No fluff real work: Bibi & Oleksandra take you on a wild link building ride!

In this episode, Oleksandra is joined by Bibi Raven A.K.A Bibi the Link Builder, a well known in the SEO industry as a link builder based in Amsterdam, to explore real-world techniques for backlink analysis and link-building. They went into competitor research, sharing insights from their own experiences in real-time backlink analysis. Bibi explains how to effectively use tools like Ahrefs to identify high-quality backlinks and avoid spam, and tips for crafting personalized outreach emails. The conversation is full of practical advice for both beginners and seasoned professionals, offering clear strategies for building links and improving SEO performance.

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Oleksandra Khilova [OK]: Hello, guys! Welcome to our podcast episode and my name is still Alexandra and today I have an awesome guest, Bibi. Hello, hello. Yeah. Before we start, I have a few questions. First of all Why Bibi? Why Bibi Buzz I mean.

Bibi Buzz [BB]: That's a great question. Unfortunately, I have a very lame answer. I had my business before I even knew I wanted one. People asked me to do link building, and I didn’t know what it was or what I was doing. Someone suggested I create a company website with a services page to explain my offerings. I was looking for domain names but couldn’t find one that wasn’t taken. I used a domain generator, and BiBi Buzz came up. It wasn’t registered, and I was so tired that I just went with it. That’s the answer.

[OK]: People know you as a link building specialist, but they don’t know me. I’m Oleksandra, and I've built about 15,000 links in my career. I know a bit about backlinks, too. Today, we’ll show you how to analyze your backlinks, assess competitors, and organize link-building prospects. We'll share our experience and insights on the most effective methods. I hope this video helps those starting out in link building or anyone interested in seeing two skilled women at work.

[BB]: I also love that you've chosen to do this more practical approach.

[OK]: When I started my career in link building and SEO, it was hard to find good examples. If you search Google for “Best Outreach Template Letters,” you’ll find generic ones like "Hello sir, I hope you're doing well."

For non-native speakers, understanding all the details and nuances of language can be challenging, especially depending on the niche. An outreach email for marketing, for example, may not work in electronics. It takes a lot of effort to analyze and understand how to do it correctly. Before writing the email, the most important step is to analyze your competitors thoroughly. It's not just about filtering metrics in Ahrefs; you need to consider the topic, the style of the website, and the right approach to both the site and the person behind it. I particularly liked one of your articles in Search Engine Journal on creating punchlines for subject topics.

[OK]: It was amazing, a real breakthrough in outreach for me. I realized I could use humor, and it worked. I’d go to Reddit, find jokes about electricians or plumbers, study the humor, and improve my emails. We often work in niches where we’re not experts, but we need to appear knowledgeable to get links. It's a paradox: you have to be transparent in communication, but you're not an expert.

Let’s dive into an example: roofing. The keyword difficulty was 86 and is now 30, so Ahrefs must’ve updated something. Roofing is a highly competitive service niche in the U.S., and we see leaders like Yelp, which has strong authority as a local directory. The most interesting competitor for me is a website with a domain rating of 10 and only 500 backlinks. It’s worth researching how they achieved that. When analyzing competitors, you don’t need thousands of backlinks — just the best ones. Often, many backlinks are old, irrelevant, or low quality. Bibi, what do you look for when analyzing SERP?

Using Ahrefs for Real-Time Backlink Analysis

[BB]: You've mentioned a lot of great points. I usually pick the keyword the target page is trying to rank for. I avoid broad keywords and focus on more commercial ones, especially for e-commerce sites. Ahrefs now has a feature called Best Links, which I’d filter by, along with dofollow in content.
You can configure it by clicking on Best Links. I’d filter by traffic 500 to avoid spam links. I usually leave keywords and subdomains out, but you can choose to exclude subdomains if needed.

[OK]: You can also add domains where you were previously published, for example.

[BB]: The point of Best Links for me is to filter out spammy links, not suboptimal ones. I just want to avoid spam. My criteria are low because I use the feature differently. After saving the filter, you'll see no backlinks, so we’ll do this manually. Click Dofollow and select the backlink type.

[OK]: Backlink type in content, right?

[BB]: Yes, and set domain traffic to 500. It's low but filters spam. Then, show results.

People often feel overwhelmed by needing 3,000 backlinks, but with this filter, it’s manageable. I’d analyze how they get links. On the SERP, check the anchor "Roofing."

[OK]: Right, let’s look at it.

[BB]: You can check backlinks, but another approach is to open Site Explorer. We all use Ahrefs differently, so it’s fine. Normally, I’d choose a more long-tail, commercial keyword. Let's look at the top pages.

[OK]: I noticed they're losing a bit of traffic.

[BB]: I look at the topics of the top pages to see if there's anything I want to target — informational pages that get a lot of links or traffic can be linkable assets. You can also check "Best by Links."

[OK]: There are only three pages: the homepage and an image page.

[BB]: I’d focus on competitors, choosing more niche or long-tail keywords, then check competing sites’ links, top pages for traffic, and links. This helps in researching what competitors are doing for link building.

[OK]: Let's use a better example, like this metal roofing site. It has significant, stable traffic and mostly uses dofollow links. This shows that the ratio of dofollow to nofollow links isn’t crucial, as this site leads the industry. They do classic outreach and create a blend of landing pages and informational articles, like one on energy-saving metal roofs, with unique images and white papers. The content is simple yet effective, combining landing page elements with useful information.

Creating Linkable Assets

[OK]: The commercial intent is clear. After reading the article, I feel like buying the solar roof. I like this example because they run classic outreach campaigns. By filtering with dofollow, domain rating 30, and traffic 500, we found 42 backlinks. They created a useful "Guide to Metal Roofs," which works for this niche. Metrics and requirements vary by niche, so what works for marketing blogs differs from roofing. I avoid rigid checklists, as every niche is different.

Let’s look at this site. The article is long, simple, and informative, providing value to potential customers. I’d export the backlinks and classify guest post topics, as this helps plan link-building strategies, manage writer time, and budget for content creation.

[OK]: Competitors use classic outreach with guides on metal roofing, gaining 4,042 links and positioning them as market leaders. Viewing the backlink timeline, you can see they build 2-3 backlinks per month. If you want to rank in roofing, analyze competitors and their backlink growth. For example, they gained around 29 backlinks per month, which is manageable for one person and one writer. What recommendations can we give to those ordering articles?

Paid vs. Unpaid Links

[BB]: When analyzing competitors' backlink profiles, pay attention to anchor text patterns. If many links emphasize energy savings, it's likely a key point of interest. Make sure to highlight that in your content, ideally early in the article. Also, it's clear that many of these backlinks were paid for, which is fine. You can pursue the same or similar paid links, but it’s important to also aim for unpaid links to avoid just replicating competitors and always relying on paid backlinks. Diversifying your backlink strategy is crucial.

[OK]: If your goal is to build just a few links without paying, the best approach is to focus on informational pages like blog posts or case studies. But if you have a tight budget and need commercial backlinks quickly, paying for them is often necessary.

[BB]: That's why I suggest a mix of paid and unpaid links. While researching competitors, look for sites earning unpaid backlinks and see if you can replicate or improve upon their strategy.

[OK]: We’ll show examples of free backlinks later, but if you’re buying links, ensure your content is high quality. Backlinks that rank in the top 10 provide the most value. Here's a tip: use the keyword golden ratio, as outlined in a Mangools blog. It’s simpler than Ahrefs' difficulty metric. For keywords with low volume (under 250), find "allintitle" results and divide by the keyword volume. This method works for other volumes, too. When writing for link-building, don’t target high-volume keywords — choose long-tail, low-volume ones and write focused articles. It doesn't need to be lengthy, just specific and well-written.

[BB]: You mentioned a writer — I'm assuming you mean a human writer, right?

[OK]: Oh, yeah, of course.

[BB]: We still use human writers. AI is useful, but it’s not yet capable of creating truly creative content.

[OK]: I’m not technical enough to write scripts for auto-generating articles with AI. Some people in blackhat niches do amazing things with it, but that’s not our case. I use AI as an assistant for tasks like finding good topic titles, rephrasing drafts, or creating outlines. Writing full articles with AI is problematic because it often uses outdated phrases that are not common in English.

[BB]: Yeah, AI tends to repeat certain phrases too often.

[OK]: Exactly, and they sound unnatural. AI doesn’t have real experience or opinions; it just analyzes indexed data from Google. In short, don't rely on AI for writing, or you’ll end up with poor results. 

Resource Page and Event Link Building

[OK]: Now, let me show you some examples of resource page link building, which is still effective. Here's one from the roofing niche. I followed the same process as before — checked Best By Links and top pages, applied filters, and found a good example. Hopefully, a feature to save these preferences will be added soon.

[BB]: You can configure it.

[OK]: Yeah, I found the link. The article is "Do I need a new roof?" It’s a great example. They used a long-tail keyword, probably from Google suggestions. The article isn’t hard to replicate: a few stock images, internal links, and reasons why someone might need a new roof (like moss or other issues). It’s short, probably under 1,000 words, but effective. Let’s check what they did — 123 referring domains for one page. Not bad, and it’s relevant to roof replacement.

[BB]: Is this the article with the links?

[OK]: Yes, that’s it.

[BB]: Can you go up? I was just looking at the author’s profile picture.

[OK]: You think it’s not real?

[BB]: I’m not sure. Let’s scroll down again.

[OK]: They added a source link at the end. It's likely a guest post and could even have been done for free. I didn’t find the website listed on any backlink marketplaces.

[BB]: That's a good tip. It's fine to buy links, but always check marketplaces. If a site is mentioned 20 times, and everyone’s buying that link, it might be risky or pointless to buy it yourself.

[OK]: The link quality is good, but the content is expensive. It's not easy to find the right person to write these articles, so hiring an expert from LinkedIn might help.

[BB]: I use a writing agency I've worked with for five years. They have 30 writers, each with expertise in different areas. LinkedIn is fine, but managing and getting used to a writer takes time, so sometimes a good agency is better.

[OK]: Nothing extra on the competitor's backlinks, just classic topics. Choosing the right topics is crucial. In-house link builders often rely on templates for outlines, but you can do more. Look for additional angles not covered in SERP articles using suggestions from Quora, Reddit, or forums. Twitter may not be popular for roofing, but you can try. Or use tools like Perplexity for a shortcut.

Google recently discussed indexation challenges, noting that if there are already 99,000 results on a topic like potato peelers, your content needs extra value to be indexed. Ten years ago, link-building worked regardless of content quality. Now, without valuable content, even your backlinks may not be indexed. Google has limitations on crawling, and poor guest posts won't make the cut.

[BB]: I have three tips for finding topics. In Ahrefs, go to Content Explorer, which is often underused.

[OK]: It’s not common because Content Explorer isn’t available in the cheaper packages, only in the most expensive ones.

[BB]: Oh, right. Anyway, in Content Explorer, type "roofing." I wouldn’t usually go straight for a broad topic, but let’s start with that. First, set the domain rating to a low range, like 0 to 50, to find smaller sites that aren’t big brands. Then, filter referring domains to around 100. This helps find small sites getting a good number of backlinks. Lastly, exclude home pages to see internal pages.

[OK]: Good advice.

[BB]: It’s mainly roofing SEO, so let’s change the filters. Remove referring domains and add social shares, focusing on Pinterest with a minimum of 100,000. Now, we have only 14 pages left.

[BB]: I’d look through the results, but since this is a small niche, I likely overshot the numbers. Reducing them to around 10,000 shows content that gets traction. This is just one example. If you're searching for roofing, sometimes it helps to move away from your direct product. I use AI to find topics that are related but not too product-focused. For unpaid link building, it’s good to have content that appeals to your audience without being purely commercial.

In Content Explorer, you can analyze what’s gaining traction. But if you’re unsure of the audience, ask AI for tangential topics related to roofing. For example, home improvement, building codes, and climate change can appeal to the same audience. I usually keep notes with these ideas.

[OK]: Those are great topics, and you can find new websites for backlinking. For example, real estate sites could be good for links if approached the right way.

[BB]: Exactly. When prospecting, you’re not just looking for people in your niche but also those with overlapping audiences. You can even explore obscure related topics to expand further.

[OK]: While doing this analysis, we can answer questions like what topics to use, the ideal length, images, and the types of websites to target.

[BB]: Exactly. This is the first step. I asked AI for more obscure topics, like "roofing in ancient civilizations" and "ice dam formation." Ice dams are interesting because they cause accidents, tying into liability and homeowner's insurance, especially in the U.S. These insights are valuable.

[OK]: I like the ancient roofing topic. I recently visited Pompeii and was surprised by their advanced infrastructure, like rooftops and canalization, even in ancient times. There's a lot of material to explore here.

[BB]: That's great! I usually keep a Google sheet for linkable asset ideas, dumping everything in without judgment. Then, I validate them. After finding tangentially related topics through AI, you can put them in Content Explorer and apply filters. For example, rooftop gardens have 11,000 Pinterest shares. I'm not necessarily going to post on Pinterest, but it gives me insight into what people interested in roofing are engaging with. This helps generate new ideas.

[OK]: I want to replicate the "15 Ideas for Stylish Rooftop Gardens" article, but I need unique images. A bad tip would be to steal images from Instagram without credit, but I’d prefer to mention the Instagram profiles. However, some websites don’t support embedding Instagram posts. How can I deal with that? I understand that unique examples are important for this topic.

[BB]: You could use Midjourney to generate similar images, but be cautious — Google might eventually detect these AI-generated images. If you use stock images from Canva or similar sources, that’s safer. If you’re skilled at Midjourney, you can create more believable images. But it’s always better to get permission to use real images from Instagram. Not only will it avoid detection issues, but it can also help you build relationships with the image owners for future collaborations.

[OK]: Or we could find design accounts on Instagram and use their examples.

[BB]: Yes, and if you get permission, it strengthens your content and builds a relationship with the creator, which could lead to future partnerships.

[OK]: Now, I’d like to show an example of event link building. This site has an "About Us" page with links to contractors, designers, etc., and it has gained a lot of backlinks. They also created a "Roofing Day" page for an annual conference, which earns new backlinks from sponsors and partners each year. You may not be able to create a conference, but sponsoring one can help with both backlinks and brand visibility. It’s a form of digital PR that builds your network and relationships. This Roofing Day page gained 61 backlinks, which is a solid result for any conference page.

[BB]: We use filters like Dofollow and sort the results accordingly.

[OK]: Yes, you can see they use classic anchors like "roofing day," and the articles focus on roofing trends and events. The goal of the conference is to gather people in the industry to discuss trends and the future. If you can't create an offline conference, you can host online events like we’re doing here.

[BB]: You can also try event surfing. You don't organize the event; you create a statistics or fact page about an upcoming event. I did this for a client in the music industry. We created pages for music festivals like Coachella, updating them yearly with stats. Journalists used our page as a reference, even though we weren't affiliated with the event. But, of course, organizing your own event is the best option for building relationships with sponsors and industry leaders.

[OK]: You can also partner with existing events to get promoted, not just with a link but in articles as well. Online event participants often promote each other, which motivates everyone. It’s a great way to start your link-building journey. That's why I chose this example. Plus, participating in online events helps you network and learn from others on how to do things correctly.

Let’s move to the final part.

[BB]: To be honest, I would never start by writing the actual email because that puts a lot of unnecessary pressure on you. When you're engaging in a creative process, it's important to get into the flow without judgment. Let me show you what I would do instead.

[OK]: Let's do it!

[BB]: You're better off starting with brainstorming rather than diving straight into writing. So basically, I think the idea is really interesting — writing to a site that discusses metal roofing trends for 2023. And let’s say we have a linkable resource or something relevant that we want to be mentioned, like a guide or article about the trends. We don't need to overthink it at this stage, just gathering ideas for how we can make our content fit naturally.

[OK]: Yes, let’s imagine we have a page we want to promote.

[BB]: What I would normally do is analyze the anchor text of sites linking to similar pages using Ahrefs. I’d check what key points or numbers they're focusing on. For example, I once created a statistics page about vegans, and the anchor text across other sites was consistently centered around the question, "How many vegans are there in the UK?" The anchor text was really focused on that specific number. So, for metal roofing trends, I would follow the same approach. Let’s say the focus is on energy savings, like if metal roofs save 40% on energy. Even though I don’t know much about metal roofing, I’d still use this method to pinpoint the key data point that resonates with others. 

[OK]: So we need to collect facts.

Finding the Right Topics

[BB]: Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You’ve got to allow space to brainstorm freely. You can always edit later, right? So I'll go a bit longer here. The key is to let ideas flow without worrying about how they’ll fit into the email right away. For example, I’d go to a roofing tips guide or something similar. If I see something like "clean your gutters," I’d note it down because I like it. Or "the hardest part about roofing" — I’d jot that down too. I’m not thinking yet about how to use it, just collecting anything that stands out.

Then I’d look for more topics — "roofing tips," "roofing facts," maybe "2025 trends" — and open up articles. If I find something like "metal roofing," or maybe there’s a metal shortage, that could be useful. If something doesn’t work, I’ll skip it. But if I see a line like "What's on the horizon?" I’d note it for potential use, maybe even as a subject line. I’d keep looking through construction and home improvement topics, noting things like "evolution" or "sustainable" because they could be interesting later. Just gathering ideas at this point.

[OK]: So, for now, we’re just brainstorming and gathering ideas.

[BB]: Exactly. You have to allow yourself that time. I don’t judge anything I put down, and there’s no structure — just going wild with ideas. I’m not worrying about how I’ll use them yet. So, let’s say I want to come up with something fun. I might ask Gemini for a list of 30 roofing puns. For example, "I tried to tell my wife a roofing joke, but it went right over her head." I wouldn’t use this exact joke — it’s a bit outdated — but I’d note it down as inspiration because it could spark something creative in the email.

Then there’s "borrowing money, a loaner" — another potential idea. I usually spend about 30 minutes on this process, though we won’t do that now. I’d also brainstorm things like "funny shower thoughts" about roofs. For example, "If birds are the original architects of nests, then squirrels are the DIYers of roofs," or "Roofs are just giant hats for houses." Even something like, "If you live on a roof, you probably have a really good tan." It’s all about letting creativity flow and having fun with it.

It’s probably really hard to explain to aliens what a roof is. Now this is where things get weird, but that’s okay. Even if these ideas sound bizarre, like strange facts or fun TikTok finds, they can be useful. For example, "Roof lightning isn’t attracted to metal" — that's an interesting fact. Another helpful approach is listing 30 pain points of roofing companies. Pain points are great because you can use them in subject lines. I’ve done this with graphic designers by tapping into a common pain point, which instantly made them open the email.

Pain points could be things like weather challenges, generating leads, converting them, or payment collection. These are all useful elements to include. If you go to TikTok, which is awesome for ideas, you can search for roofing content — like "roofing and money." You could even search for the highest-paid roofing jobs. There's a lot of inspiration to pull from TikTok.

[OK]: When we can’t find a name on a website, is it okay to address the email as "Hi, website team"?

[BB]: No. So what I would do. Well it is not a story. It's not a bad idea by the way. But what I would do, what I would do is you take this and this thing and you go to Gemini and you say create 20 funny titles for a roofing expert. This is not the best on the planet. But just to show you an example, shingles are saviors. So, you know, if there is no first name.

[OK]: We need to use our creativity instead of writing a “website team”.

Take Your Time

[BB]: But try to target this approach to the types of prospects you're reaching out to. So if you're reaching out to a nurse, a teacher, or an interior designer, you’ll want to adjust the tone and content to suit that audience. Let me show you one last thing. For instance, you can use a shower thought as an intro — oh, not this exact joke, but with some tweaks. The point is, you’re not writing a boring email. You’re doing a bit of storytelling. You don’t always have to do it this way, but it’s one example of how you can make a connection with the person on the other end of the inbox.

For example, I might say, "If birds are the original architects of nests, then squirrels are the DIYers of roofs." Then I'd follow it up with something like, "I didn’t mean to call you a squirrel, but I know you're an amazing roof expert!" You see, it adds a personal touch. The goal is to not make writing an email so hard on yourself. If you sit down and try to force out an email right away, like thinking, "I need to write this email now," you're going to get stuck.

Instead, give yourself 30 minutes to look around for inspiration — TikTok is great, Gemini trends, or even quotes from industry leaders. You can find quotes like, "The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining," which John F. Kennedy said. It’s not exactly roofing-specific, but it can still be useful. You could even look for slogans or advertising ideas related to roofing. Keep it creative and tailored to your audience, and the process becomes a lot easier.

[OK]: The key is to take your time and get inspired. Let’s talk about time management. In-house link builders are often tasked with building 30-50 links a month, which is a lot. We’ve spent over an hour brainstorming, but this isn’t the full picture. It’s important to understand that researching and creating a strategy from scratch can take several days, especially with a new client or project. Don’t expect to finish it in a few hours. If you want to improve the quality of your outreach, especially if you're not a native speaker, humor might take longer to grasp. Fortunately, we now have AI tools to help us, and TikTok is also great for finding examples, though even that can take a day.

[BB]: By the way, I’m not a native speaker — I’m Dutch.

[OK]: Your English is great, though — very fluent.

[BB]: Thanks! One thing you can do with AI is ask it to write in a specific voice, like Neil Gaiman or Samantha Irby. I once had AI write emails in the voice of different dog breeds for a dog trainer campaign. Each email had the personality of a Pomeranian, Husky, and German Shepherd. It was a fun way to make a connection using AI.

[OK]: To wrap up, once you've done your research, determined the best topics, and drafted your emails, it’s important to track your progress. I recommend creating a spreadsheet to track statistics — emails sent, open rates, response rates, and the final result. This helps you identify where there might be issues. For example, a high open rate means the subject line is good, but a low response rate might mean the body of the email needs work. And if the final link-building results are low, it could be a content quality issue or the wrong keywords.

[OK]: That’s why I mentioned focusing on long-tail, low-volume keywords earlier. If you're targeting a highly competitive term like "best link-building tools," even great emails might struggle because of the competition. Understanding keyword clustering is crucial for success in outreach, yet many in this field overlook it. Ahrefs has a free course on this topic that can be really helpful.

[OK]: Thank you all for watching, and please share your experiences when you try these techniques. We’d love to hear how it works for you.

[BB]: I’m also working on a course. It’s been a lot of work, but I hope to release it by November on IMG and my own website. I’ll share an outline with the 200 people already subscribed and get feedback on topics they’d like covered, like inbox management, handling target pages, and more.

[OK]: I’m excited for your course! Just yesterday, I was talking with a link-building outreach specialist who’s eager for it. Thank you for joining us today, Bibi! This brainstorming session was super helpful. See you in the next episode. Bye!