Do you think it's a good idea to try to find synergy between clients for blog posts/citations/links, or should you keep clients away from each other?
-
Say you have for example three (in this case) clients, and:
- Client A sells red widgets
- Client B is a doctor
- Client C sellls blue widgets
With some research, you find that:
- Red widgets (A) can make the process of blue widget creation (C) even more effective.
- Red widgets (A) can protect you from harmful things that doctors (B) are qualified to recommend that you stay away from.
- Furthermore, there are things that doctors (B) recommend that you do in order to maximize the benefits of red widgets (A)
- Blue widgets (C) carry with them certain potential health risks, which according to doctors (B) can be minimized using the following means
- Sometimes blue widgets (C) can be used to effectively repair red widget (A) factories
...and so forth.
Sure you're really writing these articles to generate links and exchange authority, and frankly you started with "how can I find synergy between these clients?" rather than a with a great article subject that needed a citation which luckily happened to be another client, but the citations are legitimate and the clients are qualified to speak on the subjects where their expertise and interests overlap.
Would you consider going ahead with this? Does anyone have any experience doing it? I could see potential pitfalls if clients were to interact with each other, but keeping yourself as the intermediary might well work and overall it seems like a decent way to grab low-hanging fruit as they say. What do you guys think?
-
Thanks EGOL, Kevin and Alan - that last mention from EGOL is along the lines of what I am worried could happen because of the motivations behind the posts, which is to cite each other.
Their authority on the subjects where they intersect is legitimate - but these articles would be generated because of those intersections. If I didn't have a blue widget client then the red widget client would have little impetus to write a blog post that extols blue widgets. Even though there's nothing in the posts that isn't true and all clients are qualified authorities to be cited as described. It's just that the posts would be written because the SEO guy (me) sat down and said "how can these clients cite each other legitimately?" rather than red widget guy writing an article on blue widgets and then being lucky enough to have someone (me) who can put them in touch with a blue widget company to cite and be cited by.
They're all on different IP's so that should be okay.
I think I'm going to go ahead with this but I'll tread lightly as recommended. Thanks again, thumbs up for all!
-
I think that this could balloon into problems if you are not careful. Google might be able to detect a link network if you have a lot of Doctor articles out there on various sites serving as "mules" that carry optimized links for "red widgets" and "blue widgets".
-
The only issue I see here is that you said "clients." Are these clients of yours all hosted on the same server with the same IP? Google does take this into account, notably to punish server farms and the like. I'm not exactly sure what levels of cross-linking will count for or against you, but I imagine these sites are relatively small with low domain authority so it shouldn't be an issue.
I might consider posting the doctor's articles on reputable medical sites and then link your clients' sites to articles on these bigger sites with higher domain authority. Try to get your wine articles on other wine related sites as well. You can also try using Zemanta to help with getting more people to link to this content.
-
Where would you see pitfalls? If you've done good work for multiple clients, and if, as you say, it's all above-board and legitimate opportunities, then I would definitely communicate the possible opportunity to the clients, then let them decide if they want to participate. If so, there's nothing wrong with this at all. But only as long as you keep it to legitimate implementation, and make it only one part of a larger effort all around.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Blog post outreach for backlinks
Hi all, My understanding of obtaining backlinks by way of blogpost outreach is that it's best to include several outbound links to related high domain websites within blog post copy (as well as a link to the website you're marketing, obviously) such as this post https://www.scoopearth.com/why-should-you-use-royalty-free-music-for-youtube-videos/ or this one https://small-bizsense.com/how-to-create-quality-content-for-your-business/. However, I've recently read a few articles that suggest that from a human perspective only having one clear link in the copy, such as this post https://www.clichemag.com/entertainment/movies/the-benefits-of-royalty-free-cinematic-music-for-your-videos/, increases the chance of the reader visiting the site in question. I guess the thinking is that if there's only one link to be clicked on it increases the chances of click-thru, as opposed to the reader possibly clicking on another external link that's only there because of current SEO advice. So is it best to follow SEO guidelines and include several outbound links within guest blog posts, or is it better to only have the one link to your client's site (to focus the readers attention on it)?
Link Building | | JCN-SBWD0 -
When pitching a whitepaper as Push Content for Link Building, is it ok to give the person I'm pitching a link to a landing page with a form on it?
When pitching a whitepaper as Push Content for Link Building (i.e. pushing out content that my client has created), is it ok to give the person I'm pitching a link to a landing page with a form on it? Or should I create a landing page with the whitepaper included on it? I’m not sure if the client will be ok with this b/c I know they use the whitepaper for sales purposes to gain leads. For example, my pitch email would include a line such as this, "the whitepaper can be found at LINK and I'd love if you could share it with your readers." I think it may be weird/a little wrong to ask a webmaster to include a link on his site to a landing page with a form to get the whitepaper. Does this make sense? What have others done with whitepapers as Push Content for link building?
Link Building | | ArketiGroup1 -
If you discount a subscription when the client links to you, does that classify as a paid link?
For example, we all subscribe to MOZ, but if we received a 25% discount on our subscription if we linked back, would that be considered by Google as a paid link, or would it be seen as a sales tool / promotion?
Link Building | | JonathanSmith0 -
Removing links from rubbishy 'blog' sites
I need to remove around 800 bad links, probably about 500 domains as a very rough estimate. These were built by a previous link building company. Here some example domains: http://globalweddingblog.com
Link Building | | Coraltoes77
http://theweddinginsider.net
http://www.couturefashionissues.com
http://www.topfashionlabels.com
http://weddingworldnews.com
http://www.savingsdistrict.com
http://bestfemalesblog.com
http://mylatestfashion.com
http://lastfashion.net
http://womansonlineblog.org I have already tried emailing a hundred or so with a manual link request - with zero outcome. Hardly surprising when you consider the types of sites they are. I've had a quote for a link removal service, but I'm not sure if it's wise to pay someone to do this work - not sure what resources/tools they would have above and beyond what I can access and there could be increased risk. Any advice?0 -
Should I try to earn that link?
Hi everyone, I am new to Moz and here is my first question. I have just launched a website that took me a year to develop and I am in search for great links, following Moz advices. However, theory and practice are certainly two different things... Although my site is not about stock exchange markets, it does contain an area related to the subject. My goal is to attract links towards my main topic via that area. I have found that website: zonebourse.com (I am working on the French market)
Link Building | | Emilien
According to the Moz tools, page authority and domain authority are really good. Also, I believe I can do a very link on my side. However, should I contact them ? They have an area in the footer for link building, but it doesn't look to me as "quality work" I have been looking for contextual links, but can't find any My question is should I try to earn that link, considering that according to Moz guidelines, it may not be a quality link, but looking at the harsh reality, for such a "good" partner, it could be it or nothing? It would be great to hear a few opinions from the Moz community. Many thanks !0 -
Blog posts with currently no links question
Hi, If a blog has 100's of quality blog posts all with PR 1-3 but has no internal linking going on, what kind of affect would it have if someone was to go through all the pages using mixed anchor text (where it fits) back to money pages. Would generating 100's of internal links from a blog in a matter of days cause problems / flag up to SE's. I'm guessing it would be best to stagger it over a long period of time. Cheers
Link Building | | Bondara0 -
Site Published Our Guest Post but Removed the Link Back
I recently developed a nice article for a career site and they agreed to publish it as a guest post. Once they published the article I noticed they had removed the link back to my site in the byline. What is a best way to approach this situation? Would you ask them to take down the article if they are unwilling to link back to your site?
Link Building | | Charlessipe0 -
What are good companies to buy links from?
I am sure that asking such a question on SEOMoz will bring the world down on my head, but let's be honest, sometimes buying links, especially high quality links from reputable sources does give a nice boost to go along with the rest of the onsite and offsite SEO practices. So, those of you who are so anti-link buying that the very mention of it is anathema, please put some duct tape over your mouths or on your typing fingers and allow people who get my point to respond... I bet there are some really good link sellers on the web - but i do not know who they are. All of them claim to have the fantastic and best way to give me 1000's of wonderful links - but who the heck really delivers? if there is really no one trustworthy and the only way to build is by way of what I am already doing (mid-quality SEO), feel free to tell me. But if there are 3 or 4 amazing companies out there, please give your reasons and testimonials. I would so appreciate it. And apologies to the SEO purists - but my clients do not understand algorithmic changes and slow/steady movements...and i don't blame them. but to all - love, love, love thanks for the advice ben
Link Building | | creativeguy0