate all the factors:

• If the website has a high Domain Authority (DA), you may want to consider paying for the link.
• Consider the price of these links. Can you afford them, and would they be a worthwhile investment?
• Is the context of the article in which your link would appear relevant to your niche?
• On the other side, if the content that mentions your company isn’t relevant, it may not be worth your while to purchase the link.

In summary

Do you want to boost your SEO results? You need backlinks. Lots of excellent backlinks. Yet, link-building is not a struggle anymore.

Once your brand has been acknowledged online, things are different. Building a rapport with site owners and obtaining a link is far simpler.

Which link-building strategy do you use? I highly recommend that you develop such a plan.

It’s not as complicated as it sounds. You already know how to accomplish that by reading this post. It’s time to implement this beneficial link-building technique.

Make contact with the websites that have featured your brand but haven’t included a link to you, and gently request that they do so. Your SEO ranks will climb, you’ll start to see results, and you’ll earn more backlinks if you do this on a regular basis.