Tag: SEO

How To Buy Permanent Backlinks For Lasting Link Building Results

Links act as a vote of confidence for your website to help it rank and appear on the SERPs. To build a decent link profile, many people resort to buying links through different means. But all links are not created equal and sometimes, buying links can do more harm than good.

So, how do you buy permanent backlinks with long-lasting results, and should you even be doing it? The answer depends on your definition and process of ‘buying links.’

Properly assessing the links against your minimum criteria, choosing outreach over renting links, and steering clear of shady link building offers are just some of the many ways to attain lasting backlinking results.

Naturally, there’s a lot more that goes into successful link building than what we’ve just mentioned. Read on to learn more about the risks and rewards associated with buying links and how to engage in thoughtful link building that aligns with Google’s Terms of Service.

How to Buy Permanent Backlinks?

How-to-Buy-Permanent-Backlinks

The truth is: link building is not easy and there’s no ‘get links quick’ scheme you can follow. Links that are worth investing in are mostly ones that originate from a lot of hard work in the form of natural link building or outreach.

When we talk about buying links, we’re referring to the editorial fees or placement costs charged by most websites these days. You can also add the cost of link building agencies, your staff, and software tools to these expenses.

Even with this in mind, it’s easy to fall prey to nefarious link building schemes online.

Here are some ways to ensure that you buy links that are effective, low-risk, and provide long-term results:

Assess the Quality and Reliability of the Links

It’s common knowledge that quality trumps quantity when it comes to link building. Consequently, the first order of business is to assess the quality and reliability of links against your minimum criteria.

To simplify this vetting process, we have divided links into two types: Links worth buying and links to steer clear of.

What kind of Links are Worth Buying?

Since links are supposed to be a vote in your website’s favor, they should come from a trustworthy and reliable source. As a general rule, high-quality links that provide the best results are dofollow, belong to a high authority website, and are relevant to your niche.

However, this can be quite subjective and may depend on your starting metrics. Apart from targeting genuine sites with good traffic, you should go for ones with a higher Domain Rating (DR) than yours. But if you’re starting at DR 0 then you can opt for any DR and prioritize relevancy while choosing your links.

Links to Steer Clear Of

Just like high-quality backlinks can benefit your rankings, bad backlinks have the exact opposite effect. You generally want to steer clear of spammy links from low-authority websites that can harm your rankings.

You will encounter a bunch of schemes from retail websites that offer links at fixed prices. These are often Private Blog networks (PBNs) which carry a lot of risks and lose their value over time.

While it may seem like an easier way to build links, it’s not a sustainable long-term strategy. In fact, it can increase your risk profile as it doesn’t align with Google’s Terms of Service.

The Link Buying Criteria

While every business has different link building requirements, you can still create a general checklist of rules to assess the quality of a backlink.

Check your links for:

Relevancy: Google gives a lot of importance to relevancy. Try to stay within your niche to get the best results out of link building.

Quality of Content: The quality of the content can speak volumes about how trustworthy and reliable a website really is.

Domain Authority and Domain Rating: Go for websites that have a DA and DR that’s greater than your own or more than 20 or 30 at least.

Anchor Text Relevance: The anchor text profile should be balanced with relevant anchor texts.

Author Profile: Check if the authors actually exist or if the site uses fake profiles.

Consult a Reliable Link Building Agency

The world of link building can be quite difficult to navigate, especially if you don’t have much experience in the field. It can be difficult to tell what you’re really signing up for when you approach link building opportunities that involve any kind of costs.

That’s why one of the best ways to build ethical links that you won’t get penalized for is by hiring a reliable link building agency. At Outreachmama we engage in thoughtful link buying through outreach to get permanent, long-lasting results for your business.

Buying Backlinks: Risk Vs. Reward

Buying-Backlinks-Risk-Vs.-Reward

Do the rewards of link buying outnumber its risks? Let’s find out.

The Risks of Buying Links

Link builders have been playing a cat and mouse game with Google for years. By now, the search engine is pretty well versed at weeding out unnatural link building tactics. That’s why paying for links can sometimes be a slippery slope.

Before you engage in link buying, it’s important to know the following risks:

Penalties: Google is strictly against paid links and tends to penalize websites or links that don’t match their strict criteria.

Damage to Link Profile: Sometimes paid links from untrustworthy, low authority and spammy sites can do real harm to your link profile. This impacts your whole backlinking strategy and your rankings.

Wasted Investment: Link building is not cheap! In case you get penalized by Google for your paid links, all your investment might go down the drain.

Increased Risk in the Future: Even if you manage to pass under Google’s radar now, there’s no telling how long you can get away with it. When Google’s Penguin update wrecked the industry, many site owners got penalized for practices they engaged in many years ago. It’s not impossible to imagine that Google might strike down on such links again in the coming years. Going against the guidelines today can increase your risk profile for tomorrow.

The Rewards of Link Buying

If buying links is entirely bad then why are so many people doing it one way or the other? The answer lies in how rewarding it can be if done right.

Doing it right means going for high-quality, relevant, and trustworthy sources of links with good content while ditching the spammy ones.

In today’s day and age, there are a lot of reasons to engage in thoughtful link buying, some of these rewards include:

Simplifies Outreach: Paying the editorial fee for link placements and posts is just the way the industry works these days. With so many competitors willing to pay for links, it’s almost impossible to get free link building opportunities. In this way, paying that cost for guest posts, niche edits and more can help simplify your outreach efforts.

Provides Faster Results: Since outreach is simpler when you pay for those backend costs, you also get much faster results than you would with purely organic links.

You Can’t Compete Without It: The world of SEO is highly competitive with multiple businesses fighting to make their mark on the SERPs. If you’re not willing to invest in boosting your search engine rankings, multiple competitors will gladly take your place. The simple fact is: If you’re not investing in link building, you are risking being left behind.

It’s Not as Risky as it Used to Be: Since the past five years or so, the penalties and negative implications of paying for links have diminished significantly. Google no longer shuts down entire websites for engaging in paid link building. It’s partly due to Google’s increased focus on search intent. What matters most is that the ranking content matches the search intent.

In Closing

Just like any other tactic, paid link building has its benefits and downfalls. By assessing the quality of your links, consulting a link building agency, and weighing the risks and rewards, you can build a long-term, permanent link building strategy.

If you follow the necessary steps and do it right, it can be almost impossible for Google to tell whether it’s a paid link or a natural one. And if you don’t do it at all, you might not have what it takes to compete in the industry.

How To Buy Permanent Backlinks For Lasting Link Building Results

Posted by admin
Links act as a vote of confidence for your website to help it rank and appear on the SERPs. To build a decent link profile, many people resort to buying links through different means. But all links are not created equal and sometimes, buying links can do more harm than good. So, how do you … Continue reading "How To Buy Permanent Backlinks For Lasting Link Building Results"Read More

How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Rank?

As you embark on your link building journey with an aim to boost your rankings, the first question you’ll ask yourself is: How many backlinks do I need to rank? 

That can be difficult to answer because it entirely depends upon a couple of dynamic variables. You have to figure out how competitive your keyword is, what domain authority you have currently, and how it compares to your competitors. Other considerations such as the quality of the links and anchor text profiles can also make a significant impact.

All of this combined can help you assess how many links are required to see the results you’re looking for. Let’s take an in-depth look into each variable to find out the number of links you’ll need to kickstart sustainable growth and higher rankings.  

How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Build?

We’ve said this before and we’ll say it again, content is king when it comes to being in Google’s good books. Backlinks are the number two ranking factor on Google, which means high quality, relevant content is the first requirement you need to check off. 

You have to ensure that the content you’re trying to rank, actually deserves to rank. If you’re lacking on this front, link building might not provide the spectacular results you’re expecting. But if your content is fully optimized, you are now ready to step into the link building arena and find out how many backlinks you’ll need to rank. 

While there’s no magical formula to pin down the exact number of links, you can start off by exploring some of the variables it depends on. These include: 

Domain Authority

Domain Authority (DA) is a ranking score that determines if a website will rank in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The higher the DA, the more likely your website is to rank.

Backlinking aims to boost the domain authority of your website along with its important pages so you can rank on the SERPs. That’s why the current DA of your website can help you set a good starting point. 

If you’ve just launched your website then you’re starting from square one and need a powerful link building strategy to build your DA. Conversely, if your website is well-established with a decent DA already, you’ll need fewer backlinks to rank for your chosen keywords. 

The Keyword Difficulty

The-Keyword-Difficulty

In the world of SEO, all keywords are not created equal. Some are easier to rank for while others can be quite tricky. The keyword difficulty score lets you know exactly how easy or difficult it will be to rank for them. 

The higher the difficulty, the more backlinks you’ll need to rank. To make things more complicated, the number of backlinks required skyrockets as you increase the difficulty of the keyword. For example, for a keyword with a difficulty of 10, you might get away with building 10 backlinks. However, when you increase the difficulty to 50, you’ll most likely need over 100 backlinks to rank for it.

The Competition

Assessing how many backlinks your competitors have for your chosen keywords can help you find out how many links you should be building.

For a quantitative analysis of the competitors’ backlinks, you can simply look at the number of links that point to each page. This will give you a rough estimate of the number of links you need. 

Quality of the links

It goes without saying that you should also match the quality of the links, not just the quantity in order to rank alongside your competitors. 

Don’t make the grave mistake of assuming that all backlinks are the same. In the world of links, one high-quality, relevant backlink can be worth more than a hundred low quality ones.

The key is to strike the ideal balance between the quality and quantity of the backlinks. Try to find backlinks that meet most of the requirements mentioned below:

     – Found from a trusted source

     – Difficult to acquire

     – Unpaid 

     – Acquired from a relevant source

     – On a high Authority website 

     – Directs traffic

     – Non-reciprocal

     – Unique

Anchor Text Profile

Anchor text is used by Google to establish relevance. Sometimes, the number of links you need to build depends on the anchor text ratio you’re trying to achieve. This can differ depending on what kind of niche you’re trying to target.

If you’re in an industry where websites aren’t doing active link building, it’s highly likely that their anchor text ratios won’t match yours at all. In this case, you might have to build as many links as it takes to diversify your anchor text profile. 

On the other hand, if you’re operating in a more competitive niche where your anchor text is around a 50% match with your competitors, things get a bit more predictable. Then it’s all about building enough links to match your competitors’ anchor text profile.

How to Assess Link Building Requirements

How-to-Assess-Link-Building-Requirements

Now that you’re well aware of all the variables that can help you decide the quantity of backlinks, it’s time to get to work. 

Here are some actionable steps you can take to start your link building journey:

Identify the Referring Domain Gap with Competitors

We’ve already discussed how analyzing your competition can help you get a pretty good idea of your link building requirements. Unfortunately, it’s hard to do a one-to-one comparison with other web pages because the authority and relevance of the domains also play a huge role.

But to get started, you should get an idea of the referring domain gap between you and your competitors. Find out the gap in terms of overall domain strength as well the relative number of domains going to that interface and that’ll be your rough target. 

Use Tools Like Ahrefs

To get an accurate sense of metrics like the number of referring domains and relevancy, you can use a couple of tools. One tool that’s widely used in the industry is Ahrefs. 

Ahrefs can give you a rough idea of the number of referring domains pointing to the overall domain and the inner page of the website for the keywords you’re competing for. This provides a rough estimate of how many links your competitors have and how many you need to get to that ranking. 

Consult a Professional Link Building Agency

Matching the number of links may be a good beginners’ strategy, but as you get more sophisticated you’ll understand the importance of variables like domain authority and topical relevance. That’s why link building isn’t only about numbers, it’s a mixture of art and science that creates the perfect backlinking strategy. 

That’s where a professional link building agency like Outreachmama can help you stand out from the rest. Outreachmama’s link auditing services use a proprietary relevance-based link scoring system to set accurate and realistic link building goals for your website.   

Building Links to Homepage Vs. Inner Pages

Building-Links-to-Homepage-Vs

To understand the difference between building links for your homepages vs. the inner pages, let’s start with an analogy. 

Google is much like a rollercoaster at a carnival that has a minimum number of tickets and a height requirement. The height requirement is analogous to the overall DA while the tickets signify the DA of the inner pages you’re trying to rank.

If you’re really tall, you have a better chance of getting on that ride. This means that websites that have really high DA tend to rank quickly and easily for new content without any link building. Since Google already trusts them and sees them as a reputable resource, they don’t need any links in order to rank. 

So, if you have a highly authoritative site, you might not need any links after all. In case your page isn’t as authoritative as your competitors, you need to turn to the DA of the inner pages. 

Should I Build Links to Homepage or to Inner Pages?

In general, it’s much better to focus on building the DA of your homepage until you have domain authority parity with your main competitors. Once your results for the homepage start to plateau for a given keyword, you can start targeting the inner pages individually.

There was once a time when inner page links used to matter quite a lot. But now Google gives way more weightage to the overall DA of your website.

In short, your goal is to build authoritative demand and the best way to do that is by building authoritative homepage links. 

How Many Backlinks Do I need to Rank: In Closing

Finding the number of backlinks you need to rank is just the beginning of your link building journey. Even reaching the top of Google shouldn’t be your cue to stop building links. 

Link building is an ongoing and dynamic process. Simply setting targets and meeting them isn’t good enough. You need a sustainable link building strategy to build links consistently and remain competitive.

How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Rank?

Posted by admin
As you embark on your link building journey with an aim to boost your rankings, the first question you’ll ask yourself is: How many backlinks do I need to rank?  That can be difficult to answer because it entirely depends upon a couple of dynamic variables. You have to figure out how competitive your keyword … Continue reading "How Many Backlinks Do I Need to Rank?"Read More

What is a Good Domain Authority? DA Explained

Google remains a mystery. Even the best SEOs in the world are relying on external tools and interpretations of what is going on behind the scenes at Google, and within their infamous search algorithm.

“Domain Authority” is one of the very best tools we have for estimating how likely a website is to rank for search terms. So, what is domain authority and what’s a good domain authority for a website to achieve? We delve into the details below.

What is Domain Authority?

It helps to understand what Domain Authority is.

In the simplest terms, it is a score from 0-100 that gives you an indication of how “authoritative” a website is, in the eyes of Google.

This is not a score that is assigned by Google. No, this isn’t a peek behind the curtain of what Google assigns to websites. Instead, it is a very sophisticated tool developed by industry giant Ahrefs. It predicts how likely a website is to rank in Google based on its “authority” or “Domain Rating” as Ahrefs calls it.

The Domain Rating score uses data from Ahrefs’ huge web index, which uses both machine learning and huge amounts of data from Google’s own index. The scores correlate very closely with search engine results, and this means that you can pretty reliably judge a site’s authority.

In the majority of cases, a website with a high DA (Domain Authority) will outrank a website with poor DA, if they have similar content.

The Domain Authority and Domain Rating terms are used interchangeably by SEOs. They both mean the same thing; a numerical value on an exponential scale, which shows how highly respected a domain is.

Domain Authority was the Moz score used as the industry standard for a long time, but Domain Rating is more modern and reliable in current SEO.

Domain Authority is Not The Only Factor

Asking “what is a good domain rating?” is very useful, but it is far from the only factor.

While the rating or authority of a site is a really accurate tool for SEOs to use, it is very far from being the only factor in ranking a website.

If you think about it, a website with a huge Domain Authority would be able to rank for every single term on the internet if this were all that mattered.

While DA gives you a brilliant insight into your competitors, remember that there are so many other ranking factors. For instance, topical relevance, site speed, and the quality of the content on the page.

What is a Good Domain Authority Score?

What-is-a-Good-Domain-Authority-Score

A lot of website owners just want to know whether their authority score or rating is good. There’s every chance that you have checked one of the tools and seen your own site rating, but it’s impossible to really understand it without a frame of reference.

Software tools like Moz and Ahrefs give a score from 0-100. This is not a linear scale.

So, if the score of a site is 40, and you are comparing it to a site with a score of 20, it doesn’t mean that the site with a 40 score is twice as good. It is usually exponentially more authoritative in the eyes of the scale.

When you start a brand new website, assuming that it hasn’t been purchased as a going concern and that the domain name hasn’t been used for anything before, the rating is likely to be zero.

Once you’ve got some content on there, and the site has been running for a year or two, even with no link-building activities the site may hit 10-20 in terms of authority score.

This scale goes all the way up to websites like Amazon and Facebook, which have authority in the 90s. You can see what a massive range is covered.

It is impossible to say what is a good domain authority. It’s not a case of saying with any certainty that “40 is good, 20 is bad”.

Instead, you should compare yourself to your competition. If lots of websites that you are competing with have a very low domain rating score, and low authority when you are checking with SEO tools, it is fair to say that you probably have a decent chance of outranking them and reaching the top of Google by providing better content, and building your own DA.

Similarly, this can be a way to decide upon which search terms to target. If your domain authority is 30 and a lot of sites with much lower ratings are ranking for search terms, you will know that you have a chance of ousting them if you match or surpass the content they offer. If your score is 30 and all of the competing sites are around the 80 mark, you’re going to need a colossal effort to improve your site to the point where you can outrank them.

How Do I Build My Domain Authority?

How-Do-I-Build-My-Domain-Authority

If you want to improve your domain authority, the main factor is links that point to your website, and the quality of these links. Gone are the days when you could just throw a bunch of links at your site and expect it to improve. The sites linking to yours should be authoritative in themselves, and in an ideal world, they should be relevant.

At Outreachmaman, we have a sophisticated method of correlating the keywords you’re looking to rank for and the rough authority of your competition. From here, we can work out what sort of links, and how many, we think you’ll need to meet your search goals. This gives us the edge when it comes to creating a plan for your outreach campaigns.

Building quality links from outreach campaigns, including guest posting, are some of the most effective ways to boost your DA or domain rating.

Page Authority – Trickling Your Authority Through to Inner Pages

Domain Authority is closely linked to similar scores that are given to internal pages. Tools like Moz and Ahrefs assign pages their own authority score.

A page that is more prominent and has a lot more links pointing to it is likely to be seen as “stronger” as an internal page. A lot of this comes from the strategy for internal linking on your website.

If you consistently reference a page from your blog posts and other parts of your website, the perception is that the page is more important and deserves more attention from the search engines. Page authority scores are one of the ways that SEO tools show you how your internal pages are perceived.

A good SEO strategy will review this score, and the pages that have a lot of internal links and mentions. This means you can shine a spotlight on the pages that you want to rank more highly, or that need a little extra “link juice” to get there.

Summary

Domain-Authority-Summary

There’s no denying that this is one of the most insightful metrics out there when it comes to optimizing your website for search results. While nobody knows exactly how Google’s algorithm works, domain ratings are undeniably correlated, and give you an overview of how your site is performing.

So what is a good domain authority?

It’s all relative.

In many niches, especially localized ones, a score of 30 may be enough to rank for all the terms you want to. In other niches, you may not experience any results until your score reaches 50, 60, 70, or even higher. If you’re looking to outrank authority medical journals like Healthline.com, for instance, your site would need to reach a huge level of authority.

By working with Outreachmama, we can help you to establish what a good DA looks like for you, and how you can build a strategy to outrank the competition.

What is a Good Domain Authority? DA Explained

Posted by admin
Google remains a mystery. Even the best SEOs in the world are relying on external tools and interpretations of what is going on behind the scenes at Google, and within their infamous search algorithm. “Domain Authority” is one of the very best tools we have for estimating how likely a website is to rank for … Continue reading "What is a Good Domain Authority? DA Explained"Read More

Does Guest Posting Still Work?

If you’re worried about Google cracking down on your guest blogs, you should know that it can’t algorithmically differentiate between guest posts and normal articles. There’s no compulsion to disclose whether a particular article is written by a guest or not.

While Google might not be able to single out the guest posts, you still need to maintain a certain level of quality to reap the benefits.

3. Only the Goals have Changed

As the Google algorithm has matured, so have the various SEO and ranking strategies. If you’re approaching guest posting with the same link-crazy attitude as before, it might not work for you.

It’s time to retire guest posts that contain a truckload of links while providing zero value and substance. That’s one of the main reasons why guest blogging earned such a bad rap.

Ultimately, the success of your guest posting strategy depends on your content, not on those pesky links. Make content relevant, useful, and valuable and you’ll have nothing to worry about!

Is Guest Posting the Right Fit for You?

We’ve already talked about the benefits of guest posting for your SEO and ranking. But when it comes to link building, there’s no shortage of tactics to choose from. Each strategy has its own benefits and risks. The same goes for guest posting.

The big question is: Does guest posting work as a dependable link building strategy? The answer depends on your unique needs and end goals so we’ll let you be the judge of that!

Analyzing the benefits and drawbacks of guest posting is the best way to pinpoint whether it’ll work for you or not.

The Benefits of Guest Posting

The-Benefits-of-Guest-Posting

Here are some benefits guest posting can provide for link building and beyond:

Increases Brand Awareness

Guest posting for a trusted website in the industry can be a massive boost to your brand awareness. If you deliver authoritative and meaningful content, new audiences will take notice and flock to your site.

Boosts High-Quality Traffic

If your guest post wows readers, they’ll definitely be coming back for more. This ensures that you’re getting meaningful traffic from people who genuinely love your content. It also boosts exposure within the industry and pushes your rankings up as well.

Does Wonders for your Domain Authority

If you follow the motto of quality over quantity, you can successfully increase your domain authority. The key is to focus on creating fewer guest posts for highly authoritative sites to build high-quality links.

Creates New Business Opportunities and Relationships

Surviving in the blogging industry is all about building new business opportunities, useful leads, and fruitful relationships. Guest posting can earn you a lot of attention from both users and other companies. This opens up new horizons for collaboration and growth.

The Risks of Guest Posting

Now that we’ve explored all the benefits, it’s time to look at some drawbacks and risks associated with guest posting.

It’s Not Very Scalable

Guest posting too frequently can get you in Google’s bad books. That’s why guest posting isn’t a very scalable strategy. It works best when it’s done sparingly but with great attention to quality.

The catch is that getting your post to feature on a high authority site is difficult while going for a site with low editorial standards may do more harm than good.

It Might not Bring in Traffic Right Away

One of the biggest downsides to guest posting is that the new guest post is created on a brand new page with essentially no authority. It might take a while for the new page to get indexed and bring traffic to your site.

However, this can be circumvented by asking the owner to include internal links elsewhere on the website or doing additional link building.

The Dos and Don’ts of Effective Guest Posting in 2022

Guest posting isn’t the same anymore, it’s changed for the better! Now it’s time to change your strategy with a new and improved user-focused approach.

Here are some important dos and don’ts for effective guest posting:

Do Focus on your Expertise

We’ve already discussed how important it is to target highly authoritative sites for guest posting to get the most out of it. The tricky part is that these sites have good domain authority for a reason. It’s difficult to meet their rigorous editorial standards so you really need to focus on your expertise.

Badly researched, recycled content will only land your pitch in the bin. Focus on what you do best!

Don’t Go Overboard with the Links

We know it can be tempting to add in a ton of links to your site in your guest posts, but it’s time to fight that temptation by only adding links that add value. Google recommends using no-follow links like Wikipedia to make your article look more authentic.

Focus on the quality of the links, not the quantity. 

Do Promote it on Social Media

To bring in some extra traffic, you need to promote your guest blogs on social media networks. This will provide some much-needed visibility and can strengthen your backlinks even further.

Leverage your Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter network to attract more eyeballs!

Don’t Reuse a Blog Post

In the world of guest posting, reusing an already published post is a cardinal sin. While it’s better to create fully unique content, you can also repurpose old content to deliver the message in a new way.

Reused guest posts reflect badly on your blog and will most likely get rejected.

Do Partner Up with a Link Building Agency

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While guest posting is an effective strategy, it does require a lot of expertise, effort, and time. If you’re not well-versed in the intricacies of how it all works, it’s better to consult a professional link building agency. Instead of wasting time on low-authority sites, let your link building agency find high-quality guest posting opportunities for you.

Looking for services to optimize guest posting? Check out Outreachmama’s premium guest posting services.

Does Guest Posting Work: In Conclusion

Does Guest Posting Work: In Conclusion

Guest posting may be dead for some but others have chosen to give it a more user-focused makeover. This new revamp is all about making guest posts more consumer-friendly and insightful. That excludes badly researched generic and annoying link-filled articles.

Even with all the links stripped back, guest posts can boost brand awareness, increase domain authority, create new business opportunities, and much more! With benefits like these, guest posting is certainly worth exploring.

As long as Google values quality content, it doesn’t matter what form it takes. Target humans instead of algorithms and good rankings will follow!

Does Guest Posting Still Work?

Posted by admin
If you’re worried about Google cracking down on your guest blogs, you should know that it can’t algorithmically differentiate between guest posts and normal articles. There’s no compulsion to disclose whether a particular article is written by a guest or not. While Google might not be able to single out the guest posts, you still … Continue reading "Does Guest Posting Still Work?"Read More

Is Link Building Dead?

There was once a time when black hat SEO and spammy link building tactics reigned supreme. However, over the years Google has been slowly patching the loopholes in its algorithms. This has led many people to wonder whether link building is dead for good.

So, is link building really dead? The short answer is no. Link building may not be as straightforward as it used to be but it’s still instrumental to your website’s rankings and traffic. There may be a future devoid of link building but that’s not approaching anytime soon!

The next important question to ask is: How can you still make the most of link building in 2022? Read on to explore the merits of link building in the modern internet landscape and how you can stay on top of your linking game!

Is Link Building Dead For Good?

We’ve already established that link building isn’t quite dead and buried just yet. To elaborate on the ‘why’ and the ‘how’, let’s revisit the glory days of link building and what it has morphed into today.

Link Building Then: The Golden Age

At the turn of the century, links were more important than ever before. Paired with the right keywords, linking tricks worked like magic. Countless sites with highly irrelevant content popped up high on Google, ruining the search experience.

Seeing how unnatural links were used so successfully in the early 2000s, it wouldn’t be wrong to say that link building worked wonders. That was until 2012 when Google released a new Penguin update that dealt a massive blow to black hat link builders. This directly targeted low-quality linking strategies and rewarded websites with organic links and good content.

As sites that were solely propped up using black hat link building were devalued, Google pushed people to focus on what really mattered: quality.

Link Building Now: Quality Over Quantity

Today, content marketers have finally embraced a more consumer-friendly approach that prefers quality over quantity. That’s not to say that links hold no power anymore. It’s quite the opposite actually! Links are still a major ranking factor on Google.

To explain why it’s so difficult to decouple links from the ranking algorithm, let’s take a look at what link building actually implies. Google’s job is to list the most relevant resources for any given query. Links are essentially a vote in the website’s favor, making it easier for Google to find the most useful sites. The more high-quality links vote for your website’s relevance, the higher you will rank.

However, the definition of a high-quality link now includes the relevancy of the link. This means that there will be no one size fits all solution to your ranking problems. To rank higher, you need to target backlinks on outlets that your audience is invested in. Your links need to follow your goals, not the other way around!

Can You Improve your SEO with Link Building Alone?

When it comes to the visibility of your website, link building is still one of the most powerful SEO tactics available. In fact, according to a survey by Aira, 92% of marketers think that link building will remain a vital ranking factor in the next five years as well. But is a solid link building strategy the only thing you need to ensure success? The answer is no! Link building is simply one side of the coin.

The other side is high-quality content. When you’re focusing too much on your linking strategies, it can be easy to forget that the number one ranking factor for Google is useful, well-structured, and relevant content. Once you’ve tailored your content to perfection, the next thing to tackle is attaining high-quality links.

In short, keeping the quality over quantity rule in mind, link building pairs beautifully with amazing content to drive traffic and boost your rankings.

How to Channel the Power of Link Building in 2022

Is Link Building Dead?

Google has gotten insanely good at identifying the majority of unnatural links that indicate black hat or gray hat tactics so they aren’t a viable option anymore.

Let’s take a look at which areas you should focus on in 2022 and how you can utilize the current digital landscape for SEO and marketing.

1. Experiment with New Content Mediums

In the age of social media and influencers, creativity is heavily rewarded. Putting all your eggs in one basket is simply not good enough. You have to innovate continuously and experiment with different mediums to create brand new opportunities.

The goal is to find link-worthy content ideas that cannot be easily replicated. Some good ideas include infographics, statistics, and graphs that provide bite-sized information in fun ways.

2. Make Valuable Connections

Modern link building is all about making meaningful and personalized connections with authors and publishers in the field. The days of cold emailing and spamming are gone. Instead of investing in mass outreach, you can get much better results with a more targeted approach.

Today you can engage relevant professionals through social media platforms such as Twitter. A good strategy is to start liking, retweeting, and commenting on posts by journalists and key figures in the industry.  The more personalized your PR pitch is, the higher the chances of getting recognized.

3. Enter the World of Influencer Marketing

Believe it or not, influencer marketing isn’t only made for Instagram-worthy consumer brands. When it comes to link building, influencers carry a lot of untapped potential. Collaborating with these public figures can boost your visibility and get you the right kind of attention. The key is to target influencers whose audience might be interested in your content and services.

4. Leverage Popular Trends

In our digital world, trends and hot topics rise and fall at lightning-fast speeds. But if your timing is spot on, you can leverage trends to attract a lot of attention. This requires being up to date with trending topics across the web.

But tread with caution because trends can plummet as quickly as they skyrocket. You have to race against time to create campaigns before your content becomes irrelevant. If you’re too late, your idea might just be a big waste of investment.

5. Delegate to a Trustworthy Link Building Agency

With new trends popping up all the time, SEO can be a rocky landscape to navigate, especially if your agency isn’t well versed in the latest tactics. In such a scenario, delegating these important SEO tasks to a link building agency could be the way to go. With a link building agency taking care of your SEO needs, you can focus on what really matters: building your brand and accelerating growth.

If you’re looking for reliable link building services to take your website to the next level, you can find everything from blogger outreach to relevant guest posting and much more at Outreachmama. Check out Outreachmama’s services for a holistic link building experience.

The Future of Link Building

Future of Link Building

While those sneaky spam-filled links are no longer the norm, Google still uses links to determine the trustworthiness of a site.

In fact, Google’s strict policies have elevated link building to a more quality-focused and targeted approach. With so much competition and market saturation, content that sets itself apart and provides real value comes out on top.

As far as the future of link building goes, there are many diverging opinions. The bottom line is: Until Google finds an alternate source of determining authority, links are here to stay. Remember, quality over quantity is the motto for the decade and this applies to both your links and your content.

Links aren’t dead, they’ve just been given a new life!

Is Link Building Dead?

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There was once a time when black hat SEO and spammy link building tactics reigned supreme. However, over the years Google has been slowly patching the loopholes in its algorithms. This has led many people to wonder whether link building is dead for good. So, is link building really dead? The short answer is no. … Continue reading "Is Link Building Dead?"Read More