02. Answers to Hard Questions about link-building
Figure this out, and the feeling of calm will set in...
Today I’d like to answer something you’ve probably asked yourself many times.
Based on the clients I’ve worked with and my experience in general.
The first and most important…
1. How many backlinks do I need?
“It Depends” on the type of business you run:
Bootstrapped startups, first-time founders, solopreneurs
Should sustain from spending on backlinks until they will have their market fit.
At this stage, your best lead gen funnel is content distribution.
Write blogs and share them via GrowthHub or Growth Hackers or get launched at Product Hunt.
Use every free approach you can because backlinks and SEO take a lot of time, and you don’t have that much time.
Once you survive and prove your startup worthy, then your content strategy can come in, content production, and only after link building.
SME’s
Small medium biz usually builds around 10 DR40-70 contextual links each month.
They have relatively feasible competition and in most cases 10 links/month is fine.
Enterprise
Big businesses order links in large volumes because the competition is hard.
They can order more than 100 links inserts/guest posts per month + every editorial link they can get
2. What kind of backlinks do I need?
I somehow skipped the whole thing with sponge bob for some reason, but I find this meme quite accurate when it comes to link classification:
Tier 2 links
Forums, backlinks, directories, Reddit, Quora, etc - these links nowadays are neglected because of their low effect on DR score and are usually marked as spammy backlinks but not completely “dead“ or useless.
Build them to get the first shape of your link profile.
It shows google that your product is getting noticed.
The cheapest link type possible.
Inserts
Link inserts - are links placed in existing niche relevant articles on a general niche site.
Yeah, that sounds like a bunch of gibberish but this is how it works 🤷
Inserts are relatively cheaper than guest posts (newly published content with links) and can save your precious budget if your niche is common and it’s possible to find relevant spots for linking.
If your product or biz is super niche, better write new content and publish it on 3rd party sites - guest posts.
Editorials
Editorials are links from high-end sites with huge authority like DR70+ and can be achieved either through relationship link building (exchanges) or with some external help.
Why are editorials simply better than other types of links?
The essence of link building is to position yourself closer to industry leaders as much as possible.
Links from other digital companies can help with that because they are also working hard on their link profiles.
In some niches, (cloud, AI, chatbots, VPNs) if you don’t have at least 40% of common backlinks as your competitors have - you won’t be able to rank higher no matter how well your content is written and optimized.
You need to be interlinked within the niche if you want to be considered an authority.
Since you get a link from a trusted company with a badass DR70+ link profile -
your own DR improves rapidly.
Sure thing, we’re speaking about 10-15 editorials per month, a few of them won’t make the weather anyway.
When you get to the ordering links part, the link builder will start asking some questions:
3. What are your target pages?
Target page - is an old-fashioned way of SEO;
It’s a list of pages you want to rank higher in SERP
Link builders ask for a list of target pages to build links directly to them.
The importance of such selection usually confuses decision makers, and it doesn’t matter if it’s a founder or an in-house marketer.
Uncertainty tends to procrastination and stress.
I’ll make it really simple for you:
If you have a stream of natural links coming towards your site you can build direct links towards service pages, blogs, and homepage in equal or 3:2:1 proportions.
If you have a limited number of links coming, make 40% of links to your homepage and 60% towards service/blogs.
If you’re only starting building links from scratch, go 80% towards the homepage with branded anchors.
The older and more authoritative site you have the better control you have over your links and vice versa.
4. Do you have anchors preferences?
Anchor is how your link is wrapped up
For example: here are some amazing tips on how to perfect your anchors.
This is called a natural anchor or long tail anchor.
Anchor links is a direct anchor or commercial, or direct match anchors.
If your anchor term or phrase is divided or has a few extra words - it’s a partial match anchor, for example, “check anchor links here”
Getmentioned is branded anchor.
https://getmentioned.today/ is a naked link anchor.
So which anchors should I use?
Brand 100% safe
Natural 70% safe
Partial match is 50/50%
Direct anchors need to be applied very carefully.
Nowadays everybody goes with the first two.
If you’re unsure go branded + links towards your homepage.
P.S:
Personally, I find this “link building“ thing super boring, and I’m amazed to see that I’ve reached 100 subscribers lately.
I’m really keen to get a better idea of my readers.
Who are you, people?