Ratio Bought v Earned

tazarbm said:

google will only count the unique backlinks (the RD), so you can safely get more of them, 30 or even 100 extra backlinks won't matter when you already have 4000 of them.

You do need to drip-feed them, though even if your site is established. And if your site is new (less than 1 year old) I'd spread them over 2-4 months

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TLS23 said:

got it. That was my exact question. So since I only have 22 RD I should be pretty careful with going out and getting a bunch more at once. And I should drop the new ones. And yeah, my site is new. I registered the domain like 8 months ago, but only been up and running for two.

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tazarbm said:

well, I don't want to disappoint you or anything, but you will probably have to do a lot of work to grow in google's eyes. A new domain name that gets 4000 backlinks is a red flag to google. Now, I'll admit that I have no idea how google treats directory backlinks, and if it treats them normally (ie. it doesn't seen them as spam) then you should be OK with getting more backlinks as long as you drip-feed them.

On the other hand, if directory backlinks are seen as spammy you're in trouble already. Buy you can get out of it by posting content on your website regularly (like once or twice a week for at least 6 months, maybe 1 year) while at the same time building ONLY QUALITY backlinks (backlinks from safe PBNs, guest posts on websites with organic traffic, or even backlinks from web 2.0s that are hard to acquire by normal users). I would focus on only these backlinks, totally ignoring the spammy ones (profiles, blog comments, article directories, etc)... at least for the next 3-4 months, and I'd also make sure to not get more than 5-10 backlinks per month until the website starts ranking (or ranking again if you already ranked before). And when your site starts ranking I'd still continue posting content regularly (at least once a week) for another 3-4 months while continuing to build an extra 5-10 backlinks per month for the next 5-6 months or so.

SEO is not an exact science, but if you know how the googlebot works and by following a few (safe) steps like the ones I mentioned you will get those delicious rankings. The trick here is safety and consistency. In other words, only build safe links when your site is new (you can, and will need to diversify the backlinking profile when your site ranks in google and gets you organic traffic), and only build them consistently, in small batches. Building 4k backlinks at once is a bad idea, especially when they're low quality like directory backlinks

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tazarbm said:

I'm not familiar with those directories, but that's because I am not familiar with legal / attorney niches in general. But, if you say that the websites of other law firms get in those directories then you should be safe.

Just continue posting content and building backlinks at a safe pace and check your search console regularly and if you see steady but constant increase in traffic and / or clicks you've already gotten out of the (supposedly) bad zone. If you don't see anything changing in your stats (impressions and clicks) in your search console for 2 months AFTER you've posted content and built safe and quality backlinks for at least 3-4 months then there isn't much you can do other than wait. Well, you still need to post content regularly and build backlinks (SEO is a neverending game, and if you want good results you'll have to keep playing it forever) but you also need to wait. Google, sadly, treats new websites like shit, and only favors big brands, and aged domain names most of the time. If your site is new your best bet is to just go after low competition keywords which, most of the time, coincide with long tail keywords, but not always.

Another option - well, the best one actually, nowadays - is by posting topical content. Topical content is content that covers a broad topic in your niche, in great detail. This type of content is very powerful. If you can produce at least 3-4k words worth of content, well structured (with relevant sub-headings, bullet points, tables, lists, infographics, etc... well, only if it makes sense to have bullet points, tables, or infographics, otherwise there's no point in forcing those into your content) and which answers all questions that people might have on that topic... this type of content can rank you without a single backlink, but many people refrain from writing this because it's either too expensive (requires good research, and research is the costly part of writing an article), or takes too much time. That's why most people don't focus on topical content and prefer to target low competition keywords instead, but those who see the value in topical content and go after it rank without a single backlink and usually keep their rankings for a long time.

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TLS23 said:

Wow! Thanks so much. Luckily, I wrote like 10 articles on the topical pieces in my sub niche. Those were the 10 best keywords and figures that I’d give long form content a shot with those. Everyone else wrote like 1k words for the most part who targeted those KWs.

Thanks again for the thorough responses! I can’t thank you enough.

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MisterF said:

We have a client who is a law firm in the US, they have a ton of these directory links but he used them to a buffer site then links from the buffer site to his main site. What he does is comes to us for real links from legal sites which he uses on his money site.

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TLS23 said:

Interesting. So, he uses the buffer site the 301 redirects to his main site instead of sending like 4k links to his main site? That's a good strategy, and I've seen a site do something similar before. Mind if I pm you?

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