Thoughts on current link building / seo outreach tactics

[Ed Swain]

Hi there,

I run a (fairly) successful ecommerce store, where we get the majority of our traffic from SEO. We run all SEO / Link Building / Outreach in-house. Whilst we are not yet ranking on page 1 for some of the broade, high volume search terms, we are slowly growing.

I'm interested to here what tactics other companies are using to build high quality links in to there websites?

Thanks

 

[fisicx]

The best tactic is to work hard on the site. Get this right and you won't need to do link building. Doing out reach work is mostly nugatory these days. There are some occasions when it adds benefit but most of it will be ignored by Google (because it's all self generated links).

 

[comperio]

Some of the techniques we use is outreach and swaps. Outreach can be done many different ways and results will vary. Regarding swaps, this is the benefits of having connections in the industry. Citations, infographics, press releases are other forms of links that we use. Nothing is really new since the past 10 years, it is mostly a question of doing quality white hat work.

 

[Ed Swain]

Some of the techniques we use is outreach and swaps. Outreach can be done many different ways and results will vary. Regarding swaps, this is the benefits of having connections in the industry. Citations, infographics, press releases are other forms of links that we use. Nothing is really new since the past 10 years, it is mostly a question of doing quality white hat work.

We do collaboration work with people and are focusing heavily on the PR side of things. You;re right when you say outreach hasn't really changed in 10 years, it's just got Google has got a lot smarter!

 

[Ed Swain]

The best tactic is to work hard on the site. Get this right and you won't need to do link building. Doing out reach work is mostly nugatory these days. There are some occasions when it adds benefit but most of it will be ignored by Google (because it's all self generated links).

I agree that the website needs to be the main focus and it's something that we constantly work on.

I slightly disagree about link building though. Providing the links from a high authority, trusted site then if definitely adds weight / trust flow to your domain. Crappy low quality links, however, have little or no value.

 

[comperio]

You;re right when you say outreach hasn't really changed in 10 years, it's just got Google has got a lot smarter!

Yes my comment was semi-satirical; but looking at it, the types of linking methods have not really changed from 10 years ago when outreach was already popular; but google IQ has certainly increased exponentially meanwhile, with the use of AI and their ability to better detect unethical methodologies.

 

[Nick Arthur]

I'm wondering what some posters mean by outreach? It certainly isn't self built links. I'd class self built links as blog comments, wiki's, press releases, forum posts etc. All very low value and unlikely to move the needle on competitive search terms.
It can be tricky getting good white hat authority links for ecomm sites as they are overtly commercial. Basically you are asking another site to send you traffic you can sell to.
It depends what you are selling and to whom. You need create really useful content that your audience will get value from then outreach to bloggers and site owners with the target audience you want to reach.

 

[fisicx]

I slightly disagree about link building though. Providing the links from a high authority, trusted site then if definitely adds weight / trust flow to your domain. Crappy low quality links, however, have little or no value.

And how are those links from high quality sites generated? Google can spot a promotional link a mile away so won't give you any benefit.

 

[fisicx]

You need create really useful content that your audience will get value from then outreach to bloggers and site owners with the target audience you want to reach.

You can but the SEO value of this is now very low - because everyone is doing it.

 

[Paul Carmen]

And how are those links from high quality sites generated? Google can spot a promotional link a mile away so won't give you any benefit.

The answer is it can't look promotional and should be of use to customers, or people reading about the topic!

It needs to look like an independent review of a product or service, or a write up on some process, service and somewhere with decent authority related to your industry and mention your brand/service/product or your onsite article offering customers very useful content. Ideally it will have a link as this allows customers to click through, but the relevant mentions of the brand, service, product, article are key, much more so than poor content with a link.

This comes from Gary Illyes at Google a few months ago and shows how much better their AI has got a detecting content, intent and detail on the web.

In essence though it goes back to how do you get the mentions (and links), the answer is as naturally as possible. In reality today that involves reciprocal work and lots of paid content building. Many of the growing online players are spending money offsite on campaigns on other websites that fit their customer demographic. Getting content written and published that looks like (or is) journalist copy, but in reality it is paid for content, just to a very high standard.

 

[fisicx]

The answer is it can't look promotional and should be of use to customers, or people reading about the topic!

Indeed. This is why link building for many just isn't worth the effort. If you want those really useful links you have to pay for them. Or you have to have a site that is so popular and authoritative that you generate loads of referral links. But if you have a site like that then you don't really need to do SEO.

 

[Paul Carmen]

Indeed. This is why link building for many just isn't worth the effort. If you want those really useful links you have to pay for them. Or you have to have a site that is so popular and authoritative that you generate loads of referral links. But if you have a site like that then you don't really need to do SEO.

This is all true, but for many companies their core market, or virtually their whole market is online, so they have to start somewhere!

They can't just give up because they're competing with big established players, they have to carry out SEO or PPC & attempt to outrank the current best in class for relevant organic searches, that's what SEO is for. This is the conversation we have with lots of clients, we are straight about it in all conversations & publications.

Essentially there are two ways of ranking, the black hat way; PBNs etc that still work, but are very likely to get you penalised & destroy your traffic long term when a Google update hits. We don't touch it & advise our potential clients to look elsewhere for that. The proper way; sort out your sites technical SEO, copy, content, reviews & local SEO. This is often enough for many small business with a bit of external content generation.

For those working with high volume geographic/national search terms & competing against existing strong industry players, then a budget is required to create the content & to get the content where its going to have an impact.

 

[jamesandjanie]

Yeah I think it's nearly impossible to have relevant, quality backlinks just because they like your content, even it's really a good content, the website won't do link to yours for free.

 

[StevePoster]

Link building is not complicated as the people usually look into it but its really simple and plain. You just have to find a good site approach them and present your one of a kind great content in which will trigger a call to action for the target audience.

 

[Nick Arthur]

You can but the SEO value of this is now very low - because everyone is doing it.

Both parts of that answer are just wrong

 

[fisicx]

Both parts of that answer are just wrong

Why?

Just like directory submission, articles, guest blog posting and other similar 'techniques' they have been devalued by Google.

Most outreaching is low level junk and mostly pointless. The occasions where it adds real value are far and few between.

 

[xoxoseo]

The best tactic is to work hard on the site

and provide useful content

 

[seoauthority]

Please ignore the people telling you that "link building" is worthless - it's a fundamental part of how search engines work and how it will continue to work in the future.

Links is how the internet works and what differentiates it from all other medium. The value and placement of these links is a critical factor in determining the importance of web pages.

With that out of the way, most cheap and cheerful link building tactics, such as article directories, comment spam, forum signatures, etc.. are utterly worthless.

Think to yourself, if anyone can get that link, without any cost of entry, then it is probably useless.

However, there are many ways to do linkbuilding right. Guest posting and blogger out reach is still an effective method.

Just remember, you have to be NICHE relevant in contextually relevant articles for this to work.

Other tactics that are successfully used are "linkbaiting". This basically means creating content on y our own website that is designed to go viral - either it is of such superior quality that everyone wants to view it, or it catches peoples attention in other ways. You then share this content on your social media in the hopes that it will go viral and produce backlinks all over the internet, including high-powered properties such as BBC, CNN etc.,

However, for tactics like that to work, you have to have a really effective social media strategy in place, preferably huge number of followers and a thorough understanding of content marketing.

 

[fisicx]

Please ignore the people telling you that "link building" is worthless - it's a fundamental part of how search engines work and how it will continue to work in the future.

The more fundamental part of how search engines work is the content on the site, internal linking, trust and authority. Get this right and in many cases you don't need links.

 

[webgeek]

Do an interweb search for top sites accepting guest posts. Make sure it includes authority and trust metrics, as well as niche.

Filter the list by niche, then sort by authority high to low. If the trust is 30% lower than authority, or more, ignore it. If the authority is below 30 (or even 40), don't bother.

Check the submit guidelines and write several non-promotional posts that are relevant to the submitted site, making sure you have a contextual dofollow link or a sig link - branded preferred or naked URL is fine too.

Aim these at your homepage and let the authority/trust flow down throughout your site naturally.

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Don't overlook internal linking. As you continue to build content, contextual linking between forum/blog/wiki/main site is a great way of beefing up the strength of a particular page/post that has terms you're trying to improve rankings.


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Don't like the advice? Don't listen to it. Your choice.

 

[Nick Arthur]

Why?

Just like directory submission, articles, guest blog posting and other similar 'techniques' they have been devalued by Google.

Most outreaching is low level junk and mostly pointless. The occasions where it adds real value are far and few between.

You've answered your own question. What you are saying is do it badly and it will have no value, do it well and it will have value.

I agree and so does Google

 

[Nick Arthur]

The more fundamental part of how search engines work is the content on the site, internal linking, trust and authority. Get this right and in many cases you don't need links.

Where are you getting trust and authority from??? Links?

 

[Khurram Aziz]

High authority guest posting is a very effective way of getting powerful backlinks which will help you rank highly in Google.

You need to go after sites that are difficult to get links on. For exmaple, getting your company mentioned in a Forbes article is certainly possible, but requires high level networking skills, building a relationship with editors, and producing good content worthy of an international audience. None of this is easy, no one said it was, but can prove extremely valuable to Google.

 

[fisicx]

Where are you getting trust and authority from??? Links?

The content. Get the content right and in the majority of case you don’t need inbound links. Internal linking can be very powerful and sufficient. Google has been saying this for years but nobody seems to listen.

 

[Khurram Aziz]

Here is a search I do to find guest posting opportunities: (just add your niche at the beginning of each search term and you should find guest posting opportunities).

"Add Articles”
"Add Content”
"Become a Contributor”
"Become a Guest Blogger”
"Become an Author”
"Bloggers Wanted”
"Blogs Accepting Guest Posts”
"Blogs that Accept Guest Blogging”
"Contribute”
"Guest Blogging Spot”
"Guest Contributor”
"Guest post by”
"Guest Post Guidelines”
"Guest Post”
"Places I Guest Posted”
"Publish Your News”
"Submit a Guest Post”
"Submit an Article”
"Submit News”
"Submit Post”
"Submit Tutorial”
"Suggest a Post”
"This is a guest article”
"Want to Write for”
"writers wanted"
“Add Guest Post”
“Become a Contributor”
“Become a Guest Writer”
“Blogs that Accept Guest Bloggers”
“Blogs that Accept Guest Posts”
“Community News”
“Contribute to our Site”
“Group Writing Project”
“Guest Bloggers Wanted”
“Guest Bloggers Wanted”
“Guest Posts Roundup”
“My Guest Posts”
“Now Accepting Guest Posts”
“Submission Guidelines”
“Submit a Guest Article”
“Submit Article”
“Submit Blog Post”
“Submit Guest Post”
“Submit News”
“Suggest a Guest Post”
“The following guest post”
“This guest post is from”
“This guest post was written”
“Write for Us”
"submit guest post”
“accepting guest posts”
“contribute to our site”
“contributor guidelines”
“guest bloggers wanted”
“guest post courtesy of”
“guest post opportunities”
“write for us”
accepting guest posts
become a guest blogger
become guest blogger
guest blogger wanted
submit a guest post
submit guest post
submit your guest post
submit your own guest post

 

[fisicx]

Do this and you will achieve nothing of use. There are authorative sites where you can guest blog but your suggestions won’t find them.

 

[webgeek]

If its ecommerce website, focus simultaneously on social media optimization as well. Try to gain more and more traffic from social media, do guest blogging, especially content marketing and email marketing.

You try to use social media. I'll try to use organic SEO.

If we both do a decent job, which do you think will bring more recurring profits to the store?

I'll take organic SEO every time.

 

[webgeek]

Firstly you need to hire SEO Expert for your projects than you can get a good ranking, otherwise, you need to get much knowledge about SEO, Link building process etc.

While I agree in principle, I gotta ask.... how much SEO knowledge do you need in order to hire an SEO expert (and not hire an SEO charlatan)?

I'm afraid the answer is that you need about as much to hire someone as you need to do it yourself. Avoiding SEO knowledge isn't the path to success, unless you're incredibly lucky.

 

[Dutch Digital]

I think it is better to focus on content marketing. Write content that people are interested in and like to share on social media and other blogs.

Maybe it will be picked up by website with high Domain Authority. It is better to go after quality links then quantity.

Link keywords in your article to the product pages so you will have different anchor text. Internal linking also counts toward the back links.

 

[Simon-M]

I love this thread. It goes from reason to unintelligible to reason to unintelligible. Do you think that might be because some of the posters are from the sub continent and their version of SEO has not moved on since 1995.

Mind you, I wonder where this magic trust and authority comes from and who is measuring it and how it's scored. It's quite possible that a site has poor trust with google for instance and yet still ranks in spite of that poor trust. It's also possible that some sites look like high authority sites and yet they are being held back by google but still ranking high in spite of that.

The only company that can measure authority and trust with any real worth is google and they aren't telling. Everything else you see proclaiming it is a guess based on the colour of pixie dust.

 

[webgeek]

Yeah Simon you definitely can rank with low trust. Happens a lot.

The less the gap between trust and authority, the lower the volatility and higher the durability of rankings, in my anecdotal experience of a few hundred sites.

However, you don't have to be sub-continent to have crazy notions or use outdated practices. There's a lot of high street agencies still using techniques from pre-penguin. Bringing them into the modern era would only get your a modernised team of soon to be outdated juniors.

Whether any of the biggies like Majestic, SEMRush, Moz, have reversed enough of the algorithm only matters if you take a sip of their Kool-Aid and test the outcome.

IMHO (or not so humble opinion), domain authority/authority flow is good enough for me. Combine it with trust flow, and I've got enough metrics to do a quick assessment. After that, it's a matter of geolocation and content relevance - two more quick checks.

Use whatever you want in assessing backlink potential. But after enough sites and enough links, you'll have your own conclusions about what to trust.