To buy backlinks or not to buy backlinks, that is the question. 

Backlinks are crucial for building Google’s trust, generating referral traffic, and achieving higher search engine rankings – but they’re difficult and time-consuming to acquire. 

It can take months worth of outreach and networking to secure a single backlink, which is why many site owners choose to simply buy backlinks instead. 

Buying backlinks was the norm for years, but Google has never been a fan of the process. 

Why’s that?

It’s because Google views paying for backlinks as a ‘link scheme’ that violates its search guidelines.  

Backlinks are ‘credibility votes’ that vouch for the quality and accuracy of a website’s content, so if a site owner pays for a link instead of earning it based on the merit of their content – it can goof up Google’s ranking system. 

As a result, Google releases periodic spam updates to negate the effect paid backlinks have on search rankings. 

However, this hasn’t stopped site owners from buying backlinks, as the practice is still alive and well in 2024. 

While Google discourages the practice, the truth is you can still pay for backlinks in a way that appears natural and provides value to the website linking to your content. Read on to learn how.

Why Do Digital Marketers Still Buy Backlinks? Top 3 Reasons 

While it’s true that buying backlinks violates Google’s Search Essentials (formerly Webmaster Guidelines), so does nearly every other link-building technique. 

Even if you’re conducting outreach to write guest posts (which most marketers believe is a ‘white hat SEO tactic’, meaning it doesn’t violate Google’s guidelines), you’re still asking another site owner for a backlink, which qualifies as a link scheme. 

In other words, there’s next to no way to build links without ruffling Google’s feathers in one way or another. 

Despite the risk, there are plenty of reasons why digital marketers still choose to buy backlinks, so let’s dive into the top 3. 

#1: Buying links saves lots of time

Arguably the #1 reason SEO gurus choose to buy backlinks is to speed up the link-building process – which is infamous for being ridiculously slow. 

Google has a pie-in-the-sky attitude towards link-building, and it’s not always realistic. 

The idea is that with excellent content and on-page optimizations, you will generate backlinks based on the merit of your content alone. 

Don’t get us wrong, this is certainly possible, and websites accrue backlinks for this very reason all the time. 

The problem?

Generating links based on merit is too slow and unreliable.

SEO is fiercely competitive, and it often takes a large volume of links to bridge the gap between you and the competition. 

For example, if you’re trying to outrank another website that has 100 backlinks and you only have 10, you’ll need to build at least 90 links to even the playing field. 

The chances that 90 websites will link to your content based on its quality isn’t impossible, but it will likely take eons to do so. 

Even white-hat tactics that don’t violate Google’s guidelines take months to yield results. 

That’s why site owners choose to buy backlinks from a third-party service offering quality link placements from trusted websites. 

Buying backlinks is a quick and easy way to bolster your link profile, which is often a necessity for outranking competitors. 

#2: Increased keyword position rankings 

Including a target keyword in your content is no guarantee that you’ll rank for it on Google. While proper keyword placement is a necessity, it’s not something that moves the needle if you’re trying to outrank a stubborn competitor. 

Take it from us: we’ve helped countless clients finally get the best of competing websites that have been outranking them for years due to the backlinks we built. 

In fact, backlinks are almost always the deciding factor for higher keyword rankings in our experience. 

You can have the greatest content in the world with flawless on-page optimization, but if the links aren’t there, your competitors will get the best of you every time. 

Why is that?

It has to do with the way Google judges the quality, trustworthiness, and accuracy of a website. 

Google will only grant #1 rankings to websites that it trusts, and backlinks are how you build that trust. 

Using backlinks as credibility votes is what made Google special when it burst onto the scene back in the 90s, and it still follows that principle to this day. 

That’s where the concept of domain authority (DA) comes from, which represents how likely a domain is to rank on Google’s search results. The higher the score, the more ‘authoritative’ Google considers the website to be. 

As long as you acquire backlinks from credible websites (ones with high domain authority scores), they’ll always have a positive effect on your SEO. 

#3: Less effort, yet more conversions

With a stronger backlink profile, you’ll see a considerable influx of organic visitors, leads, and conversions from your landing pages, product pages, blogs, and other types of content. 

This leads to vast improvements to your domain authority, lead generation, and revenue generation. 

In short, links are valuable, and it takes a lot of hard work and time to build them organically. 

As with anything that’s valuable, like vegetables, it’s always easier to buy something than it is to cultivate it yourself. 

Therefore, buying links is the equivalent of buying an avocado at the grocery store instead of growing and harvesting it yourself. The end results are the same (you get valuable backlinks; you enjoy a tasty avocado), but you put in far less effort.   

What to Avoid When Buying Backlinks

All these perks aren’t to say there aren’t any downsides to buying backlinks. 

For instance, if Google determines that you’ve been paying for backlinks, they could devalue them all, which means you’ll have completely wasted your money. 

That’s why you need to err on the side of caution when buying backlinks. If you overstep your bounds – the house of links you built can come crashing down instantly. 

Should you get caught, your pages could appear lower in search results, drastically reducing visibility and organic traffic. In the worst-case scenario, your site will be removed from search results entirely until you disavow the offending links. 

Bearing that in mind, here are the top red flags to look out for when buying backlinks.

Unnatural link-building (PBNs)

If you want to get away with buying a backlink, it has to appear as if you earned it naturally.

We’ll cue you in on a little inside baseball: Google can’t distinguish a paid link from an earned one, which can work in your favor. 

They only tend to penalize websites participating in unnatural link-building, such as acquiring links from a Private Blog Network (PBN). 

These are networks of blogs that only exist to sell backlinks.

Since the only purpose of these blogs is to serve as link placements for other websites, they’re effectively dummy sites that offer nothing to users. 

In fact, some PBNs feature blogs that post the exact same content (even though Google can crack down on these quite easily). 

Whenever a website gets links from a PBN, they tend to get them in bulk – which raises a red flag to Google. 

For instance, if you suddenly receive 10,000 backlinks in one day from questionable sources, don’t be shocked when Google penalizes you. 

It’s much easier to fly under the radar if you only acquire a few backlinks a month, which looks much more natural.

Sitewide links 

Sitewide links appearing in your sidebar, footer, or navigation bar are easy for Google to identify as spam. 

So, if you’re buying backlinks, double-check that they aren’t sitewide links. 

You’ll be much better off with links that appear within your content, and thus only appear on one page at a time. 

Sitewide links may seem like a great way to get your backlink numbers up at first, but they do more harm than good. 

Backlink ‘packages’ from untrusted sources often contain dozens of sitewide links (sometimes that’s all they contain). 

Finding hundreds of backlinks for sale at low prices on freelancer marketplaces is possible, but is it a good idea? 

The answer is a definite no. 

Not only will buying links in bulk scream spam to Google, but these are often low-quality, spammy sitewide links that won’t boost your online visibility at all. 

If a backlink package seems too good to be true (like 100 backlinks for $5), it’s best to avoid it.

Unnatural anchor text ratios 

In addition to the quality of the website linking to your content, the anchor text you choose (or the site owner chooses) also impacts your SEO profile. 

What’s anchor text? 

It’s the text that contains a hyperlink. 

Copying and pasting a bare URL doesn’t always look nice, and anchor text provides a way to not only mask it – but also provide context for the page you’re linking to. 

For instance, instead of typing https://www.thehoth.com, we would use our brand name instead: The HOTH.

In that scenario, we used branded anchor text because the hyperlink text is our brand name. 

There are many different types of anchor text, and the type you use matters to Google.   

Particularly, you need a proper anchor text ratio for your links that uses a combination of the following anchors:

• Branded anchors
• Natural anchors (no keywords) 
• Exact match anchors (the anchor text is your target keyword) 
• Partial match anchors (keywords mixed in with other phrases) 

A mistake many SEOs make is to overdo it with exact match anchors, especially for their ‘money’ keywords. 

However, if every backlink uses exact match anchors, Google will quickly take notice and penalize you. 

That’s why anchor text ratios are necessary, where you mix exact match anchors with natural, branded, and partial match anchors. This will make your link profile appear more natural, which is what you want. 

The Risks of Buying Backlinks 

Buying backlinks might seem like a quick SEO boost, but it can be a risky move with real consequences:

Google’s Wrath: We’ve mentioned this above, but it’s worth stating again. Get caught, and your site could plummet in rankings or vanish from the search results entirely. If Google detects link schemes or a large number of unnatural links from harmful sites pointing to yours, they may temporarily deindex you until you disavow them. 

Low-Quality and Irrelevant Links: Many backlinks for sale come from sketchy sites that only exist to manipulate Google’s algorithms. Associating with these can hurt your site’s credibility.

Spam Alert: You risk linking to spammy content (like PBN sites that all post the same thing), damaging your site’s trustworthiness.

Money Down the Drain: There’s no guarantee of a return on investment. You could end up spending big for zero gains. While it’s rare for Google to deindex a site, it’s far more common for them to devalue paid links – which can be equally as devastating to your bottom line. 

Cleanup Headache: Trying to remove bad backlinks later is a nightmare that can consume time and resources. Disavowing links is no easy task and can cause all sorts of problems, like accidentally disavowing links or domains that were actually helping your SEO. 

Quick Fix, Lasting Damage: Short-term gains can lead to long-term losses, undermining your site’s reputation and SEO efforts.

With that said, we’ll show you how to buy backlinks the right way to avoid these issues. 

Buying Backlinks That Appear Natural and Boost Online Visibility

Okay, now that you know what not to look for, how can you buy backlinks that actually benefit your SEO?

We’ve already gone over how you need to avoid PBNs, backlink packages, and unnatural anchor text ratios, but where can you find high-quality backlinks for sale?

Generally, most SEOs stick to two types of backlinks that they purchase, which are:

• Link insertions (niche edits)
• Guest posts 

These two are your safest bets for buying backlinks without drawing any ire from Google. You should also go through a reputable, trusted dofollow link service (more on this in a bit). 

Here’s an overview of the steps involved in buying backlinks the smart way: 

Conduct a link gap analysis 

Before you start buying backlinks, you need to know where you stand in relation to your competitors. 

That’ll let you know how many high-quality links you’ll need to buy to outrank the competition. 

We can’t state enough how crucial this step is, and it’s something a lot of site owners fail to do. 

That’s because they falsely assume that it’s beneficial to build as many links as possible, which isn’t the case. 

If you build way too many links in relation to your competitors, Google may view you as a black sheep, which won’t reflect well on your rankings. To yield the best results, your link profile should contain roughly the same amount of links as the other top-ranked websites in your niche on Google.  

Conducting a link gap analysis involves analyzing the domain ratings and backlink profiles of the websites currently ranked above you on Google’s SERPs. 

You can use our free Backlink Checker and SEO Audit tools to help with the process. 

Take a look at not only the links they have but also their domain authority score. This will help you determine how many high-authority backlinks you’ll need to buy to outrank them.

Plan your anchor text ratio 

Before you start buying and placing backlinks, you need to determine your anchor text ratio first. 

This is how you’ll avoid using unnatural anchor text ratios that may penalize you. 

Making your links appear natural is the name of the game here, so you shouldn’t repeat the same anchor text repeatedly. 

Instead, cycle through the types of anchor texts that we mentioned earlier. 

On your homepage, you should opt for branded anchors more than others, but don’t forget to pepper in some exact match, natural, and partial match anchors. 

You should use partial match anchors for your inner pages (about us, services, blogs, product pages, etc.), followed by branded and natural anchors. 

Exact match anchors tend to draw the most negative attention from Google, so you should use them the least. 

That doesn’t mean you should completely ignore exact match anchors, as that would also be a mistake. 

Instead, you should save your exact match anchors exclusively for links directing to your highest-converting pages. 

Strategically roll out your paid backlinks 

The last thing you want to do is unleash a large batch of backlinks at once because that makes it easy for Google to penalize you. 

As we’ve already gone over, this is the reason why you shouldn’t buy large backlink packages or use PBNs. 

Even if you’re buying backlinks from reputable sources, you need to be strategic about when you release them. 

If you want your links to appear natural, assign specific dates for buying backlinks to keep your profile looking squeaky clean. For this reason, it’s better to buy links frequently than all at once. 

Also, don’t buy links at the same time each month, as that can also raise suspicion. The best way to keep a natural-looking backlink profile is to buy backlinks at random dates. So, instead of visualizing buying backlinks as a bulk purchase, think of them as a slow IV drip. 

The beauty of buying backlinks one at a time is that you can avoid overspending. For instance, you may discover that you overcalculated how many links you need to buy. 

If you’re buying links one at a time, you will discover this before you overspend, saving you money.

Wrapping Up: Buying Backlinks in 2024 

Buying backlinks goes against Google’s guidelines, but it can be worth it when done right. 

As long as you keep your link profile and anchor text ratios looking natural, you shouldn’t run into too many issues. 

Do you need help building a robust link profile for your website without having to think about it?

Then don’t wait to check out the HOTH’s Link Insertion and Link Outreach Services to simplify your SEO success. Our backlinks follow the cleanest practices, so you’ll be in great hands with us.  

The post Top Things to Know Before You Buy Backlinks In 2024 appeared first on The HOTH.

Although a show like The Flintstones ended its original run back in 1966, re-airing those episodes on various networks (syndication) made the cartoon iconic for many generations to come. 

Had the show not entered syndication, its original run in the ’60s would have been people’s only chance to experience it – and it would have likely faded into obscurity. 

In other words, kids who grew up in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s would have no clue who Fred Flintstone was if there were no reruns. 

What the heck does this have to do with SEO?

Just as The Flintstones used syndication to gain a wider audience, you can do the same thing with your blog posts, videos, infographics, and other forms of content. 

Content syndication is where you republish your existing content on other websites and publications. 

You’ve probably read an article or watched an online video that said, ‘This piece was originally published on blahblahblah.com.’ 

That’s the telltale sign of syndicated content, and it’s a fantastic tactic for broadening your online reach and generating backlinks from other sites. 

After all, you work your tail off on your content, so why should you only publish it once in one location?

Instead of taking a one-and-done approach to publishing content, read on to learn how you can copy The Flintstones’ success and syndicate it to enjoy a much larger audience. 

What About Duplicate Content?! Understanding Proper Content Syndication 

Trained SEOs are hard-wired to avoid duplicate content, which is why the thought of syndicating content raises a red flag. 

However, duplicate content and syndicated content are two different things. 

As long as you syndicate your content correctly, you’ll never have to worry about Google flagging your content as duplicate. 

How do you do that?

Canonical tags are your best friend here, as they’ll let Google know which version of your content is the original (and that you want Google to include in their index/search results). 

For instance, if you syndicated one of your blog pieces on a related website, you wouldn’t want Google to index that version, as the other site will receive the traffic. Instead, you want Google to index the original version that appears on your website. 

A canonical tag is a brief snippet of HTML code that defines the primary version of a web page. 

It looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://examplesite.com/preferred-primary-URL-here”>

So, whenever another website agrees to publish one of your pieces, politely ask them to include a canonical tag that points back to the original version on your site. 

Pro tip: Google’s John Mueller has confirmed the effectiveness of including self-referential canonical tags for your content. That’s where you include a canonical tag on your content’s original version that references its own URL. 

This is useful because it helps Google know for sure which version of your content you want it to include in its index. 

Including links in syndicated content 

Your syndicated pieces should always include a link back to your original piece. 

Not only does this create a backlink for you (score!), it’s also what Google recommends you do to help avoid duplicate content. 

Besides that, another major perk of content syndication is that if you get the green light to include internal links in your syndicated pieces, you can drive a lot of traffic to other pages on your site. 

You should always check with your syndication partners beforehand to confirm that they’re cool with including links that point back to your site, as it’s never wise to assume. 

If they’re okay with it, you’ll score even more backlinks to your website, and your syndicated articles will transform into traffic-generating machines. 

How to Make Content Syndication a Reality 

If you want to start syndicating your content, you’ll need to build a network of syndication partners. 

These are other websites in your field that accept syndicated posts, and they’re not always super easy to find (although we’re about to show you how). 

You can also syndicate your content through social media and platforms like Quora and Reddit. 

Tips for finding syndication partners

There are plenty of syndication networks out there, which are groups of related sites that syndicate similar content. 

Typically, a parent site will own dozens (or hundreds) of media outlets that syndicate the same articles. 

These networks are amazing because they enable you to syndicate your content across multiple websites (and most of the time, you only have to maintain a single relationship to do so). 

Besides syndication networks, you should also target non-competitors. 

These are other websites that don’t directly compete with your business but share the same target audience. 

Let’s say that you sell custom-made guitars online. 

In this case, your non-competitors would be guitar blogs, guitar lesson & tablature sites/video channels, and websites that sell guitar accessories like straps and clothing. 

Here are some quick tips for finding syndication partners and non-competitors:

• Use our free backlink checker tool to analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors. Look out for links from local media outlets and non-competitors to use for your syndication strategy. 

• Pull up Google search and look up terms like “originally published on” (niche keyword), “republished from” (niche keyword), and “syndicated from (niche keyword)” to find sites that accept syndicated articles. 

It’s crucial to include quotations in these queries, as that tells Google to look for that exact phrase in the search results. 

Syndicating on social media and other platforms

Even if you find a ton of syndication partners, it’s still a good idea to put your social media profiles to good use and syndicate your content there, too. 

The catch?

Certain types of content perform better on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. 

In particular, syndicate short-form videos, infographics, and condensed blogs that fit into carousels on social media. 

Question/answer-based platforms, like Reddit and Quora, are also useful for syndicating content. 

However, you’ll usually want to include brief excerpts along with a link to the original piece to avoid being too verbose. 

Let’s not forget about self-publishing websites like Medium and Substack, either. These are great places to syndicate your most entertaining and thought-provoking pieces to gain exposure and loyal readers. 

Syndicating through social media and platforms like Medium won’t cost you a dime, so it’s worth using them as syndication channels to expand your influence even further. 

Becoming a Thought Leader Through Syndication 

Content syndication is a powerful way to bolster your backlink profile while expanding your influence online. 

The more websites and publications that feature your content, the more members of your target audience will get the chance to notice you and become loyal readers/customers. 

One of the best things about content syndication is that virtually anyone can do it by using social media and platforms like Medium. 

That means you can start syndicating your strongest pieces today while working on a greater content syndication strategy, like targeting networks and non-competitors. 

To cut straight to the chase and enjoy content syndication on 300+ trusted media outlets ASAP, don’t wait to check out our Content Syndication service from The HOTH.    

The post Blog Reruns: How Content Syndication Helps SEO & Link-Building appeared first on The HOTH.

They seem similar, and both appear in your content, yet there is a substantial difference between the two. Not understanding how anchor text and keywords each work could result in your site falling down the search engine results pages (SERPs), or worst case, a penalty.

We’re going to talk about anchor text and SEO and break down the difference between anchor text and keywords. Let’s get into it!

Keywords vs. Anchor Text

Keywords are words or short phrases that many people are searching for online. Some of the most popular keywords on Google include “weather,” “internet speed test,” and “restaurants near me.”

There are literally thousands of keywords for any one topic, and some are more competitive than others. SEO professionals rank their competitiveness according to keyword difficulty or KD. The super hard keywords are some of the most coveted by websites.

Like keywords, anchor texts are short phrases in your content. The difference is anchor text is hyperlinked to another page or site. Internal and external links are a big part of effective SEO.

Both keywords and anchor texts can boost your online ranking when used correctly.

The Relationship Between Anchor Text and SEO

Anchor text is one of the vital factors that will determine the viability of your website and significantly affect your SEO efforts. It’s not the end-all and be-all to Google ranking but is one of the more important ranking factors. Anchor text affects SEO significantly because it tells your reader where they can find information that’s relevant to their search, something Google takes very seriously.

Do Keywords and Anchor Text Carry the Same Weight in Google?

While it’s difficult to determine the exact weight anchor text and keywords carry as Google constantly changes its algorithms, most believe that anchor text and keywords carry similar weight in terms of ranking and SEO. 

Some believe that anchor text carries even more weight than keywords as they can influence Google’s understanding of what a webpage is about. Indeed, more than a few websites have ad their topic changed by Google’s algorithms based on the anchor text they used.

The biggest difference, of course, is that anchor text is used in links that take a reader to another page on your website or another site entirely. Keywords are the words that consumers type into their browser to find a website initially.

Why is Anchor Text Important to SEO?

Like keywords, anchor text is vital to the success of any website and significantly improves a website’s SEO. 

At their core, anchor text guides visitors reading content on your website to information that they might find useful, helpful, or pertinent to their search. Maybe, more importantly, the anchor text you use tells the reader what they can expect, more or less, when they click the text and are taken to the webpage it links to.

As with keywords, you shouldn’t take anchor text lightly. It’s essential you pay close attention to the anchor texts you’re using and use a variety of them rather than the same anchor text for every link. 

Not only are the words in your anchor text vitally important, but the surrounding words are also, as the combination is what will either convince a reader to click the link or skip over it. 

Anchor text also tells Google everything they need to know about the content of your content. This factor is important because, using their many algorithms, Google will determine what your webpage is about and rank it accordingly. 

Lastly, it’s critical that you only link to web pages that are relevant to the original content and search and link to reputable pages. Using anchor text to link to spam, scam, or otherwise negative websites is never a good idea. (More on this further down.)

What are the Different Types of Anchor Text?

There are several different types of anchor text that can and should, be used in all of your content (some much more than others). Below we’ll take a quick look at all of them to give you a better idea of what they mean and why you should use (or not use) them. All of them, if used correctly, will improve and optimize your SEO and your rank on all search engines, especially Google.

Exact match

As the name suggests, exact match anchor text uses the exact keywords or key phrases that make sense for your website, business, and SEO goals. 

For example, let’s say big-box superstore Target is selling silk ties for men. An excellent example of an exact match anchor text advertising those ties would be “men’s silk ties,” and another would be “silk ties for men.” 

Here’s another example. In this one, you’re writing content for your self-storage center in Atlanta, Georgia. In this situation, excellent exact match anchor texts could include “Atlanta self-storage center,” “self-storage center, Atlanta,” or “Self-storage, Atlanta.”

In short, an exact match anchor text exactly matches the product, service, idea, etc., that you’re linking to, with no extra keywords and no fluff. Note that exact match anchor text is often referred to as “phrase match” anchor text.

Partial match

Partial match anchor text is any anchor text that includes partial keywords and phrases plus several other words used together in the same link. In short, it’s not exact, but it’s pretty close.

Using the same two examples from earlier, an excellent partial match anchor text for Target and their men’s silk ties would be “How to buy a man a silk tie,” “Where to find men’s silk ties,” or “The best silk ties for men.” 

If we use the 2nd example for the self-storage center in Atlanta, some well-written partial match anchor texts you could use would be “Safe, clean storage units in Atlanta,” “How to find Atlanta self-storage locations,” or “ Where to store your stuff in Atlanta.” 

Partial match anchor text will take you to the same web page as an exact match but allows you to use various words that a potential visitor, customer, or client might use to search for what you have to offer. 

By the way, partial match anchors and partial match anchor words are the same as partial match anchor text. (If you see these terms, you’ll know what the author is talking about.)

Branded

Branded anchor text uses the exact brand name of a company, product, service, etc. Using our examples, “Target” would be the brand anchor text used for Target, the big-box retailer. For our Atlanta self-storage center, “iStorage” would be the branded anchor text. 

Naked URL

While not the best for driving visitors to your website or online content, naked link anchor text can be useful. Also, Google seems to love them as the chance of naked anchor text being spam is much lower. Using our previous examples, a naked link anchor for Target would be https://www.target.com/, while one for our self-storage center in Atlanta would be https://www.istorage.com/. 

Basically, a naked link anchor text consists of the protocol plus the domain address (i.e., the complete URL) for a website’s page.

Note that some consider branded anchor text and naked link (URL) anchor text to be almost identical. However, the difference is that the former uses the company’s proper name, website, etc., while the latter uses the brand’s URL.

Generic (Random) 

Many people confuse generic anchor text with naked anchor text, but, as you’ll see, they are quite different. 

Generic anchor text features words, although they aren’t keywords. However, as you might have guessed, the words are random or generic and have no connection to the product, service, or information being offered. Naked anchor text, as we saw above, is simply the URL for a web page. (Big difference, yes?)

An example of a generic link for Target’s ties for men would thus be; To learn more about our trendy men’s silk ties, “Click Here.” For our storage center example, you could use the same “Click here” and the also generic “See More.” A few other generic anchor text examples include “More Information” and “Vist our webpage.” “Read more” and the incredibly generic “website.”

One important thing to note is that when using generic anchor text, the regular text surrounding it must give the reader a solid idea of what they will get if they click the link. 

If the surrounding text doesn’t do that or does it poorly, the reader may be confused, which is the last thing you want when creating online content. 

Here’s a good example using the Atlanta self-storage center from earlier. “If you’d like to learn more about storing your household goods in Atlanta, Georgia, click here.” 

A poor example would look something like this: “Thank you for visiting our website today. Please click here for more.” Some readers might see that and ask themselves, “For more what, exactly?”

Related

Related anchor text is similar to partial match anchor text minus a precise keyword phrase. 

Typically, related anchor text uses a variation of the wanted target keywords. A good example of related anchor text for our Target silk ties would be “trendy men’s fashion tips” or “must-have men’s clothing accessories.” 

Our Atlanta self-storage center could use a related anchor text like “How to store a car” or “long-term wine storage.” Related anchor text helps Google decide what your link is relating to and will also keep your link profile noticeable different from others. That way, it won’t get dinged as spam. 

What is an Image Anchor?

An image anchor is when you use an image as a link to another internal or external webpage. It’s similar to anchor text, but you use a picture, photo, drawing, or some other type of image instead of text. 

Many businesses use image anchors to help visitors navigate their website, and they are most commonly used for internal rather than external linking. 

Many image anchors are similar to a clickable ad you’ll see when surfing the web, and many have a call to action (CTA) that encourages the visitor to click them and go the linked webpage.  Also, image anchors are an excellent method of varying your anchor texts, even if they are a bit non-traditional.

When using image anchors, one thing to keep in mind is that they have a nasty habit of making a website less accessible to visitors. 

For example, in many instances, a visitor will be trying to resize the page to better see what they’re reading. However, doing so with an image anchor can move them around against their wishes, which can be frustrating and cause them to click away.

Optimizing Your SEO With Keywords

SEO professionals spend a lot of time researching keywords. They use software and online tools to help find relevant keywords that have a high search volume and are more likely to end in conversions.

Free tools like The HOTH’s Keyword Planner can help you explore keywords without signing up for an expensive service.

You can search for specific keywords relevant to your business. As you can see below, it will tell you the search volume, keyword difficulty, and the cost per click (CPC) for any ad campaign.

Once you compile a list of effective keywords, your next step is to include them on your site. You should add them to titles, descriptions, headings, meta tags, and throughout web copy.

Google will then index your pages and begin to rank your website by matching your keywords with what people are searching for online.

Optimizing Your SEO With Keywords

SEO professionals spend a lot of time researching keywords. They use software and online tools to help find relevant keywords that have a high search volume and are more likely to end in conversions.

Free tools like the HOTH’s Keyword Planner can help you explore keywords without signing up for an expensive service.

You can search for specific keywords relevant to your business. As you can see below, it will tell you the search volume, keyword difficulty, and the cost per click (CPC) for any ad campaign.

Once you compile a list of effective keywords, your next step is to include them on your site. They should be added to titles, descriptions, headings, meta tags, and throughout web copy.

Google will then index your pages and begin to rank your website by matching your keywords with what people are searching for online.

Best Practices for Anchor Text and SEO

As we pointed out above, anchor text is used for links while keywords are used to optimize your website ranking on Google. There are two types of links: internal links that drive visitors to another page on your site and external links that send visitors to another site on the web.

Backlinks (when another site has a link to one of your pages) are one of the most effective ways to boost your website ranking.

Here is a description of anchor texts from our link building online guide.

By now, you’ve probably noticed that this article has anchor texts. You’re learning fast!

Our guest post product can help clients obtain more links by using blogger outreach and anchor text.

Can keywords be used as anchor text?

Yes, but beware because doing that too much could potentially harm your SEO. No perfect anchor text ratio currently exists. Rather you should keep your anchor texts diverse. There are six anchor text categories to choose from, all of which we described in detail (above):

• Using the exact keyword
• A variation of the exact keyword
• Listing a naked URL like http://www.thehoth.com
• Hyperlinking a brand name
• Using benign anchor texts like “click here.”
• Linking only an image

Online tools like Ahrefs allow you to look up all of your links and see whether you’re using all six equally. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

More Best Practices for Using Anchor Text to Optimize your Website

Now that you have a much better idea of what an anchor text is and the different types of anchor text let’s take a closer look at the best (and not so good) methods of using anchor text in its various forms.

Ensure your anchor text adds value for the reader

When building and optimizing a website, you need to realize that, in Google’s eyes, every single thing is important. That includes written content, images, keywords, links, and the anchor text used in those links. 

The worst thing you can do on a website is use content that provides no value to the reader, including the words you use for your anchor text. 

Also, anchor text needs to be placed where it makes the most sense. Lacing random links throughout your content might seem like a great idea, but to Google, it’s a cardinal sin.

Avoid overuse of anchor text to optimize your SEO

Anchor text and the web pages they link to are essential for any website, whether those links are internal or external. However, too many links and too much anchor text will be flagged by Google as spam as, in their eyes, it’s a gross manipulation of the practice. 

Another no-no is using the same anchor text repeatedly, which means that you need to use various anchor text combinations. 

Referring back to our earlier example of the Atlanta self-storage center, if you constantly use the anchor text “Atlanta self-storage center,” Google will often penalize you. Instead, use a variety of anchor text. “Safe self-storage in Atlanta,” for example, “What to look for in a self-storage center,” or “Is Atlanta self-storage affordable?”

Place anchor text accordingly when link building

Today, many people skim web pages rather than starting at the beginning and reading every last word. When they do, they typically look for headings and subheadings, including H2, H3, etc., to guide them, reading more when they see a header that interests them. 

For this reason, placing your anchor text and links near your site’s “hot spots,” if you will, is a good call. This technique is more psychological than a specific formula, though, and changes from one website visitor or reader to the next. 

Use relevant anchor text when link building

Here’s the thing about Google; they are very obsessive about always providing a better user experience to the folks using their search engine. They love it when your anchor text is relevant to your website and also when it links to relevant information. 

The opposite is also true, as Google despises non-relevant anchor text that leads the reader to non-relevant web pages and content. 

Even if you place a non-relevant anchor text that links to your own website, Google will often flag you, which can severely damage your SEO and ranking on their search engine. 

Use a good combination of anchor text styles to optimize your SEO

One critical best practice when using anchor text is distributing them in the correct proportion on your website. 

Unfortunately, there’s no “right” way to distribute anchor text but there are abortions that, generally, are acceptable. The HOTH recommends using anchor text in the following proportions to optimize your SEO:

• Branded anchor text- 50%
• Naked Link Anchor Text- 20%
• Website page title- 20%
• Generic / Random anchor text- 2-5%
• Exact anchor text- 2-5%
• Partial match anchor text- 2-5%

Beginner Tips for Better SEO

Understanding the difference between keywords and anchor text is only the first step on the road to better SEO and higher rankings on Google and other search engines. You need to start creating more content on your site that includes both of these essential items.

For example, create content that answers frequent questions asked by your customers, and includes your keywords and anchor text. Not only will this be helpful for them to read (meaning better customer service ratings), but it’ll also boost your SEO and optimize your ranking.

Don’t worry about creating more than one page for a product or group of products. When it comes to product pages, a best practice is to build one page to rank for one keyword. Having too many keywords on one page could confuse the Google algorithm.

Start Growing Your SEO This Year!

We hope you better understand keywords and anchor text after reading this article. They are the foundation of good SEO. It’s important to be familiar with both terms, whether you’re optimizing on your own or working with an agency.

Suppose you don’t have the time, skills, or interest to work on your digital marketing. In that case, you should consider a managed service like HOTH X. Our enrolled clients work with a dedicated campaign manager and have access to all of our products: web copy, blogging, link building, and more.

Want to chat with us about your goals? Schedule a call, and we’ll offer you recommendations on the best services to improve your online business.

The post Anchor Texts vs Keywords: A Full Breakdown appeared first on The HOTH.

The specific causes and effects won’t be known for a few weeks, as is the case with most Google updates. What Google says and what happens in reality is often very different, so we’ll always just look at the data to make our real conclusions and suggestions.

Understanding Google’s Link Spam Update

The goal of Google’s link spam update isn’t to penalize online businesses for using guest posts. Instead, they’re trying to cut through the increasing levels of spam content.

It’s important to note that Google specifically says they will not penalize sites with this update, and instead they intend to “nullify” the impact of links that they deem spam.

In the end, it should improve quality for all.

Within the update post, Google specifically called out links that are designed to monetize a website like affiliate links.

This understandably got digital marketers nervous, but Google went on to explain that high-quality content and links aren’t part of the crackdown.

Google said that the monetization of websites is allowed in a lot of instances. For example, affiliate sites are creating quality content to inform and educate readers and in return, make a commission from any sales.

Not a big deal here, most affiliates don’t care whether the link is dofollow or not, they just care that they get paid from the click.

They also specifically call out guest posts in the article, but similarly they are looking for posts that are “commercial” or promotional in nature.

In marketing, we call this an advertorial – a post that is specifically designed to sell a product or service and is obviously promotional in that case.

However, Google, in reference to guest posts, “Google does not discourage these types of articles in the cases when they inform users, educate another site’s audience or bring awareness to your cause or company”

This Update Is Not Intended To Penalize

Unlike in the past algorithm updates involving links, likes the infamous Penguin update, this new update is not intended to immediately penalize the website. However, what it does is “nullify” the undue advantage that some sites enjoy by building low-quality backlinks.

It’s clear that Google is trying to draw a line in the sand to help weed out low-quality links. If you’re building mass links with no value that are overly promotional, you probably want to stop doing that.

But if you’re investing in white hat, manual outreach to grow your backlinks from quality sites, with informative content that is not overly promotional, then it seems as though that is not a part of what this update targets.

Don’t Drop Your Guest Post Strategy

This brings up the question of guest posting as a strategy, will this continue to produce results?

This update isn’t penalizing guest posts, it’s instead saying that Google will stop allowing low-quality, spammy links to help website’s SEO. Google wants to ensure that quality guest posts and links are what is driving SEO results.

Certain websites may experience a drop in ranking but if you are using HOTH Guest Post, our white hat, manual outreach link building service, you have nothing to worry about.

Google has also reminded readers of its best practices for links.

Guest Posts Continue To Drive Results

It’s natural that algorithm changes are going to spark confusion and speculation.

But we track the effectiveness of guest posts every single day and we’ve found some data about guest posts since the update.

So instead of theorizing what may happen, we want to show you what’s ACTUALLY happening in some of our campaigns since the update.

Here’s a client of ours who is in the plumbing industry.

They have been with us for quite a while, doing several high-quality link building and content creation campaigns. A few months ago we created a DA40+ guest post for them and within a month of the post going live their rankings for the keyword exploded.

The keyword they were trying to target was of medium difficulty, and the DA40 link not only helped them drive rankings but also continues to keep them there.

They are now ranking in the top 3 for their money keyword with no sign of slowing down.

Here’s a few more examples of sites that have had guest posts published very recently and have had success during this new Google Update rolling out:

Here is a news media website that used a DA30+ guest post to try and target a new keyword. While attacking it from other angles with content and foundational link building, they used their guest post to blast onto page 1 of Google.

Here’s a home improvement self-help site that used a DA40+ guest post to get to position #6. They climbed the SERPs slowly and steadily, directly through the time that the Google update was rolling out!

This last one is an e-commerce store for plumbing parts that saw a slow down in growth towards the end of June. By using a variety of different guest posts, they we’re able to grow and recover their rankings while the Google update was rolling out!

Our results match up exactly with what the update says: quality guest posting links work and will continue to be a powerful driver in your SEO.

Need Help Navigating the Update?

Google’s link spam update won’t be the first or last change coming from the search engine. The important thing is that you’re able to reevaluate your strategy and pivot for new growth.

Do you need help figuring out your next move?

The HOTH offers a premium Guest Post product that’s been proven effective with thousands of clients. Our team also has the expertise to sit down with you and find ways to optimize your current campaigns.

All you have to do is book a call with us for a one-on-one strategy session!

The post Google’s Link Spam Update: Everything You Need To Know appeared first on The HOTH.

• 11 Million+ organic monthly traffic*
• 3.1 Million+ organic keywords ranking*
• $100 Million projected in annual revenue**
• $520 Million valuation by investors**

(*SEMrush estimates, **According to a 2016 Inc. report)

We decided to conduct an SEO investigation to figure out what they did to capture so much search traffic.

In this post, we’re going to show you 7 ways how Nerdwallet grew to a $520 million valuation with SEO – and how you can use the same ideas for your website.

Ready for these tips?

• [Tip #1] The Biggest Link Building Hack You Haven’t Tried Yet: Ego Bait
• [Tip #2] Scale Up Your Referrals with “As Featured In” Links
• [Tip #3] Submit Your Site for Reviews
• [Tip #4] Ramp Up Your Backlinks with Content Syndication
• [Tip #5] Create and Promote “Backlink” Magnets
• [Tip #6] Promote the Types of Content That Generate Social Shares
• [Tip #7] Capture Your Keywords with Best-in-its-Class SEO Content

NerdWallet went from $800 and an excel sheet comparing credit cards in 2009…to $100 million in annual revenue and a huge market share of financial content, tools, and apps today.

They’re beating competitors including:

• Mint
• Lending Tree
• Credit Karma
• The Motley Fool
• Bankrate (which also owns CreditCards.com)

Their share of search engine traffic within the personal finance niche was already way bigger than the competition’s by 2016:

The crazy thing? They’ve grown and continued to grow primarily through this one marketing channel.

Check out their current traffic sources (data from SimilarWeb):

NerdWallet’s search marketing strategies fully blur the lines between PR and SEO to scale the backlinks and traffic to their site.

The best part? You can use these SEO ideas for your business.

Let’s get into it.

[Tip #1] The Biggest Link Building Hack You Haven’t Tried Yet: Ego Bait

Ego Bait involves creating content that appeals to another website’s self-importance to get a link.

The best way to do it at scale, and the way Nerdwallet does it, is by giving out awards that come with a fancy badge. When someone wins an award the will often proudly show others…

…and perhaps, even on their homepage.

…and perhaps, even with a link!

This results in Nerdwallet having TONs of HIGH DA homepage links as a result of these campaigns.

Cha-ching!

Let me show you some examples:

Company, Product, or Service Awards
Nerdwallet’s list of 2018 Award winners contains enterprise sites with high authority like Chase, Fidelity, and Betterment. They get a lot of links back from these different corporate winners.

For example, Discover (DR 83), linked back to the awards post to announce NerdWallet’s recognition of them:

Nerdwallet SCALES this strategy big-time through a wide variety of awards categories.

For example, awards for “the best” services like Mortgage Lenders, which got them a homepage link from Lenda:

Individual Awards

It’s not just companies like credit cards and mortgage lenders who get NerdWallet awards. Real people get awards too.

For example, NerdWallet published a list of “30 Credit Counselors Who Made a Difference” that included counselors from Clearpoint.

That list no longer exists on NerdWallet’s site, but the link they got from a post on Clearpoint’s blog announcing the good news is still up.

Think you could put together a list recognizing the prominent figures in your industry?

Location-Specific Awards

Let’s talk about NerdWallet’s location-specific awards. This gets them TONS of links including valuable homepage links.

For example, their award for “The Best Places for Young Families” in each state is ego-bait that worked at SCALE.

How did they do it?

• They selected 10 towns in every state to win.
• They created 1 separate post for every state, announcing 10 winners in each.
• This created 500 towns who “won,” and resulted in tons of opportunities to get a press link, chamber of commerce or a town homepage link for the award.

Did they stop there?

No! They made even more awards for each state…and different areas of the state. Such as:

• Best Cities for Young Families in Southern California
• Best Cities for Young Families in Northern California
• Best Cities for Homeownership in California
• Best Cities for Job Seekers in California
• Best Cities for Renters in Southern California

…and that’s just California!

Many of the homepage links from sites like town governments stay up even though the award has aged.

Greenville, South Carolina’s homepage has a footer with a link back to the award announcement post for the “Top Small Cities to Start a Business” from 2015:

Even if you don’t end up on the homepage, websites have other pages listing their awards and recognitions, both large and small.

The town of Gainesville, Florida listed their award for being one of NerdWallet’s “Best Places for Women-Owned Businesses” even though they only ranked 31st on the list:

Better still: NerdWallet’s awards (and their other content) are making their way into Wikipedia as references.

NerdWallet now has more than 250+ backlinks from Wikipedia, a valuable site to get a link from:

Ego bait does the double duty of earning you links while increasing your brand recognition and exposure.

As your brand grows, it should become even easier to get links with other awards categories that you create.

Will this strategy work for you? Is it oversaturated?

Sites don’t mind posting multiple awards on their homepage.

As you can see from Springhill, TN’s town government homepage, Nerdwallet isn’t the only business pursuing this strategy:

(Even rentapplication.com got a link… this looks like something very replicable!)

Here are the steps to acquire links with Ego Bait:

1. Decide what award category is relevant to your niche and appealing enough for the winners to brag about.
2. Make a list of winners using sound methodology. For example, NerdWallet looked at the percentage of companies owned by women in a city, the average revenue of women-owned businesses in that city, and other statistics to list the best cities for women-owned business.
3. Publish the award winners in a post.
4. Create a graphic badge to make it easier for the winners to post the win on their homepage and get you a link back from it.
5. Promote the post by reaching out to relevant webmasters and press to notify them that they’ve won. Suggest that they brag about the award on a page of their site or in a press release (or put out your own press release).
6. Establish new award categories and renew the list each year to repeat the process and gain more links.

If you do renew the award, announce it on the same original page. That page will collect additional backlinks.

[Tip #2] Give A Little Recognition to Get a Lot of Referrals with “As Featured In” Links

Even if you feature a website without giving them an award they might brag about it.

The strategy for gaining “As Featured In” links has some parallels to Ego-Bait – but with some crucial differences.

Rather than using the appeal of winning an award, you can get “As Featured In” links by publishing favorable profiles or reviews of people, companies, products on your site. Reach out to get a link back to that content piece.

For example, Nerdwallet profiled tabletop credit card processor TabbedOut:

And the company now features a link back to NerdWallet’s profile of them on their homepage:

Another way to get “As Featured In” links is through legitimate partnerships.

For example, Nerdwallet created a cost-of-living calculator tool that draws data from The Council for Community and Economic Research’s cost-of-living index.

They’re linked on the homepage now as a result:

The steps for gaining As Featured In Links are:

1. Select a website, product, service, etc to feature in a content piece profiling them, or strike a legitimate partnership with them.
2. Remember: If they are already posting links like this on their site, you’re more likely to get your link added to that area of the site as well.
3. Publish the piece about them or create the partnership.
4. Reach out to request your badge and/or link in the homepage footer or another relevant area of the site where it should appear.

If the link back to you is coming from a partnership, convince them to put your link on their site when you put the deal together rather than afterward.

[Tip #3] Submit Your Site for Reviews

A reversal of the “As Featured In Link” where you attempt to be the one profiled in a content piece on a different site.

For example, a site that seems like it would be a competitor with Nerdwallet, CreditLoan.com features an article that is basically an introduction to Nerdwallet. (Everything You Need to Know About Nerdwallet):

When you can identify sites in your industry that publish content on other entities in the same industry, you have a decent chance of getting posted on their site too (if you’ve done your branding right).

The steps to getting a profile of your website published are:

1. Identify relevant industry sites with active blogs or directories of businesses.
2. Reach out to propose a piece profiling or reviewing your brand and make sure to highly emphasize why THEIR audience would care to know about your website.
3. Create an information sheet or content piece about your business that makes it easy for them to quickly put up a profile and/or review of you.
4. Double check that they included links back to you in the piece.

If you pick the right websites, usually ones that are adjacent to the topics you cover, you increase your odds of getting featured.

[Tip #4] Ramp Up Your Backlinks with Content Syndication

To win in content marketing, you sometimes need a competitive advantage beyond publishing as many good content pieces as you can.

The PR industry can be secretive, but it somehow helped Nerdwallet land a rare partnership deal with The Associated Press.

The AP distributes Nerdwallet’s content to 1,650 media outlets, including the New York Times and Washington Post (with at least one backlink in each piece, and usually containing 2-3 links back to NerdWallet or more).

Nerdwallet is also partners with Apple News, CNBC, Flipboard, Gannett/USA Today, Hearst, MarketWatch, MSN, Mashable, Fox Business Network and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. Just imagine if all those links were coming in to YOUR site.

PR isn’t just reprinting syndicated content, but guest posting as well.

Thanks to those media partnerships, NerdWallet’s writers will regularly contribute original pieces to other publishers and include a link to Nerdwallet in their writer bio.

One NerdWallet columnist, Liz Weston, was already an established financial writer for the AP beforehand. Hiring Weston made it easy for NerdWallet to associate themselves with her existing byline:

Traditional public relations combined with SEO is central to Nerdwallet’s link building strategy.

While not everyone can get syndicated by the Associated Press, let me emphasize that as a strategy: partnering up with a PR firm to land better opportunities is not out of reach for you.

There are a lot of PR firms out there who will do the hard work of scaling up your links through guest posts and syndication.

Nerdwallet was a client of this PR firm at an earlier stage of their growth. I’m speculating that this firm did a lot of content distribution on Nerdwallet’s behalf based on their service description:

Here’s an example of what those byline links look like from this piece in Forbes on the best places for new graduates to invest:

This one writer has contributed a LOT of pieces like this just to Forbes, 8-12 in a single year, each one with a link back to Nerdwallet.

Here’s another content partnership article at USA today. It has multiple links for continued reading at Nerdwallet’s site at the end:

Before you say, “But I can’t afford PR services yet,” I want you to remember that Nerdwallet started small with this strategy.

They began with a smaller PR deal (along with in-house work) to get their content syndicated. They scaled from niche blogs, smaller press outlets, and town government pages up to financial institutions and mainstream news sources.

Your odds of getting syndicated are improved when you offer it to a publisher who needs it.

When the AP announced their deal with Nerdwallet in 2016, they said:

“Customers consistently tell us they’re interested in stories that offer advice about money issues – retirement, credit, savings, etc. This partnership will allow us to give them far more of this service journalism while keeping our own journalists free to focus on high-impact breaking news and enterprise.”

This provides a view into the conversation that took place to strike the deal. Namely, that the AP had a need for more financial content from a reliable source, and Nerdwallet fit that criteria.

Start by being a leader in your niche so you can strike partnerships with powerful niche publishers like Nerdwallet did with financial blog Clark.com. Then branch out to those powerful mainstream publishers like USA Today.

You can follow a similar path as you grow your brand by matching your syndication outlets to your brand’s clout:

1. Maintain journalistic standards in your content while also optimizing it for SEO.
2. Find the best publishers who would be interested in reprinting your content or giving your writers a regular byline.
3. Alternately, hire on writers who already have an established byline so that you can access it.
4. Scale your production to create a large volume of regularly published content. This will gain you the legitimacy to strike syndication deals with those major news sites, or other outlets.

Can’t Form A PR Deal Yet? Own Your Syndication: Become a Copy-Paste Content Provider

Maybe you can’t “be a news source” at the current point in your project. Or maybe your particular business isn’t set up to be an impartial entity the way that Nerdwallet is…

How do you start syndicating your content for links to improve your brand equity…when you don’t have much brand equity to begin with?

The thing about content distribution is: There’s a lack of consistent, quality content in tons of different verticals.

Repurposed articles made for reprinting are usually lower quality and aren’t used as often by credible sites. People like to keep their best content for themselves!

NerdWallet offered an easy way to populate blogs and online profiles with solid, worthwhile information…and you can use their strategy too.

In 2015, they started their own in-house wire service called NerdWallet Wire for real estate and insurance content.

They used the following selling points (that you should also use) to convince real estate and insurance brokers, along with other professionals and publishers, to syndicate their content:

• All of NerdWallet’s content is generated in-house by staff writers.
• The company’s experience in financial markets provides a solid basis from which to offer real estate, insurance, and other content.
• Content is about generally common issues affecting the audience rather than specific ones
• Agents are not bound to specific articles; you can pick and the choose article subjects to publish.
• Once you join the wire service, you can find an article, study or graphic you like, preview it, and download an HTML, .doc or an .XML file for embedding in your website.
• You can insert custom content and images.
• HOWEVER, NerdWallet does maintain its own byline with a link back to the source content each time syndication occurs.

The content you provide doesn’t have to be “the best ever,” it just has to be a great resource for email filler and social media by smaller companies. Not groundbreaking stuff: but professional, informed and, most importantly, consistently good.

You may already be aware that there are tons of sites out there that will repost your content like this. Here’s one that recently reprinted a NerdWallet article:

You can see that the site is made for reprints like this by looking at their footer text:

It’s not just these types of content-reprinting sites that post NerdWallet’s content though.

Many sites in the actual industries that the content is about love to use NerdWallet’s pieces as supplemental content for their blogs, as this local realty group did:

Don’t be fooled by the post’s listed author, the real author is in a disclaimer at the bottom:

Here’s another realtor redistributing NerdWallet’s content:

…and their links back to NerdWallet:

Links from smaller realty and insurance brokers’ blogs are exactly where the content was meant by NerdWallet to be redistributed.

A content aggregator site like the first example can help too, but it looks most natural to receive links from a combination of sites both within your niche and outside of it.

Nerdwallet has since scaled down this strategy as they landed better media partnerships with bigger publishers, but it’s one you should try.

If you don’t have the brand power like Nerdwallet, luckily you can still utilize this strategy with the HOTH Syndication Content Distribution service.

[Tip #5] Create and Promote “Backlink” Magnets

Today, branding and advertising is done through content.

One of the best ways to establish your brand is through the content you produce. It’s all about building authority in your industry…and in search engines.

Your potential customers are more likely to buy your products (or 3rd-party offers listed on your site) if your business is an authority.

I know, “make good content,” is a cliche at this point. But it’s the gospel truth when it comes to getting backlinks, traffic, and social shares.

We looked at NerdWallet’s top content to give you some pointers on the type of content to produce for your business.

When it comes to SEO, it’s important to realize that certain types of content perform better in different ways than others.

Sure, some content might rank, attract backlinks and go viral on social media all-in-one. Usually, though, a piece of content will perform better in one or two of those areas.

Truly useful content that can serve as a reference, such as original research, guides, and tools, tend to attract a higher number of backlinks than other content types.

NerdWallet’s research, guides and tools attract a ton of backlinks from a variety of high authority sources. Here are some examples the top backlinked content on their site:

Original Research
Example: Average Household Debt Study 2017
Try creating original research pieces that also touch on people’s emotions. Debt is a huge societal issue, and by publishing original research on a hot topic, NerdWallet capitalizes on the value of the piece in terms of data and shock value. This piece has 2,600+ Referring Domains (RDs), including links from the New York Times, The Guardian, Forbes, CNN, Techcrunch, and many more high authority sites because it’s such a good reference.

Tools
Example: Home Affordability Calculator
This piece gets 585 RDs and a massive amount of organic traffic (111k). Tools are great for linking to because they offer functionality that isn’t available on the sites referencing them. Forbes, Buzzfeed, and NasDaq or only a few of the authority links pointing to this tool.

Short Guides
Example 1: The Huge, Hidden Costs of Owning a Home
By creating a guide that’s angled to appeal to the reader’s fear of incurring costs from homeownership, this piece gets 658 RDs. It’s an evergreen topic that they can continue promoting to get even more links.

Example 2: Biweekly Mortgage Payments
Your shorter content might not rank as easily, but it’s the best content for actually getting read This piece got more RDs (805) than words (682). As an article, it offers a simple and straightforward explanation with an actionable strategy. It’s been reprinted by other publishers quite a bit and referenced as a biweekly payment plan in other content. It’s a piece that is successful because it’s the right length for its topic.

Long Guides
Example 1: How to Get a Small Business Loan
This piece is longer because the topic requires it. There aren’t many pieces at over 5000 words on NerdWallet. Out of those, this one has the most backlinks (116) and traffic (12k) as a comprehensive reference for other pieces.

Example 2: Long-Term Care Insurance Explained
This is the longest piece on their site, at 6900 words, and it gets 61 RD’s and 2.6k in traffic.

[Tip #6] Create the Types of Content That Generate Social Shares:

Content that is more snackable or controversial like top 10 lists and op-eds are more prone to be shared by others on social media.

While people will link to content that serves as a useful or notable reference, people SHARE content that strikes an emotional cord by being entertaining or opinionated.

Here’s NerdWallet’s top-shared content on social media:

“Best ___” Lists
Example: Best Balance Transfer Cards
The most social shares go to this piece, at 45k Facebook shares. It also has a lot of RDs (147), partially, we can assume, as a result of being shared so much.

Op-Eds
Example: Your Wallet Will Suffer If This Agency is Gutted
They published a major op-ed calling for the protection of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau from being gutted by the government. This content piece fits in with their brand promise of protecting consumers finances. It got a lot of social shares for being controversial and is the 2nd most shared NerdWallet content piece at 10k Facebook shares.

Top 10 Lists
Example: Top 10 Credit Card Deals
This list is at 9.4k shares. Everybody likes Top 10 Lists, and everybody likes a good deal.

There’s no secret for making a piece of content go viral other than coming up with a great headline and topic. Snackable content in the form of a listicle or how to, or controversial content with an emotional headline is going to better for you on social in terms of shares.

[Tip #7] Capture Your Keywords with Best-in-its-Class SEO Content

Quite a variety of content can end up ranking on page 1 of Google for its target keywords and attract organic traffic (and backlinks).

NerdWallet’s top-trafficked content includes their highly-backlinked tools and guides. Traffic and backlinks can behave like a positive feedback loop, gaining in one can contribute to gaining in the other.

Primarily, they capture traffic by creating comprehensive ratings and reviews of products and services to capture those highly valuable branded keywords.

To generate traffic closer to the top of the funnel they also create comprehensive resource hubs for a variety of topics including starting a business, getting out of debt, or shopping on Black Friday.

Proprietary Tools
Example 1: Mortgage calculator
(The top-trafficked content on NerdWallet as of Sept 17, 2018. It also has 172 RDs.)

Example 2: Home Affordability Calculator
(The 2nd top-trafficked content as of Sept 17, 2018 Gets 592 RD’s)
Research done well is a highly valued form of content when you’re trying to build your equity as a publisher.

Comprehensive Ratings & Reviews
Example 1: Nerdwallet’s Best Credit Cards
This rating page is a super-optimized moneymaker for them and the 3rd-most trafficked piece of content on their site.

Example 2: Nerdwallet’s review of Costco’s Travel Vacation Packages currently brings them 191k by ranking #2 for “costco travel.”

Example 3: NerdWallet’s review of eTrade brings them 55k in traffic by ranking #5 for “etrade.”

Resource Hubs
Example: Black Friday Sales
This hub on their blog is the 4th-top trafficked piece of content on their site. This page serves as a hub for all black Friday related content on the site – which they use to capitalize on users’ black Friday excitement. NerdWallet uses hubs like this on their site in various areas to provide comprehensive resources to help people to decide how and where to spend their money. It’s also updated every year to keep it current and compound its backlinks.

What Did We Learn from NerdWallet’s Content?

NerdWallet serves as the perfect example of how focusing on content production and distribution can build a profitable brand from the ground up.

If you’re in the financial space, you can look at Nerdwallet’s top performing content and try to create similar pieces that are proven to work.

If you’re in another niche, then you need to look up your competitor’s top-performing content and create your own spin on it.

To look up your competitor’s content:

1. Look at what sites are ranking on the first page of Google for the keywords you want to rank for.
2. Then use an SEO tool like SEMrush Backlink Analytics to see what content on their domain has the most backlinks, traffic, and/or social shares.
3. Note down those content types, whether they get traffic, backlinks, shares, or a combination, the topics, length, and any other important features.
4. Create similar content for your site, prioritizing by the types that got the most traffic, backlinks, and shares.
5. Promote the content so that it can start working for you.

When In Doubt: Focus on Research and Tools

The importance of publishing original research and creating proprietary tools can’t be understated.

You can see above that tools like the mortgage and home affordability calculators are the top-trafficked content on NerdWallet’s site.

Research and tools naturally attract more links, traffic, and even social shares compared to other content types…ESPECIALLY if you can angle your data in an intriguing or practical way.

In terms of what successful research looks like, take a look at NerdWallet’s Millenials and Homebuying Data.

Even though this piece doesn’t get much organic search engine traffic, it gets a lot of RDs (652), and shares (almost 8k) by angling personal finance data at a specific subset of their audience: millennials.

It also got a lot of powerful publisher backlinks for being a topical reference:

Maintain Traffic and Compound Your Backlinks by Updating Your “Sticky” Content

Publishers are more likely to reference content when it’s up to date.

Once you publish a piece of content and see that it performs well, you’ll want to update and promote it again periodically to make it work for you again.

There’s no point in reinventing the wheel if you can make the same piece of content gain for you repeatedly.

NerdWallet definitely continues building up the authority of individual pages on their site by updating them again year-to-year before promoting them again.

This allows your content to continue getting backlinks, increasing its page authority, your site’s authority, and thus its ranking potential each year. In most cases, it’s better to be a site with 10 high authority pages that bring in traffic than 100 low authority ones that don’t.

Some of NW’s top content, including their list of the best credit cards is updated regularly each year.

This is a cornerstone content piece for them that gets new links from high authority domains consistently.

It got links from Forbes, International Business Times, Discover and many others just in the last 30 days.

It’s likely why Nerdwallet branched out into sublists of credit cards such as “the best balance transfer credit cards for 2017” to replicate the strategy within an adjacent topic.

NerdWallet does this strategy throughout its other product and service comparisons. They update many of the other hubs and resources on their site to keep them timely.

For example, they update their Black Friday shopping guide each year to take advantage of the annual Black Friday wave:

There are different deals announced by retailers each year for Black Friday, and there’s a mad dash of search traffic trying to find them.

Keeping this Black Friday shopping guide up-to-date allows it to take advantage of that seasonal burst of traffic and capture a bit more of it each year.

You can see that since it first came out in November, 2013, the piece gets a spike in traffic followed by a decrease and then a bigger spike the next year (vertical lines mark each November, when Black Friday occurs):

Looks like this Black Friday hub is due for a big traffic spike this year.

NerdWallet’s resource on Federal Income Tax Brackets is similarly kept up-to-date:

Each year, the current brackets are shown in the table, and the previous year’s income brackets are referenced at the bottom of the page.

There’s no way it could have continued gaining as many backlinks as it did year-to-year had the information not been kept up-to-date:

The steps to compounding backlinks through updating content are:

1. Identify the top linked-to content already on your site, and consider whether it’s a topic you can update and promote repeatedly
2. Publish new content that is relevant to a particular year, whether it’s a guide, a resource, or some form of list
3. Promote it
4. Update it
5. Promote it again

It’s simple!

How Can You Be Succesful Like NerdWallet?

Nerdwallet adopted SEO strategies that aggressively built up their website’s authority and traffic.

By avoiding a reliance on paid traffic, NerdWallet has been able to compete as a player in the cutthroat financial niche without needing to outspend their competitors.

In other words, NerdWallet thrives from organic search traffic by creating content at scale that serves their audience and distributing it for a massive number of backlinks.

This isn’t the entirety of their SEO strategy, and they have since adopted paid marketing methods including PPC and TV spots – but you’ve seen the results possible by focusing on SEO from the start.

Is it easier said than done? Of course! But you can gain a competitive advantage by putting 100% of your efforts into the innovative strategies like these that will gain you the most links and traffic.

Here are the 7 key takeaways:

#1. Make your website appealing to link to by publishing content that strokes the ego (like NerdWallet did with the Ego Bait of issuing awards through their content).

#2. If you want to get powerful homepage links to your brand, target sites that list awards and feature those sites or partner with them for your content.

#3. Find sites where the audience that you want to get in front of is hanging out and get a review of your business shown to them by that 3rd party.

#4. When you can’t scale everything yourself, do what most businesses wait to do until they’re “big enough” by leveraging a PR firm’s connections for more guest posts, features, and reprints of your content with links back to you. If you can’t get a PR deal yet, look for and invite other media platforms to distribute your content and earn additional backlinks from them.

#5. You can build content that naturally attracts backlinks and update it regularly to compound more backlinks. Create enough “sticky content” that needs to be updated periodically and your domain’s authority will increase.

#6. The content that builds your brand on social media is usually more digestible and emotional than the content that gets organic traffic or backlinks.

#7. If you want to attract links, social shares, or traffic in your vertical, look at the competitor’s content that gets disproportionately higher numbers and create your own version of it (don’t steal, use similar angles for your own, original content).

BONUS TAKEAWAY: When something works in SEO, repeat it. NerdWallet recognized strategies or content types that worked, and they went all-in on replicating them to maximize their opportunities for links and traffic.

What Should You Do Now?

If you’re serious about becoming great at growth marketing through SEO, you should do two things:

1. Retweet or share this article (just click the social sharing buttons at the top of this page)
2. Leave a comment with your biggest takeaway from NerdWallet’s SEO growth strategy below
3. Talk to us about scaling your business through SEO and content marketing.

The post 7 SEO Ideas from Inside NerdWallet’s $520 Million Content Strategy appeared first on The HOTH.

When you understand these common myths, you’ll have a ton more success in any link building you do.

Just imagine: With the right link building strategy, your website will climb up the results to page 1.

Let’s get into it!

Myth #1: “I’ll build a few links and see how it goes.”

Going too slow with link building is a common problem.

The real issue isn’t necessarily the slow nature of building links, but with the misalignment of how many links it’s actually going to take to rank on page one.

You need to figure out the realistic number of backlinks by analyzing how many links your competitors have that are ranking on page 1.

We use SEMrush Keyword Overview for competitor research on this.

Let’s take a look at an example:

Say you want to rank for “Callaway golf clubs” – a keyword that gets about 12K searches a month with a CPC of ~$0.34.

Looking at SEMrush, the top ranking results for this keyword have between 47 – 1,600 backlinks.

Since Google is ranking content with this range of links, you’ll most likely need to fall somewhere around this range as well when trying to rank for this keyword.

Here’s some scary math: let’s say the average number of backlinks was 100, and you did 1 link/month, you would need 100 months, or over 8 years to rank your content for that keyword.

Even if it was a lower number of links, like 12, that means it would take a full year for you to reach that number at 1 link per month.

You can get a better picture of how many backlinks on average you’d need to rank by looking at how many links the results on page 1 of Google have.

This allows you to set some real goals to follow through on.

If you want to rank in 3 months: divide the average number of links for results on page 1 by 3 to get a more realistic view of how many links it would take and how much it might cost.

When it comes to getting the “right” number of links to your site, looking at your competition’s stats is one of the best ways to get a ballpark figure to shoot for!

Side note – as you get up to the top, your position depends on more factors than links alone. If your rankings aren’t improving try these things.

Myth #2 “If I build links too fast I’ll get penalized”

The prospect of building links too fast and getting penalized by Google is another common concern.

However getting a large quantity of links is something that happens regularly online, and it’s not necessarily bad:

Content that goes viral naturally attracts links quickly.

For example, authoritative content that answers a question such as “The best golf clubs in 2020?” naturally attracts a lot of links very quickly because it’s so useful, and in this case timely.

This particular article got almost 200 backlinks in just 7 days.

As a result of its great performance in such a short period, it ranks very well for the phrase “The best golf clubs in 2020.”

This article has also amassed more than an estimated 2.8k in organic traffic:

This is a common scenario for news content, authority pieces, or viral articles – They attract lots of links very quickly, and not only do they NOT get penalized, they actually rank really well.

Other content such as research pieces also generate lots of links because they serve as references for other content to link back to.

This research article got nearly 150 referring domains and 700 backlinks in the first week.

As a result, it’s ranking on page 1 of the SERPs for multiple terms:

Having fast link velocity isn’t necessarily bad, and in these cases, attracting lots of quality links quickly resulted in some great rankings.

Myth #3 “If a link comes from a site that’s not exactly my niche I’ll get penalized.”

There are a lot of misconceptions out there regarding link relevancy.

The biggest misconception here is that any link that points to you MUST be from a domain that matches your industry or niche market.

For example, if you are a “swimming pool store,” you should only get links from “swimming pool stores” or very closely related websites.

Now, it’s not that you shouldn’t get relevant links, but good link building is more about context.

Let’s look at an example:

The Ketogenic Diet is all the rage these days – The term “ketogenic diet” get 293K searches per month with a ~$1.00 CPC. This is a very popular and competitive term.

Now looking at the results this website (ruled.me) is ranking #1.

Looking at this site’s backlink profile, you’d think that all of the referring links should also be related to the keto diet, right?

A closer look at some the sites referring to this one reveals some unexpected, non-keto niches linking to it:

As you can see, the top backlinks for this #1 ranking result are pretty diversified.

It’s very common to have a diverse set of websites linking to you, but the most important thing to look for is the context of the link.

Myth #4 “I need exact match anchors in every link.”

Anchor text makes up a clickable hyperlink [e.g. The HOTH].

Just as you need a diversity of backlink topics, you also want to shoot for a diverse set of anchor text on those sites.

In fact, Google attempted to curb the practice of too many exact match anchors with the Penguin update, but we still see this as a common issue with anchor text over-optimization.

The approach to take for establishing anchor text is to look at the % of each type of anchor text in the top ranking content you are trying to rank for.

You can assume that Google will respond well to those proportions for your backlinks if the topic is similar.

To simplify the concept, you can think about anchor text as 3 major categories:

1. Exact match anchors – This is a link that has one of your key phrases in it (e.g. “gluten-free flour”).
2. Keyphrases mixed into anchors – These are anchors with your key phrase + words that are not part of the key phrase (e.g. “gluten-free flour from Bob’s Red Mill”)
3. Brand, natural and URL anchors – These have no reference to your key phrase unless the key phrase is part of your brand (e.g. “Bob’s Red Mill”)

The % of each category shifts according to Google’s algorithm, but you can find some good general guidelines for how to vary your anchor text in this article.

Looking back at our ketogenic diet example, we see that there is actually a lot of variation in the anchor text:

About 50% of the anchors are closely related to the website or the topic. Going down the list though, there are a lot more non-matching anchors pointing to this page:

Mimicking the backlink profile of your competition is what we call the “sniper approach” to anchor text.

Instead of guessing, take a look at the backlinks for the websites Google is ranking on page 1 for your keyword, and look at the proportion of different anchor text categories pointing to them.

You can line up your backlink profile with other top-ranked backlink profiles. If you do, you’ll be able to build links rapidly and it will still look natural.

Ready to Rank Fast?

I hope that now you have a much more realistic view of building links.

By taking a more objective and realistic approach to link building, you’ll be able to make an action plan that WILL meet your ranking goals.

Remember: You can find out exactly what you need to do in order to rank by taking the approach in this article.

We’ve cleared up the confusion surrounding these link building myths, but there are a lot more myths out there!

Feel free to leave a comment below with any other link building myths you might have heard so that we can keep reality in check.

The post 4 Common Link Building Myths Explained appeared first on The HOTH.