Link management is a game of risk and reward. Marketers are eager to create and share content that drives traffic, engagement, and new leads. But they need to balance that eagerness with the risk of a broken link that leads to a poor user experience.
In fact, 73% of websites have missing or broken links, and each of those links can reduce site traffic by up to 39%. And that’s not to mention the SEO implications of broken links — they can hurt your site’s search rankings and authority.
To avoid these risks, we’ll review a few best practices for link management that content teams should adopt early.
1. Create and foster a culture of link management
Creating a culture of link management on your team is no different from creating a culture of content marketing, SEO, or anything else.
Start by making link management a priority and a part of your team’s daily workflow. That means educating your team on the importance of link management, providing the tools and resources they need to be successful, and setting goals and expectations for how many links they should be managing.
The more you can make link management a part of your team’s daily routine, the more successful you’ll be in building a healthy and sustainable link profile.
2. Use a link management platform
When you’re first getting started with link management, you may be able to get away with using a simple spreadsheet to organize your links.
As your content library grows and you start working with more and more links, however, you’ll need a more sophisticated solution.
Link management platforms like Clearscope, Moz, and SEMrush allow you to easily organize, track, and optimize your links. These tools can also help you identify broken and toxic links, and make sure you’re not overusing your links across your content. This becomes particularly valuable when managing links in long-form guides about eCommerce split payments, where accuracy and source credibility matter.
3. Assign link management tasks to specific team members
On a content team, it’s important that everyone knows their role. This will help prevent tasks from slipping through the cracks and keep the team running like a well-oiled machine.
When it comes to link management, it’s no different. To ensure that links are being managed effectively, it’s important to assign link management tasks to specific team members. This will help prevent tasks from being overlooked and make it easier to hold team members accountable for their work.
If you’re a one-person team, you’ll need to be diligent about setting aside time to manage your links. If you’re a larger team, you’ll want to consider who on your team is best suited to handle link management tasks.
4. Set link management guidelines and best practices
Most content teams already have editorial guidelines in place, but you should also set link management best practices and guidelines. This will help your team to create a consistent link management process.
Link management guidelines can include:
- How to find and use the right anchor text
- What type of content to link to
- How to create a link management plan for long-form content
- How to use internal links to build authority and improve SEO
- How to use external links to build relationships and improve SEO
- How to check for broken links
- How to troubleshoot link management issues
5. Set up a link management approval process
If you’re working on a team, it’s important to set up a link management approval process. This is especially true if you have multiple team members creating content for your website.
An approval process ensures all links are reviewed by a senior team member before being added to your content. This can help prevent mistakes and ensure your links are high-quality.
6. Use a link management calendar
Even if your team is small, it’s important to have a content calendar that includes your link management activities. This will help you keep track of what you’re doing, what you’ve done, and what you need to do next.
It can also help you identify trends in your link management activities, such as which types of content are getting the most links, and which types of links are driving the most traffic to your site.
If you’re not already using a content calendar, you can create one in a simple spreadsheet or use a more advanced tool like CoSchedule, which allows you to manage your entire editorial calendar in one place.
7. Create a link management playbook
Link management is an ongoing process. You can’t just add links to your content and then forget about them. You need to have a plan in place for how you will find and fix broken links, update outdated links, and more.
One way to do this is to create a link management playbook. This is a document that outlines all of the link management tasks you need to do, who is responsible for doing them, and how often they need to be done.
Having a playbook in place will help you stay organized and ensure that nothing falls through the cracks. It will also help you onboard new team members more quickly, as they will have a clear understanding of what is expected of them in terms of link management.
8. Use link management for cross-functional collaboration
Content teams are not just responsible for creating content, but also for collaborating with other teams and departments. This can include working with sales and customer service teams on content that helps answer customer questions and overcome objections, or with SEO and PR teams on content that earns high-quality backlinks.
Content teams can use link management to help them work more effectively with other teams. For example, you can use link management to track the links you include in your content that are meant to be shared with sales and customer service teams.
You can also use link management to track the links you include in your content that are meant to be shared with SEO and PR teams. This can help you ensure that everyone is on the same page and that you are all working toward the same goals.
9. Use link management for content optimization
Link management is no longer just about fixing broken links. In fact, link management tools like Clearscope and MarketMuse are now used to optimize the content creation process with AI-powered insights.
When you start creating a piece of content, you can use link management tools to analyze the top-ranking pages for your target keyword. This will help you understand what type of content you should create and what topics you should cover.
Content teams that actively invest in improving their overall visibility often combine these practices with strategic approaches in areas like digital advertising, which helps amplify their content and ensure it reaches the right audience.
You can also use link management tools to optimize your existing content. By analyzing the top-ranking pages for your target keyword, you can identify opportunities to add more contextually relevant links to your content and improve your chances of ranking higher in search results.
10. Use link management for tracking and reporting
Finally, link management is a crucial component of your content team’s tracking and reporting efforts. It’s important to keep a pulse on the links in your content and make sure they’re still working and leading to relevant, high-quality pages.
If you’re not using a link management tool, you might be left to manually check all of your links or not check them at all. This can be time-consuming, and you might miss broken or irrelevant links.
Instead, use a link management tool to easily keep track of all the links in your content and quickly identify which ones need updating. This will save you time and ensure your content is always up-to-date and high-quality.
Conclusion
Link management can be a tedious process, but it’s a critical component of your content strategy. By using the right tools and following best practices, you can ensure your website is always up-to-date and that your content is driving traffic to the right places.
