Resource Page Link Building (from A-Z)

Ah, Resource page link building. A tried and true link building strategy around ever since building links became popular.

However, the best ways to maximize this strategy are still misunderstood and marketers often execute campaigns that result in only low quality links.

With the help of this guide - you'll not only learn the basic of resource page link building but I'll teach you the best practices you need to successful get backlinks from high quality sites that actually move the needle.

What is Resource Page Link Building?

Resource page link building is the process of building backlinks from web pages that lists other websites (and hopefully yours!) as a resource. As a blog or website owner, your goal is to improve the ranking of your website so you can get more inbound links, and eventually, more traffic to it. 

Before we get into how you get your links into authoritative websites, it’s best to understand what resource pages are, as well as the advantages and disadvantages that come with resource link building.

Why should you invest time and effort into getting your site into resource page links?

Why Build Resource Page Links?

Resource page link building is the practice of doing outreach to build backlinks from pages that have curated lists of links to external websites (resource pages).

There are many benefits to using this strategy, including the chance to earn "genuine" links, obtain highly relevant links from websites that are similar to your own, and gain more traffic and SERP (Search Engine Results Page) improvements.

By publishing high-quality, unique, and valuable content and building links to it from external resource pages, you can increase the chances your site will rank higher in Google. 

Getting Backlinks from Resource Pages

Like any link building campaign, creating resource page links is time-consuming and difficult.

It is important to be thorough with your process, using hybrid methods that incorporate online link building tools and manual checking to make the process easier.

Start with content that is linkable and interesting to other websites.

This is critical for getting authoritative sites interested and the only real way to actually generate authority backlinks from outreach.

If you have your content ready, here are the steps to get your resource page links built.

Step #1: Find resource pages in your niche

Start by prospecting relevant and credible resource pages. This is an easy first step as resource pages frequently follow patterns you can use to identify opportunities.

Your goal is to locate credible sites related to your niche, your selected topic, and your chosen keywords that list high-quality content or resources used for the topic under discussion.

Here are several ways to find prospects:

Using Google Search Operators

The goal of using advanced search operators in Google is to find relevant resource pages through a more focused set of results. 

Here are several search operators you can try out.

• "keyword" + "related urls" 
• "keyword" + "resource pages" 
• "keyword" + + "helpful links" 
• "keyword" + + "useful links" 
• "keyword" + + useful resources
• "keyword" + favorite links
• "keyword" + favorite sites
• "keyword" + intitle:resources
• "keyword" + inurl:links
• "keyword" + inurl:links site:.edu
• "keyword" + inurl:links site:.gov
• "keyword" + inurl:resources
• "keyword" + "other links" 
• "keyword" + inurl:links inurl:lib*
• "keyword" + inurl:links library site:.edu
• "keyword" + inurl:links library site:.org
• "keyword" + inurl:links site:.org
• "keyword" + inurl:resources inurl:lib*
• "keyword" + inurl:resources site:.edu
• "keyword" + inurl:resources site:.gov
• "keyword" + inurl:resources site:.org
• "keyword" + links
• "keyword" + related sites
• "keyword" + related urls
• "keyword" + resources
• "keyword" + intitle:"list * * sites" 
• "keyword" + list *  sites
• "keyword" + intitle:"recommended links" 
• "keyword" + intitle:"recommended sites" 
• "keyword resources" + 
• "keyword" + intitle:top
• "keyword" + intitle:"useful links" 

For example, This is what I get when looking for an SEO resource page using one of the terms above.

You can easily find 100s of opportunities using a combination of search operators so I would utilize scraper tool like Link Grabber, a Chrome extension, to gather all relevant links from search result pages to export into a single spreadsheet. 

There are also time-saving automated prospecting tools like Dibz.me or Link Prospector that let you scrape resource pages from Google in bulk.

Ahrefs Content Explorer

Ahrefs Content Explorer is a search engine for marketers. With over 11 billion pages in their search index, you can use it to find popular resource pages with traffic in your niche.

To start, enter your keyword and the word “resources” into the Content Explorer tool bar and select “Intitle” as the filter. 

Filter out DR sites below 20 and websites with Website Organic Traffic less than 200 and you’ll get a list of resource pages that are perfect for reaching out to.

Domain Rank (DR) is a measure of a domain's overall SEO power and their Website Traffic stat measures how many organic clicks a website gets per month. These filters are handy for weeding out low quality opportunities.

Ahrefs Site Explorer

Ahrefs Site Explorer has several tools and features available for SEO, but for resource page link building in particular, the tool can let you inspect the backlinks of competitors to see if they are mentioned in any resource pages.

From there, you can build a list of those and reach out to them.

Here’s a guide on how to use Ahrefs Site Explorer:

Step 1: Just put the URL into Site Explorer and navigate to the "Backlink profile" section. 

Step 2: Filter by a keyword in the URL like "Resource" and you'll see all their resource page links.

Step 3: Inspect each of the domains associated with the resource page and see which opportunities look good. For example, I'd love to get a resource page link from this domain if I was in the wedding space:

SE Ranking Backlink Checker is a cheaper alternative to Ahrefs and works similarly, albeit with a much smaller index of webpages.

Once you've built a list of resource page prospects, next is qualifying the opportunities.

Step #2: Qualify the Resource Page Link Prospects

Now that you have an idea of how to find resource pages, your next step is to filter out low quality prospects.

Ultimately, you want to curate a resource page list that matches the following:

1. Provides a dofollow link
2. Has high authority or is a quality niche site
3. Has website traffic from your country
4. Has rankings in your niche

Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar

Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar  is a free extension for Chrome and Firefox.

For our purposes, you easily see the domain rank and website traffic stats right in the SERP. Sites with no traffic are not worth pursuing resource page links from.

SEO Quake Chrome Extension

SEO Quake is the SEMRush version of Ahrefs bar. If you sign up for a free account at Semrush, you’ll be able to see similar metrics.

Netpeak Checker

Netpeak Checker is a SERP scraping and data aggregation tool that speeds up your resource page backlinks analysis.

You can paste your entire list of resource page prospects into Netpeak and it can bulk check the DR, traffic and other factors like outbound links on a specific page.

The last one is useful because a resource page with 100s of outbound links isn't worth getting.

Only Outreach Filter

Only Outreach Filter is a free bulk backlink profile filtering tool that quickly eliminates unqualified opportunities from resource page links lists.

I recommend using this tool to filter out foreign TLDs, news, web 2.0 and popular spammy links sites.

Manual Prospect Filtering

After you’ve done bulk filtering, you want to go one by one to review each resource page and mark the relevant ones.

You want to remove spam, links that you can’t get and guest post farms.

There are a few ways to spot a link farm:

• ✔️ Look and feel: text logo, random keywords in domain
• 🔗 Broad selection of topics: so they can sell more relevant links
• 🚩 Types of blog posts they publish: mostly spammy posts
• 🚩 Lack of an alternative business model: they probably sell guest posts if the website has no other monetization
• 🚄 Ranking for strange, high volume terms: like random error messages or celebrity long tails
• 🔗 Linking to spammy sites: if the resource page links to spam, its probably link schemes or pay to play

Buzzstream’s prospecting features have a speedy way to accomplish this by opening 10-20 windows at a time and letting you mark a qualified website within their Chrome extension.

I personally hire a prospector off Upwork to manage this step for me with a shared Google Sheet.

After you’ve finished building a list of qualified websites, the final step is outreach.

Step #3: Develop an effective pitch and outreach

Once you've built a list of resource page prospects, coming up with a good email pitch and doing outreach is next.

First, identify the right contact person for each website.

Simply emailing the general inbox of a website is not the most effective way to get your pitch noticed because its often flooded with cold emails.

Instead, try to find and contact the person who would be most interested in your offer.

The simple act of contacting the right person and using their first name can significantly increase your reply rate.

When trying to determine who the right person is, consider the size of the website and type of business.

For a personal blog, you can contact the guest blog owner or sometimes the general inbox is their main email.

For a small business, contact the founder of the company since they probably don’t have a dedicated marketer.

For larger businesses, look for someone in content marketing or SEO.

Once you have the full name of the person, you can use tools like Clearbit Web Extension, Name2email, Kendo, Contactout, or Hunter.io to find and verify their email address.

Pay attention to their outreach guidelines or subject line requirements - if any.

Additionally, use a legitimate email address and customize each email for each prospect to appear more genuine and avoid seeming like spam.

Here are a few email templates to help get you started.

Template 1

Hello {{prospect.first_name}},

I happened to check out your resource page {{resource page link}} while gathering some information on {{topic}}.

You have a great list, and I’ve discovered new great resources I haven’t come across before through your site.

I have an article of my own on {{topic}} that I think would make a great addition to your page, if you’re interested: {{Your post’s URL}}.

I think your readers would enjoy it because {{elaborate why}} and it would fit right in.

Looking forward to hearing what you think,

{{inbox.name}}

Template 2

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

My name is {{inbox.name}}, and I found your resource page for {{audience}}.

{{resource page link}}

I’m from {{your company’s name}}.

Since we  {{tell them about what you do and what you can offer}}, I believe we’d make a good addition to your resource page and provide good value for your visitors. You can find out more about us here: {{Your post’s URL}}

Let me know if I can do anything else for you.

Thank you,

{{inbox.name}}

Template 3

Hey,{{prospect.first_name}}!

I was digging around for information on {{topic}} today and came across your resource page: {{link to resource page}}

It has an awesome list of resources! I didn’t know about some of them and it really helped.

If you’re interested, I actually just wrote a guide on {{topic}}: {{your URL}}

It might make a great addition to your page since it  {{share a few points how it could relate}}

Either way, keep up the great work! Thanks for your time.

Cheers,

{{inbox.signature}}

Template 4

Hi {{prospect.first_name}},

I’m getting in touch to introduce you to {{resource}}, which I think could be of real value to your readers.

My resource is {{Summary of what the resource is}} and you can view the {{Resource}} yourself at: {{Link}}

I noticed that you link out to a number of other really great resources on {{URL of page that links out}}, and thought that this could be a great addition.

This could be of real interest and useful to your readers because:

{{Reason 1}}

{{Reason 2}}

{{Reason 3}}

If you need any more information from me, please just let me know. You can reach me directly at: 

{{Email Signature}}

These templates can help you get started reaching out to potential resource page owners.

To pump success rates, using trying our Value First Outreach Framework where you do a favor for them first before asking for a resource page link.

In our framework, we feature bloggers in our guest posts and in turn they are happy to reciprocate something like a resource page link.

Step #4: Monitor progress and results

Consistent execution is the only real way to have good SEO results so getting just a couple of resource page links probably won't benefit you.

The key is to establish a repeatable system of outreach that lets you score resource page links month after month until you've exhausted all opportunities.

This link building strategy, combined with others like guest posting, competitor links, and unlinked mentions will build your domain authority, topical relevance and brand authority - all essential components of improving your rankings and getting more traffic.

Get Started with Resource Page Link Building

Resource pages are a great way to get links because they're designed to be a list of high-quality resources on a certain topic.

By finding resource pages in your niche and reaching out to the site owner with your own content, you can tap into this link building strategy and improve your SEO.

Remember to keep an eye on your progress and results so you can keep track of your link building and make sure you're getting the most out of your efforts.

And if you want an easy way to build resource page links, Only Outreach can do it for you.

Check out our blogger outreach services to learn more.