However, this mainly applies to dofollow backlinks. 

If a backlink is marked with the nofollow HTML tag, it tells search engines not to count the link towards the website’s SEO. 

Conversely, the dofollow HTML tag does the opposite. It tells search engines to count the backlink as an endorsement of your content’s quality, accuracy, and trustworthiness. 

Does this mean that nofollow backlinks aren’t worth building?

While it may seem that way at first, nofollow backlinks are still valuable. 

Even though they won’t have as strong of an impact on your rankings (there’s evidence that they still provide some, but more on this later), they can still:

• Generate referral traffic 
• Raise brand awareness 
• Balance out your backlink profile and make it appear more natural 

These are all significant benefits, so you should aim to build a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks, which is what we’re going to show you today! 

Stick around to learn everything you need to know about dofollow vs. nofollow links, including how to identify them quickly. 

What are Backlinks, Anyway?

Before we explore dofollow and nofollow links, it’s important that we quickly clarify what backlinks are and why they matter for SEO. 

If this isn’t your first rodeo, feel free to skip this section! 

A backlink is a link on another website that directs back to your website.

For example, here’s a backlink to our site on Semrush’s website:

They chose to link to our case study page to exemplify what strong case studies look like (we have an entire page dedicated to our success stories). 

Thus, linking to us made sense because it provides a valuable resource to their readers. Also, the fact that they linked out to us means they’re endorsing our content. 

That brings us to why backlinks matter on search engines. 

Remember how we said backlinks are commonly called ‘credibility votes’?

It’s because Google’s search algorithm views backlinks as endorsements of a website’s quality. 

Each backlink carries what SEOs refer to as ‘link juice,’ which you can think of as authority or ranking power.

For a backlink to have lots of link juice, it must:

• Come from a trusted website. Backlinks on low-quality websites won’t carry as much clout as links coming from high-quality sites that Google trusts. 
• Be relevant. The only way backlinks count toward your search rankings is if they relate to your website’s content. Irrelevant backlinks aren’t worth building. 
• Have the dofollow HTML tag. As we’ll cover more thoroughly in a bit, the dofollow HTML tag means the site owner wants to pass authority to the site it links to. 

The backlink above checks all these boxes, as Semrush is one of the most trusted names in SEO. It’s also a relevant link since it directly relates to the topic of the blog and our services (SEO case studies). Lastly, it’s a dofollow backlink because the folks at Semrush wanted to endorse our high-quality case study page. 

Backlinks are a hugely important part of SEO, and they’re a top ranking factor on search engines like Google. The entire practice of link-building centers around building backlinks, so it’s critical to know what they are and why they matter. 

With that out of the way, let’s dive into the specifics of dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

What are Dofollow Backlinks?

The dofollow and nofollow tags give site owners the power to choose which backlinks they endorse and which they do not. 

The dofollow tag is a green light for passing link juice, and is the site owner’s way of saying, “This is good content and we vouch for it.” 

A dofollow backlink from a high-quality domain is kind of like a mini letter of recommendation. 

Therefore, dofollow backlinks will have the most impact on your search rankings. 

This means that most of the links you try to build intentionally should be dofollow links, although that’s not always the case. 

The importance of balancing dofollow and nofollow backlinks

As stated in the intro, it’s important to maintain a natural-looking backlink profile that contains a balance of dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Why does this matter?

It does because Google’s algorithm can detect unnatural backlink profiles. Google does NOT want websites to artificially manipulate their algorithms just to rank higher, as that could mean ranking dangerous or misleading content at the top of page one. 

This is why they have search guidelines in place that prohibit things like buying backlinks, using link farms, and setting up PBNs (private blog networks). 

If the algorithm detects an unusually high number of dofollow backlinks pointing to your site, it may see this as a sign of manipulation, which could lead to manual actions (penalties). 

To Google, a truly high-quality website will acquire a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks naturally due to the strength of its content. As a result, the algorithm expects to see backlinks from news sites, social media profiles, forum comments, and other types of nofollow backlinks. 

What are the benefits of dofollow backlinks?

Okay, now that you know why achieving a balance is ideal, let’s look at the primary benefits of dofollow backlinks:

• Better search rankings. Since dofollow backlinks pass link juice, they have a direct impact on your content’s search rankings. The more dofollow backlinks you have from trusted websites, the more you’ll build trust with Google, making it easier to rank higher. 

• Generate more organic traffic. The whole point of ranking at the top of page one is to generate more traffic, which is thankfully what it does. If you’re able to improve your rankings with your dofollow backlinks, you’ll start generating more traffic as a result. If you do your keyword research right, the traffic will come from qualified prospects, increasing the chances of converting them into leads and customers. 

• Faster indexing. For any website to appear in Google’s search results, it has to show up in its index first, which can be easier said than done. Crawling the internet takes time and energy, which is why Google uses crawl budgets. However, if you have lots of dofollow backlinks, it’ll be easier for Google’s bots to crawl your content and make sense of your website, which leads to quicker indexing. 

• Boosted credibility. As long as you build backlinks on trusted websites, you’ll start to build your brand’s reputation. Not only will your rankings improve, but users will start to notice your brand popping up on important industry websites, which can help establish you as a thought leader in your field. 

These attractive benefits are why dofollow backlinks are such a powerful SEO asset. 

How to build dofollow backlinks 

Most link-building strategies center almost entirely around acquiring dofollow backlinks from relevant, trusted websites. 

While the goal is always a backlink, the way you build them is what changes from strategy to strategy. 

Here’s a brief look at some of the most popular dofollow link-building strategies in use today:

• Guest posting. This technique involves targeting websites in your niche that accept guest posts. From there, you reach out to the site owner via email to pitch an idea for a blog post. If they like it, you’ll get to create a post on their website, earning you a backlink in the process. This technique is so popular because it’s A) very effective and B) a great way to generate referral traffic. 

• Link insertions. A strategy that’s gained popularity recently is to target link insertions, which are also called niche edits. This is where you reach out to site owners to request that they insert a link to one of your pages in an existing piece of content. An example would be finding a blog where it makes sense to link to one of your products. A perk of this method is that it doesn’t involve any original content creation. 

• Fixing broken links. Nobody likes broken links, but they’re something every site owner has to deal with regardless. Savvy digital marketers found out that they could build backlinks by fixing broken links on other websites, which is a technique that’s still in heavy use today. In particular, you should look for broken links on relevant websites that have content similar to yours. That will increase the chances that you find a broken link that’s easy to replace (like if you have a similar blog post to one that’s broken). 

To learn more about link-building techniques, check out our Learning Hub guide. 

What are Nofollow Backlinks?

The nofollow HTML tag lets site owners link out to sites but withhold their endorsement. 

This means that very little link juice passes through. 

Notice that we didn’t say ‘no’ link juice, because that’s not true. 

Granted, when nofollow was first introduced, it really did negate any influence nofollow backlinks had on Google’s algorithms. However, that’s no longer the case. 

Here it is straight from the horse’s mouth (an official post on Google’s blog):

As you can see, Google now considers all link attributes (including nofollow) when determining its search results. 

However, the link juice you’ll receive will be minimal, and you’ll still get way more from dofollow backlinks. 

We just wanted to clarify that the commonly repeated statement that ‘nofollow links are useless for SEO’ isn’t true anymore. 

The benefits of nofollow backlinks 

So, why would anyone ever want to actively build nofollow backlinks?

There are a few reasons why, so let’s take a look at the main benefits of using nofollow backlinks:

• Preventing spam. This first benefit is from a site owner’s perspective, so it’s important to bear that in mind. Let’s say that you notice a user on your blog who keeps linking to their shady gambling site in the comments section. By hitting all user-generated content with a nofollow attribute, you won’t pass much link juice to these pages, which will discourage spammers from continuing the practice. 

• Avoid penalties from search engines. As mentioned previously, a balance of dofollow and nofollow links is necessary for your backlink profile to appear natural. As such, building some nofollow links will avoid suspicions of spam and manipulation. 

• Generate referral traffic. Even if you build a nofollow link on another website, it’s still a hyperlink that users can click on. This means you stand to generate referral traffic from each nofollow link you build. This is why press releases are a popular link-building tactic, even though Google requires all links contained in press releases to be nofollow. 

• Build brand awareness. Just as nofollow links can still generate traffic, they can also raise brand awareness. Even if a user doesn’t click on one of your links, they may still remember your brand name just by seeing it (especially if it’s catchy or clever). 

Popular nofollow links include links coming from social media sites, forum comments (without being spammy), and links in press releases. 

How to Check if a Backlink is Dofollow or Nofollow 

Before we wrap things up, you’re probably wondering how you can tell if a backlink is dofollow or nofollow. 

After all, if you have no way of distinguishing the two, what’s the point?

The good news is there are plenty of ways to identify dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Here are 3 methods to do so! 

Method #1: Using your web browser’s inspect tool 

The first method is the most technical, but it’s actually really easy to do. 

Right-click on any link you want to inspect, and click on Inspect or Inspect Element. 

If you’re using Safari on a Mac, you’ll need to go to Settings > Advanced Settings and make sure Show features for web developers is enabled. 

This will add the Develop drop-down menu to the Safari bar at the top of the page. From there, you’ll be able to inspect the web page and individual elements. 

What are you looking for when inspecting a link?

In the HTML, look for the <a> tag that corresponds with the link you’re inspecting. If you see a ‘rel=nofollow’ element, it means the link is nofollow. If there is no such tag, then it’s a dofollow link. 

Here’s an example of a nofollow tag on a Reddit comment (since it’s user-generated content, they made it nofollow to discourage spam). 

Let’s right-click on the link and hit Inspect Element:

This will take us straight to the link’s HTML, where we can clearly see the nofollow tag:

If you’re ever curious whether a link is dofollow or not, this method is typically pretty quick and easy. 

Method #2: Using our free backlink checker tool 

Next, you can always use our completely free backlink checker tool. 

It will show you any website’s backlinks, including whether the link is dofollow or nofollow. Simply enter the URL you want to check and hit View Backlinks Report. 

Here’s what some of our backlinks look like as an example:

As you can see, each backlink is clearly marked dofollow or nofollow. You also get to view the percentage of dofollow links the domain has, which comes in handy when analyzing competitors. 

Method #3: Using Ahrefs 

While our free tool is great, a paid service like Ahrefs will provide a more comprehensive solution. 

Sign into Ahrefs, and then navigate to the Site Explorer tool. Enter the URL you want to check, and hit the Search button. 

From the Overview, navigate to the Backlinks report on the left-hand sidebar. 

Here, you’ll get to see a complete list of the website’s backlinks. At the top of the page, you can choose whether to show dofollow or nofollow links with this filter:

This will help you quickly identify all of a domain’s dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Wrapping Up: Dofollow vs. Nofollow Backlinks 

Alright, we covered a lot so let’s do a quick refresher:

1. Dofollow and nofollow tags let site owners choose the links they endorse and the links they don’t. 
2. Building a balance of both link types is essential for building a natural backlink profile. 
3. Dofollow backlinks pass the most link juice and are most impactful on search rankings. 
4. Nofollow backlinks still pass some link juice but can also generate traffic and raise brand awareness. 
5. You can use your web browser, our free tool, or Ahrefs to identify dofollow and nofollow backlinks. 

Do you need help putting together a winning SEO strategy that includes a mix of dofollow and nofollow backlinks?

HOTH X, our fully managed service, will simplify your SEO success, and that includes a comprehensive link-building strategy that combines dofollow and nofollow backlinks, so you should definitely check it out.  

Don’t wait to get in touch for a free SEO consultation to discuss your needs in more detail!    

The post Dofollow vs. Nofollow Links: Everything You Need to Know appeared first on The HOTH.

The proof?

According to a legal trends report by Cilo, 74% of people use search engines to find legal advice. Also, research by Ahrefs found that 12,000 people search for the keyword ‘lawyer near me’ each month. 

These stats prove that SEO and local SEO are necessities for law firms, and one of the most important factors for both is link-building. 

The goal of link-building is to obtain backlinks, which are links on external sites that point back to your site. 

On search engines like Google, getting backlinks from trusted websites in your niche is how you:

1. Build trust and prove that your content is truly valuable 
2. Rank higher in the search results 

In our experience, backlinks are one of the most crucial ranking factors on Google. 

Without a robust backlink profile, outranking your top competitors (i.e., other law firms in your area) will become extremely difficult. 

This is because backlinks act as mini-endorsements of your content’s quality and accuracy. A backlink is another website’s way of saying, “This resource is valuable and enhances our content, so we’d like to link to it.”

You can think of backlinks as gaining ‘trust by association’ on search engines. 

For example, if a major website like CNBC or Forbes links to your content, it signals to Google that your content is high-quality enough to get featured in major publications that have rigorous quality control measures and fact-checkers. 

As a result, it’ll become far easier to outrank competitors who don’t have backlinks coming from such prestigious websites. 

That’s why law firms have every incentive to master the link-building process, which is what we’re here to show you today. 

In this guide, we’ll cover:

1. What backlinks are and how their quality differs 
2. Why backlinks matter so much for legal SEO 
3. Numerous techniques for building backlinks 
4. How to monitor and maintain your backlink profile 

We’re about to teach you absolutely everything you need to know about building backlinks for legal websites, so stay tuned! 

What is Link-Building All About?

First, it’s integral to understand what link-building is and its place in the overall SEO process. 

Link-building is the act of generating backlinks for your website. 

As stated in the intro, backlinks are simply external links on other websites that direct ‘back’ to your content, hence the name. 

As a quick example, here’s one of our backlinks found on the blog Best Keyword Research Tools by Rank Math:

As you can see, our free keyword planner tool scored a spot on their list, and they included a backlink to it as a resource for their readers. 

What does this have to do with SEO?

A whole lot! 

On search engines like Google, backlinks (like the one above) act as endorsements of your content’s quality, trustworthiness, and reliability. 

The reason why stretches all the way back to Google’s inception in the late 90s. 

A brief history of backlinks and their importance 

In the early days of the internet, search engine results pages (SERPs) were riddled with low-quality, spammy content. This was because site owners had long figured out the search engine ranking algorithms of the day, which were almost entirely centered around keywords (the terms you enter in the search bar). 

The more a website would use target keywords in its content (like ‘best lawyer near me’), the higher it would rank on search engines at the time. 

Google’s founders wanted a way to only rank the highest quality, most trustworthy content to provide their users with the best experience possible. 

This prompted them to develop the concept of using backlinks as credibility votes. It’s similar to how academics cite sources to back up claims they make on term papers. 

The idea is that if a bunch of trustworthy websites link to your content, it’s a sign that your content must also be trustworthy. 

Think back to the examples of CNBC and Forbes. These respected sites have quality control teams and fact checkers to ensure they only link out to the highest quality content. After all, their reputation is on the line, so they wouldn’t want to link out to shady websites that may steal user’s information (or scam them out of money). 

This is how the concept of using backlinks as a ranking factor was born, and it’s still very much in effect today. 

As a result, top-ranked websites on Google always have strong backlink profiles, which presents the need for the link-building process. 

Research has proven this is true, too. 

Backlinko found that the #1 result on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2 – #10. 

So, if you want to rank in the top 3 on Google, you NEED to build backlinks. 

Why backlinks are essential for SEO 

Besides making it easier to achieve top rankings, backlinks provide a whole host of other SEO benefits. 

In addition to gaining more ranking power, backlinks also provide the following:

• Chances to generate referral traffic. While most SEOs build backlinks to rank higher, you shouldn’t forget that a link on another website is a great way to drive more traffic to your site. This is especially true if the backlink you generate appears on an extremely popular site in your area of law. If you’re able to build high-quality backlinks for your most important legal pages, you’ll be able to use referral traffic to acquire new clients! 

• Enhance credibility and boost your reputation. High-quality backlinks won’t just boost your reputation in the eyes of search engines; you’ll also gain clout with your target audience. Your readers will start to notice if your law firm begins appearing on the sites and social media platforms they frequent, which will help spread awareness. Backlinks from guest posts and helpful link insertions can also establish you as a thought leader in your area of law. This means that members of your target audience will come to your firm first whenever there’s a new development in your field (or when they need legal expertise), which is an extremely powerful position to hold. 

So, if you want to generate more traffic and become a trusted law firm online, you should invest in a comprehensive link-building campaign. 

Not All Backlinks are Created Equal: Targeting Quality Over Quantity 

Not every backlink will have a positive impact on your SEO. 

Backlinks coming from low-quality, irrelevant websites will have little-to-no impact on your rankings whatsoever. 

This is why it’s never a good idea to build lots of low-quality links, despite what other SEOs may tell you (some still swear by quantity over quality, but they’re usually trying to sell bulk packages of crappy links). 

Signs of a low-quality website include:

• Clunky navigation and user interface 
• Slow loading speed 
• Junk content that’s either A) stolen, B) AI-generated, or C) nonsensical 
• Infrequent updates 
• No loyal followers/readers 

Should you notice any of these signs on a website you’re considering for a backlink, you should forget about it and look elsewhere. 

Google’s algorithm is quite adept at identifying low-quality (even spammy) backlinks, and it’s trained to devalue their impact. This means you won’t see any changes to your rankings, either good or bad. 

For this reason, it’s important to not freak out if you notice some lower-quality links pointing at your site (especially if you didn’t build them). 

It’s completely normal for websites to accrue backlinks of varying quality simply due to existing online, which is why Google’s algorithm ignores low-quality links. 

This is worth mentioning because some site owners panic when they see crappy backlinks in their profiles, which leads them to use Google’s Disavow Tool to get rid of them. 

However, the Disavow Tool should be a last resort, as it’s deceptively easy to misuse it and wreck your SEO as a result. Unless you had a direct hand in building a shady backlink (which would count as manipulation), you can simply ignore low-quality backlinks that appear in your profile. 

When it comes to the backlinks you build intentionally, though, you should stick to high-quality backlinks, which leads us to our next point. 

What makes a backlink high-quality for law firms?

In order to generate high-quality backlinks, you need to know what you’re looking for first. 

Here are the most important factors that make a backlink ‘high-quality’ to search engines like Google. 

Relevance

The first and most important factor is that your backlinks must hold some type of relevance to your legal practice. 

Even if a backlink comes from an extremely trusted domain, irrelevant backlinks are immediately devalued by Google’s algorithms. 

This is because an irrelevant link provides no value to readers and may cause confusion instead. For example, you wouldn’t want to build backlinks for your law firm on Amazon, because that would make no sense (even if Amazon is one of the largest websites in the world). 

Instead, you need to build backlinks that are directly relevant to your legal practice, which means targeting backlinks from:

• Legal blogs 
• Bar associations 
• Legal directories 
• Legal forums and social media pages 
• News websites discussing stories related to your area of law 

As long as the site linking back to yours relates to what you do in some way (like a news story mentioning your legal area of expertise), then it’s fair game. 

Authority 

Next, the domain giving you a backlink must have authority, which refers to the ‘weight’ or trust given to a page in relation to the other pages trying to rank for the same keyword. 

The more authority your website has, the easier it will be to outrank your competitors. 

In the SEO world, there are a few ways to measure the amount of authority a domain has on search engines. 

The two most popular metrics are Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) and Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR). 

While they’re both third-party metrics (not from Google), they’re still great ways to measure the ‘ranking power’ of a domain before pursuing a backlink from it. 

The higher the authority score, the more likely a domain is to appear in Google’s search results. 

Both DA and DR scores are measured on a scale of 1 – 100, with scores of 100 being the most authoritative. 

For us, we like to check a domain’s DA and DR before we make the decision to pursue a backlink. 

This is because there are slight differences between the two metrics, which are:

• Domain Rating strictly looks at a website’s backlink profile. If they have a diverse profile with plenty of strong backlinks, they’ll have a good DR score. 

• Domain Authority takes into account more factors than backlinks. It also considers things like content quality, keyword usage, and social media presence. 

We find that checking both scores gives us the most comprehensive view of a domain’s ranking ability, which is why we encourage you to do the same. 

Naturalness and diversity

Here’s where link-building gets a tad tricky. 

In order to enjoy SEO success, you need a balanced, natural-looking backlink profile. 

We recently posted a blog focused entirely on the importance of natural backlinks, so don’t hesitate to check it out to learn more. 

Essentially, Google wants to make sure that you aren’t manipulating your search rankings by intentionally building backlinks from high-quality domains. 

But wait, isn’t that the entire point of link-building?

Yes, but Google has a famous love/hate relationship with most link-building tactics (and SEO in general). 

While they know they can’t stop businesses from engaging in SEO to market their products and services, manipulating the algorithm to rank higher (like by writing guest posts on high-quality websites) makes them nervous. 

This is because it could cause untrustworthy, low-quality content to rank high on Google’s search results, harming their reputation in the process. 

As an example, imagine if a website selling fake crypto was to buy loads of backlinks to artificially boost its search rankings. Suddenly, their scam would reach millions of people by ranking in the #1 spot, and Google would basically be complicit in it. 

This is why Google wants to see diverse backlink profiles. 

Whenever a website generates backlinks naturally due to the strength of its content, it’s normal for a few low-quality backlinks to appear, too. It’s also normal to see backlinks from forum comments, social media sites, and business directories. 

Building backlinks from a diverse range of sources and levels of quality will make your backlink appear natural, which is what you want. 

How Law Firms Can Build Backlinks 

Okay, now it’s time to start learning how law firms can begin building the backlinks they need to rank higher, generate more traffic, and attract new clients. 

There’s no shortage of link-building techniques available online, but we’re going to stick with the ones that generate the best results for our clients. 

In a nutshell, there are four ways you can build backlinks for your law firm, which are:

• Adding backlinks manually. There are some websites, such as legal directories and forum comment sections, where you can manually add backlinks to your website. These types of backlinks tend to have minimal impact on search rankings, but they’re still good for generating referral traffic and building a diverse backlink portfolio. 

• Asking for links (email outreach). Next, you can reach out to site owners via email to request that they place one of your links on their site. There are several ways you can use email outreach to build backlinks. First, you can email a site owner and request that they insert one of your backlinks in an existing piece of their content (like a link to one of your legal pages). You can also conduct outreach to pitch guest posts (another great way to build links), and to fix broken links you found (by replacing them with one of your backlinks). 

• Earn backlinks. This is Google’s preferred method for site owners to build backlinks (it’s pretty much the only one they accept). It’s where you earn backlinks simply by publishing outstanding content that provides genuine value to your audience. If your content is truly valuable, others will notice, and you’ll start acquiring backlinks without doing any outreach. 

• Buy backlinks. While buying backlinks technically violates Google’s search guidelines, it’s still a widely adopted practice by SEOs around the globe. There’s a right and a wrong way to go about buying backlinks, which we’ll discuss in more detail shortly. Do it right, and you’ll boost your search rankings without having to waste months conducting outreach. Do it wrong, and you could land a manual penalty that removes your content from Google’s SERPs. The risk is great, but so are the rewards. 

Let’s take a deep dive into each of these techniques and provide examples so that you can get a feel for how each method works. 

Method #1: Manually adding backlinks 

First, let’s explore all the ways you can manually add backlinks to relevant legal websites online. 

Most of the time, this means uploading one of your backlinks and your law firm’s NAP (name, address, and phone number) to a legal directory. However, it can also mean adding backlinks to social media profiles and forum comments. 

The top legal directories online 

We’ll start with legal directories, of which there are many, and they’re not all worth your time. 

However, you can and should upload your law firm’s information to highly regarded legal directories to build backlinks and boost your online authority. 

Here’s a list of the best legal directories:

• Justia. Besides providing a legal directory, Justia also offers legal resources, meaning potential clients also frequent the website. 

• FindLaw. Owned by Thomson Reuters, FindLaw is one of the biggest legal sites online, so you definitely want to get your law firm listed here if you can. 

• Avvo. Out of all the options here, Avvo has the strongest user interface. It features in-depth lawyer profiles, client reviews, and a helpful rating system. 

• Martindale-Hubbell. This is one of the oldest and most well-respected legal directories, and it’s highly regarded within the legal community. 

• Super Lawyers. This is a prestigious directory that only lists top attorneys thanks to its rigorous selection process. 

Here are some legal directories specifically for personal injury attorneys:

• Personal Injury Warriors. Based in Los Angeles, California, Personal Injury Warriors is a legal directory for medical providers and accident attorneys. 

• The National Trial Lawyers. While this is a high-quality directory with a section dedicated to personal injury attorneys, it has rigorous standards and operates on an invite-only basis. Still, if you’re able to land a spot here, it’ll likely be worth the hassle (i.e., referral traffic and increased authority). 

Remember, legal directories are great for raising awareness and diversifying your backlink portfolio. Sure, you’ll probably get more raw ranking power out of a guest post on a top legal blog, but it’s equally as important to balance those links out with more ‘natural’ looking ones like these. 

Engaging in legal forums and social media groups 

Next, it’s beneficial to add backlinks to your website on forums like Reddit and social media groups on platforms like LinkedIn – but you have to go about it the right way. 

What you SHOULDN’T do is randomly plug your law firm on semi-related threads without any context and without building any rapport. 

What you SHOULD do is become an active member of these communities, regularly commenting and contributing original posts of your own. 

Whenever it’s truly appropriate, leave one of your backlinks as a helpful resource for a commenter or fellow group member. 

This will ensure that your comments don’t come off as spammy, which will land you in hot water with both forum admins and search engine algorithms. 

Here are some more tips for building backlinks on forums and social media sites.

Only link to your site when it truly adds value. 

The perfect time to insert one of your backlinks into a forum comment or social media post is when the link serves as a helpful resource for someone. 

For example, let’s say you’re posting on a Reddit thread related to your legal services, and a user that you regularly interact with is looking for a divorce attorney. 

This is the perfect time to provide a backlink to your divorce services (or family law) page. 

Another opportunity would be to link one of your blogs to help a user who is looking for information that you’ve written about before, like clarifying what a certain law means. 

Build trust first 

Before you start leaving backlinks all over the place, you should establish trust on the platform first. This means taking some time to get to know the regulars. Start commenting on posts, giving relevant legal advice, and engaging in friendly conversation wherever possible. 

Once you’ve built some rapport, then you can move on to adding backlinks to your legal pages. 

This step is crucial because it lets users know that you’re not just there to blindly plug your services. Instead, you’ll be a contributing member who adds real value to the community as a whole. That will increase the chances that users will take you seriously, and it will help you dodge any accusations of spam. 

Method #2: Asking for backlinks (manual outreach)  

Besides directories and forums, you won’t be able to manually add backlinks on other websites without getting the owner’s permission first (it’s a bummer, we know). 

So, in order to build backlinks on reputable legal websites, you’ll have to reach out and say hello. 

In particular, you need to conduct outreach for:

• Guest posts 
• Broken link-building 
• Unlinked brand mentions 

These are all cornerstone link-building techniques, so let’s take a closer look at each one. 

Finding guest posting opportunities 

Guest posting is one of the oldest link-building tactics, and it continues to be one of the most effective. It’s also one of the most popular ways law firms build backlinks online.   

The technique involves reaching out to other websites to write guest blogs in order to:

1. Leave a backlink to your law firm’s website 
2. Expose your practice to potential clients 
3. Generate referral traffic 

As you can see, there are plenty of upsides to writing guest posts, which is why it’s such a common practice. 

Here’s an example of a legal guest post:

Here, the author is writing about the risks of inappropriate usage of ChatGPT at law firms for Legal Insider, a website specializing in legal tech news.

Pro tip: If your firm specializes in technology cases, this website could be a viable guest post target for you (as they clearly accept guest posts). 

Directly underneath the title of the post, the site owner credits the author and leaves a backlink to their website, which was likely the reason they wrote the post in the first place. 

Now that you know what a guest post looks like, here are some tips on how to find relevant sites that accept them:

Use Google Search 

Google’s search operators are your best friend when looking for legal guest posting opportunities. 

By wrapping a phrase in quotes after a keyword, Google will only display websites that carry that text. 

An example would be searching for something like law firm “accepting guest posts” or law firm “write for us,” but there are lots of variations you can use. 

Here’s what happens when we search for law firm “write for us”:

Thanks to the search operator, the top 4 results are all legal websites that accept guest posts, which is exactly what we wanted! 

Other search operator terms to use in combination with ‘law firm’ include:

• “Guest post”
• “Write for me”
• “Submit a guest post” 
• “Guest article”
• “Become a contributor”
• “Contribute to our blog”

After using a few of these, you should have a long list of relevant legal websites to target for guest posts. 

Leverage your network

Search operators aren’t the only way you can find high-quality guest posting opportunities. You can also leverage your network of colleagues, referral partners, and fellow legal firms to find unique opportunities that aren’t as well advertised online (or at all).

Let your colleagues know that you’re interested in contributing an interesting post to a legal website. You never know what you may find, so it’s at least worth asking! 

Finding what to write about 

Once you find websites that accept guest posts, the challenge then becomes deciding what to write about. 

After all, if you don’t pitch an interesting topic to the site owner, the chances of them accepting it are slim to none. 

Luckily, we know several ways to ensure this doesn’t happen. 

Here are some tips for always finding relevant topics that site owners and readers care about:

• Browse the website’s existing library of articles. First, you need to understand the kind of stories the website mainly publishes. Are they about hot legal cases in the news, or are they more concerned about educating readers on specific legal concepts? Poke around their blog’s archive to get a feel for their style. 

• Do some relevant keyword research. The next step is to use some tools to find trending keywords related to the website’s overall topic. A good choice is our keyword planner tool since it’s completely free. Enter some terms related to what the website posts about, and see which keywords are getting the most hits (search volume). This will clue you in on the type of content the site’s audience currently wants to see. 

Using a keyword tool for research 

Here’s a quick example of how to use our keyword tool to find legal keywords for your guest posts.

Let’s say that you want to write a guest post for Legal Insider, the legal tech news website we mentioned earlier. 

Using our keyword tool, you could enter something like ‘legal tech’ to see what’s trending:

Here are the results:

The most important metrics to pay attention to here are search volume and search trend. 

Search volume refers to how many users are looking for each term on Google. Search trend refers to the line graph presented for each keyword, and it represents the level of interest in a keyword over time. 

You should target keywords that have high search volume and currently have an upward trend. 

Going further down the list, here’s an interesting keyword that you might target:

It has a relatively high search volume of 70, and it’s currently trending. As such, a guest post about the legality of veneer technicians would be a great idea to pitch to a site like Legal Insider. 

Broken link-building 

Another link-building technique centered around outreach is broken link-building. 

It’s where you find broken links on other legal websites so that you can fix them with your content, picking up a backlink in the process. 

No link is set in stone, and it’s normal for links to break over time. This is known as link rot, and, despite the unsettling name, you can use it to your advantage. 

For instance, let’s say one of your competitors wrote a guest post on a legal news site that now leads to a 404 Not Found page. 

Well, by reaching out to the site owner, you can request that they replace the broken link with one of your blog posts instead. 

As long as you target relevant websites for broken links, you can find great success with this tactic. 

Here are some quick tips for finding broken backlinks on legal websites:

• Use a tool to make things easier. There are plenty of tools online that will display a website’s broken links for you. We recommend using Ahrefs’ free broken link checker tool, as it will definitely get the job done. Enter the URL of a legal website you want to check, and see if they have any broken links that you can easily replace. 

• Prepare replacement content. Before you reach out to site owners, you should ensure you have replacement content at the ready. Most of the time, this means knowing which blog post you plan to use beforehand. This will save you the hassle of scrambling to get alternative content together after you’ve already contacted the site owner. 

• Conduct outreach to site owners to replace broken links. The final step is to get in touch with site owners to request that they replace their broken links with your content. Site owners typically appreciate this, as no one likes having broken links on their website (they’re bad for user experience and SEO). We’ll dive into some specific email outreach tips in a bit. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

The last outreach-based technique we’ll look into is targeting unlinked brand mentions. 

What are those?

An unlinked brand mention occurs whenever another website mentions your brand but fails to include a backlink to your site. 

While it’s still great that they mentioned your law firm’s name on their website, the shout-out would mean a lot more if they hyperlinked it! 

The good news is there’s nothing stopping you from hunting down your unlinked brand mentions and turning them into linked brand mentions. 

Here’s how to hunt them down:

• Ahrefs (paid method). If you have access to Ahrefs, you can use its Content Explorer tool to find unlinked mentions. Enter your brand name in quotes, and then use this formula to ensure your own website doesn’t appear in the results: -site:(yoursite).com

Here’s what it looks like when we do it for our website:

Hitting the search button will provide a list of all our brand mentions online. However, we want to take things a step further by only highlighting the unlinked mentions, which you can do by selecting this filter:

This will highlight the URL for unlinked brand mentions. After applying the filter, we found an unlinked brand mention for our website (which we need to fix, by the way):

• Google (free method). You can also use Search Operators to use Google Search to find unlinked brand mentions. It involves using the same formula as you would on Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, just on Google Search. Simply enter “your brand -site:your brand.com” to bring up every website that mentions your brand. The only downside here is that you won’t have a way to filter the unlinked mentions out from the linked mentions, which can be a bit of a hassle. 

Like the other three methods, this is an outreach-heavy method, so let’s learn how you can perfect your outreach game. 

Email outreach tips 

Link-building has been important for SEO for a long time now, which means site owners receive hundreds (or even thousands) of backlink outreach emails each month. 

This means your outreach has to be particularly gripping in order to stand out from the crowd. 

Here are some of the best ways to do that:

• Personalize each pitch. Little things like including the site owner’s name and mentioning a few of their interests can go a long way, so it’s important to personalize your outreach emails. Do some digging on their website’s About Us and their LinkedIn profiles to learn more about what makes them tick. Also, here’s a guide on how to track down site owner contact information if you’re having trouble. 

• Be concise. It’s crucial not to overstay your welcome. You should A) politely greet the site owner, B) mention why you’re contacting them, and C) get out of there! 

• Include a strong value add. This refers to the ‘why’ behind your email. In other words, present to the site owner in very clear terms how your backlink or guest post will improve their website. If it’s a guest post, mention how the topic is trending (backed up by your keyword research). If it’s a broken link, bring up how your replacement article is even better than the one before. 

Method #3: Earning backlinks 

Okay, the next method entails earning your backlinks through the sheer quality of your content. 

As stated before, this is Google’s preferred link-building method. This is because earning backlinks through the merit of your content greatly benefits Google’s reputation, which is why they’re all for it. 

As a bonus, you won’t have to constantly look over your shoulder for manual penalties whenever you earn your backlinks. 

Yet, it’s the least reliable form of link-building since you have no way of controlling whether others link to your content or not. All you can do is produce the highest quality, most relevant content that you can and hope for the best (which is never a bad thing). 

Here are some important tips for creating content worthy of generating natural backlinks:

Embody E-E-A-T in your content

Law is a YMYL (your money, your life) topic, meaning Google treats it with more scrutiny than other topics. 

This is because legal websites can potentially negatively impact someone’s finances, well-being, or mental health, which is why they fall under the YMYL umbrella. 

To ensure your content is of the highest quality in Google’s eyes, you should live by the E-E-A-T algorithm that they teach to their human team of quality raters. 

E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness. Therefore, your content should include first-hand experiences, demonstrations of your expertise, and authoritative external links. Including these three factors will increase your trustworthiness, which will bring you full circle. 

Research every topic and create authoritative content 

Just like with guest posts, every post you write for your own blog should be backed up by keyword research. 

You can use our free keyword tool to uncover the hottest keywords in your area of legal expertise. 

After that, create authoritative, long-form content to educate and eventually convert your readers. 

The most popular types of ‘thought leader’ content include:

• Long-form how-to’s and ‘ultimate guides’ 
• FAQs based on real client questions 
• Case studies exemplifying the legal problems you solve for clients 

These are all excellent content formats that will attract lots of shares. 

Use multimedia to make your content even more shareable 

Including visual content increases your sharing potential by 40%, so you should include high-resolution images, videos, and infographics in your posts. 

Also, legal podcasts are a goldmine for generating backlinks and referral traffic. 

There are hundreds of legal podcasts online, and appearing on them is a great way to boost your SEO. They’re also pretty easy to find, so you should be able to do some standard Google searches to find them. 

Here’s what happens when we search for ‘top legal podcasts’ on Google:

As you can see, Google itself has plenty of suggestions, so you shouldn’t have trouble finding the perfect podcast for your needs. 

Method #4: Buying backlinks 

Last but not least, you also have the option to buy backlinks, but this is by far the riskiest way to build links. 

That is unless you’re smart about it. 

We’ve written an extensive article about buying backlinks in the past, in which we reveal that most SEOs do it, even strictly white-hat marketers. 

The thing is, Google has no way of knowing whether you bought a backlink or built it naturally. 

So, if you’re smart and only buy high-quality backlinks from trusted vendors, you can get away with buying links if you release them one at a time. 

You see, lots of marketers get caught because they buy a bunch of cheap links in bulk and make them go live all at once. 

This is a surefire way to get in trouble. 

Instead, you should buy the backlinks that you need, but only release one or two at a time, and let several days (or weeks) pass in between. That will make it appear like you earned the backlinks instead of buying them, which is what you want. 

Monitoring Your Progress 

Now that you have plenty of ways to build backlinks, all that’s left is to monitor your progress to ensure you’re on track to meet your goals. 

Your best friends for tracking your progress are:

1. Google Analytics (GA)
2. Google Search Console (GSC)

Ahrefs is also invaluable if you have a paid subscription to it. This is because you can set up Ahrefs Alerts, which is a notification system that will email you every time you pick up a new backlink. 

The Links report in GSC will let you view your complete backlink profile (the way Google sees it). 

On Google Analytics, navigate to Report > Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition. Here, you’ll get to see a breakdown of your most popular traffic channels. In particular, pay attention to how well your referral traffic is doing, as that’s the traffic that will come from your backlinks. 

Lastly, keep an eye on your keyword position rankings in GSC. If your backlinks are doing their duty, you should start to see an improvement to your rankings. If things remain stagnant, it could mean that you A) need to rethink your link-building strategy or B) something else with your SEO is off (such as the quality of your content). 

Master the Link-Building Process for Your Law Firm 

This has been a mammoth guide, so let’s briefly recap the main points:

1. Backlinks are a major ranking factor on search engines like Google. 
2. High-quality backlinks come from relevant, authoritative websites. 
3. Adding backlinks to legal directories and forum comments helps diversify your link profile. 
4. Conducting outreach to target guest posts, unlinked brand mentions, and broken links are some of the most popular ways to build backlinks. 
5. Buying backlinks is risky but can be worth it when done properly. 
6. It’s crucial to monitor your progress to ensure you’re meeting your SEO goals. 

Now that you know what to do, get out there and start building some high-authority backlinks for your law firm! 

Would you rather that we handle your link-building instead?

We’d love that, as HOTH X is our fully managed SEO service where we devise a complete strategy for your law firm (including link-building). Our experts know how to generate backlinks that deliver outstanding results, so don’t wait to reach out for a free consultation today!     

The post Advanced Link Building for Lawyers: Tips and Insider Secrets appeared first on The HOTH.

If so, a strong backlink profile is an absolute necessity. 

Backlinks are simply links on other websites that point to yours, but they have a special importance on search engines. 

On Google, a backlink acts as an endorsement of the page it links to.

This endorsement vouches for the quality and trustworthiness of a web page, AKA its ‘authority.’ 

So, it doesn’t take long for newbie site owners to realize they need to build backlinks to rank higher on Google and other search engines. 

The only problem is..

Where are you supposed to find high-quality websites that are willing to link to yours?

After all, 91.5% of all cold outreach emails get ignored. 

This makes it especially tricky for new site owners to find reliable backlink sources, but there is a solution. 

It’s to analyze your competitors’ backlink profiles. 

This is beneficial because:

1. They’re in your niche
2. They likely have lots of backlinks from relevant websites 
3. You can also pitch guest posts and link insertions to these sites 

When done properly, a competitor backlink analysis will provide you with a ton of new opportunities. 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to conduct a thorough backlink analysis of your competitors, so stay tuned! 

Why Do Competitor Backlinks Matter for SEO?

Why are your competitor’s backlinks such a powerful tool?

To understand why, it’s important to understand some link-building fundamentals. 

As mentioned in the intro, we stated that backlinks on Google and other search engines act as endorsements of your content. 

Accordingly, backlinks are an official ranking factor used by search engine algorithms.

When determining the order to rank search results for a given keyword, hundreds of ranking factors are taken into account, and backlinks are one of the most significant. 

In particular, the algorithm looks for:

1. Backlinks coming from reputable websites 
2. A natural-looking backlink profile (diverse backlinks with no evidence of manipulation)  

If it finds both, the content is more likely to rank well, unless the website’s competitors have better content with stronger backlinks. 

Therefore, backlinks are something every website needs to compete in the search rankings. 

Preface: Understanding domain authority 

The best backlinks will have strong domain authority, which is a metric (a numerical score of 1 – 100) that represents how likely a domain is to rank in the SERPs. The higher the number, the more ‘authority’ a domain has, which means that Google trusts its content and views it as high-quality. 

How do you build a higher authority score for your domain?

By building high-quality backlinks, of course! 

You can use Moz’s Domain Authority (DA) or Ahrefs’ Domain Rating (DR) score (we use both)  to determine if it’s worth pursuing a backlink from a website or not. 

Our free domain authority checker tool is a great way to quickly measure a website’s DA, and it won’t cost you a dime! 

Benefit #1: Analyzing competitor backlinks will help you gain the edge 

Okay, now it’s time to dive into why it’s a good idea to study your competitor’s backlinks. 

In a nutshell, it’s like letting someone else do your homework for you. 

Let’s explain. 

New websites face a daunting task whenever it comes time to build backlinks, mainly because they typically don’t know where to start. 

While they know they need backlinks coming from relevant sites in their niche, it can be extremely difficult to know where to look, let alone pitch a guest post or draft an outreach email. 

Like we said earlier, most cold outreach emails are outright ignored, so getting your footing with link-building can be a real crapshoot. 

Things will become easier, though, once you start viewing your competitor’s backlink profiles. 

As long as the competitor you analyze shares the same target audience, their backlink profile is bound to be chock full of:

1. Relevant business directories 
2. Backlinks from websites that accept guest posts in your niche 
3. Websites that are open to link insertions (where you place a backlink into an existing piece of their content) 
4. Possible link partners 

These are all perfect opportunities to pursue, especially since you have social proof that they provide backlinks. 

Not only that, but you also can use a competitor’s backlink profile to customize your outreach. 

Benefit #2: Using competitor backlinks to tailor your outreach methods 

As a real-world example, imagine you run a website that sells gardening tools.  

One of your top competitors, then, would be https://www.gardeners.com, an extremely popular gardening supply store. 

When using a tool like Ahrefs to analyze their backlink profile, you notice that one of their backlinks is a link insertion coming from a site with a high DR.

Obviously, you’d like to score a similar link to improve your ranking power, so you decide to pursue a link insertion of your own. 

First, it’s time to do some detective work. By analyzing the link insertion on the web page, it can help you form a more compelling pitch. 

Here’s the backlink in question:

As you can see, the link insertion is for their Cat Scat plastic mats, and it comes from a website with a very high DR of 75. 

This tells us two things:

1. The Alley Cat website is open to product link insertions 
2. You could likely acquire a similar backlink for one of your products 

Therefore, your strategy should be to find an article on their site that directly relates to one of your products. From there, reach out to the site owner with a personalized email requesting that they link to your product since it would add tremendous value to their users. 

This is a simple example of how you can use a competitor’s backlink profile to your advantage, and it didn’t take very long at all to find! 

Benefit #3: You can uncover backlink gaps you need to fill 

Whenever another website has more backlinks than you do, it’s called a backlink gap. 

As we’ve already gone over, backlinks are credibility votes to Google, and they’re a significant ranking factor. 

This means it’ll be very tough to outrank a backlink-rich competitor who has significantly more links than your website (assuming that they’ve built decent links that aren’t manipulative or spammy). 

Because of this, your best bet is to close the gap by building as many or more backlinks as the competitor. 

First, however, you need to know that a gap exists in the first place, which is where a competitor analysis enters the picture. 

By monitoring your competitor’s backlink profiles, you’ll know exactly how many backlinks they have in comparison to yours, helping you quickly identify any gaps. 

Benefit #4: Replicate successful strategies 

Analyzing your competitor’s backlink profiles helps you learn from the best. By studying your most successful competitors, you can reconstruct the strategies they used to build their links. 

For example, let’s say your strongest competitor has a backlink profile consisting of:

1. Guest posts on high-quality sites 
2. Listings in online business directories
3. Social media profiles and forum comments 

Going by this evidence, you can gather that their primary strategy was to build authority with high-value guest posts while peppering in backlinks from other sources to appear natural. 

The best part?

They’re your most successful competitor, meaning that the strategy must yield great results. Since there’s no law preventing you from engaging in similar tactics, give it a go! 

4 Steps to Find and Analyze Your Competitor’s Backlinks 

By now, it should be clear that analyzing your competitor’s backlinks is a fantastic way to:

1. Reengineer successful backlink strategies 
2. Brainstorm outreach ideas 
3. Uncover relevant websites that provide backlinks 

Whether you’re a new site owner or a seasoned webmaster, knowing how to conduct a competitor backlink analysis is a must-have skill. 

Without further ado, here are 4 steps to quickly find and analyze your top competitor’s backlinks. 

Step #1: Find your competitors 

Before you can peep at their backlink profiles, you need to know who your primary competitors are first. 

This actually isn’t as straightforward as it may seem, as there are two main types of SEO competitors:

1. Search competitors
2. Traditional competitors 

Search competitors are a little bit different than traditional competitors because you need to include every website that targets the same keywords you do. 

Let’s dive deeper to learn more. 

Understanding search competitors 

First, let’s take a look at search competitors, of which there are two types (yes, it gets even more complicated). To make these easy to understand, we’ll use Apple as an example in both cases:

• Page-level competitors. A page-level competitor is any website that targets the same keywords you do, but they may not be in the same line of business. For example, Forbes is a page-level competitor of Apple, even though they aren’t in the computer business. This is because Forbes regularly publishes reviews of Apple’s latest products, and they target the exact same keywords. 

• Domain-level competitors. A domain-level competitor is any website that’s in the same market as you. In the case of Apple, their domain-level competitors would be other computer and smartphone companies like Samsung, Asus, and Dell. 

The best way to find your primary search competitors is to search for your most important keywords on Google and list the domains that appear the most. 

From there, you can determine if they’re a page-level competitor or a domain-level competitor. 

Finding traditional competitors 

Locating these competitors is more straightforward. A traditional competitor is any website or company that provides the same products or services as you to the same target audience. 

They’re all the alternative solutions to your business, so you probably already know who they are. 

If not, simply do a Google search for the ‘top companies in (x) industry.’ 

For SEO, it’s crucial to compile a list of both your traditional competitors and search competitors. 

This is because you’re going to need to outrank both. 

Even if a website isn’t advertising products and services to your audience, having them outrank you for important keywords is still disadvantageous. 

Consider the Forbes example mentioned previously. 

Imagine that Apple just released a new product, and they’re trying to rank in the top #3 for keywords related to it. Well, if their page-level competitors like Forbes and C-NET hog those spots for their review posts (which target the same keywords), this can directly impact Apple’s online visibility, and not in a good way.

That’s why it’s crucial to consider both traditional competitors and search competitors. 

Using Ahrefs to find competitors 

If you have a paid subscription to Ahrefs (which comes in handy for countless SEO tasks), you can use it to quickly pinpoint your main competitors. 

Here’s how to do it. 

First, sign in to your account and select the Site Explorer tool. Next, enter your domain and hit the Search button. 

This will take you to the Overview report, which lists all sorts of details about your website’s SEO performance. 

From the top of the report, scroll down until you reach the Top Organic Competitors section that looks like this:

Here, you’ll get to see where your website lies in relation to your top competitors on this chart. 

If you scroll down a bit more, you’ll have the option to view your top 20 competitors:

Doing so will take you to a more detailed Organic competitors report:

Here, you’ll get to see not only a list of your top competitors but also helpful data about keyword overlap, including how many keywords you share in common. 

You can also export this list as a PDF to insert into other programs (and to print a hard copy) for further analysis. 

Step #2: Analyze your competitor’s backlinks 

Once you have a complete list of your competitors at the ready, you can start analyzing their backlink profiles. 

A quick and easy way to do so is to use our free backlink checker tool. 

Simply enter a URL into the tool and hit View Backlinks Report to see any website’s backlinks. 

As an example, here’s what some of Forbes.com’s backlinks look like:

As you can see, our tool tells you:

1. The total number of backlinks and referring domains 
2. The percentage of dofollow backlinks the domain has (dofollow links pass link juice and nofollow links don’t) 
3. Referring IPs 
4. Anchor text (the text masking the hyperlink) 
5. The URL for each backlink plus the page it links to 

Also, each backlink receives a numerical score representing its overall strength. 

It’s entirely possible to conduct a thorough competitor backlink analysis just using our tool, and it’s a great option if you don’t have a budget. 

However, if you want to do a more in-depth analysis, you’ll need to use a paid service like Ahrefs. 

Conducting a competitor analysis using Ahrefs 

Once again, we’re going to use the Site Explorer tool for this example, so log in to Ahrefs and enter your domain of choice into its search bar. 

Next, navigate to the Backlinks report on the left-hand sidebar. 

This will show you a list of every single backlink the domain has. In this case, we’re sticking with Forbes as our example:

You have the option to visit each backlink, and the tool includes the anchor text and target URL. There are also valuable metrics like each backlink’s domain rating, traffic, and referring domains. 

Here’s a quick rundown of what you should look for in a backlink:

• Domain Rating or domain authority score. Here, you’ll want to look for high ratings to ensure the link is worth pursuing. The closer you can get to 100, the better, but it’s not always feasible to generate backlinks from extremely high DA sites. On average, stick to DA scores of 30 and above (give or take). 

• Relevancy. Even if a domain has a sky-high DR, if it comes from an irrelevant website it won’t count. For backlinks to matter, they must come from websites that relate to your website in some way. 

• Anchor text. You should also pay attention to the anchor text your competitor used for the backlink. In general, anchor text that contains target keywords plus a few other phrases tends to work best, but it’s important to mix things up. You can read more about achieving the ideal anchor text ratio here. 

• Link type. Check to see if a backlink is dofollow or nofollow before you try to build one from the same domain. Dofollow backlinks pass link juice and impact SEO, while nofollow links don’t (technically they do, but the amount of link juice they pass is minimal compared to dofollow). 

Next, head over to the Referring domains report to take a closer look at all the individual domains that provide backlinks to your client. 

This report cleans things up and provides a list of all the websites that link back to your client. As a quick clarification, a referring domain is different from a backlink in that one domain can provide you with multiple backlinks. 

On Google, it’s more powerful to have three backlinks from different referring domains than it is to have three backlinks from the same domain, as their impact begins to diminish after a while. That’s why it’s worth checking this report to see how many referring domains you can gain from analyzing a competitor’s profile. 

Step #3: Uncover your competitor’s strategies 

Ahrefs’ Backlinks report is great for understanding competitors’ backlink strategies, as you can easily tell if a backlink is from a link insertion, guest post, or business directory. 

In the example above, most of the backlinks are from journalists quoting Forbes articles and referencing their statistics, meaning these links were most certainly built naturally. 

What’s that?

Natural links are backlinks that you built without any intervention on your part. In other words, another website chose to link to your content because they found it relevant and valuable, not because you sent them an outreach email. 

Prioritizing prospects and backlink types 

You should also prioritize your prospects using the metrics we mentioned earlier. This means placing websites with high DR scores, relevant content, and dofollow links at the top of your list. 

Creating a priority list ensures that you only focus on building the strongest links first. 

Besides your prospects, certain types of backlinks should also take priority. 

These include:

• Guest posts. These are blogs that you write on related websites to gain a backlink and generate referral traffic. They’re a powerful type of backlink to build, so they should shoot to the top of your list. 

• Link insertions. This is where you ‘insert’ one of your backlinks into an existing piece of content on another website. A common example is to add a backlink to a relevant product or service to enhance an existing blog and provide a helpful resource for readers. These links can also be quite powerful, so take note of any website in your competitor’s profiles that accepts link insertions. 

• Podcast backlinks (and other types of media). If you find backlinks that came from a podcast or a webinar in your competitor’s profile, you should definitely check them out. This is because they’ll likely accept you as a guest too (since you’re in the same niche), meaning you can also pick up a backlink (and referral traffic). 

Other types of backlinks, like business directory links, are also good to include, but they won’t be as valuable as the ones listed above. 

Step #4: Start conducting outreach to build backlinks 

Alright, the final step of the process is to start building backlinks of your own by reaching out to site owners. 

In particular, your goal is to mimic the backlinks you found in your competitor’s profiles, so you’ll be targeting lots of guest posts, link insertions, podcasts, webinars, and more. 

This is also where you’ll need to be the most creative because you’ll be working without a roadmap. 

Up until this point, you’ve been able to use your competitor’s past actions as a guide. However, you won’t have any way to view the exact outreach emails they sent each prospect, so you’ll be on your own. 

What we can give you are candid tips for conducting successful outreach. 

Site owners receive hundreds of backlink outreach emails a day, so you need to find a way to stand out. 

Here’s what we recommend you do:

• Personalize the introduction. It’s integral to mention the site owner’s name and a bit about what they do. Do some digging beforehand to uncover their names, the type of content they produce, and maybe a little bit about their background. Mentioning these things in your pitch can increase the chances that they’ll grant you a backlink, but don’t go overboard (a sentence or two will suffice). 

• Reference their content. Here’s where doing your homework really helps. Mention an article or other type of content that you checked out and enjoyed. Besides singing their praises, you can also bring up how their content relates to yours, or that it sparked an interesting idea or concept in your head. 

• Highlight the link opportunity. Don’t take too long to get to the point and highlight the link opportunity in question. In particular, mention the value that adding the backlink will provide to their website. 

• Suggest the link location and anchor text. Lastly, tell the site owner where you think the backlink would work best, and propose some anchor text to use. It’ll ultimately be up to the site owner to write the anchor text, but providing them with a suggestion can help achieve the ratio you’re looking for. 

Here’s an example of an outreach email that incorporates all these elements:

Hey (site owner’s name), 

I checked out the piece on (content) and found it really insightful. In fact, it sparked an idea that I think you’ll enjoy. My online store sells (relevant products) that I think would be an amazing resource for your readers. After all, it gives them the chance to purchase the very thing you’re describing in the article. 

I think adding a backlink on (specific area of the page) would be valuable to your audience, and it would help my SEO. You could use anchor text like (preferred anchor text), but that’s just a suggestion! 

Thanks so much for your time. 

(Your name)

If you don’t hear back after a week or so, don’t get discouraged. It’s perfectly acceptable to send a polite follow-up email, and doing so may speed things up. 

Start Using Competitor Backlinks to Improve Your SEO Today 

We’ve gone over a whole lot so far, so let’s take a moment to recap:

1. It can be difficult to find relevant link-building opportunities 
2. Your competitors provide the perfect hack for this 
3. Analyzing competitor backlinks is a great way to spark ideas and find opportunities 
4. Tools like Ahrefs and our free backlink checker make the process easier 

Now that you know what to do, what are you waiting for? Get out there and start analyzing your competitors! 

Do you need help conducting outreach to capitalize on your competitor’s backlinks?

If so, we’d love to take the process off your hands. Our 5-star Link Outreach services are your ticket to securing the guest posts and link insertions you found from your competitors, so don’t wait to get in touch today.   

The post How to Leverage Competitor Backlinks in Your Favor  appeared first on The HOTH.

That’s roughly how long you have to make a positive first impression on your website’s visitors. 

So, if your site doesn’t load within those three seconds, don’t expect anyone to stick around. 

Instead, they’ll likely click back to the search results and select a website that loads quicker. 

This is why page speed is a crucial SEO factor that you need to master. 

Also, you should never just assume that your website loads properly, as page speed can be tricky to pin down if you’re not paying attention. 

It could be that the majority of your web pages load within an instant, but something like a JavaScript error is causing one of your most important landing pages to render at a snail’s pace. 

In that scenario, a valuable money-making page on your site is rendered useless, and you’d have no clue why until you audited your page speed. 

The #1 way to avoid problems like these is to keep a close eye on your page speed, which is what we’re going to teach you how to do today. 

Stick around to learn how to audit, analyze, and improve the page speed of all your web pages. 

What Does Page Speed Actually Refer to?

Broadly speaking, page speed refers to the amount of time it takes for a web page to fully render on someone’s computer. 

If you’re old enough to remember dial-up internet connections (raises hand), you’ll likely have not-so-fond memories of web pages taking eons to load completely. 

Loading times and internet speeds have improved dramatically since then, which is why modern internet users have little-to-no patience when it comes to waiting for websites to render. 

If your web pages don’t load at the drop of a hat, it’ll likely cause frustration and the user to venture elsewhere on the internet to meet their needs. 

Lots of factors can cause page speed issues, including:

• Images and videos that are too large 
• Too much JavaScript and CSS 
• Traffic volume 
• Redirects 
• Web hosting issues 

Slow page speed negatively affects your SEO and user experience, so you have every incentive to ensure it stays lightning-fast. 

The different types of page speed 

Page speed is an umbrella term that encompasses multiple metrics that represent various stages of the loading process. 

In other words, web pages don’t load in one seamless process. Instead, multiple processes take place whenever a web page loads on a user’s screen, including:

• Time to First Byte (TTFB). This metric measures how long it takes for a web page to initiate the loading process. 

• First Contentful Paint (FCP). This measures how long it takes for a user to see the very first element of a page, like an image or block of text. 

• Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This refers to how long it takes for a web page to respond to interactions, such as a user clicking on a link or button. 

• Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). A layout shift occurs whenever something like an ad causes the layout of your web page to ‘shift’ slightly. The CLS measures all the layout shifts that occur on your site.  

These are also the main metrics Google measures with its Core Web Vitals test. 

It runs this test on every website in its index because Google only rewards its highest search rankings to web pages with excellent load times. 

How Does Page Speed Impact SEO? 

Google first introduced page speed as a ranking factor way back in 2010, so it’s mattered for SEO for quite some time now. 

An algorithm update in 2018 kicked things up a notch, as it made page speed an even more crucial ranking factor, especially for mobile search rankings. 

Why is fast page speed such a big deal to Google?

It has to do with how slow page speed negatively impacts user experience. 

As a search engine, Google’s reputation hinges on providing the highest quality search results for any given query. Not only do the sites they rank need to be relevant and accurate, but they also need to provide a pleasant user experience. 

If Google ranked websites that load super slow on page one (especially in the top 3), their users would quickly become frustrated. Moreover, they would probably start using another search engine instead (especially if slow sites pop up for everything they search for on Google). 

This is the primary reason why Google places so much importance on page speed for search rankings. 

By only ranking websites that can pass its Core Web Vitals test, Google ensures that its search results are always populated with sites that provide smooth, ultra-fast experiences. 

So, if your web pages aren’t loading as fast as they should, you may notice that you aren’t ranking as high as you’d like. 

The flip side is also true. If your website boasts excellent page speed, you’re more likely to rank on page one (assuming the rest of your SEO is in order). 

How to Test Your Page Speed Using Several Different Methods 

Now that you know that you need to keep an eye on your page speed, how do you do that?

Are you supposed to sit with a stopwatch and click on one of your web pages?

No! 

The good news is there are plenty of tools out there that will let you check your page speed, including a free tool from Google itself. 

You can also use tools like Semrush and Ahrefs to check your speed metrics, but they require paid subscriptions. 

Here’s a look at the top ways you can start testing your page speed (and site speed) today. 

Google PageSpeed Insights 

Google provides a free tool that any site owner can use to test their site speed via PageSpeed Insights (which is powered by Google Lighthouse). 

The best part is that the tool uses Google’s real Core Web Vitals metrics, so you get to see how your website performs on the test. 

How does the tool work?

It’s extremely simple. All you have to do is visit the PageSpeed Insights web page and enter the URL for the web page you want to check:

Once you hit the Analyze button, you’ll get to see a breakdown of how the web page scored on each page speed metric:

As you can see, these are all the speed metrics that we mentioned earlier. To pass the Core Web Vitals test, your site must score in the green range for each metric. If your scores are yellow or red, it’s a sign that your page speed needs work. 

Another handy feature of the tool is that it helps you diagnose underlying performance issues that affect page speed. 

If you scroll down to Diagnose Performance Issues, you’ll get to see a full report containing your website’s:

• Performance 
• Accessibility 
• Best Practices 
• SEO 

Each metric will show up as green (good), yellow (needs work), and red (serious issues). 

If you keep scrolling down, you’ll see a list of issues and recommendations to improve your page speed:

These suggestions are extremely helpful, so you should definitely take a look at them. For example, one of the recommendations is to properly size images, and it even includes how much data you stand to save (75 KiB). 

This tool is one of the most reliable ways to improve your overall site speed, so it’s a must-use for site owners everywhere. 

Checking page speed using Ahrefs 

If you’ve got a subscription to Ahrefs, you’ll be able to check your site speed using its Site Audit tool. 

You can even enable official Google Core Web Vitals metrics to show up in the tool, which you need to do in the Crawl settings. 

First, you’ll have to get an API code from Google (the link is in Ahrefs) that will enable Core Web Vitals (and Lighthouse) data to appear in Ahrefs. 

To check your site speed, first select the Site Audit tool, and select your website’s project. 

If you haven’t added any projects yet, you can learn how to do that here. 

Once you select your project, you’ll get directed to the Overview page:

Here, you get to see your crawl results and an overall health score for your website. However, we want to check site speed, so navigate to Performance under Reports on the left-hand sidebar:

This will take you to the Performance report that contains your Core Web Vitals metrics (if they’re enabled), Ahrefs speed metrics, and your load time distribution. 

The Issues tab will let you know if there are any major errors you need to fix, which is similar to the PageSpeed Insights report. 

However, you aren’t given as much insight into what caused the problem (or how to fix it). 

Best Practices for Optimizing Page Speed 

The best way to ensure fast page speed is to optimize your entire website for it, especially your most important pages for SEO. 

For example, it’s extremely important that your informative blogs and high-converting landing pages run flawlessly. 

These pages are crucial for your sales funnel, so they should receive top priority when optimizing your site to run fast. 

Here’s a look at the top best practices to implement on a web page that you want to run screaming fast. 

Compress your images and videos 

Excessive file size is a leading culprit behind slow loading times, so you should aim to make your files as small as possible. 

Images and videos are notorious offenders in this regard, as it doesn’t take much for their file sizes to get out of control. This is especially true for uncompressed high-definition video, as those files can easily take up several gigs if you aren’t careful. 

ImageOptim is a great tool for compressing images without losing quality. For videos, HandBrake is an open-source video transcoder that can convert virtually any video file into a number of different codecs, many of which feature high-quality compression. 

Minimize JavaScript and CSS 

Your website’s code could also be slowing things down, especially if you haven’t minified it. 

What’s that?

Minification is the process of cleaning up excessive JavaScript and CSS code to save space and improve page speed. 

Standard code is filled with white space, breaks, and other elements that are actually unnecessary. 

When you minify code, you get rid of these unnecessary elements which tightens up the code without losing functionality. This makes it possible for computers to read the code much faster, which improves page speed. 

There are lots of tools online that will automatically minify your code for you, like minifier.org. 

Get rid of redirect chains 

Using too many redirects (like a 301 or 302 redirect) can slow down your website. A redirect will automatically ‘direct’ users from a broken or outdated URL to a new URL. 

It’s common to use redirects to fix broken links and direct users away from expired services. 

However, too many redirects can slow things down, especially if there are redirect chains. 

A redirect chain occurs whenever users are redirected more than once after visiting a URL. 

For example, let’s say www.yoursite.com no longer works, so you redirect users to www.yoursite2.com. However, you recently migrated to a new domain, so you added another redirect to www.yoursite3.com. 

At this point, visiting www.yoursite.com will cause the browser to redirect to yoursite2, and then AGAIN to yoursite3, which will obviously slow things down. 

You may build a redirect chain without even knowing it, so it’s crucial to regularly audit your links. 

Here’s a guide on how to use SEO Spider Screaming Frog to identify redirect chains on your website. 

Improve Page Speed for Better Rankings and User Experience 

Let’s briefly recap what we’ve covered so far:

1. Page speed is a crucial ranking metric on Google and other search engines 
2. You can use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to keep track of your page speed 
3. Minifying code, compressing images, and reducing redirects are all ways to improve page speed

As long as you follow these best practices and regularly audit your page speed, you shouldn’t have much trouble maintaining a super-fast website. 

Do you need help with the technical SEO for your website?

One of our Technical SEO Audits will give you a comprehensive report containing every technical issue that could harm your SEO. 

We’re always willing to fix what we find, so don’t wait to reach out for a free SEO consultation to discuss your needs in more detail!      

The post Page Speed and SEO: The Complete Guide appeared first on The HOTH.

www.yoursite.com/blog/random-blog-post 

Or this?

www.yoursite.com//d/1mrSXWNhuvDxzio44Ky60o9Mbh6pvejmkYhqRniMtsyU/edit

If the answer is the latter, your URL structure needs some tightening up. 

Long, complicated URLs like the one above are inconvenient for users and search engine algorithms. 

For users, complicated URLs make it more difficult for them to reach the web pages they want. Imagine trying to memorize the garbled mess of letters and numbers in the example provided above!

Compare that with the first URL, which you can easily remember and type into a web browser. 

For search engine crawler bots, concise, logical URLs make your website easier to crawl and index. 

However, a URL structure optimized for SEO stretches beyond simplifying the web address. 

You’ll also want to add target keywords, remain consistent with categories and page names, and use HTTPS protocol for ideal security. 

There’s quite a bit to know about URL structure, including knowing the components of a URL, so it can seem a tad daunting for newcomers. 

That’s why we’re here to teach you everything you need to know about creating and maintaining an SEO-friendly URL structure, so stick around! 

What is a URL?

The internet is home to well over a billion websites (1.98 billion as of 2024), so it’s not exactly a place you can navigate on your own. 

Instead, you need a way to reliably find the exact website, web page, or file you’re looking for – which is what URLs provide. 

An acronym for Unique Resource Locator, a URL is an address that lets you directly access content on the internet. As the name implies, it’s a tool you use to locate a unique resource in the vastness of the internet. 

URLs are most commonly used for accessing websites and web pages using HTTP protocols on web browsers, but that’s not their only use. 

You can also use URLs to access your default email client (mailto) and upload and download files (file transfer protocol or FTP). We’ll discuss URL protocols more in a bit, but that covers the basics for now. 

Web browsers work by letting users enter URLs into their address bar. If a user knows the URL for the website they want to visit, they can type it directly into the address bar. 

If they don’t know what the exact URL is, they can use a search engine like Google to find what they’re looking for. An example would be searching for Netflix on Google because you aren’t sure what the URL is. In this case, clicking on Netflix’s search result will hyperlink you to their URL. 

Here’s what that looks like:

Understanding the Components of a URL

Even the simplest URLs contain syntaxes like ‘://’ and prefixes like ‘.com’ or ‘.net,’ which may seem confusing if you don’t know what they mean.

Every URL follows a uniform structure consisting of at least three mandatory parts, but there can be up to 10. 

Once you know what each part represents, URLs become much easier to understand. 

Here’s a breakdown of all 10 URL components. 

Component #1: Protocol (also called scheme) 

The first building block of a URL is a protocol, also called a scheme. 

What’s that?

In a nutshell, a protocol is a set of rules for how a connection between a web server and a browser should be established. 

The most common protocols include:

• HTTP, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. You’ve seen this protocol in action whenever a website begins with http:// (although https has pretty much taken over at this point). The http protocol sends a request to your web browser to pull up the resource represented by the URL address. If the resource is available, it will appear on your screen. For many years, this was the most common way to access websites and web pages from browsers. The main flaw of this protocol is that it’s not secure, meaning anyone can access the data. 

• HTTPS, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure. This protocol works in the exact same way as http, but it has the added benefit of being encrypted (hence the secure part of the name). This makes it much more difficult for someone to intercept the data. Https has become the norm in recent years, and Google strongly recommends it for all websites to ensure users’ privacy and security. It’s also a must for e-commerce stores where users enter their personal financial information. 

• Mailto. You can use this protocol to automatically open your default email browser and prep a message to a recipient that you specify in the URL. An example would be entering ‘mailto:recipient@gmail.com’ into Firefox. Once you press the Enter key, Gmail will open up with the subject line populated with the address you put in the URL (in this case, recipient@gmail.com). 

• FTP (file transfer protocol). If you need to transfer files from one system to another, you can use FTP. It’s a protocol that enables file sharing between two servers. You can both download and upload files using FTP. In fact, most web browsers have FTP processes taking place in the background without you even knowing it. If you’ve ever downloaded anything from the internet, FTP was likely what made it happen. 

The protocol always comes at the very beginning of a URL, regardless if it’s http, ftp, mailto, or something else. 

Component #2: Subdomain 

Not every URL will contain subdomains, as it’s not a mandatory component of a URL. A subdomain is a way of dividing your website into different sections. 

It’s a unique choice that’s often made to manage a distinct part of your website that requires its own hierarchy of interconnected pages. 

For example, it’s common to use subdomains if your website also has an online store or blog. By separating your online store away from the rest of your website with a subdomain, you can contain and manage all its inner pages in one location. 

Also, users won’t have to visit a different website to purchase your merch or read your blog posts. 

Here’s what a subdomain looks like in the context of a URL (highlighted in bold):

https://blog.yoursite.com/how-tos/gardening-tips 

As you can see, the subdomain ‘blog’ appears before the primary domain name, and directly after the protocol. 

Subdomains function as mini-websites that are connected to your main site via the URL. 

So, it’s wise to subdomains for any part of your website that could function as its own site, such as:

1. Online stores 
2. Blogs 
3. Offering separate services for business clients and consumers (starting a subdomain for B2B clients) 
4. Job boards 
5. Support platforms 
6. Data analytics platforms 
7. Versions of your site in a different language (or for a different geographical region) 

You aren’t limited to just one subdomain, either. Websites can have up to 500 subdomains, so it’s entirely possible to have them set up for a blog, online store, customer support, and analytics platform all at the same time (with plenty of slots to spare, too). 

Component #3: Second-level domain (SLD) 

Moving down the chain, a URL’s second-level domain is the main name of your website. 

Here’s what it looks like in a URL (the bolded text is the SLD):

https://www.yoursite.com

Your second-level domain lets people know that the website belongs to your brand, and is often a version of the brand name (although that’s not always the case). 

It’s best to use a short, memorable SLD that your target audience can easily memorize and enter into a web browser. 

For example, our URL is https://www.thehoth.com. 

Our SLD is literally our brand name (The HOTH), making it extremely easy for our clients and prospects to find us online. 

Component #4: Top-level domain (TLD) 

Okay, now we’re on to the final domain-related URL component, which is the top-level domain. 

Your TLD specifies the type of entity you’re registered as on the internet. The most well-known TLD is ‘.com,’ which is a shortened version of the word ‘commercial.’

An example would be:

https://www.yoursite.com

This is because the TLD .com represents commercial organizations in the United States, which is why most businesses register with the .com TLD. 

Other popular top-level domains include:

• .net. Derived from the word ‘network,’ .net is a TLD that’s open to anyone to use (similar to .com). It’s a common choice for technology companies due to the connotations of the word network. 

• .edu. The TLD .edu was developed in 1985 to provide a TLD for institutions focused on education. This TLD is NOT available to anyone, as the site owner must be a US post-secondary institution officially accredited by the US Department of Education. 

• .gov. Another restricted TLD, .gov is only available for official government entities. To receive a .gov TLD, site owners must meet eligibility requirements and send in a letter for authorization. 

There are lots of other TLDs, such as .co and .biz, but they’re far less common (and seem spammy). 

Component #5: Subdirectory 

Next, a subdirectory is a reference that lets search engine crawlers and users know where they are in the greater context of a site. 

For instance, if you were browsing the Jackets section of an online clothing store, the subdirectory in the URL would most likely read ‘jackets.’ 

Here’s an example of a subdirectory in a URL (highlighted in bold):

https://shop.yoursite.com/jackets/red-jacket-large 

The subdirectory lets you know that you’re in the Jackets section of the online store, which is A) a useful navigational resource for users and B) a way to keep the pages on your site organized. 

Component #6: Port 

The port in a URL is a number designating a specific gateway (which is why it’s called a port) that directs traffic to your website. 

You can think of it as a door that lets users pass through to your website’s content. 

Most of the time, ports don’t appear in URLs because they use standard ports assumed by the most commonly used protocols, like HTTP (port # 80) and HTTPS (port #443). 

For reference, here’s a port number inside a URL (in bold):

https://shop.yoursite.com/jackets/443/jackets/red-jacket-large

This number signifies that the HTTPS protocol is the port being used. However, most of the time the port won’t show up in the URL.

Component #7: Path 

By now, we’ve got a port to go through, but we don’t have a map to our specific destination online. 

This is what the path component is for, as it maps out the route you need to take to reach your requested resource. 

So, if the resource you want to access is a large red jacket, this is what the path would look like in a URL:

https://shop.yoursite.com/jackets/red-jacket-large

This lets the web browser know that you’re trying to navigate to the web page selling a large jacket in the color red. 

Component #8: Query 

You may notice question marks appearing in search URLs, but why are they there?

A question mark in a URL represents a query string that defines a set of parameters for the data you’re trying to retrieve from the website. 

They most commonly appear in URLs for search queries on engines like Google and Bing. 

We’ll move on to parameters next, but here’s what a query looks like:

https://shop.yoursite.com/jackets/red-jacket-large?

Remember, the question mark begins the query string (also called parameters), so everything you see after a question mark in a URL is a parameter. 

Component #9: Parameters 

Parameters modify the content of a page based on key and value designations. The key specifies what you want to change, and the value parameter sets the criteria for modifications. 

Here’s a quick example:

https://www.yoursite.com/blog?category=gardening 

Here, the key is ‘category’ and the value is ‘gardening,’ meaning the search will only display gardening articles from your blog. 

Component #10: Fragments 

Lastly, the final component is called fragments, which are special codes at the end of a URL that direct users to a specific part of a web page. 

They’re marked with hashtags (#) and indicate an exact location on a web page, such as the header or footer. 

Here’s an example (in bold):

https://www.yoursite.com/blog?category=gardening#footer

In this scenario, you would be directed to the very bottom of the page after clicking on the link. 

Not every URL will contain all 10 components, but it’s useful to know what they mean. 

Best Practices for SEO-Friendly URLs 

Now that you know all the building blocks that comprise a URL, it’s time to learn how to make them SEO-friendly. 

Google and other search engines have certain preferences for URLs, such as using the HTTPS protocol for enhanced security. 

By adhering to what Google wants with your URL structure and hierarchy, it becomes SEO-friendly, and you may see better rankings as a result. 

More importantly, maintaining SEO-friendly URLs will ensure that your website is easy for search engine bots to crawl and index, ensuring that your most important content continues to appear on the SERPs (search engine results pages). 

To ensure you have an SEO-friendly URL structure, follow these best practices. 

Implement a clear URL hierarchy 

A URL hierarchy refers to the structure you use for naming web page URLs. 

In order to appeal to both web users and search engines, you should employ a unanimous naming structure that follows the same rules across the board. 

You also need to segment your content into categories to make your inner pages easier to navigate. 

Here’s a quick example of what your URL hierarchy might look like:

1. A user begins on your homepage, let’s say it’s www.yoursite.com. 
2. Next, they click on a hyperlink called Services which takes them to this subdirectory: www.yoursite.com/services 
3. They’re interested in consulting, which has its own series of pages. Clicking on Consulting takes them to www.yoursite.com/services/consulting. 
4. Finally, they go to a specific consulting page about developing a strategy. The last past they visit has a URL like this: www.yoursite.com/services/consulting/strategy. 

As you can see, the naming device remains consistent, and each subcategory follows a logical structure (parent pages and child pages). 

Avoid non-ASCII characters 

When naming your URLs, it’s a good idea to avoid non-ASCII characters as much as possible. 

What are those?

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) characters include the alphabet from A – Z, numbers 0 – 9, and most basic punctuation characters. 

Non-ASCII characters, then, refer to anything outside of those parameters. 

This means you should avoid symbols, accented letters, and characters from other languages when naming your URLs, otherwise you could confuse users and crawler bots. 

Use short, simple URLs 

The more complicated a URL is, the more likely it is to cause confusion. 

Even without considering web users and search engine crawlers, using a complicated naming structure has the potential to confuse you, too. 

Also, Google can’t display long URLs in its search results, so it abbreviates them:

That’s why it’s best to keep your URLs short and sweet:

Include relevant keywords 

It’s an SEO best practice to include target keywords inside URLs, although this has more of an impact on Bing than it does on Google. 

Regardless, using keywords in your URLs still yields some SEO benefit on Google, and it helps users know what your content is about. 

For example, if you have a blog post called Top 5 Digital Marketing Tips for This Year, and the target keyword is ‘digital marketing tips,’ you could use a URL like this:

www.yoursite.com/blog/digital-marketing-tips 

Now you have the keyword working double duty, both in your blog’s title and the URL (don’t forget to include it in the title tag, too). 

Use lowercase letters and hyphens to separate words 

There’s a bit of an unwritten rule in URL structure, and it’s to use hyphens to separate words instead of underscores. 

Good: www.yoursite.com/digital-marketing-tips

Bad: www.yoursite.com/digital_marketing_tips 

Sure, underscores can work fine for your image gallery on your PC, but stick to hyphens when creating web page URLs. 

This is because not every search engine recognizes underscores as word separators, but they all recognize hyphens. 

Place redirects on any URL that you change 

URL structure isn’t set in stone, and you’ll likely make some changes to it down the line. Reasons for this include:

• Redesigning or restructuring your website
• No longer offering a particular product or service 
• Changing domains 

Whatever the reason may be, you must use a 301 redirect to permanently direct users to the new, changed URL. 

Otherwise, your website will start to get riddled with broken links, which is never a good thing. 

However, bear in mind that using too many redirects will slow your website down, so do your best to use them sparingly. 

Implement an SEO-Friendly URL Structure Today 

To recap what we’ve covered so far:

1. A URL is a unique resource locator that helps you find specific files, websites, and web pages online. 
2. URLs can have up to 10 components, but only 3 are essential, which are a protocol, domain name, and path. 
3. Implementing an SEO-friendly URL structure can help your site rank better and ensure stronger crawling and indexing. 

URL structure is often overlooked by digital marketers and website owners, so don’t forget to optimize your URLs to achieve maximum SEO effectiveness. 

Do you need help managing your website’s URL structure and other technical SEO factors?

If so, one of our Technical SEO Audits is exactly what the doctor ordered. We’ll give your site a soup-to-nuts audit and provide you with a detailed report of every issue that we find. If you don’t feel like handling the fix yourself, our experts will take the wheel, so don’t wait to try it out!        

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404 Not Found 

It’s an odd mix of disappointment and sheer frustration, and it’s what your visitors feel every time they click on one of your broken links. 

The fact is no website is immune to its links breaking, and it’s a phenomenon that occurs quite often and for a wide variety of reasons (as we’ll soon explore). 

Thus, knowing how to fix broken links is a must-have skill for any website owner or digital marketer. 

Besides the negative impact on your reputation, broken links are also terrible for your SEO, so you have every incentive to hunt them down and fix them on a regular basis. 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to find, fix, and forget about those pesky broken links on your site, so stay tuned to learn more. 

What are Broken Links? 

A broken link is a hyperlink that no longer points to its original destination. 

Instead, it directs users to an error page, such as the infamous 404 Not Found. While it’s by far the most common, there are many other 4xx client error status codes that can affect your hyperlinks, such as:

• 410 Gone. 404 Not Found means that a web page is missing but may return someday, but 410 Gone means the web page is gone forever. 

• 403 Forbidden. This error code appears whenever a client doesn’t have the necessary authorization to access the content. 

• 400 Bad Request. If you see this error code, it means the server got confused over invalid syntax, such as a misplaced dash or semicolon.

Tons of other 4xx status codes exist besides these, but they’re the most common, and they can all negatively impact your SEO. 

Also, there are three types of broken links that can occur on your website, which are:

1. Broken internal links 
2. Broken external links 
3. Broken backlinks 

Each type requires a unique fix, which we’ll explore in a bit. 

For now, it’s important to know that you need to check each link type when conducting an audit. 

If you fail to fix your broken internal links, for example, you will see negative impacts on your SEO and user experience, even if all your external links and backlinks work perfectly. 

What causes links on your website to break?

You’re probably wondering why links break in the first place, or why you’d need to do more than one link audit. 

After all, after you fix a broken link, won’t it stay fixed forever?

Sadly, the answer is no due to the variety of ways links can break. The phenomenon is so common that website owners coined the term link rot to describe it. 

Internal and external links can break because of:

• • Misspelling URLs. This is an extremely common cause for broken links because there are tons of ways to mess up URLs. Whether you forgot to include http://, added an extra space, or misspelled one of the words, they will all cause the link to break. For a hyperlink to work properly, it has to be formatted perfectly every single time. 

• Site migrations. If you migrate your site to a new CMS or hosting service, some web pages can get lost in the fray if you aren’t careful. 

• Plugin or HTML/Javascript errors. Sometimes malfunctions with plugins or web code can cause links to break. 

• Deleted pages. Failing to add a 301 redirect when deleting a page will cause every hyperlink pointing at it to break. 

• Updated URLs. Let’s say you find a misspelled URL and correct it. Well, if you don’t edit every link that has the old URL (or add a redirect), all those links will break. 

This is by no means a definitive list of every reason why links break, but these are extremely prevalent. 

They’re so common that it’s become a best practice for every website to perform regular link audits to keep their broken links at bay. 

Broken backlinks 

Links on your website aren’t the only ones that can break, though. 

Remember those backlinks that you worked so hard to obtain? 

They’re also perfectly capable of breaking. 

To make matters worse, any positive impact they had on your search rankings breaks with them. 

Common reasons for broken backlinks include:

1. A competitor took your spot. Website owners receive backlink requests on a daily basis, and not all of them are for brand-new placements. If one of your backlinks disappears, it could be because a competitor A) had a better resource or B) had more valuable content. This caused the site owner to remove your link and replace it with theirs, which is a pretty common practice (and is the underlying concept behind the popular skyscraper technique). 
2. Typo in the URL. Sometimes backlinks break (or never properly appear) because the site owner makes a typo when entering the URL. These types of broken backlinks are pretty easy to fix because all you have to do is reach out to the site owner with the correct URL. 
3. Moved content, site migrations, and updated URLs. Just as the links on your website can break to these issues, so too can your backlinks on other sites.

As you can probably tell by now, broken links can appear at any time and for a ton of different reasons. 

But are they really a big deal? Will your entire website collapse if you ignore a few broken links?

If you count losing your search rankings as your website collapsing (which we definitely would), then yes! Next, let’s look at all the ways broken links can directly and indirectly affect your performance on search engines. 

How Do Broken Links Impact SEO?

Broken links, if left unchecked, can cause a lot of harm to your SEO and user experience. 

First, Google favors websites that are accurate, well-maintained, and frequently updated, and its algorithm reflects this in its search rankings. 

Broken backlinks are a clear-cut sign of poor website maintenance, which won’t work out in your favor in the search results. Moreover, if you really let broken links pile up, it could cause Google’s algorithm to conclude that you’ve abandoned your website, which will make your rankings drop even lower (or disappear). 

Here’s a look at the other ways broken links will negatively impact your SEO:

Bad user experience metrics 

Google has a whole host of user experience ranking factors it considers, such as your bounce rate and dwell times. 

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of users that ‘bounce’ (leave your site) before clicking through to another page. 

If your site is riddled with broken links, users will click away as soon as they see a dreaded error page, which will cause your bounce rate to skyrocket. Dwell time, which refers to how long users stay engaged on your site, will also see negative impacts. 

Bad user experience metrics will translate to poor search rankings, so beware. 

Decreased crawlability 

One of the worst side effects of broken links is they cut back on your crawlability. 

What’s that?

For websites to appear in Google’s search results, they must be indexed first, and the act of crawling is how new pages show up in Google’s index. 

Crawler bots are programs that must first understand the content and structure of a website before indexing it. 

This means crawler bots will use your URL structure and internal links to understand the greater context of your website as a whole. If your site has broken links everywhere, it’ll become impossible for crawlers to completely index your website. 

As a result, some of your most important pages (like landing pages, lead magnets, and blog content) may get lost in the fray and won’t appear in the search results at all. 

That’s the SEO equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot! 

Missed link equity (link juice) 

One of the coolest things about the way links work on search engines is that link equity is a thing. 

Also called link juice (don’t say it three times in a row), link equity refers to the value and authority of a backlink. 

It stems from the fact that Google treats backlinks as endorsements of your content’s quality. 

For example, if a major website like Forbes links out to your content, it’s a strong sign that you’re publishing accurate, engaging, high-quality content. Trusted websites like Forbes don’t link out to just anyone (their reputation is on the line, after all), which is why high-quality backlinks hold so much power. 

Well, the link equity you acquire from powerful backlinks doesn’t have to stay on one page. Let’s say one of your blogs did land a backlink from Forbes, and you decide to add an internal link to one of your other pages on it. 

In this scenario, some of the link equity (you can think of it as ranking power) will pass over to the other page you linked to. 

This means you can pass around the link equity you gain from valuable backlinks to other web pages, providing a widespread positive impact. 

What happens if one of your equitable backlinks suddenly breaks?

You guessed it, all that link equity vanishes in an instant. Not only will the rankings for the original page drop but so will every page that benefited from its link equity. 

Reduced trust 

It takes a lot of time, effort, and consistency to build a loyal customer base that trusts your brand. At the same time, it doesn’t take much time or effort at all to lose them. 

Essentially, leaving broken links on your site just isn’t a good look. 

If your loyal fans (or newcomers) start seeing broken link after broken link, they’ll start to lose trust in your business. Should the issue only continue to get worse, they may end their relationship with your brand in favor of a competitor. 

Search engines won’t view you favorably either, as broken links make your site appear neglected and unreliable. 

How to Discover and Fix Your Broken Links 

By now, it should be clear that you should enact a no-tolerance policy toward broken links. 

While it’s virtually impossible to rid your site of broken links, remaining vigilant will reduce or completely negate their negative impact. 

You should make a habit of regularly auditing your links and fixing broken links you find on the spot. 

Before you can do any of that, though, you need to know how to uncover your broken links, which is what we’re about to teach you. 

For the purposes of this article, we’re going to stick with using Ahrefs to find broken links, but there are plenty of other methods. For example, Google Search Console provides a quick and free way to check for broken links on your website. 

Very quickly, here’s how to do it:

1. Log in to GSC and select your property. 
2. Select Coverage on the left-hand sidebar. 
3. On the Coverage report, scroll down to the Details section to view any error codes that popped up.
4. Keep an eye out for 404 status codes to find your broken links. 

We prefer using Ahrefs because of the variety of tools and filters they have which greatly speeds up the process, and you can check for broken links and backlinks in one location. 

How to find broken external links using Ahrefs 

First, let’s learn how to quickly identify any broken external links on your website using Ahrefs’ Site Explorer feature. 

Enter your domain into the tool and hit the Search button. 

This will take you to your website’s general SEO Overview, but this isn’t the page we want. On the left-hand sidebar, navigate to Outgoing Links and select Broken links.

This will bring up the Broken links report, which will list all the broken external links on your website. 

From here, all you have to do is go through each link and either A) remove it or B) replace it with an alternative link. 

The report also tells you the specific error that it ran into when trying to follow each hyperlink, such as ‘404 not found’ or ‘cannot resolve host.’ 

Remember, it’s important not to forget about your broken external links because they will negatively impact your user experience. 

If the resources you link out to don’t work, your users may get the impression that you don’t regularly update your posts – so be sure to clean up your external links. 

How to find broken internal links using Ahrefs 

Okay, that covers external links, but what about internal links? 

For those, you’ll need to use the Site Audit tool instead of Site Explorer. 

Once there, select your website under Project. If you haven’t already run a site audit on your website, you’ll need to set one up now. This guide from Ahrefs has some great info on how to use the tool. 

After you’ve selected your website, navigate to Internal Pages under Reports. 

This will take you to a page overviewing the internal pages on your website, including the presence of any broken links. 

You can click on the number under Broken to view a more detailed report about your broken internal links, which looks like this:

As you can see, the tool will tell you which error code shows up for the broken link, which will help you fix it. 

How to fix all broken internal and external links 

Once you’ve identified all the broken links on your site, the hard part is done. All that’s left is to go through and fix each link, which actually isn’t too difficult. 

Essentially, there are four methods that will fix any broken link (that isn’t a backlink, of course). 

They are:

• Update the link. If the content moved to a new location or if there was a typo in the URL, updating the link is a sufficient fix. 

• Replace the link. Let’s say there’s a broken link that you can’t restore but you happen to have a suitable replacement for it. In that case, go ahead and remove the original link and use the alternative content. 

• Remove the link. If the content a broken link pointed to no longer exists, you can simply remove the link and forget about it. 

• Use a redirect. Lastly, you can use a 301 or a 302 redirect to fix a broken link. Essentially, they’re ways to ‘redirect’ users from an old URL to a new URL. Bear in mind that a 301 redirect is permanent, meaning there won’t be a way to restore the original link. If you suspect that the content in question will get reinstated, use a 302 redirect instead, which is only temporary. 

Now, let’s move on to finding and fixing backlinks. 

Finding and Fixing Broken Backlinks 

Finding and fixing broken backlinks is a bit more challenging than working with broken internal and external links. This is because your backlinks appear on other websites, and you won’t have access to their internal data under normal circumstances. 

Once again, Ahrefs is the perfect tool for finding broken backlinks. Here’s how to do it. 

Pull up Site Explorer and enter your domain. 

On the left-hand sidebar, go to Backlink profile > Broken backlinks. 

Voila, this will bring up a report containing all the broken backlinks that point to your website. 

This time, finding your broken backlinks is the easy part. The challenge comes in convincing other site owners to fix them. 

Fixing broken backlinks 

Unfortunately, you can’t log in to another site owner’s CMS and fix the broken links that direct to your website. 

Instead, you’ll have to use outreach to contact each site owner and request that they fix it. 

Before you start sending out emails, do some homework on each broken backlink. Try to determine:

• If they updated or removed the content 
• If they replaced your backlink with a competitor’s 
• If there are any syntax or spelling errors in the backlink URL
• If the website recently went through a redesign or site migration 

Knowing the underlying cause beforehand will help you craft a more compelling (and successful) email. 

Once you believe you have a good idea why the link broke, you can draft a polite and concise email requesting that they fix the link. 

Here’s a template you can use to get your creative juices flowing:

Dear site owner, 

I’ve recently discovered that a backlink you added to my site is broken. I did a little digging and found out that (reason) most likely caused the link to break. 

Would you please fix the backlink by (add fix here)? It would be a great help to my website, and I’d be willing to return the favor should you need anything from me. 

Thanks, 

Your name 

How Often Should You Conduct Link Audits?

We’ve mentioned a few times already that you should conduct regular link audits, but how often is that?

The answer will depend on a few factors, including the size of your website, your current SEO performance, and the speed at which your competitors build links. 

On average, most link audits are done on a monthly, quarterly, or six-month basis. 

If you operate a large website, you should opt for a monthly or quarterly schedule. Smaller websites can typically get away with longer intervals but don’t forget to pay attention to your competitors. 

If you’ve had to build a lot of links to compete with another website, you’ll want to audit them at least quarterly to ensure they’re still putting in work for you. 

Make Your Broken Links a Thing of the Past 

If left unchecked, broken links will wreak havoc on your SEO and user experience. 

Yet, if you implement the tactics found in this article, you won’t have to worry about broken links much at all. 

With the power of regular link audits, Ahrefs reports, and other methods, you’ll be able to identify and fix broken links practically as soon as they appear. 

Do you need help putting together a winning link-building strategy?

Our renowned Link Outreach and Link Insertion services are your ticket to building a robust link profile. Also, don’t wait to schedule a free consultation so that we can develop a unique SEO solution tailored to your needs.   

The post Broken Links: How to Find, Fix, and Forget About Them appeared first on The HOTH.

In other words, what does a user hope to achieve by searching for a keyword related to your business?

It could be they want to:

1. Find information (informational intent) 
2. Find a specific website or web page (navigational intent) 
3. Research products (commercial intent) 
4. Make a purchase right away (transactional intent) 

These are the four main types of search intent, and they happen to align with the stages of your sales funnel. Informational and navigational queries are at the top of the funnel (TOFU) because users are just learning about a new topic and aren’t ready to make a purchase yet. 

Conversely, commercial and transactional queries are at the bottom of your sales funnel (BOFU), which makes them high-intent keywords. 

They go by this cool name because these types of keywords represent users who are likely to convert or will be easy to convert into customers. 

In this article, we’ll teach you how to use high-intent keywords in your SEO strategy, so stay tuned to learn how to boost your conversion rates! 

What is Search Intent?

Search intent refers to the ‘why’ behind a keyword a user enters into Google. The user’s search intent is the underlying purpose behind their search, such as to find a product or learn more information about a subject. 

Satisfying the search intent behind the keywords you target is one of the most crucial aspects of SEO. 

Why’s that?

It all comes down to providing what a user wants to find online. 

For instance, let’s say a user searches for ‘affordable gardening tools’ on Google. This keyword has commercial intent because it’s clear the user wants to find gardening tools in their price range to eventually make a purchase. 

The #1-ranked organic result they see is a blog on your website called ‘The Most Affordable Gardening Tools for Beginners,’ and they click through to the page. It’s a helpful buyer’s guide comparing gardening tools from numerous vendors online, which is exactly what they were looking for. 

In this scenario, you successfully satisfied the user’s search intent, fostering brand loyalty and maybe even landing a conversion (if you carefully position your gardening tools as affordable and high-quality without being too pushy). 

If, instead, your blog post doesn’t compare affordable gardening tools and tries to hard sell the reader on one of your expensive products, you won’t satisfy their intent, and they’ll likely click off your page in frustration. 

Failing to satisfy your audience’s search intent can lead to:

1. Poor search rankings 
2. Low levels of engagement 
3. Missed conversion opportunities 
4. A negative reputation 

Even with flawless on-page and technical SEO factors, your entire strategy will fall apart if you don’t properly interpret the search intent behind the keywords you target. That’s why understanding search intent is a must for any search engine marketer (SEM). 

The 4 Different Types of Search Intent 

Most search terms fit into one of four categories of intent, which are informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional. 

Here’s a table breaking down each type of intent using variations of the keyword ‘biotin.’ 

As you can see, each type of intent has specific types of content that cater to them, which is the key to mastering search intent. 

For your informational queries, you’ll want to hit them with educational articles, guides, FAQs, and how-to’s. These materials will inform and educate your readers, establishing your brand as an authority and earning the trust of your audience.

Commercial intent means users are considering making a purchase, but need more information first. Buying guides, product reviews, and comparison articles are all perfect ways to scratch the commercial itch. 

Lastly, if the intent is transactional, it means the user is ready to buy something right then and there. 

You should optimize your landing and product pages for these keywords, as well as pricing pages since these are the areas where transactions happen. 

The ultimate search intent hack 

Determining search intent isn’t always straightforward. While most keywords align closely with one of the four main categories (informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional), sometimes it’s unclear.

To confirm your assumptions, Google it!

Type your keyword into Google and see what pops up in the top 5 spots. Since Google’s algorithms are adept at deciphering search intent, the top-ranking pages will reflect the intent behind the keyword.

Next, assess the content. 

Are the top results mostly blog posts, product pages, review sites, or something else? 

This will clue you in on what people are really looking for.

Informational content may be suitable if your goal is brand awareness. However, if you want to make sales, you need to focus on keywords that scream, “I’m ready to buy!”  

That’s where high-intent keywords come in, and we’ll dive into those next. 

What Are High-Intent Keywords?

High-intent keywords are queries that have commercial and transactional intent, and they’re the keywords that are most likely to lead to sales. 

They also go by the name money keywords due to their high earning potential. 

Keywords that contain terms like ‘buy,’ ‘pickup,’ and ‘deliver’ indicate a strong desire to take action as soon as possible, so targeting them can connect you with customers precisely when they’re about to convert. 

As an example, the term ‘buy biotin online’ is a high-intent keyword used by users ready to purchase the supplement Biotin from an E-commerce store. 

Here are its top Google results:

As you can see, the keyword is undoubtedly transactional since it triggered Google’s Shopping Carousel, a feature that lists products related to the search. 

It’s a feature that only appears for transactional keywords, and the rest of the organic results are all product pages for Biotin supplements, which further proves our point. 

On the other side of the coin, informational and navigational queries are low-intent keywords. The difference has to do with their place in the sales funnel. Since informational and navigational keywords are at the top of the funnel, users are a long way from converting. 

They’ll require ‘nurturing’ via helpful content and informative emails, something which can take a long time. 

Does this mean that you should ditch low-intent keywords altogether?

Absolutely not! 

While they don’t lead to direct purchases, low-intent keywords are still incredibly important for:

1. Generating new leads 
2. Establishing your brand as a thought leader 
3. Building trust with new prospects 

Therefore, you need low-intent content just as much as you do high-intent, so don’t let the name fool you. 

Having said that, the better you are at targeting high-intent keywords, the better you’ll be at boosting sales, so let’s learn how to find them. 

How to Find High-Intent Keywords in Your Niche 

First, you need to know how to consistently discover high-intent keywords to target that A) are relevant to your niche and B) are possible to rank #1 on Google. 

There are several ways to hunt down these types of keywords, including the following methods:

• Understanding your buyer’s journey
• Using a keyword research tool 
• Analyzing competitor keywords, 
• ‘Seed’ keywords 

Let’s learn more about each method so you can find the one that works best for you. 

Understand your audience and their journey 

One of the best ways to nail search intent every time is to have an intimate understanding of your target audience. 

If you know what makes them tick, it’ll become way easier to understand the type of content they want to consume. This means you should do some serious research into your audience’s demographics, preferences, and pain points (i.e., what challenges do they face that your products and services can solve?). 

Try roleplaying as one of your potential customers. 

What information would you search for to learn more about your business? What problems are you trying to solve by searching for your products? 

Also, reach out to your sales team to learn more about how you’re currently acquiring customers. In particular, ask them for specifics about why customers choose you over your competitors. It could be that you offer better prices, higher-quality products, or a million other factors. 

The point is that once you know the main reason why customers choose your brand, you’ll be able to harp on that fact in your promotional materials. 

Identify high-intent keywords with research tools 

Our free keyword research tool is perfect for uncovering high-intent keywords. 

All you need to do is enter a general topic or keyword, and the tool will generate tons of results in seconds. 

Let’s try it out with the keyword we mentioned earlier, biotin. 

After entering the query into the tool, 50 results load for us (with the option to view more). 

Each keyword contains its search volume, keyword difficulty, CPC (cost-per-click), and, most importantly, search intent. 

Our tool provides tiny icons reflecting a keyword’s search intent as an easy visual cue for users. The small i encased in a blue circle means the keyword has informational intent. The tiny skyscraper means the keyword has commercial or navigational intent. 

In the example provided, ‘biotin for hair’ and ‘biotin for hair growth’ are both high-intent keywords and the rest are informational. 

This means you could target either keyword for transactional content like product pages and buyer’s guides to boost your conversions. 

Don’t forget about long-tail keywords 

You should also look for long-tail keywords with high-intent. 

A long-tail keyword is a search phrase that doesn’t have much search volume and tends to contain specific phrases and question-based queries. 

Most commonly, long-tail keywords are long strings of phrases related to a topic, such as ‘who has the most affordable Biotin online.’ 

Some search engine marketers mistakenly think that since long-tail keywords don’t have much search volume (they tend to receive only a handful of searches per month) they aren’t worth targeting. 

This isn’t true, as research shows that long-tail keywords have higher conversion rates than short-tail keywords. The average conversion rate for a long-tail keyword is a whopping 36%, while the strongest landing pages only convert at 11.45%.  

You should target long-tail keywords that contain:

• Specific phrases: The more specific a long-tail keyword is, the more likely it’ll be to land a conversion. For example, ‘buy biotin online’ shows higher intent than just ‘biotin.’
• Question-based queries: Keywords in the form of questions (e.g., ‘where to buy biotin’) often indicate a user closer to making a decision.

That’s how easy it is to identify high-intent keywords using our free tool, so don’t hesitate to put it to work for you. 

Researching competitors 

Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool is extremely helpful for uncovering your competitor’s high-intent keywords. 

Here’s how it works.

Once you enter your competitor’s URL, select either the Top Pages or Organic Keywords reports. To find keywords with the highest intent, try adding the following modifiers to the reports:

• Best
• Review 
• Comparison
• Alternative
• Vs
• Top 

These modifiers all suggest high intent, so they should quickly uncover high-intent keywords the site currently ranks for on Google. 

From there, pay attention to the search volume and keyword difficulty for each query to ensure it’s feasible to rank for it. Also, pay attention to the content they create for each high-intent keyword, as it can help you spark your own ideas. 

Secondly, you should analyze their content to see what you’re up against. 

If you want to stand a chance at outranking their content, you’ll need to outdo them by a significant margin. 

That means adding high-resolution product images and videos, glowing reviews, and answering frequently asked questions. If your content satisfies the search intent better than the original post, you stand the best chance of outranking it. 

Here’s a step-by-step guide for using Ahrefs to research competitors. 

Step #1: Analyze the competitor’s domain 

1. Log in to Ahrefs. Go to Site Explorer and enter the URL of one of your competitors in the search bar.

2. This will take you to the Overview page where you will see a screenshot of your competitor’s SEO performance, including organic traffic, backlinks, and top-performing pages.

Step #2: Find competitor keywords

3. Click on the Organic Search tab in the left-hand menu to dive deeper into their organic keyword data.

4. In the Organic Search section, click on Top Pages. This will show you the pages on your competitor’s site that get the most traffic. By analyzing these pages, you can see which keywords are driving traffic to them.

5. Alternatively, click on Organic Keywords to see a list of keywords your competitor ranks for. This includes the keyword, its search volume, the position your competitor ranks at, and the estimated traffic it brings to their site.

Step #3: Filter and analyze keywords

6. Use the position filter to see keywords where your competitor ranks in the top positions (1-10). These are high-value keywords.

7. Identify keywords with high search volumes but manageable competition (KD means keyword difficulty score).

8. Review the list of keywords and select those that are most relevant to your business and have the potential to drive traffic. You can also download the keyword data as a CSV file. 

What Happens If You Can’t Find High Intent Keywords?

It’s possible that you may not find high-intent keywords if you operate in a very niche industry, are targeting a new or emerging product/service, or have exhausted the most obvious options. 

If that’s the case, here are some alternative strategies to explore:

Expand your keyword scope

It could be that you aren’t being broad enough with the keywords you target. Here are some suggestions for broadening your horizons:

• Consider informational keywords. As stated before, low-intent keywords are equally as important as high-intent keywords. They build brand awareness, generate leads, and establish your brand as a reliable source of information. 
• Use broader keywords: Start with more general terms and see what variations or related phrases people are searching for.
• Look for alternative modifiers: Instead of “buy,” try “compare,” “review,” “alternative,” “best,” “top,” “vs,” or even question-based modifiers like “how to” or “where to buy.”

Use Google autocomplete 

Google’s autocomplete feature has long been a secret weapon for keyword research. Here’s how to use it: 

• Start typing relevant keywords into Google and see what suggestions it offers. These aren’t random suggestions, they’re real keywords that users search for every day. 
• Look at the “Related searches” section at the bottom of the SERP for more ideas, as these are also real keywords.
• These features can reveal how people actually search and give you clues for keyword variations, which can help you crack your audience’s search intent code.

Leverage your existing data

You can use your internal data to discover high-intent keywords, like: 

• Google Search Console (GSC): See which queries are already bringing traffic to your site and identify potential high-intent variations or expansions. If you’re new to GSC, check out our guide on the platform. 
• Google Analytics (GA): Check which keywords drive conversions or engagement on your site, and explore similar terms. 

Look beyond search engines

You don’t have to stick with search engines like Google to find high-intent keywords. You can also leverage:

• Social Listening: Monitor social media conversations to see what language your target audience uses when discussing products or services like yours. Tools like Hootsuite are perfect for this. 
• Forums and Communities: Engage in online communities related to your niche and observe the discussions to gather insights. Reddit is a great place to start, but don’t stray away from more niche forums, either. 

Concluding Thoughts: High-Intent Keywords 

High-intent keywords are a massively powerful tool for converting organic traffic into paying customers. They signal a user’s readiness to buy, making them the golden ticket to higher conversion rates and increased revenue.

By mastering the art of finding and targeting high-intent keywords through effective keyword research and strategic content creation, you’ll attract qualified leads and skyrocket your sales. Remember, it’s not just about traffic – it’s about attracting the right traffic.

Are you overwhelmed by SEO or aren’t sure where to start?

HOTH X, our fully managed SEO service, is the ultimate solution. Our expert team will take the entire process off your hands, all while boosting your visibility and driving bottom-line results. 

Don’t miss out on this opportunity! Schedule a call today and let us transform your SEO into a sales powerhouse.   

The post High-Intent Keywords: How to Target Them for Increased Conversion Rates  appeared first on The HOTH.

If you’re like 95% of modern consumers, it’s to check out online reviews. 

After all, it would be a shame to waste your hard-earned money on subpar products or services. Reviews act as a form of social proof that something is actually worth it, which is why they’re so popular.  

Among the countless reviews you can find online, Google hosts 73% of them. 

That means you have a very real incentive to generate lots of Google reviews. 

If you have mostly positive reviews on your Google Business Profile, your prospects will see lots of first-hand accounts demonstrating how your brand outshines the competition. 

Does this mean you should pay writers to make up glowing reviews with 5-star ratings while deleting every slightly negative review?

Not at all! 

In fact, users often see a flawless review profile as a red flag for manipulation. 

Fake reviews are a very real thing, which is why people crave authenticity above all else.  

In this guide, we’ll teach you how to consistently generate honest, positive Google reviews. We’ll also show you how to turn negative reviews into wins, so you shouldn’t shy away from occasional negative feedback (it’s all about how you handle it). 

As a reminder, this is part 5 of our 5-part learning series on Google Business Profile (GBP). 

In previous chapters, we covered:

• The importance of Google Business Profile 
• How to Optimize Your Google Business Profile Listing 
• How to Claim Your Google Business Profile Listing
• How to Use Google Posts 

For now, let’s dive into why Google reviews matter for your business. 

Why Do Google Reviews Matter?

There are more than a few reasons why your GBP listing needs reviews, including:

1. Earning your customer’s trust 
2. Improving your SEO 
3. Boosting conversion rates 

These are significant benefits, so let’s take a closer look at them. 

Benefit #1: Build trust with your target audience 

The main reason why you need positive reviews on Google is to earn the trust of potential customers. 

As stated in the intro, practically everyone looks at reviews for a business before becoming a paying customer.

It’s important to note that this is unanimous, so it doesn’t matter your target audience or geographic focus. 

If your GBP listing has mostly positive reviews coming from authentic customers, your audience will trust that you’re a real brand that provides truly helpful products. 

The importance of negative reviews 

What about if your profile has a few less-than-stellar reviews?

That’s totally fine, as long as you respond to each one. 

We live in the real world, and mistakes are bound to happen. What matters most to prospective customers is how your brand reacts to bad experiences. 

If they see an honest, respectful response that provides a solution (like offering a gift card in response to an extra long wait time), they’ll know that you value your customers. 

Surprisingly, research shows that the occasional negative review can make your audience trust you even more. 

52% of buyers claim that they trust a product more if it has a few negative reviews. 

Why is that?

It comes back to what we mentioned before about valuing authenticity. 

By including the bad with the good, it’s a sign that you aren’t manipulating your reviews. As a result, customers will believe your positive reviews even more (and will forgive negative ones if you respond). 

Benefit #2: Improve your SEO for better online visibility 

Whenever you search for a local business, you don’t want to settle for just any old company, do you?

Of course not, which is probably why you begin every local search with the word ‘best,’ which is an extremely common search habit. 

For example, if you want to search for a dentist in St. Petersburg, Florida, you’d likely search for ‘best dentist st. petersburg.’

Well, whenever Google’s algorithm sees ‘best’ in a local keyword, it will only display Google Business Profile listings that have a rating of 4.0 or above. 

So, if you want to capitalize on ‘best (your product or service)’ searches (and you DO, believe us), you need lots of Google reviews. 

If your GBP listing has mostly positive reviews, you’ll show up in ‘best’ searches on the Google Map pack (also called local pack). We’ve covered this in previous chapters of the guide, but as a reminder, the local pack is a powerful search feature that looks like this:

Map packs appear for 93% of local searches, and 42% of users will click on one of the businesses listed in them, so you definitely want your site to qualify. 

By improving your online visibility, you’ll funnel more traffic to your website, which leads us to our next benefit. 

Benefit #3: Boost your conversion rates 

This benefit is a direct result of the other two. 

With more organic traffic and increased customer trust, you’ll likely see an uptick in sales (assuming that your website is designed to convert). 

For online businesses, organic visitors will get directed to your landing and product pages, giving you the chance to convert them into customers. 

For brick-and-mortar businesses, a healthy review profile can lead to more foot traffic. 

The proof?

Research shows that 76% of users who conduct a ‘near me’ search will visit the business within a day. 

Best Practices for Accruing Google Reviews 

Okay, now that you know Google reviews are nothing but good for your business, how do you get them?

After all, you’ll have to generate a ton of reviews to achieve a balance of mostly good with a few bad eggs thrown in. 

This means you’ll need a few hacks for attracting reviews from your customer base. 

Here are some effective tips for generating Google reviews. 

Tip #1: Have excellent customer service 

This tip may be the most obvious but it’s one of the most potent. 

It should go without saying that the better service you provide, the better reviews you’ll generate. 

Stellar service inspires customers to leave reviews simply because they want to share their amazing experience. Here are a few ways you can improve the customer service at your business:

• Personalized support. Don’t load up a basic AI chatbot and call it a day for your customer service. Instead, offer live agents who provide support that’s tailored to your client’s needs. 

• Collect customer feedback. Make a habit of gathering feedback from your customers through brief surveys, suggestions, and comment cards. 

• Train your team. Do some in-house training to ensure your team A) knows how to solve common customer issues and B) treats everyone with respect and manners. 

Also, it’s important to personalize your interactions with customers. In today’s age, customers expect companies to not only know who they are but also to be familiar with their preferences and past purchases. 

Doing small things like referring to customers by name and reviewing their profiles before interacting with them will help you personalize their experience. 

Tip #2: Create or claim a Google Business Profile listing 

In order for your reviews to appear on Google directly, you must claim or create a Google Business Profile listing. 

Otherwise, your customers will have to visit third-party websites to see reviews for your brand, which you’ll have far less control over. 

The good news is that creating a GBP listing isn’t difficult at all. 

As long as you’re the true owner of the business, you’ll be able to complete Google’s verification process to prove ownership. There are several ways to go about this, including email, recording a video, and sending a postcard. 

A previous chapter in this guide on claiming a Google Business Profile contains a step-by-step breakdown for getting set up on the platform, so defer to it for more detailed instructions. 

Once you have a GBP listing up and running, you’ll be able to start encouraging customers to leave reviews. You’ll also be able to respond to any review that you receive, positive or otherwise. 

Tip #3: Optimize your Google Business Profile 

It’s not enough to simply create or claim a GBP listing. Once the basic setup is complete, it’s time to optimize your profile by filling out each section. 

Most importantly, you need to ensure your business’s contact information is accurate and up to date. You should start with your business’s NAP (name, address, and phone number), and then work your way down. 

GBP is pretty extensive, so it’s easy to miss a section if you aren’t thorough. 

Sections you should fill out include:

• Products and services. You’ll get the chance to showcase your products and services through GBP, so include your hardest-hitting product descriptions and photos. 

• From the Business: This is essentially your ‘About Us’ section on GBP. Provide a brief yet compelling overview of who you are, what you do, and why the customer should care. 

• Q&A section. GBP gives you the ability to create a Q&A section to answer the questions that you hear from customers the most. A thorough Q&A section will cut down on the number of service requests you receive, and it will show customers that you care about answering their questions. 

• Business category. You get to select one primary category and up to 9 secondary categories that best describe your business. It’s important to select all the secondary categories that apply in order to expose your content to the right audiences, but just ensure they’re truly relevant. 

Another chapter of this guide is solely dedicated to optimizing your GBP, so check it out if you want to learn more. 

Tip #4: Make sure you know Google’s policies 

Next, it’s crucial to know Google’s guidelines surrounding reviews. If you skip this step, you risk accidental violations that could result in removed reviews or a suspended account. 

To quote Google on fake reviews, “Where reviews distort the truth, we will remove content.”

They go on to say, “Your content should reflect your genuine experience of a product, and should not be posted just to manipulate a product’s ratings. Don’t post fake content, don’t post the same content multiple times, and don’t post content for the same product from multiple accounts.” 

In other words, they have a very similar policy for reviews as they do for SEO: anything that tries to artificially boost ratings (rankings for SEO) is considered a violation. 

This means you should not inflate your review profile with fake or solicited reviews. 

Instead, follow the guidelines on this list to generate positive reviews, and respond to the less-than-flattering ones. 

Tip #5: Ask your real-world customers to leave reviews

Asking for reviews is very natural and a widely accepted practice, so you shouldn’t shy away from it. 

Truthfully, a direct and personal request is often the best way to elicit genuine positive reviews from customers. 

Stick to regular customers that you know on an almost personal basis. Since they’re clearly a fan of what you do, politely ask them if they would write an honest review of your brand on Google. 

Here are some tips for asking customers for reviews:

• Timing is everything. The trick is knowing when to ask, even with your most coveted regulars. Only ask for reviews after a positive interaction or purchase. The last thing you want to do is ask a customer for a review when they’re having a terrible day (or if your business screwed something up for them). 

• Who to ask. As stated before, it’s best to stick with loyal customers who avidly use your products and services. However, you can also ask recent buyers who show high levels of satisfaction with their purchase. 

• Make it easy for them. You shouldn’t simply ask a customer for a review and leave it at that. After all, everyone is busy, so they’ll likely forget that you asked after a few minutes or on the ride home. To ensure leaving a review stays on top of their minds, hand them a printed business card that has the QR code for your GBP review page. This makes it incredibly easy for them to leave a review, and they may even do it on the spot. 

If you’re not sure how to generate a QR code for your Google reviews, check out this detailed guide. 

Tip #6: Run a Google review email campaign 

Your mailing list is another potential source for Google reviews, so you should definitely leverage email. 

It’s as easy as sending out an email to past customers asking for their feedback. Embedding a link to your Google review page will make it quick and easy for your customers to leave an honest summary of their experience, which is what you want. 

Here’s a template for such an email:

Hey (first name), 

Thanks again for being a recent customer of (your brand). In our continuous effort to improve, we’d like to politely ask for your honest feedback on your most recent interaction with our brand. Here’s a link to our Google review page. We greatly appreciate your time. 

Best, 

Your Brand

Tip #7: Include a link to your Google review page in your email signature 

While we’re on the subject, here’s another email-related tip for generating Google reviews: include a link to your review page in your email signature. 

Doing so will transform every email into an opportunity for a review on your GBP listing. 

All you have to do is include a line like, “We appreciate your feedback! Please leave us a review on Google.” Don’t forget to include a hyperlink to your Google review page! 

Tip #8: Include a CTA on your website that encourages users to leave a review

You should also use your website as a magnet for generating reviews by including a CTA on one of your web pages. 

Ideally, you should include the CTA on your homepage or another one of your high-traffic pages. You need to put it somewhere that the majority of your users will see it to increase the chances of landing reviews. 

The copy doesn’t have to be fancy here, just let your users know that you value their feedback and would appreciate a review (and include a hyperlink to your review page, of course). 

You can also embed a few glowing testimonials to the page to add social proof (this can encourage customers to leave positive reviews). 

Tip #9: Ask for reviews on social media 

You can also turn your social media profiles into review-generating machines. Post updates where you ask users to provide reviews and share some of your more positive reviews from the past to encourage them. 

The best part about this tactic is that you can use every social channel you have. 

Whether it’s Instagram, Facebook, X, TikTok, or YouTube, you can always post reminders for your audience to leave you reviews on Google. 

Common Mistakes to Avoid 

Before we wrap things up, there are some common mistakes and beginner pitfalls that you should avoid at all costs. 

These mistakes could draw the ire of Google down upon you, which is the last thing you want. 

Here are the top things to avoid when trying to generate Google reviews:

• Buying reviews. Fake reviews are never worth it, as they tend to stick out like a sore thumb. This isn’t good because Google actively cracks down on fake reviews (remember the quote from before). Therefore, you should stick to honest reviews that your customers write for you instead of hiring a service. 

• Ignoring negative reviews. A negative review is only a loss if you fail to respond to it. Negative reviews that go unaddressed will have dire impacts on your brand’s reputation, so always respond to your critics. 

• Being pushy with review requests. You shouldn’t get pushy with your customers when asking for reviews. Treat it as a special favor your customers are doing for you, not something that they owe you. 

• Not following up. Certain methods, like email campaigns, require you to follow up whenever you don’t hear back from your prospects. If you don’t follow up at least once, you’ll miss out on valuable opportunities to gain genuine feedback. 

Also, it can seem spammy to Google if you suddenly receive a huge batch of positive reviews. Do your best to space things out when requesting reviews to avoid suspicion of manipulating your ratings. 

Start Generating Google Reviews to Gain Your Customer’s Trust 

To recap what we’ve covered so far:

• The vast majority of users online look for reviews before they make purchases 
• Google reviews build trust with your customers and can boost conversions 
• There are a wide variety of ways to get reviews, such as email, social media, and your website
• You should avoid buying reviews or being too pushy when asking customers to write reviews 

As long as you follow Google’s guidelines and use the techniques mentioned in this article, you’ll have a robust, healthy review profile before you know it. 

Do you need help forming a winning local SEO strategy for your brand?

If so, HOTH X is calling your name. It’s our managed SEO service where we take the entire process off your hands so that you can dominate the search rankings in your sleep. 

Also, don’t wait to check out our SEO Learning Hub to continue your digital marketing education!       

The post How to Get Google Reviews: A Local Business Guide for 2024 appeared first on The HOTH.

What’s that?

It’s a search feature where generative AI summarizes queries at the top of the results page. If you’ve done any Googling since May, you’ve likely seen one of these appear:

As you can see, the AI Overview provides a brief summary of the search term, followed by a more in-depth explanation and the three search results that it got the information from. 

The AI Overview feature is a rethinking of the previously planned Search Generative Experience (SGE), something that had SEOs shaking in their boots since its announcement back in 2023.

We were among those concerned, as we published several articles speculating what SGE would mean for the future of SEO at the beginning of 2024. It was an uncertain time because it wasn’t clear how the introduction of generative AI technology would affect search engine marketing (SEM). 

In particular, the main fear was that generative AI would steal lots of organic traffic away from publishers. 

Well, AI Overviews have been live for a few months now, so what’s the verdict?

Was generative AI in search the death of SEO?

Not at all. 

In fact, the results are in line with the predictions we made at the beginning of the year: that continuing to optimize for page one is still the way to go. 

In this article, we’ll break down how AI Overviews work, what their impact on SEO has been so far, and what you can do to optimize for the best results – so stay tuned! 

What Are AI Overviews and How Do They Work?

An AI Overview is a concise summary of a search query generated by an artificial intelligence. 

At face value, an AI Overview’s purpose is to A) provide quick and easy answers to simple queries and B) make it easy for users to find the most trusted and relevant search results. 

However, AI Overviews stretch beyond answering simple queries. 

Overviews can take on many forms, including snippets, short articles, lists, and more. At times, users will have the option to ask follow-up questions, and you can do things like plan trip itineraries straight from the Overview tab. 

The most common type of AI Overview is definitely the short article summary, which tends to pop up for informational queries the most (more on this in a bit). 

Here’s what it looks like:

Notice that the top of the Overview contains the highlighted summary. This is the part of the feature that answers the primary question the keyword poses (such as ‘what is a guitar?’) and is the most succinct. 

Beneath that, the user gets to learn some brief facts about guitars presented in a short article format. 

On the right-hand side are the featured search results the AI used to generate the summary. These are called link cards:

They’re hyperlinked, so users will get directed to the page in question for further reading if they click on the card. 

Since AI Overviews tend to appear at the very top of page one (sometimes they appear beneath paid ads), getting featured in a link card is a powerful position to hold. 

In fact, Google claims there’s evidence that link cards generate higher click-through rates than traditional results. This would make sense, as these three links stand head and shoulders above the organic search results. 

As SEOs already know, users will almost always click on the results that appear at the top of the page due to:

1. The convenience
2. The perceived superiority of the top-ranked results 

So, it goes without saying that getting your website’s content at the tip-top of page one on Google is a good thing. 

What’s the secret to getting featured in AI Overview link cards?

Since it’s clear that getting cited in a link card is a valuable position for SEO, how do you optimize for it?

Well, if you recall the articles we wrote at the beginning of 2024 during the height of the SGE Scare (that’s what we’re calling it), we claimed that your best course of action was to continue to implement SEO best practices to try and rank on page one. 

Like many other things about digital marketing and SEO, we were correct. 

It’s already been discovered that high-ranking organic search results are far more likely to appear as link cards in AI Overviews. 

According to research, the #1-ranked organic result has a 55% greater chance to appear as a link card than the #2 results, and this trend continues for each succeeding position. 

This means if you’re already implementing SEO best practices in your content, the best thing you can do is maintain the status quo. 

SEO strategies to help rank at the top of page one 

If you’re a seasoned SEO, feel free to skip this section. For newcomers, solid SEO strategies to rank on page one include:

• Conducting thorough keyword research. If you want to generate lots of traffic, then you need to create what your audience wants. The #1 way to do that is to research the keywords your audience searches for the most. Our free keyword planner tool is a huge help with this process, as it will tell you everything you need to know about any given keyword (and will provide lots of solid recommendations). Look for keywords with a high search volume, low keyword difficulty score, and an upward trend. 

• Creating thought-leader-worthy content. Once you have a list of trending terms that your audiences search for online, it’s time to create content specifically tailored for them. This means writing informative blogs, shooting helpful videos, and designing appealing infographics to draw your audience to your website. 

• Building backlinks from high-quality, relevant websites. Backlinks are a top ranking factor on Google. A backlink is a link on an external website that ‘points back’ to yours, and it acts as an endorsement of your content’s quality. It’s the equivalent of a reference on a job resume. To rank higher on Google, you need a healthy backlink profile, which means engaging in link-building. 

While these are the basics of any SEO campaign, they’re all effective at ranking on page one and thus, they’ll help you get cited in more link cards. 

The Impact of AI Overviews So Far 

Okay, now that you know how AI Overviews operate, how have they been impacting SEO thus far?

The answer is not a whole lot. 

In fact, ever since rolling out AI Overviews in May, Google appears to be scaling back on them exponentially. They now appear for fewer searches than ever before, standing at a meager 1.28%:

The reasons for this vary, although the AI Overview feature’s rocky start likely has something to do with it. 

Shortly after the feature debuted, the internet was ablaze with humorous inaccuracies, hallucinations, and bizarre suggestions. 

Just to name a few, Google’s AI recommended that users put glue on pizza to help the cheese stick to the dough. In another instance, the Overview encouraged a user to eat rocks. 

These stories went extremely viral, which didn’t help the search feature’s reputation. 

Besides the rough start, generative AI responses take lots of energy and resources, which may have contributed to Google’s decision to cut back on AI Overviews. 

At the moment, Overviews most commonly appear for informational queries. 

According to research, 96.5% of all AI Overviews appear for informational keywords. This means very few Overviews will pop up for transactional, navigational, and local searches. 

Why is that?

First, informational queries tend to be where AI Overviews are the most helpful. If what you’re after is information (such as the answer to a question), then having an AI Overview provide you with a concise summary of your search query is extremely useful. 

Next, it could be that Google wants to avoid YMYL (your money, your life) keywords to avoid potential lawsuits due to inaccurate or harmful AI Overviews. YMYL is Google’s acronym that represents any website that could potentially impact your health, well-being, or finances. 

YMYL content requires a higher level of expertise than regular content, and inaccurate information can cause users to lose money, their sanity, or their lives. 

Do AI Overviews cause websites to lose traffic?

Before AI Overviews launched, it was predicted that they’d cause a pretty significant drop in organic traffic for virtually every website. 

This was especially true back when it was called SGE (which had far more robust features planned), which is why SEOs were preparing for the apocalypse in late 2023. 

So, were the urban legends true? Did AI Overviews cause a unanimous loss in organic traffic?

Once again, the answer is complicated and a bit underwhelming. 

Research found that when a website was featured in an AI Overview, it experienced an 8.9% drop in organic traffic. If the domain wasn’t listed in a link card in the AI Overview, it was a 2.6% loss in traffic. 

While this may seem alarming at first glance, this impact is actually minuscule. 

Back when we were stocking our SGE bunkers, we predicted that every website would lose 25% of its organic traffic, which is far more severe. 

Even then, we calculated that the traffic loss would be from low-value traffic that wasn’t going to convert anyway. 

We predicted that with a rock-solid on-page SEO strategy and a robust backlink profile, websites could still thrive on search engines by ranking in the #1 spot for queries with no AI Overview and appearing as link cards for queries that do. 

Now that AI Overviews are here, our advice hasn’t changed. 

Also, now that AI Overviews appear for fewer and fewer keywords, you shouldn’t lose much sleep over them. That’s not to say they can’t be a helpful tool when leveraged properly, it’s just that they aren’t the end of the SEM world as we know it. 

New AI Overview Features 

While the impact of AI Overviews is waning, Google still has new features on the horizon planned for it. 

Also, they recently introduced AI Overviews to six new countries. On August 15th, 2024, Google released a statement on its blog that they were bringing AI Overviews to Brazil, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, and Britain. 

Around the same time, Google added a new feature to AI Overviews and began experimenting with a few others, so let’s take a look at them. 

More hyperlinks included in AI Overviews (no longer just three citations) 

When the feature was originally launched, Overviews only contained three search results, which were the citations the AI used to generate its summaries. 

That changed in August of this year, as AI Overviews now include more hyperlinks contained within the summaries. 

Let’s take a look at how these links appear using the example listed before:

Next to each sentence in the mini-article, there are hyperlink buttons that you can click on. Here’s what happens when you select one of them:

Clicking on the hyperlink button next to the Origin sentence brings up a new link card with a search result we can click on. 

This new feature is great news for SEOs because it means more search results will appear in AI Overviews (assuming users click on the tiny hyperlink buttons). 

So, instead of three results hogging all the glory, now more websites get to join in on the AI Overview fun. 

AI Overviews with links embedded in the text 

This feature is still in the experimental phase so it hasn’t launched yet. However, Google plans on eventually ditching the tiny hyperlink buttons (thank goodness) in favor of hyperlinking the text inside Overviews instead. 

This will make it a lot easier for users to click on other links inside the Overview, heightening the chances that other sites will be able to generate traffic from the feature. 

For now, SEOs will have to stick with getting their content featured in A) the initial three link cards or B) the hyperlink buttons listed alongside the text. 

Leveraging AI Overviews in Your Favor 

To recap, AI Overviews have had a marginal impact on search engine marketing at best. 

This is by no means bad news, as the introduction of generative AI to search engines had the potential to wreak havoc on every website’s organic traffic. 

So far, that hasn’t been the case, as AI Overviews are largely reserved for vague informational queries. 

This means your money keywords (that have transactional and commercial intent) will remain largely untouched. 

Also, targeting link cards in AI Overviews can help you generate traffic and raise brand awareness, so there’s no reason not to embrace them for your informational content. 

Do you need help forming a winning SEO strategy in the age of generative AI?

HOTH X, our fully managed service, is where we completely take the reins over your SEO strategy. You’ll get to sit back and watch the traffic roll in, so don’t wait to sign up now! 

If you’d like to discuss your SEO options in more detail, feel free to book a free SEO consultation.   

The post What’s the Deal with AI Overviews? How Do They Impact SEO? appeared first on The HOTH.

Tactics to acquire backlinks that were viable just 5 years ago are now obsolete (like paying for low-quality links and automating mass outreach emails). 

Why is that?

There are many reasons, including Google Algorithm Updates, emerging search trends (like the use of AI), and the fact that some tactics simply lose their effectiveness after a while. 

For example, generic outreach email templates used to work fine for acquiring backlinks – but now site owners have grown tired of seeing them overflow their inboxes. 

That’s why SEOs need to periodically rethink their backlink strategies. 

If your tried-and-true tactics are no longer yielding results, it’s time to try something new. 

New link-building techniques are always popping up, so you shouldn’t have to look too far to find some new tactics to test out. 

To make things easier for you, we’ve compiled 6 up-to-date link-building tactics that have yielded amazing results for our clients. 

Read on to discover the best ways to get backlinks in 2024 and beyond.

Do Backlinks Still Matter for SEO?

Since SEO changes so often, is it still worth pursuing backlinks for your SEO strategy?

The answer is yes, especially if you’re optimizing your website for Google Search. 

Backlinks are still among Google’s strongest ranking signals, and they’re essential for achieving top rankings (positions 10 and above). 

As proof, research by Ahrefs shows that the #1-ranking page on Google’s search results gets an additional 5% – 14.5% dofollow backlinks from websites each month. 

In fact, whether a website can outrank a competitor usually depends on the strength of its backlink profile. 

That’s because, on search engines, a backlink is more than just a link. 

It’s effectively the site owner saying, “This is a source that I trust, go and read it!” As a result, backlinks act as endorsements of your brand. 

So, if you’ve hit a snag and can’t seem to climb higher than your current rank, your competitors likely have more backlinks coming from high-authority websites. 

The good news?

There’s no reason why you can’t pursue backlinks from the same sources to help even the odds. 

With the right tactics, you can acquire your competitor’s backlinks (or similar ones) and surpass them on the SERPs. 

However, if your SEO campaign focuses on Bing instead of Google, backlinks won’t matter as much. That’s because Bing uses different ranking factors, and backlinks aren’t very high on the list. 

Check out our Bing SEO guide to discover how to optimize your website for it instead of Google. 

What Makes a Backlink High-Quality?

The quality of a backlink matters, but what makes a backlink high or low-quality?

In terms of backlink quality, the #1 deciding factor is the source. In other words, a backlink must come from a relevant, trusted domain to be considered ‘high-quality.’ 

Remember how we said that backlinks act as endorsements of your content?

Well, you wouldn’t want your endorsements to come from untrusted spam sites with terrible reputations, would you?

It’s important to note that in the past, it was entirely possible to boost your search rankings with backlinks coming from spam sites. However, Google has become incredibly adept at identifying spammy backlinks, so you should only stick to links coming from trusted domains. 

Here are the characteristics of a high-quality backlink:

1. Authoritative: When a link is authoritative, it means the linking website has a strong reputation itself. It will have a solid backlink profile, high traffic, and good search rankings. Links from established industry leaders or educational (.edu) and government (.gov) websites carry extra weight since they come from such trusted sources.
2. Relevant: The page linking to you MUST cover a similar topic or niche to positively impact your search rankings. For example, a tech company won’t get much SEO juice from a backlink on a golfing blog.
3. Unique: If a website links to you but not your competitors, it’s a valuable backlink. It shows that you’re offering something distinct and worthy of recognition.
4. Natural: For a backlink to appear natural to Google, the link must appear organically within the content and shouldn’t be overly promotional. The anchor text (the clickable words) must be relevant and not spammy. 

Some SEOs falsely assume that they should build hundreds (or even thousands) of high-quality backlinks to safeguard their search rankings. 

However, this isn’t necessary. 

Even if you only build 20 – 30 backlinks, as long as they contain the characteristics listed above, they can significantly boost your search rankings. 

Building backlinks is an art form, and focusing on quality more than quantity is the key to success. 

6 Effective Ways to Get Backlinks for Your Website 

If you want to find lasting success with a link-building campaign, using the latest and greatest tactics is paramount. 

Here’s an in-depth look at 6 modern ways to get backlinks that will provide the best results for your SEO campaign. 

#1: Link insertions 

This technique involves contacting site owners to ask them to include one of your links in an existing piece of content. 

All you have to do is write some optimized anchor text for the link, and you’re done. 

The catch?

You will have to find a way to add value to the original post, as adding one of your links to an old post doesn’t do much for the website owner. 

To sweeten the pot, you can add new insights/images/infographics to the post to make it fresh and rankable again. 

Our favorite method is to find one of our client’s products, services, or free tools and find web pages where it makes perfect sense to link to them. 

Here’s a real-world example. 

When building links for a landscaping company, we focused on sites where mentioning their mulch delivery service made sense and added value to their readers just by inserting one of our client’s backlinks. 

Here’s what it looks like in action:

As you can see, the link makes perfect sense in the context of the post and provides a valuable resource for readers – a true win-win! 

Also, since link insertions don’t involve any content creation (unlike guest posts), they’re a lot faster to acquire. Not only that, but you won’t have to wait long for the backlink to start affecting your SEO, as you’re inserting it into a piece of content that’s already in Google’s index. 

#2: Using Connectively (Help-a-Reporter-Out Requests)

Another effective way to acquire backlinks is to become a resource for bloggers, reporters, and journalists on Connectively (formerly called HARO). 

Here’s how it works: 

1. Sign up as a source: Create a free account on Connectively and select whether you’re a journalist or a subject matter expert (choose subject matter expert).

2. Select relevant queries: Search for keywords related to your industry or niche. Browse through the queries and identify those that align with your knowledge and experience.

3. Pitch your expertise: If a query aligns with your knowledge, you can submit a well-crafted pitch highlighting your expertise and offering valuable insights on the topic. Be sure to request a backlink to your website if your pitch is used. 

4. Get published and earn backlinks: If your pitch is selected, the journalist will typically include your information in their article and include a backlink to your website.

Here are some tips for finding success on Connectively:

Be thorough! Only respond to queries that you’re truly knowledgeable about. Your pitches should offer unique insights and demonstrate your expertise.

Be quick! Respond to queries within 30 minutes of receiving them.

Be resourceful! Before pitching, check the media outlet’s domain authority (you can use our free domain authority checker) to ensure a backlink from them is worthwhile for your SEO efforts.

#3: Guest blogging 

Some classic ways to get backlinks never go out of style, and guest blogging is definitely one of them. 

Writing high-quality guest blogs on trusted sites in your niche is still one of the most reliable ways to acquire desirable backlinks. 

In addition to landing backlinks, guest posts are excellent for raising brand awareness and introducing your content to a new audience. 

They’re a bit trickier and more time-consuming than link insertions, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth it. 

Securing guest posts 

Guest posting is a powerful tool for building backlinks, but it requires a strategic approach to achieve impressive results. 

Here’s what it takes to identify and secure high-quality guest posts:

Identify target websites

Look for blogs and websites that cater to your target audience and cover topics related to your niche. To find these websites, head to Google Search and type in the following formula:

niche keyword +”guest posts”

Here’s what happens when we use this formula for the gardening niche:

Once you have found a relevant website, check its domain authority and see if the website has specific guidelines for guest contributors. This will help you tailor your pitch and content accordingly.

Craft your pitch 

Website owners and editors are constantly flooded with guest post requests. To stand out, your pitch needs a personal touch that shows you’ve done your homework.

First, address the editor or website owner by name. Then, mention a recent article or blog post you enjoyed, or a specific topic they cover that aligns with your expertise. 

You must also clearly explain why your proposed topic is relevant to their specific audience. 

What unique insights, data, or expertise can you offer that their readers won’t find elsewhere?

You’ll also get bonus points if you can provide links to your previous work or published articles to demonstrate your writing style and expertise.

Develop high-quality content

If the website owner finds your pitch compelling, it’s time to create engaging content that offers a fresh perspective.

 Your copy should: 

• Follow guidelines: Adhere to the website’s preferred submission format, including its word count, image specifications, and citation style.
• Be well-structured: Use clear headings, subheadings, and bullet points to make your content easy to read and digest.
• Be optimized for SEO: Include relevant keywords naturally throughout your content, but avoid keyword stuffing (which is using the keyword even when it doesn’t make sense).
• Include visuals: Include images, infographics, or videos to enhance your content and make it more shareable.

Promote your guest post 

Once your guest post is published, share it across your social media channels, email list, and other relevant platforms.

Make sure you engage with readers by responding to comments and questions on your guest post to foster discussion and build relationships with new readers.

#4: Create ultimate guides and infographics 

If you create outstanding content that provides value to your niche, then you’ll be able to acquire backlinks without even trying. 

That’s because content like ultimate guides and infographics (especially ones containing relevant statistics) generates the most backlinks online. 

So, if you can write an ultimate guide for a topic your target audience wants to learn about, the backlinks will start raking in. 

How do you find suitable topics to write about, though?

After all, the only way that ultimate guides and infographics are effective is if they’re relevant to your target audience’s current interests and needs. 

Enter keyword research and trending topics, both of which will help you get your finger on the pulse of your target audience. 

Our free keyword planner will let you know which keywords related to your industry are generating the most search volume (and how difficult they are to rank for):

Google Trends is an excellent tool for discovering what’s trending in your industry. 

Simply enter a keyword related to your niche, and pay attention to the Interest Over Time graph. If it’s pointing up, users are gaining interest in the topic. 

If it’s on the way down, that means interest in the topic is beginning to wane. 

Google Trends also provides a geographic view, which is helpful for identifying locations where your topics are popular:

This comes in handy if you’re trying to appeal to a local audience. 

#5: Build free tools 

Free tools are backlink magnets, and we can attest to this first-hand. 

That’s because our website contains a suite of free SEO tools, and they generate most of our high-quality backlinks. 

As proof, whenever we look at our top pages report in Ahrefs (which lets us know which of our web pages are performing the best/generating the most backlinks), our free tools dominate the list:

As you can see, virtually every URL on this list is one of our free SEO tools, and they all drive massive traffic for us. 

The concept is simple: free tools attract shares due to the helpful tasks they perform. 

Which types of tools should you create?

It depends entirely on your target audience. 

For instance, if you provide accounting software, then you’ll want to develop free accounting tools. As far as writing the code for the tool, you’ll likely need to enlist the help of a freelance developer (unless you’re savvy with programming). 

#6: Fix broken links

Broken link building is an SEO strategy where you find broken (dead) links on other websites and offer the site owner a replacement link to a relevant page on your website.

It’s a fantastic link-building technique because it’s mutually beneficial: you get a backlink, and the site owner gets to fix a pesky broken link on their site. 

How can you find broken links?

First, you should only target broken links on relevant websites. 

The free option is to use a crawler like Screaming Frog. Enter a competitor’s URL, crawl their site, and check the broken links. 

If you have a paid subscription to Ahrefs, then you can check for broken links using its Site Explorer tool. 

Here’s how:

1. Enter a competitor’s domain. Enter a competitor’s domain or a website in your niche from which you’d like to get a backlink.

2. Navigate to “Backlink profile” then “Broken Links”. This report will show you all the broken outbound links from that website.

3. Analyze the results. Look for broken links with high Domain Rating (DR) or referring domains. These are prime opportunities.

4. Create or identify replacement content. Check if you have relevant content on your site that can replace the broken link. If not, create a replacement post.

5. Reach out. Craft a personalized email to the website owners that A) links to the broken page and B) offers your content as a replacement.

Building Links = Relationship Building 

Since generic outreach templates are all but antiquated today, SEOs are flocking to building links by forming relationships instead. 

What’s that?

Relationship-based link-building involves forming long-term bonds with other website owners in your niche. 

That way, you can continue to generate backlinks for one another instead of a one-and-done deal. 

Not only that but forming relationships with other websites is a great way to network and discover new link sources. You’ll find new opportunities to acquire backlinks by sharing your sources with a partner. 

Of course, you should only try to form relationships with thought leaders in your industry, as partnering with low-DR sites will not do you any favors. 

Taking this approach requires most SEOs to rethink how they approach backlink outreach. 

Instead of asking for a link outright, you aim to connect with the website owner and form a bond. That means connecting with them on social media platforms and interacting with their posts in a genuine way. 

You introduce the idea of building links together only after getting to know them. 

Forming a network of high-authority link partners in your industry will make dominating the SERPs much easier. 

Wrapping Up: 6 Currently Effective Ways to Get Backlinks 

Link-building changes constantly for various reasons, which means that eventually, the tactics you use will go out of style. 

For now, the 6 techniques in this guide are the cream of the crop for boosting your backlink profile. 

Do you want to reach the top of the SERPs in your industry?

Don’t wait to check out our Link Insertion and Link Outreach services from The HOTH!

Our link-building gurus are well-versed in all the most effective techniques, so feel free to book a free SEO consultation with us today.       

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