Link building idea - Will it work?
-
The SEO agency I am working for are currently trying out a unique link building tactic that i was hoping for some feedback about.
Basically, we have launched a Free SEO package, and have posted it across various established social media profiles. So far we have had about 20 sign up.
We gain access to their site and provide them with 4 keywords that we will be working on, we do the necessary on page optimization to get them ranking. We will then perform some very basic link building tactics on their site.
In exchange for our services, we will get the following:
Firstly, we will place a link on their home page linking to our own site.
Secondly, we will personally write content related to their site, create a new page within their site that will contain this article. We will then have a link from this article leading to one of our own client's sites. (paying customers)
What do you guys think? The Free SEO client sites have minimum PR's of 2, and we are hoping to build a database of these free clients that will be responsible for boosting the ranking of our paying customers. Is there anything that could be improved with this technique?
-
Hi Claire,
So, in essence - i don't think this is a great idea, primarily because i think it carries enormous risks that will be difficult to manage if you take this approach at scale.
Firstly, what happens if your free clients don't rank following the on-page work and linkbuilding you do?
Assumedly, as they're a free client, there is no contract involved here - so if the work you do doesn't help, then they will likely refuse you access to their site to build links out on while presenting you with a large reputation risk if they decide to negatively "out" your practice. Moreover, the lack of contract again means that you will have no legitimate complaint if they decide, a few months after your work with them, that they want to remove the links and articles you have placed on their site.
Are you being upfront with the free clients about the sites you will link out to on their site? If it's not in their niche, or worse something highly spammy - i can imagine a lot of them getting upset about you using their site to advertise on.
Additionally, this seems like a very expensive and time consuming way to build links for your existing paying clients. if you have to do more SEO and linkbuilding work every time you need to get a new link from a site - you'll be putting in dozens of man hours for only a handful of links on PR2 blogs that you are at risk of losing at the whim of an unhappy webmaster. If however, the plan is to have basically free access to a site after you've done a little bit of SEO work - then you're basically just taking advantage of the free sites that sign up and again risk losing it all if a few of them become unhappy.
It seems to me that a better way to approach the concept would be to find these decent blogs/sites and then build a strong guest posting relationship with them, offering them quality content in exchange for links. This way, the content containing the links becomes the value you are exchanging, rather than the somewhat intangible SEO work and it's clear what both sides are getting out of the deal on an ongoing basis.
Alternatively, there's nothing wrong with brokering relationships between sites that you work with, allowing them to guest post for each other and strike up an ongoing relationship; I would just be wary of leaving yourself as the middleman, unprotected by any contract or basic trade agreement.
Hope that's helpful,
Phil
-
I've asked for people with more experience to comment, but I remember reading something similar in Q&A a few months back, though that company was using a more questionable way to execute things. You might want to check out the thread at http://www.seomoz.org/q/contacted-by-an-seo-company for opinions about that implementation and what you wouldn't want to do.
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
-
Does redirecting a duplicate page NOT in Google‘s index pass link juice? (External links not showing in search console)
Hello! We have a powerful page that has been selected by Google as a duplicate page of another page on the site. The duplicate is not indexed by Google, and the referring domains pointing towards that page aren’t recognized by Google in the search console (when looking at the links report). My question is - if we 301 redirect the duplicate page towards the one that Google has selected as canonical, will the link juice be passed to the new page? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Lewald10 -
Why is our noindex tag not working?
Hi, I have the following page where we've implemented a no index tag. But when we run this page in screaming frog or this tool here to verify the noidex is present and functioning, it shows that it's not. But if you view the source of the page, the code is present in the head tag. And unfortunately we've seen instances where Google is indexing pages we've noindexed. Any thoughts on the example above or why this is happening in Google? Eddy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | eddys_kap0 -
Links to external site (hotels link)
Hello, I am currently designing the webpages of my website and I am wondering if I should link externally or if it going to hurt me ? I am in the travel industry and for example in the France in the Loire valley, I want to list hotels that people can stay at in pre and pods trip. Is it ok to link to maybe 10 of those hotels websites or can it hurt me ? Thank you,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Help in Internal Links
Which link attribute should be given to internal links of website? Do follow or No follow and why?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Obbserv0 -
Links how long do they show?
How long do links show for in software such as Majestic ect once the link has been removed.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
What to talk about when building relationships
Hello, I'm assessing what to do to build relationships in my client's niche. For each possible backlink provider, I'm thinking 1. Like them on facebook 2. Follow them on Twitter 3. Add them on G+ 4. Read their recent blog posts. 5. Comment in their facebook account about what I liked about their latest blog posts and tweet (though I don't know what to tweet here) 6. Post helpful blog post comments 7. Get the conversation going, then talk to them introduce my content to them that will help them. (though I don't know how to make the transition) I'm marketing a PDF that is helpful for their site and an HTML article (same content as the PDF) that has been non-commercialized. This is for an ecommerce business. My biggest void is not knowing how to lead a good relationship conversation into a conversion. I don't want to be salesy. But I'm looking for general comments as well, like what to tweet and anything I've left out in the list.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
Which Authorship Strategy Works?
We want to claim our articles and get our picture next to our articles in the search engines. I was offered this article http://www.virante.com/blog/2012/01/08/how-to-show-your-author-photo-in-google-search-results/ but Google has this article: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986 Google's way is simpler, Is that all I need to do? This is for a Joomla site Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobGW0 -
I currently have a client that has multiple domains for multiple brands that share the same IP Address. Will link juice be passed along to the different sites when they link to one another or will it simply be considered internal linking?
I have 7 brands that are owned by the same company, each with their own domain. The brands work together to form products that are then sold to the consumer although there is not a e-commerce aspect to any of the sites. I am looking to create a modified link wheel between the sites, but didn't know if my efforts would pay off due to the same IP Address for all the sites. Any insight on this would be greatly appreciated.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | HughesDigital0