Enterprise Link Building & The Power Of Links

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Enterprise link building means getting good links for a big company’s website to help it show up better on Google and other search engines. Large companies often get many links without even trying. While building links can be hard, big companies have many chances to do it well because of their size and the money involved.

Links are important for Google. They help Google see if a page is trustworthy and useful. One of Google’s main systems, PageRank, uses links to figure this out. So yes, links still help websites rank higher. When we removed good links from a page, it lost traffic and its ranking dropped.

Common Problems with Enterprise Link Building

Most large companies face the same problems. To succeed in these companies, it’s not just about knowing SEO—you also need to understand how to work with people, get approvals, and manage projects well.

Getting Approval and Budget

Many companies don’t let their workers do outreach, which means asking others for links. That’s okay. There are other ways to get links if we’re creative.

Some companies don’t build links at all. Others have small link-building programs or pay outside companies to do it for them. Before starting, we need a plan. Think about what you want to do and who you need to talk to for permission.

For some projects, legal and compliance teams need to say yes. In our experience, this is where many projects stop. If the law says no, it’s hard to move forward.

Another big step is getting the money for the work. The best way is to show how the project can help bring in revenue or something close to it. For example, we once showed that fixing 250 broken pages with links could bring $800,000 in value. That helped us get the green light.

Here’s how you can find these chances in Ahrefs:

Paste your website into Site Explorer
Go to the “Best by links” report
Filter by “404 not found” pages

If each page we fix has 10 good links, and each link is worth $400, that’s $800,000 in value. Numbers like this help get approval.

Choosing What to Focus On

Large companies offer many products and have many web pages. It’s hard to know where to start. Which team should you work with? Which pages should you focus on?

The best way is to match the project with the company’s goals. Most teams want to improve certain products. If we focus on those, we’re more likely to get support. People are often rewarded when those projects succeed, so they’re more willing to help and spend resources.

Working Together

In big companies, link building often happens through other teams, not just the SEO team. These companies do many things that can help them get links, even if they’re not trying directly.

For example, there may be TV or radio ads, new content from writers, or posts on social media. Other activities like public relations, paid ads, content sharing, events, partnerships, influencer deals, celebrity ads, or affiliate programs can also bring links.

Many of these links will happen without us. But we can still support these teams. We can share simple tips that help them get better links. Join their training sessions, weekly calls, or make helpful guides and internal courses.

Instead of doing everything ourselves, it’s better to help many people do small things right. This often makes a bigger difference in the long run.

Enterprise Link Building Ideas and Tips

Big companies have many ways to build links. If we’re unsure where to begin, we can check the “Links” section in the Opportunities report in Site Explorer. It gives helpful shortcuts with ready filters to start common tasks easily.

Here are a few good things to try:

Make Content That Attracts Links

We call this kind of content a “linkable asset” or “link bait.” This content is made to catch attention and bring links from other websites. It can be:

Industry surveys
Research and studies
Tools or calculators
Awards and rankings
Step-by-step guides or tutorials
Definitions or special terms
Infographics or creative charts

If your company has well-known staff or experts, their quotes can also bring useful links.

There’s also a pattern where top-ranking pages get more links over time. So, if your content ranks well, it may continue to attract even more links. Some call this the “vicious circle” of SEO.

Combine Similar Pages Into One Strong Page

Sometimes, two pages on your site compete for the same keyword. This is called keyword cannibalization. It can confuse search engines and lower your chances of ranking well.

To fix this, we can combine these similar pages into one stronger guide or main page. After combining the content, we can redirect the old page to the new one. This helps search engines understand the page better and can improve rankings and link building.

Share Your Content Widely

The more people see your content, the more likely it is to get links. We can work with other teams to help share it on social media or even paid ads. If we have influencer contacts, we can ask them to help spread the word, too.

But remember, these teams are busy with their own tasks. So we need to be smart and only ask them to promote our most important content. If we ask too often, they may stop helping at all.

Look for Brand Mentions Without Links

Sometimes, other websites talk about our brand but don’t include a link back to us. These are called unlinked brand mentions. Large companies often get talked about a lot online, and each of those mentions is a chance to ask for a link.

We can use tools like Content Explorer to find these mentions. It even has filters to help us find the ones without links. We can also look for mentions of well-known staff, quotes they’ve shared, or stats from our research.

Fix Lost Links with Link Reclaiming

Web pages often get deleted or changed over time. In fact, many links on the internet disappear after a few years. If we’ve removed or moved a page without setting a proper redirect, we could be losing valuable links.

It’s not too late to fix this. We can bring back lost value by finding those old pages and redirecting them to new ones.

Here’s how to do it:

Open Site Explorer and enter our domain
Go to the “Best by links” report
Add the “404 not found” filter

We’ve made a script that helps match the old pages to the new ones. It’s easy to use. Just download a couple of files, upload them, and follow the steps in the notebook. It handles most of the work for us.

If we need to do this often, we could set up an automated system using Ahrefs API and analytics data. This system can flag high-value pages and redirect them automatically. If redirects have already been in place for over a year, the value should already be passed to the new pages. We can add a check in the system to avoid repeating redirects that were already handled.

Learn from Competitor Links

We can also look at what’s working for our competitors. One good method is to use the “Best by links” report in Site Explorer. This shows which pages get the most links. For example, some sites get many links to their homepages, free tools, blogs, or research.

Another useful view is the Site Structure report, sorted by referring domains or pages. This can help us spot which areas of the site—like blogs, tools, glossaries, or videos—are bringing in the most links.

Use Internal Links to Boost Pages

Internal links (links from one page on our site to another) can help pages rank better. But in large companies, this can be hard to manage. Different teams may handle different parts of the site, so adding links can take time and lots of coordination.

The process can also be confusing. We might need to read many pages or use tools to find where we can add useful links.

Luckily, the Internal Link Opportunities report in Site Audit makes this much easier. It shows us which pages are ranking and suggests where we can add links from other pages on our site.

It’s also a good idea to use better link text. Instead of “click here” or “read more,” we should use clear words that explain what the link is about. The Internal Anchors report in Site

Explorer can help us find and improve weak or unclear link text.

Add Links Between Your Own Websites

If our company owns more than one website, we can add links between them if it makes sense. In some cases, we may plan to combine all content into one site later. But this may not always be possible or may take a long time. So, adding links between sites in the meantime can still help.

We need to be careful not to overdo this. As long as the links are natural and go to related pages, it’s usually okay.

Buy Websites from Other Companies

When we buy another company, we also get their website, content, and links. This gives us a good chance to move useful content and links to stronger pages on our own site. We’ve shared tips on how SEO works for company mergers and takeovers. This process can help grow our website’s strength and reach.

Use Link Building Tools Made for Large Companies

Many tools can help with link building on a large scale. Some useful tools are:

Site Explorer – Shows all the links a site or page has. We can sort and filter the data by what matters most in SEO.
Content Explorer – Helps us find thousands of websites for link outreach and guest post ideas. We can also find link-worthy content from across the web.
Web Explorer – Lets us search the full database of web pages, domains, and links using special search commands.
Alerts – Like Google Alerts, but better for SEO. We get updates using SEO filters.
Pitchbox / BuzzStream – These tools help us send personalized outreach emails to many websites at once.
Hunter.io / Voila Norbert – These tools help us find email addresses for websites quickly.