Link Building Question
-
Hello,
Here is my situation - i'm number 10 for a moderate keyword and i want to rank higher .
Using the Open Site Explorer i studied the links of 12 competitors and noticed the following :
There are only 2 sites that are doing 100% white hat - one of them is on first page only because has a big,big domain autority, the other because is a brand name.
The rest of my competitors are on first page using directory submissions (i discovered 200+ directories - and not counting those that are not indexed.), buying links (for ex check these 2 :http://www.dentistsburbank.com/links , http://www.dentistinaustin.com/links/ - there are 50+ more sites like this), spam forums and article submissions.
For my site i tried to get only quality links, tried link bait, quality articles - etc(and this for more that 18 months). Unfortunately it seems that my efforts are not enough(seems that links from military.com are not enough to beat 200 low quality directories) and i want to ask the community what should i do.
Shall i invest in directory submissions (it will cost around $1500) ? If not in directories in what shall i invest the money ? Are there any companies able to create successful link baits ?
Shall i report the paid links hoping that Google will take action ?
Any other ideas
-
What about reporting the "black links" - did anyone had success doing that ?
-
Yes probably i need to get quantity and match them on number of c blocks (the only metric i;m behind)
-
I agree, directory submissions should cost no where near that, and the effort and cost far outway the benifits IMHO. Anyway, just a thought on the paid directories you mention - costs can be cut further if you do go down this route by applying to become an editor of a directoy such as Joeant , if accepeted, you can then get a free listing!
-
Good point and absolutely a must, though once you exhaust all that and have already a good content strategy and your competitors are still kicking your butt - what then?
Internally we go technical, big backlink profile analysis, do the maths and go hard and creative on links. It's kind of like brute force in some respect however within 2-3 months you're going up after many months of stagnation.
I see this all the time in highly competitive industries (e.g. insurance, flights...etc).
There have been cases though where we have seen quality beat quantities (in extreme differences)... still a bit of a mystery to me if I am to be completely honest.
-
The question that I always ask when a local service or retail site is involved is.... have you gotten all of the local and industry links that are available?
These include:
-- chamber of commerce and local service organizations (membership in these can be valuable for business reasons but their website often has a link to their members)
-- local business listings
-- your landlord's website
-- websites of your suppliers and service providers (do a testimonial for them)
-- trade associations for your industry (write an article for them)
-- med schools, law schools etc. often links to websites successful graduates
-- local charities often link to companies who support them (friends of the library, habitat, religious groups, little league boosters)
-- local business initiatives (tourism association, "buy local", downtown merchant association)
-- local online newspaper (advertise, write an article or column)
-- trade association publications (advertise, write an article or column)
-- local and state license boards
Go out searching for local websites. Although they might not be "dental" sites they are often very relevant for the name of your community. You can also draw up a charitable organization budget that will support your business in other ways.
Lots of people are amazed when they learn how many local links are possible.
-
Yeah I think you might be looking to hard at directories if the cost is that high... I wouldn't spend half that on them myself. You'll probably find that most of those directories aren't worth the dosh.
-
If your competition is getting quantities of links and beating you while your your best content effort cannot level up... that might be what you need to do - get as many new c-block links using all means possible apart from buying links and spam (I cannot recommend those).
Article submission and directories are not my favorite activity and I do not believe in it - however there is ample evidence that sheer quantities can win.
The answer I gave you is simplified as I have not analysed your and your competitor's links in details (anchor text, authority, numbers, velocity...etc).
-
I agree is not spam(Directory submissions)- and the cost is real - i made a list with url and cost per submissions and i'm getting close to 2k so far.
-
Directory submissions are not black hat... and they needn't cost you anywhere near that. There's a bunch of good directories out there, free ones that are fairly decent too. The only ones you should pay for in my opinion are BOTW, Yahoo Dir, and JoeAnt. But I wouldn't even bother with them, I never do... just go for some very relevant free ones that aren't spammy
What did you do for your link bait, and how did you promote it?
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
-
Spam Link Building Discovered - What would you do?
Hi Mozers, After investigating our no 1 competitor we have discovered their 87k back links comparing to ours 1k. After dipper investigations we discovered that all the back links are gained by the websites created by themselves. So what they did is - they had purchased 10+ domains and created 10+ new websites that are identical as their original .com version. EVERY SINGLE LINK on these 'new' websites link to their .com version. The 'New' websites are not indexed. Literally each of us can do the same and gain thousands of back links, but isn't it violating google's policy? What are your thought on it? (What is the best practice to report the violation of google's policy to Google?) Best regards, Lana
Link Building | | Chemometec0 -
Link building for a 'boring' eCommerce site
Hey all, I'm in need of some serious inspiration and I'm hoping one of you generous people can help. We're looking to do a spot of link building for an eCommerce site which I would describe (without putting it down too much) as 'boring'. This isn't our fault per se as the site sells printer cartridges and there's only a certain amount of excitement such a product can create. As a result natural linkbuilding is quite tricky, especially when it comes to creating links to anything other than our homepage. For the past couple of years we have focused on creating good content and indeed have a thriving database of hundreds of helpful articles and videos on the site. These are generating decent traffic (and rank #1 for many different help related search terms) but the problem with these articles is that they don’t convert in to sales at all well. I’m also conscious that it will ultimately end in us developing a link profile which would classify us as a printer repair resource rather than cartridge sales website. I have read numerous guides on Moz but they all tend to focus on products which are a little sexier than those that we sell. Getting someone to share and link to a truly unique product would be incredibly easy compared with asking someone to engage, share and link to the latest Epson cartridge. I started writing articles on some decent quality business blogs however the links given don’t look particularly natural and the link would always be to our homepage. We have the staff and the time but we built a whole host of rubbish links back before Penguin and I want to ensure that we are going to head in the right direction before embarking on something new. If you had a site which was really dull how would you devise a link building strategy that was relevant and, most importantly, natural? Thanks for your help. Chris
Link Building | | ChrisHolgate1 -
Which is the best link building method after Google penguin update & why?
We are currently offering our client pre penguin these activities for link building: Local listing Directory submission bookmarking article submission blog comment guest post business review squidoo lens Forum posting infograhics My questions is which is the best link building method and is there any activity that is redundant now. thanks
Link Building | | conversiontactics0 -
Most effective method for link building?
From your experience, what have you found to be the most effective method for link building? It's starting to look like the only way to receive good links is by writing great content or offering great services and allowing the links to come in naturally (which is obviously the most important thing anway), but are there still any effective methods of getting valuable links through link building, apart from having personal connections and relationships with site owners?
Link Building | | eli.boda0 -
Backlinking / Link Building Services
Hello, Our site is struggling organically and one of the key factors (not surprisingly) is a lack of backlinks. We have hired a content writer and are working on a content strategy to generate quality, relevant backlinks. But this is more of a long term project. After reviewing backlinks to our competitors' sites, it seems clear that they are using agencies or services to generate backlinks (most coming from low quality sites). I'm aware that this isn't a good long term strategy (although it seems to be serving them well at the moment). I was hoping the community could provide some insight on products or services out there that provide "safe" backlinking strategies. I don't want to do anything that is going to harm us in the future. I've read a bit on the hoth, and it seems fairly safe and potentially effective, but it's hard find much objective advice on the topic. Any insight is much appreciated - thanks in advance! Jason
Link Building | | ba_seomoz0 -
Link building, does query string matter?
Hi All, We have some partners which link to our site, and they put "?ref=SITENAME" so we Can identify the source of the link....but does this matter to the search engines? Does this count as a different page than the one without the query string? -Rasmus
Link Building | | rasmusbang0 -
Best Link Building Practice
Are there any articles or tutorials here about how to build links? The only two methods I've been able to uncover are using OSE to analyze competitors backlinks and directory listings. I'm thinking there must be other ways.
Link Building | | waynekolenchuk0 -
Who here outsources your link building?
Anyone here run an agency? Do you outsource your link building to another company overseas so it's cheap, or what is everyone else doing nowadays?
Link Building | | DavidKauzlaric0