Can I include "commissioned" posts in my link building strategy?
-
Ok "Commissioned Posts" meaning industry influencers/bloggers etc writing about your brand, products or services and possibly "linking" to your website (in exchange for money, or not)
a) I'm contacted by a blogger who wants to write a piece about our product and naturally links back.
b) A blogger says, yes, we can write a fantastic article about your brand and link to you for $$$..$ - is this ok if not at scale?
What is deemed as ethical?
I want to make sure our link building campaign is done within Google's guidelines. Here is currently what we are doing, or intending to do;
1. We're producing unique content on our site and sharing this with key influencers organically on Twitter, Facebook and G+ communities. This so far is working well for a new start up.
2. Writing guest posts on authoritative sites (with only our author bio at the bottom, branded link to our site, social links) sharing knowledge or interesting content which readers will want to read. Sites like HuffPost, The Guardian would be great although we're starting on authoritative well maintained blogger sites within the industry to begin.
3. Reaching out to industry influencers who may like to review our products. Many of them have got back to me stating that they "can" run commissioned posts (normally requires a large fee) which carries a followed link, branded or unbranded. Although we may have initially contacted them, and money could be exchanged, in the eyes of Google wouldn't this appear as a natural post?
Please let me know your thoughts on this? It would be great to gain more of an understanding exactly what I can or cannot do when it comes to developing high quality links for our business!
Your feedback (sharing any examples if possible) would be truly appreciated.
Thanks
Gary
-
I don't generally recommend buying press releases as a strategy unless you are trying to hide things in search. It really works well for that. But I would be willing to bet by PR agencies they are not talking about the places that you can go buy a $399 package and have a blast done. They are talking about a different kind of advertising agency that might call Paul in the tech office and say "Hey man, I want this to run, how much?"
-
I've just spoken to an editor at the Daily Mail (National UK Newspaper) who expressed that they work closely with PR agencies to "endorse" certain companies and there products, however all links are not followed.
Example here; http://www.dailymail.co.uk/property/article-2952597/Exploit-inch-home-clever-multi-functional-furniture.html
-
Hi Lesley
This was certainly my perception. General rule - a balanced link profile is certainly required, and such a strategy should not be performed at scale.
-
I think everyone is going to disagree with me, but I see nothing wrong with paid links. Sure Google does not like them, that has been established, but it is one of the best ways to go really and cannot be avoided if you want to grow. You want a link on a popular blog, Huffington Post, CNN, Elle Magazine, Glamour? How do you get it? You pay for it. We as SEO people and Google also needs to get over the idea that Adwords is the only way people monetize web sites. Links are bought and sold for every site that has traffic and paid writers. The SEO value of the link could be negligible, but if the link performs and you profit from it, why not do it. Now I am not saying go to a link farm and buy as many links as you can afford, but I am say the places that you want links, as a general rule they can be purchased. I had a client that sold things to women and she always wanted to be in Vogue. After she paid them for an article in their magazine there was a website write up included too. It worked out, she made money off of it.
-
Patrick
Thanks so much for your feedback. Yes, your backlink profile should certainly be balanced. I'm certainly more reluctant to stay away from commissioned articles now, regardless of Google's perception.
What is Google's stance on a guest posts containing the linked author bio? Is this looked upon as sponsored? Is it required by the webmaster to set author bio links as no follow?
Apart from creating great content, linking to influencers and posting on certain social media platforms, how else to you attain links. What would a standard SEO practice implement into such a strategy?
Maybe links in the future will be devalued as semantic search takes over?
Thanks again Patrick
-
Hi there
I would be extremely careful here with what you're doing - sponsored posts aren't necessarily a bad thing, but there are guidelines you should follow and know Google's stance on it.
If you decide to go through with it, I would request the link is nofollow - that seems to be the consensus on multiple resources - here's one and another. From Backlinko Ranking Factors, these can potentially decrease value (but, as this is a study, it's opinion) of the link, but they also help diversify your backlink profile, making it more natural.
Nofollow links are still beneficial though, especially if the links passes traffic where the user is looking for your products or interested in your content.
That being said, I would be excruciatingly careful with this practice. I would also check the potential linking site's metrics in Open Site Explorer, SEMRush (to line up organic traffic/keywords with algorithm changes), as well as Majestic.
I would also ask myself the following about the site that will be linking to me:- Does this link help my website?
- Is this link relevant to my website?
- Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?
- Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?
- If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?
Remember - these are grounds you have to tread lightly in. Vet the site and also do not make this a big ongoing practice - this could potentially set off flags to Google if they catch on and you will get a manual action.
Hope this helps - good luck!
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
-
In Google search console all of sudden a lot of backlinks have disappear at "Link To Your Site"
Hi after update in Google search console yesterday a lot of backlinks in "Link To Your Site" have disappear, before we had 43x domains now we have 12x domains linking to the site. I have checked the sites where we had link do-follow before and they are OK. Can you please tell me the reason what has gone wrong. And also please guide me in fixing the issue , Hope to hear from you soon..! URL: https://www.finanstopp.no/
Link Building | | heleneolsen3 -
Should I build internal links to my homepage?
Ive done a lot of internal linking before but its always been for other inner pages but now I need to do it for a websites homepage but this got me thinking if its even worth doing and should I be doing it at all? For the first question I was thinking that surely the homepage has more authority than any of my inner pages so how would internal links from inner pages help and for the second question Ive read a few posts like this Kissmetrics one here where it says you shouldnt do it. There are two types of links you should avoid using in your content: Homepage. Most sites have too many links to the homepage as it is. You would rather strengthen internal pages to boost the overall SEO of your site, rather than simply point more links at the homepage. https://blog.kissmetrics.com/commandments-of-internal-linking/ thoughts?
Link Building | | linklander0 -
Link building for manufacturing business... Tips?
What are your tips for B2B link building? We manufacture and supply PVC strip curtains & rubber site safety products but currently lacking creativity for link building ideas.
Link Building | | RayflexGroup
Does anybody have any case studies or tips to help us out?0 -
Do you have PA and DA minimums for link building outreach?
Hi all! I'm putting together a list of sites I want to attack for link building. I'm looking at my competitors while also seeking specific sites I know would work well to link to us. My question is, since this is very time-consuming, do you have a minimum PA and/or DA that you require in order to perform manual link-building outreach. For example, if a site has a DA below X and PA below X, what would X have to be for you to not consider it worth your time. I'm just trying to gauge where my efforts will be best spent and trying to get some benchmarks. Thanks!
Link Building | | Kibin0 -
Link Building the Right Way?
There are still a few things that I need clarifications for link building. I have joined many forums and I am following some big website (Seomoz / search engine watch / search engine land) and such for ideas about link building. There are various different suggestions among them for example about Create a blog, Profile links, Article directories,Web 2.0 submission,Press release submission, Infographic submissions,Company directory submissions,Video submissions,Niche specific directories,Logo/Graphic/Web design directories,Free web directories,Non-English directories,RSS directories,Guest posting,Games Submission's and social bookmarking, Blog commenting, Forum posting.Q&A,Wiki Links,Local listings,Getting trackbacks. one would say to use it the other would say not to, can you please guide as to what is the right way to follow these suggestions. Also nofollow backlinks have any effect on the SERP? Thanks.
Link Building | | KLLC1 -
Should you guest post on a site with no quality links?
Suppose a site is related to your industry and has a relatively good domain authority of 49. However when you look at their link profile it is mostly directories and they don't seem to have any natural links from quality sites. Would you still take the link if they offered to publish your guest post?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs1 -
Please critique my link building plan
Hello, Here's my revised link building plan for nlpca.com Let me know if I'm off or missing anything. 1)Identify a list of competitors that are strong enough to have good backlinks (probably about 15 in our industry Look at top content for top competitors and see what type of content is being linked to. build infographics for each area we want to target based on top content Using OSE, analyze competitor backlinks and decide which sites might link to the infographics and which sites might just link to us if we asked them (our site is already an authority). In this step we would also expand the backlink analysis to include sites on pages 4-8 Only choose link aquisition for sites based on the following criteria: Age A lot of unique content A clean site Backlinks going to that site Facebook followers Which of course means high search engine rankings Publish infographics and do outreach
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
What's your favorite link building tactic?
What's your favorite 100% white hat link building tactic? Well, maybe you don't want to reveal your favorite...just a good one...
Link Building | | AdamThompson0