Even if you produce high-quality content on your website, there is no guarantee that it will receive external backlinks. 

While it is not possible to make every article you post a linkable resource, you can significantly improve the authority of your entire website with a few well-designed linkable assets.

A great way to increase your outreach response rates is to generate links using a linkable content asset in your link building campaign.

In this article, we’ll understand what linkable assets are and how you can use them to drive high-quality backlinks.

What is a Linkable Asset?

A piece of content that is specifically designed to draw links from other websites in your niche is known as a “linkable asset.” It can be created either through outreach tactics like selling backlinks or promotional campaigns.

Linkable assets are a crucial component of link building efforts since they provide worthwhile content that other websites find value enough to share, reference, and link back to.

A variety of formats, including infographics, written articles, online tools, videos, and downloadable documents, can be used to present these assets.

An ideal linkable asset is a comprehensive, long-form resource that outperforms top-ranked content in the same field. The content you create should be valuable, original, and relevant to your target audience’s interests. The links should be appropriately embedded and must take readers to certain pages to drive traffic to your website.

Benefits of creating linkable assets for link building

• Increase backlinks
  Linkable assets allow you to scale your link-building activities effectively as it has the ability to spontaneously produce links after it has been created and advertised.
  
• Boost site authority
  Referrals from other websites establish your brand as an authority on a subject. Getting links from a variety of domains in the same niche contributes to the authority of your website.
  
• Boost organic search traffic and referral traffic
  Linkable assets often generate a lot of link equity which you can use to link internally to other pages on your website and make them rank higher for their target keywords in search engine rankings.
  
  Having your content appear higher in search results exposes it to more readers, which typically leads to increased organic traffic. Your referral traffic is also likely to rise if you receive links from other popular websites in your niche. The chances of referral traffic increase with the number of links you have from other websites.

Understanding the Purpose of Linkable Assets

Linkable asses serve critical purposes including:

Attracting links and driving traffic

Links from other websites are drawn to linkable assets, which can increase targeted traffic to your website. You can boost your chances of getting links and increasing traffic by producing high-quality linkable assets. 

Additionally, these assets can help you develop your brand as an authority in your niche and foster relationships with other websites.

Building brand awareness and reputation

Having linkable content can help you become a thought leader in your field and increase your online visibility. Excellent linkable assets can help you market your business by being featured on well-known websites or getting a lot of social media shares. 

It can directly help you gain popularity among users and increase your brand awareness across a wider audience.

You can create high-quality linkable assets to highlight your expertise and exhibit your brand’s value proposition. These assets can also help you establish your brand as a reliable information source and gain the trust of your target audience.

Types of Linkable Assets

Here are some of the most common types of linkable assets you can create.

Infographics and visual content

One common form of linkable asset that can be used to visually engage people with difficult information is an infographic. 

Infographics offer complex information in an appealing and easily comprehensible form by combining data and design.

Additionally, linkable assets can be made from visual information like charts, pictures, and videos. They boost image link building and have a high potential for backlinks since they can be easily shared on blogs, websites, and social media.

Online tools and calculators

Free tools and calculators are among the most popular forms of linkable assets. 

Calculators and tools are very shareable because they give consumers useful information by helping them in solving issues or finding answers to queries in your niche. You can establish your brand as a reliable information source by producing useful online tools and calculators.

Studies and research

Readers can gain new insights from unique studies and research. By offering fresh information or perspectives, your study can add value to the industry. This makes it more likely that people will cite your research as a primary source.

Surveys are a useful tool for conducting research in your field. Alternatively, you can gain knowledge by reading through relevant Reddit threads and learn about the topics that people in your industry are discussing.

List posts

Creating articles that list various individuals, tools, or businesses is another great idea to get links and social media shares.

List posts, often known as “listicles,” take objects, rankings, advice, tools, or concepts and put them together in an organized list that makes difficult information interesting and easy to understand.

Creating Effective Linkable Assets

Here are the steps you can take to create successful linkable assets:

Understanding your audience and their needs

Understanding your target audience and their demands is essential to producing linkable assets that deliver results. It allows you to produce assets that are relevant and useful to them.

You must first determine the issues and pain points that your target audience is dealing with and offer linkable resources that address those issues.

Some useful tools for audience research are:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a crucial tool for determining your audience’s demographics and interests and offers a detailed breakdown of your audience’s age, gender, behavior, and interests.

BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer

BuzzSumo’s Content Analyzer analyzes various content pieces to determine what types of content are most popular with your target audience.

It enables you to personalize your content to your audience’s preferences and improving the chances of gaining high-quality links.

Identifying search intent and keywords

It is not enough to know what your audience is interested in. You also need to understand search intent, or the motivation behind a query to understand why they are searching that content.

Understanding the search intent and keywords used by your target audience is essential to producing linkable assets that have value. You can produce linkable materials that are search engine optimized by determining search intent and keywords.

Keyword research tools come in handy to determine the keywords and phrases that your target audience is looking for and use them in your content to drive traffic.

Moz’s Keyword Explorer is a great tool for conducting keyword research in your niche.

The Keyword Explorer feature in Moz Pro serves to help you identify the most effective keywords for your link acquisition plan.

Crafting engaging and relevant content

Developing relevant and engaging material is essential to producing successful linkable assets. You can boost links and site traffic by creating interesting and pertinent content.

The usefulness, breadth of knowledge, and original ideas of a piece of information make it a valuable asset for linking. Depending on your industry, you can create blogs, newsletters, press releases, forums, and more. You can use captivating headlines and images in your content to draw attention to your linkable assets.

After creating your asset, focus your link-building promotion efforts on having it posted on platforms and websites that are likely to be viewed by your target audience.

Leveraging AI for Content Creation

The way content marketers gather information, generate concepts, and produce content is being completely transformed by generative AI. When developing linkable items, you can save time and effort by using AI technologies. You can utilize these tools to generate original and relevant content ideas for linkable items.

Research time can be greatly decreased and interesting content subjects can be found with tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard, and Bing Chat.

Prompting ChatGPT to “provide a list of 10 unique long-form content ideas for restaurant marketing by acting as HubSpot’s blog idea generator.”

This way you can quickly get access to various ideas that you can use for effective content creation.

Along with ideas for content creation, ChatGPT can also help you create outlines for your content. You can prompt ChatGPT with “Take on the role of [industry blog or individual] and use modern content marketing strategies to develop a thorough outline for an article ‘[title]’.

This outline can then be revised by an editor.

Benefits of a Strong Linkable Asset Strategy

A robust linkable asset strategy offers various benefits including:

Lower link-building costs

You can reduce your link-building expenses by implementing a solid linkable asset strategy. By producing excellent linkable content, you can generate links organically and reduce the need for paid link-building strategies. 

Lowering your link-building costs will ultimately boost your return on investment (ROI).

Increased link equity and brand awareness

Having a solid linkable asset strategy can also help you build brand awareness and link equity. You can boost the domain authority of your website and draw links from other websites by producing high-quality linkable assets. 

Increasing brand awareness and equity will help you rank higher in search results and enhance site traffic.

Examples of Highly Effective Linkable Assets

Online tools and calculators

Online calculators and tools are excellent linkable assets that can be used to address issues or provide answers related to your field.

Let’s understand this type of asset with a great example.

Example: eBay Fee Calculator

eBay fee calculator is a great interactive tool for people looking to sell on the platform and want to determine the final value fee and profit they can expect.

By simply entering the details of their sales, sellers can easily determine what they can expect to make.

Infographics and visual content

Infographics and visual content help viewers understand complex information with ease. This quality of this type of content makes it highly shareable and valuable as a great linkable asset.

Here is a great example of this asset used by Barc London, a company that offers dog supplies.

Example: Dog Nutrition Chart

You can find detailed information about what you should feed your dog in this chart.

Although the company’s primary focus is on pet apparel and accessories, it also offers a knowledge base for comprehensive dog care. This is a great example of providing customers with relatable and practical information.

List posts

Creating articles that list various individuals, tools, or businesses is comparatively simple and can be done easily with some research. This type of asset brings in a huge potential for attracting backlinks as it is highly sharable by users and companies alike.

Here is a prime example of a list post by Forbes.

Example: Forbes World’s Billionaires List

Every year, Forbes, renowned for its excellent journalism, puts out a list post for the top billionaires in the world.

This resource includes information on the wealthiest people in the world along with their net worth, industries, and nations. It offers a great help to scholars, journalists, and members of the public who may need to use this data in their work.

It also offers a reliable resource that other content creators can use and link to because of its authority.

How to Promote Your Linkable Assets

• Pitching to relevant sites and influencers: Pitching your linkable assets to influencers and relevant websites is a great way to promote them. For this, you need to first determine which websites and influencers are relevant to your topic and then use your linkable assets to establish relationships with them. Pitching to influencers and relevant websites can help you get links and increase website traffic.
• Paid promotion using low-cost PPC: Another efficient strategy for promoting your linkable assets is paid promotion through inexpensive pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. Paid advertising can help you expand your audience and get more links to your website. You can use platforms like Facebook Ads and Google Ads to draw links to and advertise your linkable items.

Measuring the Success of Your Linkable Assets

To gauge the effectiveness of your linkable assets, you must keep an eye on engagement and traffic. By tracking traffic and engagement, you can determine the effectiveness of your assets and make revisions as needed. 

You can also use analytics tools to monitor the traffic and interaction that these assets generate. 

Tracking brand mentions and link equity is another way to measure how well your linkable items are performing. It allows you to assess the effectiveness of your linkable assets and helps you understand if you need to make any improvements. 

To monitor the links that your linkable items are producing, you can use tools such as Ahrefs or Moz.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

Making irrelevant or poor-quality information is a common mistake to avoid. Creating high-quality and relevant content can help you gain links and generate visitors to your website. 

On the other hand, generating low-quality content can degrade your site’s ranks and have a negative impact on its authority. That’s why it is important to keep your linkable assets of high caliber and relevant to your intended audience.

Not promoting and spreading linkable assets is another typical error to avoid. Creating content of superior quality alone won’t get you backlinks. Make sure you are distributing and advertising your linkable assets to the right people and websites. 

You can generate links and increase website traffic by effectively distributing and advertising your linkable assets.

Over to You

Linkable assets are a crucial component of any link-building plan. You can create links and increase website traffic by producing high-quality linkable assets.

By following the best practices suggested in this guide, you can produce effective linkable assets that can deliver exceptional results for your business.

You can also get in touch with us and let our experienced SEO specialists at GrowthOG help you create valuable linkable assets to drive traffic and boost your brand awareness.