Link Building Reality: Stop Chasing What You Think is Gold

netmoney1

netmoney1

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I had a link in my signature promoting kick ass links, from sites like Forbes, HuffPo, Tech Crunch, Venture Beat, etc.

I took it down?

Why?

?because 99.645676547689% of people don?t need a link on these sites and would never be given a link on these sites. Most people are under the impression that as long as they pay they are ?in? but that isn?t how it works. An editor at these sites would be on the street within minutes if they allowed pure shit to be linked in their content.

I got requests from people with websites that have no business being on these websites?and there is nothing wrong with that?and truthfully, spending $1K - $1.5K on a single link is a total waste of money for most sites.

The lure of these tops sites is exposure and referral traffic??SEO link value? is a distance 3[SUP]rd[/SUP].

Do you think someone reading Forbes is going to be interested in clicking on a link for a ?dog training tips? blog? No. Complete waste of money.

Now, what about a company like salesforce.com or constantcontact.com? They will see a value ? a single link there is going to generate new business for them?the SEO value is just a bonus.

Even local ?real? businesses aren?t going to benefit from these links. That money could be applied to so many better avenues. I had an SEO reach out for a client wanting a great link. When I said sorry it wouldn?t fly they replied back with something like, ?Well the client really wants a link there? ? which proves this person is a shitty SEO. He should have educated the client and showed him how that $$ could be applied to produce a better return.

I wanted to give a couple examples of how that money can be spent other ways. Let?s just take a $1K link as an example. One single link on a mega site.

How could that grand be used other ways to not only get more eyes on the site but also benefit the SEO?

Better Business Bureau

I fucking hate the BBB. They are a complete racket. But guess what? Consumers trust them and it is a nice link to add to any website link profile. Great link and the BBB logo builds instant trust. As long as you have a legit business entity that has been registered for more than a year you can join. The average BBB yearly dues are about $420. That is 42% of what you were going to pay for a juicy link on another site?leaving you with $$ left over to go after more link opportunities below.

Chamber of Commerce

A local business is better off joining the local chapter (varies ? usually around $800 - $1K per year for a small business?most chapters base your fee on the size of your business) ? you get a nice link and the networking opportunities will help you grow your local business 100 times more than a single link on a major site will. Want a link on Huffington Post that really won?t do much?or a link on your local chambers site as well as networking opportunities? The choice should be obvious?

Local Nonprofits

Want links on .org domains with high metrics? Look for local nonprofits in your city. So many of them have sponsorship opportunities that can be as low as $25 per year (and include a link) ? let?s just pretend you end up paying $100 per. This means you can get 10 great .org links for the same price. When you do this locally it also helps you build relationships that will lead to business growth outside of SEO.

Local Schools

Same as above, most school systems have sponsorship opportunities. Fundraiser events, sport team sponsorships, etc ? all opportunities to get links on kick ass sites. You can secure a handful of these for the same price as a single link on a major site. These will often have the same type of metrics?but again, the value here is establishing your business as a community partner.

Local Businesses

Yeah yeah ?Google doesn?t like link exchanges? but you can get around it by doing local business profiles on your site. Seek out opportunities based on link metrics and relevancy. Potential to get referral traffic and a SEO boost? It?s a nobrainer. Purchase ?local business reviews? from other businesses ? for a few bucks they will do it.

Link diversity is key ? and these are such easy ways to diversify you link profile, juice your SEO and improve your local visibility.

Stop assuming a single link on Forbes is going to magically push you or your client to #1 and change everything. For 99% it won?t do shit.
 
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Good points and an eye opener. Why waste so much money on a link expecting wonders when its totally unneeded and pointless for the niche.
 
you stop providing that service ?
 
that is by far the most truthfull and straight to the point thread i have read in a long while . Thanks for taking out netmoney :)
 
silverjubilee said:
Good points and an eye opener. Why waste so much money on a link expecting wonders when its totally unneeded and pointless for the niche.
Click to expand...

It isn't a waste for some...but the majority can spend the $$ elsewhere and see far more benefit.

Nut-Nights said:
you stop providing that service ?
Click to expand...

Not promoting it here - complete waste of time to be honest. If companies have a $10K+ monthly budget for links and want long term, then yes.

lilmasta said:
that is by far the most truthfull and straight to the point thread i have read in a long while . Thanks for taking out netmoney :)
Click to expand...

Welcome - glad you enjoyed it.
 
Perfect Info.
for local SEO, I always prefer getting links from niche relevant local traffic site. This is what things work, IMO.
Local school is something out of box for me,strongly agree with this. I'll surely add this to my list quickly.
 
Well Netmoney1 you basically just highlighted an issue I have found as well. A lot of people
just want to see green arrows in their rank tracker and bank while not understanding the
requirements real authority site links like you were selling want to see.

As a matter of fact those Authors who will publish an article with a link are hard to find, make plenty
of money without catering to the average Joe, and will not post junk for even good money because
their not going to risk their ass.

It has to look convincing and be paid for with serious cash if you want those types of links. A hard
market to find to pitch those services to honestly. Great value in them for the few who do want them.

BBB? Ha! Their a bunch of con artist who have businesses over a barrel and sheep convinced, nevertheless
I have found that in business I can't change that so I master the BBB bullshittery the best I can.

For serious local SEO clients I definitely do my best to get them links via charities. You have to give a little
bit and work with people to get what you need SEO wise.

PS: Everyone wants the quick investment with a big return but not very many people want to build websites
like properties and end up with some solid sites that can't be shaken.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Thank you for outlining this to the members. Somehow I had success with these links regardless of what you wrote above. They are kick starting my sites and they get them rank faster.. not sure how it goes on long term for them.
 
SkyrocketSEO said:
But I just wanted to order some links for my new dog drugs site
Click to expand...

LOL - I think we must have been contacted by the same person hahaha

I def recall a pet drug company wanting a nice juicy keyword anchor on Forbes and HuffPost hahaha
 
Most people in IM simply pollute the internet with garbage (on BHW often referred to as a 'high-quality 500-word article'). The only sites that will be willing to host a link to their shit site are sites created for that purpose (PBNs).
 
Last edited:
I agree with OP and we've had some discussions about the topic in PMs, but I think in some cases these links can benefit people.
As I mentioned in the other thread, I had a 90+DA site give me a link in an article. The article got a ton of links and the article is currently a PA67. Now that's huge, and holds tremendous value. But like OP said, if your site is about dog training, you're just throwing money away. There are many high DA sites that these paid articles simply fade away because they aren't interesting.
 
Newbie checking in here. GREAT ADVICE.

I have one site which is for my own primary business. My competition is all featured in top 'sites' with often paid links. Some competitors have 1mil links plus, loses thousands a day and keeps spamming more links.

To keep up with these dogs, I have purchased a HQ link or two and it has helped for brand exposure. But I got no real SEO improvements from it. I just was able to put on my website 'featured in CNN, Washington Post, etc". It helps me solidify leads, but did nothing for my SE rankings.

For other sites, which are do not need brand exposure on a national level, I think it is insane to even buy a 300 dollar link. I never once thought my authority or niche site needed that type of exposure.
 
Great, pointers in this thread, thanks for the gems. Agreed, most only want to see little green arrows, but with no other real value behind them.
 
This thread basically just shit on what I've been planning to do for the last 2-3 months.

I have 2 main local industries I'm in. 2 competitors who've been holding steady #1 rankings for more than 5 years now. But each has a completely different strategy.

The 1st competitor (dominates organically) has only 212 links and 44 of those links (1/4 of his entire profile) are links from the BBB.

Here is a screenshot of most of them:

UmvrE0h


So naturally I agree with the BBB being important for SEO. For social proof, in our position, they offer nothing. We have 11 certifications and 2 significant awards over the last 3 years. I've split tested the logo on our site and it had no effect on conversions. I also know referral traffic from the BBB is shit. But I can see how it can help a business with no social proof at all. And I do see the SEO value. I'm just not sure if it's worth $420.

We do plan on registering with the BBB sometime within the next year or 2. But I can't come to terms with the math at this current point.

First, $1,000 a link sounds juicy. But it also sounds a bit out of touch with reality. How many local businesses will REALLY spend that much money for 1 link? Maybe I'm out of touch with reality myself, but most business owners I know and talk to would not pay that much for 1 link.

The majority will find more economical ways if they're smart.

Now you mentioned in place of a link like that.... the BBB for $420. However, I'm having a hard time understanding why you denounce a series of authority platforms just to position another authority platform in place of them? I'm not quite understanding the logistics behind that.

And how did you get the number $1000 from a mega site when people are selling domains right on this forum with multiple links from sites like forbes, tech crunch, huff po for $50-$75 a domain? Are you saying those domains aren't worth their salt?

Please keep in mind, I'm not trying to degrade your advice. I have high regards for the advice you give on this forum. And I'm definitely not a pro at SEO.

But I'm trying to make myself a pro at lead generation.
I'm trying to extract more value from my market than any of my competitors.
I own a business with my brother.

Our protocol for the next few months includes:

1) SEO, The Foundation - I know from experience how important #1 organic rankings are. They have always delivered us a great ROI so I plan on roughly 40% of our traffic coming from SEO. Because of this our goal is to build a PBN for our site, and we planned on buying up relevant domains with links from the sites you seem to have denounced. I should also note that I'm not being paid for my sig. I'm promoting it for free for a fundamental concept. I want to see marketers stop buying public PBN links and move to the realm of building their own PBN's.

2) Review Sites - Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, Insider Pages, etc. We have built up more reviews on these sites than any of our competitors. And so we dominate anytime searches in Yelp, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, etc. Google is more volatile since they're always rotating the 7 packs. This is some of the most highly qualified traffic we get. As in, it converts the best. Problem is it doesn't come in volume like the traffic we'd get from #1 organic rankings. The boxes usually start at #4 if they show up at all and lately they have been showing much at all. So I'd estimate that around 20% of our traffic would come from review sites. The % is higher right now but will be driven down as organic rankings get back up.

3) Geo-targeted YT videos - For local businesses this is great. Target a few hundred long tails, slowly get the videos up. You may not get a swarm of traffic but if the videos are good, the leads are good and they're very easy to rank. I'd say roughly 10-20% of our traffic comes from our YT videos. The volume is somewhat similar to our review sites.

4) Networking - We network with a few major insurance companies and real estate agents. But there is no system in place. We just serve their clients solid. It's more of a good will thing. If we waste an hour or 2 inspecting a house, we won't charge the client. The agents love us cause of that. So once and a while they throw us referrals. I'd say around 5-10% of our leads come from here.

5) Paid Traffic - This is something we have never implemented. And I don't plan on implementing it till we have a solid center of gravity in place.

6) Direct Mail - Never implemented. AFAIK it's hard to track. We're not in an industry of repeat business. We serve our customers once and they never need to come back again. So mailing out to our list wouldn't provide a very sustainable ROI.

7) Email marketing - We do a little bit of it. Only up until the point of sale. After then we scrub from the list. And our list is very small since our market is very small. But the profits are huge so we do whatever we think is worth our time. I'd say like 5% of our leads comes from here.


Anyway, that's how it is for us.

At 1 point we dominated organically. Now we don't. Most keywords rank between 5-22. So that's the first thing we need to get back in order. When we had those #1 rankings we were in a position to grow and expand... to spend money on the BBB, to waste time networking at the COC, to perhaps sponsor events and gamble some money on billboards, direct mail or PPC. But right now we're not dominating organically. And BBB is not high up my list of things to do. I plan on getting where we need to be with a PBN. And that PBN will sure as hell have sites with links from tech crunch, yada yada.

I'm not sure if I'm on the right track but I do know I can't sustain my business on the BBB, COC, Local Non-Profits... or TBO anything you wrote.

The amount of time you'd have to waste networking... it's just not conducive to an efficient business.
 
BreaknBrix said:
This thread basically just shit on what I've been planning to do for the last 2-3 months.

I have 2 main local industries I'm in. 2 competitors who've been holding steady #1 rankings for more than 5 years now. But each has a completely different strategy.

The 1st competitor (dominates organically) has only 212 links and 44 of those links (1/4 of his entire profile) are links from the BBB.

Here is a screenshot of most of them:

UmvrE0h


So naturally I agree with the BBB being important for SEO. For social proof, in our position, they offer nothing. We have 11 certifications and 2 significant awards over the last 3 years. I've split tested the logo on our site and it had no effect on conversions. I also know referral traffic from the BBB is shit. But I can see how it can help a business with no social proof at all. And I do see the SEO value. I'm just not sure if it's worth $420.

Every business is going to have a different use for the BBB. They fucking suck. I hate them. They are a complete racket. BUT...the link is good and I've tested the shit out of the BBB logo on landing pages for various PPC campaigns and putting that logo near the form always pulled harder. Again, every business will be different. For pure link value, $400 is great and it is on par with some of the mega site links in terms of authority....so instead of paying $1K+ you can spend $400 and take advantage of the other benefits. Logo on TV ads, mentioning "A+ rated with the BBB" on radio, etc.

We do plan on registering with the BBB sometime within the next year or 2. But I can't come to terms with the math at this current point.

First, $1,000 a link sounds juicy. But it also sounds a bit out of touch with reality. How many local businesses will REALLY spend that much money for 1 link? Maybe I'm out of touch with reality myself, but most business owners I know and talk to would not pay that much for 1 link.

There is a line of businesses....from local to national...with their wallets open wanting links on these sites. They "believe the hype"...

The majority will find more economical ways if they're smart.

Most aren't smart. That is what triggered this post.

Now you mentioned in place of a link like that.... the BBB for $420. However, I'm having a hard time understanding why you denounce a series of authority platforms just to position another authority platform in place of them? I'm not quite understanding the logistics behind that.

The price. $1,500 for Forbes or $420 for the BBB? In terms of SEO...both are very similar. The BBB option gives the business owner $1,100 extra to use for other marketing/SEO.

And how did you get the number $1000 from a mega site when people are selling domains right on this forum with multiple links from sites like forbes, tech crunch, huff po for $50-$75 a domain? Are you saying those domains aren't worth their salt?

Totally different game. That is like comparing apples to oranges.

Please keep in mind, I'm not trying to degrade your advice. I have high regards for the advice you give on this forum. And I'm definitely not a pro at SEO.

But I'm trying to make myself a pro at lead generation.
I'm trying to extract more value from my market than any of my competitors.
I own a business with my brother.

Our protocol for the next few months includes:

1) SEO, The Foundation - I know from experience how important #1 organic rankings are. They have always delivered us a great ROI so I plan on roughly 40% of our traffic coming from SEO. Because of this our goal is to build a PBN for our site, and we planned on buying up relevant domains with links from the sites you seem to have denounced. I should also note that I'm not being paid for my sig. I'm promoting it for free for a fundamental concept. I want to see marketers stop buying public PBN links and move to the realm of building their own PBN's.

Building your own network of niche related sites is smart. Combine that with some nice juicy .org domains using the nonprofit and school route I mentioned to really see a push up.

2) Review Sites - Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, Insider Pages, etc. We have built up more reviews on these sites than any of our competitors. And so we dominate anytime searches in Yelp, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, etc. Google is more volatile since they're always rotating the 7 packs. This is some of the most highly qualified traffic we get. As in, it converts the best. Problem is it doesn't come in volume like the traffic we'd get from #1 organic rankings. The boxes usually start at #4 if they show up at all and lately they have been showing much at all. So I'd estimate that around 20% of our traffic would come from review sites. The % is higher right now but will be driven down as organic rankings get back up.

Keep encouraging your clients to leave reviews. Keeping up your pace will prevent the other competitors from catching up. They are getting very good at blocking fake reviews, so as long as you do this above board you will only improve.

3) Geo-targeted YT videos - For local businesses this is great. Target a few hundred long tails, slowly get the videos up. You may not get a swarm of traffic but if the videos are good, the leads are good and they're very easy to rank. I'd say roughly 10-20% of our traffic comes from our YT videos. The volume is somewhat similar to our review sites.

Keep rolling and don't slow down.

4) Networking - We network with a few major insurance companies and real estate agents. But there is no system in place. We just serve their clients solid. It's more of a good will thing. If we waste an hour or 2 inspecting a house, we won't charge the client. The agents love us cause of that. So once and a while they throw us referrals. I'd say around 5-10% of our leads come from here.

Chamber of Commerce is a networking GOLD MINE. Especially if you get referrals from RE agents. Most COCs are swarming with agents.

5) Paid Traffic - This is something we have never implemented. And I don't plan on implementing it till we have a solid center of gravity in place.

Once you master paid traffic you will wonder why you ever dealt with the stress of SEO :D

6) Direct Mail - Never implemented. AFAIK it's hard to track. We're not in an industry of repeat business. We serve our customers once and they never need to come back again. So mailing out to our list wouldn't provide a very sustainable ROI.

7) Email marketing - We do a little bit of it. Only up until the point of sale. After then we scrub from the list. And our list is very small since our market is very small. But the profits are huge so we do whatever we think is worth our time. I'd say like 5% of our leads comes from here.


Anyway, that's how it is for us.

At 1 point we dominated organically. Now we don't. Most keywords rank between 5-22. So that's the first thing we need to get back in order. When we had those #1 rankings we were in a position to grow and expand... to spend money on the BBB, to waste time networking at the COC, to perhaps sponsor events and gamble some money on billboards, direct mail or PPC. But right now we're not dominating organically. And BBB is not high up my list of things to do. I plan on getting where we need to be with a PBN. And that PBN will sure as hell have sites with links from tech crunch, yada yada.

I'm not sure if I'm on the right track but I do know I can't sustain my business on the BBB, COC, Local Non-Profits... or TBO anything you wrote.

Everything mentioned is related to securing awesome links. Nonprofits and schools will typically have kick ass .org domains with juicy metrics and if you get clever you can round up a bunch of them. My point was to get creative and use these options to get more great links...rather then blowing your wad on a single link. People are under the impression that their SEO troubles will be long gone with a single link from Forbes or Huffington Post. Not the case at all.

The amount of time you'd have to waste networking... it's just not conducive to an efficient business.

Securing any good link takes some work. Not so much networking. There is the opportunity via the COC...but not required. The COC is a great "local" link to go after.
Click to expand...
///////////////
 
edit: Just noticed you wrote a more thorough response. So please ignore my follow up response (if you saw it).

And thank you very much for taking the time. I really appreciate it dude. :)

-BB
 
Last edited:
Thank you for sharing your information.. I'm reading the entire thread and all the posts.. I already thought that most often you waste good money on most of the BST's here. And many of the startegies outlined are obviuos for spam and churn & burn sites only.

BreaknBrix said:
This thread basically just shit on what I've been planning to do for the last 2-3 months.

I have 2 main local industries I'm in. 2 competitors who've been holding steady #1 rankings for more than 5 years now. But each has a completely different strategy.

The 1st competitor (dominates organically) has only 212 links and 44 of those links (1/4 of his entire profile) are links from the BBB.

Here is a screenshot of most of them:

UmvrE0h


So naturally I agree with the BBB being important for SEO. For social proof, in our position, they offer nothing. We have 11 certifications and 2 significant awards over the last 3 years. I've split tested the logo on our site and it had no effect on conversions. I also know referral traffic from the BBB is shit. But I can see how it can help a business with no social proof at all. And I do see the SEO value. I'm just not sure if it's worth $420.

We do plan on registering with the BBB sometime within the next year or 2. But I can't come to terms with the math at this current point.

First, $1,000 a link sounds juicy. But it also sounds a bit out of touch with reality. How many local businesses will REALLY spend that much money for 1 link? Maybe I'm out of touch with reality myself, but most business owners I know and talk to would not pay that much for 1 link.

The majority will find more economical ways if they're smart.

Now you mentioned in place of a link like that.... the BBB for $420. However, I'm having a hard time understanding why you denounce a series of authority platforms just to position another authority platform in place of them? I'm not quite understanding the logistics behind that.

And how did you get the number $1000 from a mega site when people are selling domains right on this forum with multiple links from sites like forbes, tech crunch, huff po for $50-$75 a domain? Are you saying those domains aren't worth their salt?

Please keep in mind, I'm not trying to degrade your advice. I have high regards for the advice you give on this forum. And I'm definitely not a pro at SEO.

But I'm trying to make myself a pro at lead generation.
I'm trying to extract more value from my market than any of my competitors.
I own a business with my brother.

Our protocol for the next few months includes:

1) SEO, The Foundation - I know from experience how important #1 organic rankings are. They have always delivered us a great ROI so I plan on roughly 40% of our traffic coming from SEO. Because of this our goal is to build a PBN for our site, and we planned on buying up relevant domains with links from the sites you seem to have denounced. I should also note that I'm not being paid for my sig. I'm promoting it for free for a fundamental concept. I want to see marketers stop buying public PBN links and move to the realm of building their own PBN's.

2) Review Sites - Google, Yelp, Yahoo, Bing, Yellow Pages, Insider Pages, etc. We have built up more reviews on these sites than any of our competitors. And so we dominate anytime searches in Yelp, Yahoo, Yellow Pages, etc. Google is more volatile since they're always rotating the 7 packs. This is some of the most highly qualified traffic we get. As in, it converts the best. Problem is it doesn't come in volume like the traffic we'd get from #1 organic rankings. The boxes usually start at #4 if they show up at all and lately they have been showing much at all. So I'd estimate that around 20% of our traffic would come from review sites. The % is higher right now but will be driven down as organic rankings get back up.

3) Geo-targeted YT videos - For local businesses this is great. Target a few hundred long tails, slowly get the videos up. You may not get a swarm of traffic but if the videos are good, the leads are good and they're very easy to rank. I'd say roughly 10-20% of our traffic comes from our YT videos. The volume is somewhat similar to our review sites.

4) Networking - We network with a few major insurance companies and real estate agents. But there is no system in place. We just serve their clients solid. It's more of a good will thing. If we waste an hour or 2 inspecting a house, we won't charge the client. The agents love us cause of that. So once and a while they throw us referrals. I'd say around 5-10% of our leads come from here.

5) Paid Traffic - This is something we have never implemented. And I don't plan on implementing it till we have a solid center of gravity in place.

6) Direct Mail - Never implemented. AFAIK it's hard to track. We're not in an industry of repeat business. We serve our customers once and they never need to come back again. So mailing out to our list wouldn't provide a very sustainable ROI.

7) Email marketing - We do a little bit of it. Only up until the point of sale. After then we scrub from the list. And our list is very small since our market is very small. But the profits are huge so we do whatever we think is worth our time. I'd say like 5% of our leads comes from here.


Anyway, that's how it is for us.

At 1 point we dominated organically. Now we don't. Most keywords rank between 5-22. So that's the first thing we need to get back in order. When we had those #1 rankings we were in a position to grow and expand... to spend money on the BBB, to waste time networking at the COC, to perhaps sponsor events and gamble some money on billboards, direct mail or PPC. But right now we're not dominating organically. And BBB is not high up my list of things to do. I plan on getting where we need to be with a PBN. And that PBN will sure as hell have sites with links from tech crunch, yada yada.

I'm not sure if I'm on the right track but I do know I can't sustain my business on the BBB, COC, Local Non-Profits... or TBO anything you wrote.

The amount of time you'd have to waste networking... it's just not conducive to an efficient business.
Click to expand...
 
BreaknBrix said:
edit: Just noticed you wrote a more thorough response. So please ignore my follow up response (if you saw it).

And thank you very much for taking the time. I really appreciate it dude. :)

-BB
Click to expand...

No worries man. Good luck with everything.
 
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