SEO Tactics - All in the Game?

[wearehappymedia]

Hey Mozzers

Hoping to get some opinions on SEO at a small business level.

We're engaged in SEO for a number of clients which are small businesses (small budgets). We stick to strictly white hat techniques - producing decent content (and promoting it) and link building (as much as is possible without dodgy techniques/paying huge sums).

For some clients we seem to have hit a ceiling about with rankings anywhere between roughly position #5 - #15 in Google.

In the majority of cases - the higher ranking clients don't appear to be engaged in any kind of content marketing - often have much worse designed websites - and not particularly spectacular link profiles (In other words they're not hugely competitive - apart from sometimes on the AdWords front - but that's another story)

The only difference seems to be links on agency link farms - you know the kind? Agency buys expired domains with an existing PR - then just builds simple site with multiple blog posts that link back to their clients sites. (Also links that are simply paid for)

Obviously these sites serve no purpose other than links - but I guess it's harder for Google to recognize that than with obvious SEO directories etc?...

It seems to me that at this level of SEO for small businesses (limited budgets, limited time) the standard approach for SEO is the "expired domains agency link sites" described above - and simply paying bloggers for links.

Are the above techniques considered black hat? Or are they more grey-hat? - Are they risky? - Or is this kind of thing all in the game for SEO at the small business level (by that I mean businesses that don't have the budget to employ a full time SEO and have to rely on engaging agencies for low level - low resource  SEO campaigns)

Look forward to your always wise council...

[David-Kley]

I would NOT replicate this linking pattern for your client's websites. In the long run, it could do more damage than good. I will save you the long explanation, but it's just not a good long term strategy. Do the things you know are right, and not the things that could pose a risk in the future.

For small businesses, the easiest way to combat companies that use BS linking strategies is to look at the TOTAL health of one of your client's websites. This would include keyword density testing, a complete citation profile analysis (using Moz Local or Yext), domain choice, on-page health, page load speed, etc. Basically everything that Google says matters, and do it to a "T".

Beat them with quality quantity, not by replicating the same tactics.

[Vijay-Gaur]

Hi Radi,

The process explained by you getting backlinks via "agency link farms" seems to be completely black hat to me, the process is much risky.

I have seen many of SEO having the same problem with their clients wherein they take their work for a lower budget and then aren't able to deliver quality work. The idea of a white-hat SEO, in my opinion, is not to grab links wherever they come from, but to focus on right target audience, trying to create a website to cater them and to find the right places on the Internet where you can find them.

It seems, your complete strategy is focused on low-quality links.  I have a few clients who have not so good looking websites but they ranks well with a good off-page strategy, on the other end of the spectrum I have clients who have good looking websites with great on-page they also rank well. So, it's your approach to the online presence and how you end up promoting it, which will make the difference.

I hope this helps, let me know if you have further questions.

Thanks,

Vijay