Sure, let us give you a quick dive into the world of link building.
First of all, you can't think of backlinks as a quantitative factors. At least not in the most literal way.
"50000 links for 50$? You got yourself a deal, bro! That outta rank my site for "Diet pills", right? RIGHT?"
Quite frankly, this is a dangerous and outdated way to think about link building.
This approach may have worked back in 2009, when you could simply load up Scrapebox, xRumer, and co. on a VPS, hit a simple three-page HTML site with 100% exact match anchors and rank in the top 3.
But those times are long gone…
Google has evolved. The current iteration of the core algorithm has seen a lot of
drastic updates over the years and most SEOs adapted as link quality took the reign over link quantity.
So, let us give you a quick runaround on the most common links with a quick run down of anchor diversity.
Black hat vs white hat – what’s the difference?
You may read a lot about black hat links, white hat links, grey hat links, whatever...
Let us start by saying, that all your link building efforts involve a certain risk.
According to Google, any kind of off-page optimization (aka link building) is against their “webmaster guidelines” and thus “not safe”.
“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.”
So, by definition all type of links are risky.
Then what the hell is all this “white hat” vs “black hat” jibber jabber about?
The truth is: nobody knows…
The world of SEO is so
goddamn dynamic and we never know how and when the next iteration of the core algorithm will slap us in the face.
In the end we are all SEOs here… we are trying to anticipate the algorithms response to our SEO efforts.
We believe in hard facts and results. And fact is that links are still the #1 ranking factor.
Yes, even in 2020.
You need links to rank.
But we have absolutely no way to know what type of links will work in 6, 12 or 24 months from now. So which type of “hat” you are wearing is more a question of semantics. In the end, the terms “white hat” and “black hat” are just fancy ways to cater to your risk profile.
All we can do is adapt or die...
# A quick primer on anchor diversity
The days of blasting all your links with your exact match anchors are long gone and a balanced anchor profile is now more important than ever before.
What exactly does that mean?
You need to be mindful of the anchor texts you use for your link building campaigns.
You want to keep a natural anchor profile that is focused on diversity.
A natural anchor profile may look like this
- Branded & Raw URL anchors (70-80%)
- Generic / Other anchor (10-15%)
- Phrase Match anchors (5-10%)
- Longtail anchors (<5%)
- Exact match anchors (<5%)
## Branded & Raw URL anchors
These are your bread and butter anchors.
They are fundamental to keep your anchor profile natural and avoid over-optimization.
You can use a few variations of these, namely:
- Branded Anchors + (Partial) Exact Match / Phrase Match
- Branded
- Brand Name
- RAW URL
Example: Let’s say your exact match keyword is “gaming laptops” and your site is laptopgamersunited.com.
Your anchors could be:
- laptopgamersunited.com or https://laptopgamersunited.com (RAW URL)
- Laptop Gamers United (Brand Name Anchor)
- laptopgamersunited.com – the #1 source for cool gaming laptops (Branded + Phrase Match)
- Buy gaming laptops on laptopgamersunited.com (Branded + Phrase Match)
- Laptop Gamers United - Gaming Laptops (Branded + Exact Match)
- Latest reviews on Laptop Gamers United (Branded)
etc.
## Generic & other anchors
The idea behind generic anchors is similar to the branded variations. A natural anchor profile will have a good amount of generic anchor texts.
Examples:
- Here
- Website
- This article
- Link
- Review
- Source
You get the jist of it.
## Longtail anchors
Longtails are usually 4+ phrases long and target specific keywords that are closely related to your main keyword, in this case “gaming laptops”. A lot of people will usually search for longtail keywords to narrow down the search results.
- Best gaming Laptops in 2020 (Longtail)
- good gaming laptops under 1000 (Longtail)
- Cheap laptops for gaming (Longtail)
- Best budget gaming laptops under 600 (Longtail)
## Phrase match anchors
Phrase match anchors typically include your exact match keyword in a sentence. These are great for diversity, while still adding relevance with your exact match keyword.
Examples:
- How to configure gaming laptops (Phrase)
- Best laptops for gaming and school (Phrase)
- Why gaming laptops are here to stay in 2020 (Phrase)
## Exact Match Anchors
Exact match anchors would be when you are just using your main keyword as the anchor text, in this case “
gaming laptops”.
If you keep the anchor ratios in mind, you should have a very natural link profile.
# Link building in 2020
A natural well diversified link profile is essential to claiming the top spots of the SERPs, whereas a homogeneous link profile is a red flag to any search engine and will result in a penalty sooner rather than later. By utilizing a healthy mix of different link types from a huge variety of IPs, CMS, platforms, TLDs, regions and websites you ensure this diversity.
You should also utilize tiered link building to make the most out of your off-page efforts. The basic idea behind tiered link building is to create several layers of backlinks with each layer pointing at the link layer above it passing link juice through different layers to your money site. Basically:
- Tier 1 links: These links point directly to your money site.
- Tier 2 links: These links are pointed to your tier1 links.
- Tier 3 links: These links are pointed to your tier2 links.
The idea is sound and it still works like a charm, if you use the right link types. So let's get into that. So, what links are still worth their $$$ in 2020?
## Editorial Links
Ah, the crème de la crème of link building.
Editorial placements are links (and sometimes mentions) on the biggest publishing sites in the world. You know, sites like:
- Huffington Posts
- Forbes
- Entrepreneur
- NY Times
- etc.
These links are as good as it gets. Most of the sites have a ton of authority which is reflected in their metrical baseline, e.g. Forbes.com
- Domain Rating of 93
- 792.000 Referring Domains
- 39M in traffic
That sounds like a good site to get a link from, right?
It is.
But these editorial links are very hard to come by and naturally always “pay to play”. Most of the big sites will charge you a hefty penny for one link, mostly upwards of $500 USD, that is if you have an in with an editor or publisher. In addition, most of the sites have strict guidelines and a very thorough vetting process of what gets published.
Having said that, these are great links for your link profile. Very natural, high authority.
- Risk Profile: Low.
- Relevance: High
- Authority: High
- Anchor text recommendation: Use branded and branded + exact match variations.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links.
#2 Outreach (Guest Posts, Link Insertions, etc.)
Links acquired via manual outreach work incredibly well these days.
The idea behind them is simple.
You find potential prospects in your niche, analyze them, filter for metrics (DR, Traffic, RD) and reach out to those that you think will be a great fit for a link to your site.
You then ask them to either publish a new post written on a topic closely related to your website that includes a link back to your site (a guest post) or to embed a link to your site into an article that was already published on their website (link insertion).
It is a numbers game though.
Don’t expect too many links for free. Most webmaster know the value of a guest posts these days and many will request a publishing fee that can range from $20 up to $500+. The better the metrics, the higher the price (usually).
Having said that, guest posts and link insertions are GREAT and work very well to rank your site. They are highly relevant to your niche (at the very least on the page level) and can pass a lot of authority to your site.
Do your due diligence though, there are many providers that mask their PBNs and sell them as guest posts, then there are your run of the mill guest post farms, shady link insertion providers etc. pp.
We recommend checking for the following before you buy any guest posts or link insertions. All you need is Ahrefs.com and Archive.org
Relevance – going back to our previous example of gaming laptops. First and foremost, you want guest posts or link insertions from sites that are broadly related to your overall niche. In this case this could be gaming, computers, tech, coding or entertainment. Having said that, you can still go for sites in unrelated niches, if their authority can make up for the overall lack of relevance.
Traffic - you want to make sure that the guest post site is ranking for some real keywords. There are a lot of guest post farms that boast real traffic, but only rank for streaming keywords like 123movies, Putlocker etc. We recommend to stay away from those.
Link Profile - check the referring domains and backlinks – you want to make sure that the site has a lot of quality, authority links pointed to it.
Check the history via archive.org – since when has the site been active? Has it been repurposed lately to sell guest posts? You want to make sure you check this.
Guest Posts
- Risk Profile: Low.
- Relevance: High
- Authority: High
- Anchor text recommendation: Use branded, branded + exact match variations or phrase match anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links mainly.
Link Insertions
- Risk Profile: Low.
- Relevance: High
- Authority: High
- Anchor text recommendation: Use branded, branded + exact match variations or phrase match anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links.
Other outreach links can include:
- Broken Link Building (reaching out to sites with 404 / broken links and offering your content as an alternative link source).
- Resource Link Building (reaching out to sites that wrote on your niche with links to competing pages, offering your content as an alternative and more informative source)uestographics (offering to provide a high quality infographic in return for a link to your site. They get some awesome media incentive, you get a link – pricey though)
# (Local) Citations
Citations are basically mentions of your (local) business throughout the web in authoritative directories.
Usually the NAP (Name, Address, Phone) is used to create a proper and full citation which is quite important for local SEO (ranking your GMB).Having said that, most citation directories give you the option to include a link to your website, so they work greatly to diversify your link and anchor profile for non-local websites too.
The most common citation sites are:
Citations are super safe, perfect for branding and even "recommended" by Google.
So, having a few high authority citations can NEVER hurt. Citations index slowly, so pointing a few links at them will greatly improve your success with them.
- Risk Profile: Low.
- Relevance: Low-Medium
- Authority: Medium-High
- Anchor text recommendation: Use branded, branded + exact match variations or phrase match anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links and power them up with tier 2 links.
## Web 2.0 Links
Web 2.0 links are basically mini blogs created on free platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, Livejournal, Blogger, and many, many more.
These blogs are usually created with relevance in mind. By adding a nifty little piece of unique content that is related to your niche, an about us, some stock images or videos, maybe an embedded map etc. you can customize them to your liking and make them look like a real branded mini blog.
Web 2.0s are very safe to use and a great way to add diversity into the mix, as long as you steer clear from the automated Web 2.0 spam with poor content.
Unfortunately, the authority for fresh web 2.0s is quite low as they are built on fresh subdomains. e.g.
coolgaminglaptops.wordpress.com. As a result, we highly recommend to point some tier 2 link to them to power them up as these web 2.0s can take a lot of link heat.
- Risk Profile: Low.
- Relevance: Medium - High
- Authority: Low
- Anchor text recommendation: Use branded, branded + exact match variations or phrase match anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links and power them up with a good chunk of tier 2 links.
# PBN Links
A PBN (private blog network) is usually created on domains that have incredible metrics and can pass a lot of instant authority to your site.
PBNs work exceptionally well as tier 1 links to snipe your exact match keywords and that’s what we usually recommend doing.
But you need to do your due diligence.
You only want to use PBN links directly to your site that avoid dreaded footprints that Google can find in the proverbial sand to identify the network and penalize your for using it.
A typical PBN site is easy to identify and looks like utter shité, i.e:
An ugly ass theme with no logo, no contact page, default sidebar and foot widget, no real customization, articles that cover a ton of niches with no topical relevance to be found.
You want to avoid those.
Key factors for a good PBN are (for your due dilligence)
- Hosted on unique and truly dedicated IPs
- Not using any custom nameservers
- Registered with a variety of reputable registrars (not all on the same date and not with dropcatch providers, they should use big ones like GoDaddy, Namecheap, Name etc.)
- Niche relevant sites with topical relevance in mind
- No thin or spun content is being used for the posts
- Customized with a unique logo
- Customized with unique about us, contact us and legal paper (privacy policy / ToS)
- Customized with a cookie banner (no GDPR compliance = big footprint)
- Using a variety of themes or at least differ in the way they look
- Not blocking bots (yep, we said it... sue us lol)
- Having proper Whois Privacy (in times of GDPR this is a privilege and not a footprint)
- Not interlinked in any way
- Using the right homepage version (root or www not both)
- Using internal links
Cheaper (non-niche relevant) PBN links work great to support your tier 1 links, like niche PBNs, Web 2.0s, editorials, guest posts or link insertions. You can pass a lot of power up the link pyramid if you support your guest posts and link insertions with 3-5 PBN links each.
Please make sure you have the approval to link to the guest posts or editorials first!
- Risk Profile: Medium-Higher (depending on footprints)
- Relevance: High (if niche relevant)
- Authority: High
- Anchor text recommendation: Exact Match Anchors, Phrase or Branded
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links if the PBN is niche relevant and power them up with a few tier 2 links. Use as tier 2 links if the PBN is not super niche relevant.
## Crowd Links
These are usually manually crafted links on targeted forums, social sites, Q&A sites and discussion platforms. They are great for link and anchor diversity.
We highly recommend adding a few of those in your tier 1 campaigns, but they work great for tier 2 linking too.
- Risk Profile: Low
- Relevance: Low - Medium
- Authority: Low - Medium
- Anchor text recommendation: Branded or Phrase Match anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links. Or use as tier 2 links and point them at your tier 1 PBNs.
## Press Releases
Press Releases are great for brand visibility. Get your news syndicated to hundreds of news outlets, while gaining a few respectable links at the same time? Sounds great.
They are incredible for anchor diversity, as most media outlets allow up to 2-3 links per press release.
They are very affordable too and low risk.
We highly recommend using 1-2 press releases just for the sake of diversity and branding.
- Risk Profile: Low
- Relevance: Medium
- Authority: Low - Medium
- Anchor text recommendation: Branded + RAW URL anchors.
- Tier recommendation: Use as tier 1 links
These are just a few link types that are commonly used these days. There are many more available here in the subforum, namely:
Whatever you do, do your due dilligence and research. Every link can be utilized in some way, be that on tier 1, tier 2 and tier 3.
Now get to it.