Although a show like The Flintstones ended its original run back in 1966, re-airing those episodes on various networks (syndication) made the cartoon iconic for many generations to come. 

Had the show not entered syndication, its original run in the ’60s would have been people’s only chance to experience it – and it would have likely faded into obscurity. 

In other words, kids who grew up in the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s would have no clue who Fred Flintstone was if there were no reruns. 

What the heck does this have to do with SEO?

Just as The Flintstones used syndication to gain a wider audience, you can do the same thing with your blog posts, videos, infographics, and other forms of content. 

Content syndication is where you republish your existing content on other websites and publications. 

You’ve probably read an article or watched an online video that said, ‘This piece was originally published on blahblahblah.com.’ 

That’s the telltale sign of syndicated content, and it’s a fantastic tactic for broadening your online reach and generating backlinks from other sites. 

After all, you work your tail off on your content, so why should you only publish it once in one location?

Instead of taking a one-and-done approach to publishing content, read on to learn how you can copy The Flintstones’ success and syndicate it to enjoy a much larger audience. 

What About Duplicate Content?! Understanding Proper Content Syndication 

Trained SEOs are hard-wired to avoid duplicate content, which is why the thought of syndicating content raises a red flag. 

However, duplicate content and syndicated content are two different things. 

As long as you syndicate your content correctly, you’ll never have to worry about Google flagging your content as duplicate. 

How do you do that?

Canonical tags are your best friend here, as they’ll let Google know which version of your content is the original (and that you want Google to include in their index/search results). 

For instance, if you syndicated one of your blog pieces on a related website, you wouldn’t want Google to index that version, as the other site will receive the traffic. Instead, you want Google to index the original version that appears on your website. 

A canonical tag is a brief snippet of HTML code that defines the primary version of a web page. 

It looks like this:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”https://examplesite.com/preferred-primary-URL-here”>

So, whenever another website agrees to publish one of your pieces, politely ask them to include a canonical tag that points back to the original version on your site. 

Pro tip: Google’s John Mueller has confirmed the effectiveness of including self-referential canonical tags for your content. That’s where you include a canonical tag on your content’s original version that references its own URL. 

This is useful because it helps Google know for sure which version of your content you want it to include in its index. 

Including links in syndicated content 

Your syndicated pieces should always include a link back to your original piece. 

Not only does this create a backlink for you (score!), it’s also what Google recommends you do to help avoid duplicate content. 

Besides that, another major perk of content syndication is that if you get the green light to include internal links in your syndicated pieces, you can drive a lot of traffic to other pages on your site. 

You should always check with your syndication partners beforehand to confirm that they’re cool with including links that point back to your site, as it’s never wise to assume. 

If they’re okay with it, you’ll score even more backlinks to your website, and your syndicated articles will transform into traffic-generating machines. 

How to Make Content Syndication a Reality 

If you want to start syndicating your content, you’ll need to build a network of syndication partners. 

These are other websites in your field that accept syndicated posts, and they’re not always super easy to find (although we’re about to show you how). 

You can also syndicate your content through social media and platforms like Quora and Reddit. 

Tips for finding syndication partners

There are plenty of syndication networks out there, which are groups of related sites that syndicate similar content. 

Typically, a parent site will own dozens (or hundreds) of media outlets that syndicate the same articles. 

These networks are amazing because they enable you to syndicate your content across multiple websites (and most of the time, you only have to maintain a single relationship to do so). 

Besides syndication networks, you should also target non-competitors. 

These are other websites that don’t directly compete with your business but share the same target audience. 

Let’s say that you sell custom-made guitars online. 

In this case, your non-competitors would be guitar blogs, guitar lesson & tablature sites/video channels, and websites that sell guitar accessories like straps and clothing. 

Here are some quick tips for finding syndication partners and non-competitors:

• Use our free backlink checker tool to analyze the backlink profiles of your competitors. Look out for links from local media outlets and non-competitors to use for your syndication strategy. 

• Pull up Google search and look up terms like “originally published on” (niche keyword), “republished from” (niche keyword), and “syndicated from (niche keyword)” to find sites that accept syndicated articles. 

It’s crucial to include quotations in these queries, as that tells Google to look for that exact phrase in the search results. 

Syndicating on social media and other platforms

Even if you find a ton of syndication partners, it’s still a good idea to put your social media profiles to good use and syndicate your content there, too. 

The catch?

Certain types of content perform better on social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. 

In particular, syndicate short-form videos, infographics, and condensed blogs that fit into carousels on social media. 

Question/answer-based platforms, like Reddit and Quora, are also useful for syndicating content. 

However, you’ll usually want to include brief excerpts along with a link to the original piece to avoid being too verbose. 

Let’s not forget about self-publishing websites like Medium and Substack, either. These are great places to syndicate your most entertaining and thought-provoking pieces to gain exposure and loyal readers. 

Syndicating through social media and platforms like Medium won’t cost you a dime, so it’s worth using them as syndication channels to expand your influence even further. 

Becoming a Thought Leader Through Syndication 

Content syndication is a powerful way to bolster your backlink profile while expanding your influence online. 

The more websites and publications that feature your content, the more members of your target audience will get the chance to notice you and become loyal readers/customers. 

One of the best things about content syndication is that virtually anyone can do it by using social media and platforms like Medium. 

That means you can start syndicating your strongest pieces today while working on a greater content syndication strategy, like targeting networks and non-competitors. 

To cut straight to the chase and enjoy content syndication on 300+ trusted media outlets ASAP, don’t wait to check out our Content Syndication service from The HOTH.    

The post Blog Reruns: How Content Syndication Helps SEO & Link-Building appeared first on The HOTH.

Content creation, guest posting, and link insertions are a few examples of how we improve SERP (search engine results pages) rankings for our clients. 

Yet, quite a bit of confusion surrounds two of our SEO offerings: article syndication and press releases. 

While some may think the two are interchangeable, many noticeable differences exist between press releases and syndicated blogs. 

The common ground is that they both improve SEO and online visibility by earning backlinks from trusted media websites. 

However, the similarities end here, as they’re two completely separate link-building tactics. 

Read on to learn more about the difference between syndication and press releases and how they will improve your website’s search engine rankings when done correctly. 

Understanding Press Releases for SEO 

Traditionally, a press release is an official statement by a business’s PR department to inform the public about a new development – such as new hires, mergers, product launches, and other noteworthy events. 

Press releases for SEO are a tad different. 

How so?

It’s because the primary goal of an SEO press release is to acquire backlinks and boost your online visibility. 

That’s not to say that SEO press releases aren’t informative or that they don’t contain important new information about your business. 

It just means that press releases for SEO aren’t meant to inform the public of time-sensitive things like promotional offers. 

However, your press release must still be newsworthy to appear on news websites. 

For our HOTH clients, we can create new SEO-friendly content for a new press release or help distribute existing press releases.

From there, our fulfillment team selects a group of relevant, authoritative news sites in our network to target for distribution.

Once the press releases go live, our clients gain increased brand visibility. 

Thanks to our 300+ distribution channels, we can consistently boost brand awareness and online visibility for clients from virtually every niche. 

Press releases for gray niches 

A common question is whether we can provide our press release services for gray niches. 

What are those?

A ‘gray’ niche is a business or activity that, while technically legal, features strict regulations.

An example would be a casino. 

While gambling is legal in 48 states (the exceptions being Utah and Hawaii), federal and state laws determine when and where it can happen and the types of gambling that are allowed. 

The good news is that we can provide our press release services to all gray niches except illicit drugs. 

However, you’ll likely receive fewer links than you would for a traditional niche, but we can still deliver at least 300 links for most gray niches. 

Understanding Article Syndication for SEO 

Whenever you watch a rerun of an old 90s sitcom like Seinfeld on TBS or Comedy Central, you’re viewing a syndicated piece of content. 

In other words, it’s a repeat airing after its original run, allowing more people to see the episode. 

Well, you can do the same thing with the blog articles on your website. 

Even though it originally ‘aired’ on your blog, you can show a ‘rerun’ of it on other websites to increase exposure to your brand. 

For instance, let’s say that you wrote a stellar piece about B2B marketing on your blog, and you also syndicate it to LinkedIn to take advantage of their large B2B audience. 

At The HOTH, we offer article syndication to clients as a way to build backlinks and increase online visibility. 

Once again, we utilize our vast network of news sites and media outlets to syndicate existing blog articles. 

There are three ways you can syndicate a piece of content on another site, including:

• Exact copy. This is where you include a copy of the original post that’s word-for-word. The only thing that changes is the URL since it will be housed on a different website. 
• Partial copy. Here, only a few sentences or paragraphs from the original article are featured. Partial copies can work whenever you only want to include the most relevant part of a piece. 
• Edited copy. In this case, the original article is edited to include a different headline or certain sections may have been removed. 

Syndicating articles is one of the easier link-building tactics because it doesn’t involve the creation of any new content. 

Instead of outlining and developing new posts, your strongest and most popular blog articles will regain relevance and start generating traffic for you again via syndication. 

How does Google view syndicated content?

Do syndication right; a syndicated article may even outperform the original article in the search. 

Do it wrong, and Google may view your syndicated content as web spam. 

If you don’t want your content to get flagged as spam, avoid using these two techniques:

• Scraping RSS feeds to create auto-generated content 
• Publishing automated ‘scraped’ content that adds no value or doesn’t modify the original content 

You’ll be golden if you only syndicate high-quality articles that genuinely add value to relevant platforms and media outlets. 

Also, ensure you link back to the original article somewhere in the syndicated version. 

Google will display the version of your article that it feels is most appropriate for the search term, which may or may not be your preferred version. 

If you only want Google to index one version of your syndicated articles, use a noindex tag or no-follow tag on the others. 

While Google claims to ‘not count’ no-follow links toward SEO, there’s a lot of evidence to support that this isn’t true. If you can only obtain no-follow links, they’ll likely still boost your SERP rankings. 

At The HOTH, we only syndicate articles to the most relevant distribution channels in our network and at an optimal frequency to avoid appearing spammy. 

Anchor text ratios 

Lastly, mixing up the anchor text you use for the links you insert in your press releases and syndicated articles is crucial. 

Ideally, you should mix partial match, exact match, branded, and natural anchors. 

Check out our extensive guide on anchor text ratios to learn more. 

Syndication vs. Press Release: Knowing When to Use Which 

To summarize the key differences (and one similarity) between press releases and article syndication:

• Press releases involve creating original content about something that’s happening at your business (not time-sensitive because you don’t always know when they’ll gain traction)
• Syndication involves publishing existing blog articles on other websites. 
• They’re both very effective for building backlinks and improving online visibility. 

If your business has a newsworthy announcement, creating a press release will help you acquire high-authority links and raise brand awareness. 

If you have an existing blog article that you believe will help establish you as a thought leader, syndicating it will help spread its influence and diversify your link profile. 

If you want to vastly improve your link profile and outrank your top competitors, don’t wait to check out our Press Release and Article Syndication services.      

The post SEO Syndication vs. Press Releases: What’s the Difference? appeared first on The HOTH.

White hat this, black hat that, but what does the color of your hat have to do with ranking on Google?

Well, the whole white-hat/black-hat dynamic was adopted from early American Western movies, where the hero wore a white hat, and the villain wore a black hat.

In the SEO world, the color of the hat you wear represents whether you adhere to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines or not when optimizing your content. 

For example, ‘white-hat’ practices include creating excellent content that provides value to your audience, using keywords appropriately without spamming them, and naturally acquiring backlinks due to the strength of your web pages. 

These all follow Google’s guidelines, and they align with their goals as a search engine – which is to provide users with valuable, trusted content. 

If you don’t follow the rules and use frowned-upon tactics like buying backlinks in bulk, spamming keywords, and cloaking, your spiffy white hat will turn black.

When it comes to link-building, choosing to pursue white-hat links will benefit you in the long run. 

That’s because they’re cost-effective, virtually risk-free, and can help you build long-lasting relationships. 

Stay tuned to learn how to build white-hat links for your website.

White-Hat Links vs. Black-Hat Links: What’s the Difference?

Google’s guidelines make it clear that they don’t tolerate link spam of any kind, which they classify as any action that manipulates links pointing to your site or links coming from your site. 

Here’s an overview of the types of ‘link schemes’ Google penalizes websites for:

• Text advertisement links that don’t use sponsored nofollow tags 
• Buying links 
• Offering goods or services in exchange for links
• Excessive link exchanges (trading links exclusively with another website in bulk)
• Low-quality bookmark site or directory links
• Forum comments with backlinks in the signature 
• Hidden backlinks contained in widgets distributed across multiple websites
• Sitewide links that appear in footers and website templates 

Taking part in any of these link-building tactics will earn you a black hat, respectively. 

Why is that?

It’s because these techniques are an attempt to game the system instead of working with it.

In other words, black-hat link tactics rely on trickery instead of gaining backlinks based on the merit of their content. 

Google takes this very seriously because it’s their reputation on the line. 

If they were to let every black hat tactic fly, their search results would be chock full of irrelevant, low-quality results that wouldn’t satisfy their users’ intent. 

That’s why they use SpamBrain, their AI-powered algorithm that hunts down spammy websites and links. 

White-hat link builders, on the other hand, use the quality of their content to acquire links, which is what Google wants. 

While strictly using white-hat tactics is a bit difficult and time-consuming, it is possible – and can yield many benefits. 

Are White-Hat Links Worth the Trouble?

The reason many SEOs give into the dark side and use black-hat techniques is how hard it can be to build links without violating any guidelines. 

Even the most talented link builders tend to use a mix of white, gray, and black-hat techniques out of necessity for this reason. 

Yet, white-hat links are undoubtedly the safest and most powerful type of links you can acquire, and they’re the most likely to withstand new Google algorithm updates. 

For instance, the Link Spam Update that occurred in December 2022 negated the impact paid backlinks had on SEO profiles, and the effects were drastic on websites that had bought lots of links. 

Backlink profiles consisting entirely of white-hat links, on the other hand, were completely unaffected. 

In addition to being practically update-proof, white-hat links also provide the following benefits:

• Cost-effective. Black-hat link tactics tend to involve shelling out cash for links, which is expensive and definitely adds up over time. Since there’s no paying for links in white-hat link-building, it tends to be more affordable. 
• Improve your reputation. White-hat tactics like guest posting and being a resource for reporters involve creating valuable content that’ll help establish your brand as a thought leader. 
• Build relationships. Writing guest posts, targeting link insertions, and engaging in broken link building are all ways to form long-lasting relationships with other website owners – which will lead to acquiring more high-authority links in the future.

As you can see, white-hat links provide lots of benefits and involve virtually zero risks. 

How You Can Start Building White-Hat Links 

Are you ready to don a white hat and save your website from costly penalties?

Then you’ll need a reliable bag of tricks to use if you want to see better SERP rankings. 

While it’s true that white-hat link-building techniques can take some time, once they get going, they tend to keep on giving. 

Here’s a look at the most effective ways to build white-hat links. 

Create content that generates shares

Let’s begin by looking at the link-building tactic that Google values the most, creating high-value content that other websites want to share. 

This makes Google happy because you’re acquiring backlinks the 100% natural way. Not only did you not have to offer website owners any money to link to your content, you didn’t even have to send them an outreach email. 

An example would be creating a fun infographic that provides relevant statistics for your industry. 

Bloggers are always looking for statistics and visually-engaging infographics to share in their posts, so by creating one, you’ll be doing them a huge favor. As a result, they’ll link to your content without you having to lift a finger, and you’ll start raking in backlinks like mad. 

Pro tip: Certain types of content generate more backlinks than others. Research shows that ‘why’ posts, ‘what’ posts, and infographics are the most heavily linked to types of content online – followed shortly by how-to posts, videos, and listicles. 

Resource pages, ultimate guides, and free tools also generate lots of shares and backlinks, especially if you go into lots of detail. 

That’s especially true for long-form content, which gets an average of 77.2% more links than short-form pieces. 

So if you want to maximize your sharing power, aim for at least 2,000 words for your blog posts and articles. 

Another benefit of creating linkable assets is that they will keep generating links for you over time, especially if the topics are evergreen. 

Write guest posts on related websites

Another classic white-hat link-building tactic is to write guest blogs on other websites in your industry.

This involves sending outreach emails to website owners, but you aren’t offering money or products/services in exchange for a link.

Instead, you’re requesting to write a guest blog post on their website to provide value to their audience. For this reason, guest posting is not considered a link scheme. 

The challenge comes in finding websites in your niche that accept guest posts and then getting one of those websites to allow you to write one. 

The site owner benefits because you’re providing them with a piece of content they don’t have to create, and you benefit via a backlink on their site that points to yours. 

Using search operators to find guest post opportunities 

There are a few ways you can hunt down websites that accept guest posts, and using Google search operators is one of the most popular. 

What are search operators?

They’re special phrases you type into Google to receive unique search results. The most popular search operator for guest posts looks something like this:

Industry/niche keyword + “guest post”

It’s crucial to use the ‘+’ sign and quotation marks for the search operator to work properly. 

However, you shouldn’t stick with just one, as you probably won’t find many guest post spots that way. Here are some more suggestions:

• Keyword + “guest blog”
• Keyword + “guest blogger”
• Keyword + “guest column”
• Keyword + “guest article”
• Keyword + “guest author”
• Keyword + “write for me”
• Keyword + “write for us”
• Keyword + “become a contributor”
• Keyword + “contribute to this site”

Plugging these into Google should provide a viable list of websites that you can contribute guest posts to, but sometimes it takes a little experimenting with the search operators to find the best opportunities. 

We recommend compiling the most promising guest post opportunities into a spreadsheet to make the outreach process easier. 

Analyzing competitor backlink profiles to find guest posts 

If you’re burned out on using search operators, you can also analyze competitor backlink profiles to discover where they’re writing guest posts. 

Take to Google and type in your most important keywords, then run the top #5 results through our free Backlink Checker tool.

From there, dig through their link profiles to find guest blogs, and then add those websites to your list of guest post opportunities. 

Running a domain authority check on each website

Before you start reaching out to each website owner to request a guest post, confirm that they have a strong domain authority score. 

What’s that?

Domain authority (DA) is an SEO metric developed by Moz that predicts the likelihood of a website ranking high on the SERPs. 

While it’s a third-party metric (not officially created by Google or any other search engine), it’s a reliable judge of the ranking strength of a domain. 

A domain authority score is a number from 1 – 100, with 1 being the weakest and 100 being the strongest. 

If you write a guest post for a website that has very poor domain authority, the backlink placement won’t do your SERP rankings much good. 

Ideally, you only want to obtain backlinks from trusted websites that have high domain authority scores. 

DA scores above 40 are considered high authority, so look out for those whenever they pop up. 

Ahrefs has an excellent free Website Authority Checker tool that will let you know the DA score for any website, so be sure to use it when vetting guest post spots. 

Broken link building 

This white-hat tactic will provide you with a backlink while doing the internet a great service by removing a busted link. 

Broken links pop up on websites all the time, usually when a site owner moves or deletes a page without updating the hyperlink. 

Broken links on your website are a no-no that you should always fix. However, broken links on other websites in your niche present golden link-building opportunities. 

How’s that?

Let’s say that a website in your niche has a link to a blog post that’s broken. Not only that, but it just so happens that you have a blog covering the same topic on your website, which would be the perfect replacement. 

By sending an outreach email to the site owner, you can offer to fix the broken link by linking to your blog instead. 

This technique tends to work because broken links are bad for SEO, and offering a replacement link provides a quick fix. That’ll save the site owner the time and hassle of creating a new piece of content to fix the link. 

It doesn’t always work, as sometimes the site owner may have moved the post without updating the link, meaning they don’t need anything from you.

However, you should still add it to your white-hat link-building repertoire – as it doesn’t violate any guidelines. 

Ahrefs saves the day again, as they have a free Broken Link Checker that will find broken links on any URL that you enter into it. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

The last white-hat link-building tactic we’ll look at is unlinked brand mentions. This is where you find instances where other websites mentioned your brand but failed to provide a backlink – hence the name. 

It’s a great technique because it targets websites that have already mentioned your brand, meaning that they’re genuinely interested in what you do. 

Ahrefs’ Content Explorer has a nifty feature where you can enter your brand name in quotes, choose ‘In Content’ from the drop-down menu, and then select the unlinked filter. 

This will display all your unlinked brand mentions, so get ready to start sending outreach emails. 

Concluding Thoughts: White-Hat Links 

If you don’t want Google to penalize your content, then it’s best to be like John Wayne and always wear a white hat. 

You can build a strong backlink profile that raises zero suspicion by creating valuable content, fixing broken links, and adding backlinks to your existing brand mentions. 

Do you need expert link-building services for your website?

Then don’t wait to check out our Link Outreach and Link Insertions Services from The HOTH. Our link-building techniques are squeaky clean, and we’ve helped countless clients dominate the SERPs in their industry, so don’t wait to get in touch now.

The post An Easy Tutorial On Acquiring White-Hat Links for SEO appeared first on The HOTH.

Link-building tactics that were viable just 5 years ago are now obsolete (like paying for links and automating generic mass outreach emails). 

Why is that?

There are many reasons, including Google Algorithm Updates, emerging search trends (like AI chatbots), and the fact that some tactics simply wear out their welcome. 

For example, generic outreach email templates used to work fine for acquiring backlinks – but now site owners have grown tired of seeing them fill up their inboxes every day. 

That’s why SEOs need to rethink how they get backlinks periodically. 

If your tried-and-true tactics aren’t yielding results anymore, then it’s time to think outside the box and try something new. 

The good news is that new link-building techniques are always popping up, so you shouldn’t have to look too far to find some new tactics to try. 

To make things easier for you, we’ve put together 5 of the most recent link-building tactics that are bearing fruit. 

Instead of focusing on ‘classic’ link-building tactics like the skyscraper technique – you’re better off utilizing techniques like relationship-building, link insertions, and becoming a source for bloggers, reporters, and journalists. 

Read on to discover the best ways to get backlinks in 2023 and beyond.

Do Backlinks Still Matter for SEO?

Since SEO changes so much, is it even still worth pursuing backlinks for your SEO strategy?

If you’re optimizing your website for Google Search, then the answer is a definite yes. 

Backlinks are still among Google’s strongest ranking signals, and they’re essential for achieving top rankings (positions 10 and above). 

In fact, whether or not a website can outrank a competitor usually comes down to the strength of their backlink profiles. 

So if you’ve hit a snag and can’t seem to climb higher than your current rank, your competitors likely have higher-authority backlinks pointing to their sites. 

You can peek at your competitor’s links by using our free Backlink Checker tool. 

Enter your competitor’s URL, and then take a close look at the backlinks they have. 

Are there backlinks from sites with DR (domain ratings) of 80 or above? Do you recognize any of the sites linking back to them?

If so, then they have a particularly strong backlink profile. 

The good news?

There’s no reason why you can’t pursue backlinks from the same sources to help even the odds. 

As long as you have the right tactics, it’s possible to acquire your competitor’s backlinks (or similar ones) to surpass them on the SERPs. 

The general rule of thumb is the stronger your backlink profile, the easier it’ll be to rank in the top 5 for your target keywords. 

However, if your SEO campaign focuses on Bing instead of Google, backlinks won’t matter as much. That’s because Bing uses a different series of ranking factors, and backlinks aren’t very high on the list. 

Check out our Bing SEO guide to discover how to optimize your website for it instead of Google. 

5 Effective Ways to Get Backlinks for Your Website 

If you want to find success with a modern link-building campaign, you need to ensure you’re using the right tactics. 

Here’s an in-depth look at 5 current ways to get backlinks that will provide the best results for your SEO campaign. 

#1: Link insertions 

While link insertions aren’t exactly new, they’ve recently exploded in popularity. 

In the past, most SEOs looked down on link insertions and equated them with ‘link begging.’ 

That all changed once the effectiveness of the technique became apparent. 

Link insertions are excellent because they require less outreach than guest posts, you can target virtually every website in your niche, and they get indexed quicker than guest blogs. 

The technique involves reaching out to site owners to place one of your links in an existing piece of their content. 

For example, if an ultimate guide you created would work as a supplementary piece to an existing blog on another website, you can ask the site owner to add the link for you. 

All you have to do is write some optimized anchor text for the link, and you’re done. 

The catch?

You will have to find a way to add value to the website owner, as adding one of your links to an old post doesn’t do much for them. 

To sweeten the pot, you can add new insights/images/infographics to the post to make it fresh and rankable again. Or you could offer the site owner the chance to write a guest post on your website – granting them a backlink in return. 

Since link insertions don’t involve any content creation (unlike guest posts), they’re a lot faster to acquire. Not only that, but you won’t have to wait long for the backlink to start affecting your SEO, as you’re inserting it into a piece of content that’s already in Google’s index. 

#2: Using HARO (Help-a-Reporter-Out)

Another effective way to acquire backlinks is to become a resource for bloggers, reporters, and journalists on HARO. 

Whenever you sign up as a source, you’ll receive a regular set of emails each day (morning, afternoon, and evening) that contain requests from journalists. 

In particular, they’re looking for experts to provide information on a certain topic (they’re categorized by industry, like business/finance, entertainment, etc.) for a piece they’re writing. 

As long as you’re able to find requests that align with your expertise, you can send a pitch to the journalist. 

Provide some valuable insights and display your knowledge on the subject, and don’t forget to ask for a shout-out via a backlink if they use your pitch. 

When done correctly, this is a highly effective way to generate lots of authoritative backlinks from trusted sources. 

You just need to make sure that you’re able to provide value to the journalist, as they will receive more than one pitch for their request. 

Accordingly, your pitch needs to shine above the rest if you want to land a backlink out of it. 

For this reason, you should only respond to requests that you’re very knowledgeable about. 

The last thing you want to do is send out a bunch of mediocre pitches on subjects you aren’t an expert on, as you’ll just be wasting your time. 

Also, the quicker you can reply to a request, the better. If possible, try to respond to a pitch within 30 minutes after it goes live. 

Lastly, quickly vet each media outlet by checking their domain rating to determine if a backlink from them is worth it or not. 

#3: Relationship building 

Since generic outreach templates are all but antiquated in today’s age, SEOs are now flocking towards building links by forming relationships instead. 

What’s that?

Relationship-based link-building involves forming long-term bonds with other website owners in your niche. 

That way, you can continue to generate backlinks for one another instead of a one-and-done deal. 

Not only that but forming relationships with other websites is a great way to network and discover new link sources. By sharing your sources with a partner, you’ll both find new opportunities to acquire backlinks. 

Of course, you should only try to form relationships with thought leaders in your industry – as partnering with low DR sites won’t do you any favors. 

Taking this approach requires most SEOs to rethink the way they approach backlink outreach. 

Instead of asking for a link outright, your goal is to connect with the website owner and form a bond. That means connecting with them on social media platforms and interacting with their posts in a genuine way. 

Only after getting to know them should you introduce the idea of building links together. 

If you’re able to form a network of high-authority link partners in your industry, dominating the SERPs will become far easier. 

#4: Guest blogging 

Some classic ways to get backlinks never go out of style, and guest blogging is definitely one of them. 

Writing high-quality guest blogs on trusted sites in your niche is still one of the most reliable ways to acquire desirable backlinks. 

In addition to landing backlinks, guest posts are also excellent for raising brand awareness and introducing your content to a new audience. 

They’re a tad trickier and more time-consuming than link insertions, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth it. 

Here’s a quick method for finding websites in your niche that accept guest blogs. 

Head over to Google Search and type ‘’your niche keyword – blogs that accept guest posts.’ 

#5: Creating ultimate guides and infographics 

If you create outstanding content that provides value to your niche, then you’ll be able to acquire backlinks without even trying. 

That’s because content like ultimate guides and infographics (especially ones containing relevant statistics) generates the most backlinks online. 

So if you’re able to write an ultimate guide for a topic that your target audience wants to learn about, the backlinks will start raking in. 

Wrapping Up: 5 Ways to Get Backlinks 

Link-building is always going through changes due to a variety of reasons, which means eventually, the tactics you use will go out of style. 

For now, the 5 techniques in this guide are the cream of the crop for boosting your backlink profile. 

Do you want to reach the top of the SERPs in your industry?

Then don’t wait to check out our Link Insertion and Link Outreach Services from The HOTH. Our link-building gurus are well-versed in all the most effective techniques, so don’t wait to book a call today.    

The post 5 Modern Ways to Get Backlinks to Boost Your SEO Profile  appeared first on The HOTH.

Here are a few eye-opening statistics on cold outreach emails:

• The average response rate to cold emails is a measly 8.5% (which translates to roughly 8 replies for every 100 emails sent).
• The average open rate for cold emails is only 23.9%.
• 50% of cold email outreach campaigns contain a response rate of under 10%.

So if you’re still spending hours sending generic outreach emails you got from a template, you need to find a new way to build links, especially in today’s age. 

While basic outreach email templates were perfect for the early 2010s, many website owners have grown tired of random backlink requests filling up their inboxes. 

As a result, it’s become increasingly more difficult to obtain high-authority backlinks with a DR (domain rating) of 50 or higher with cold outreach methods. 

The solution?

You should engage in relationship-based link-building instead of conducting cold outreach to dozens of random site owners. 

It involves focusing on building positive, long-lasting relationships with other brands, influencers, and thought leaders in your niche. 

Relationship-building is so effective in this regard because it will help you generate many desirable backlinks through personal connections. 

Read on to learn how to leverage this new way to build links for your website. 

Is Relationship-Based Link-Building Really Worth It?

First, let’s compare relationship-based link techniques with traditional link-building tactics. 

Going the standard route, you would either spend countless hours cold emailing random website owners or you would outsource the work to someone else. 

Either way, you’ll inevitably end up wasting most of your time considering the statistics mentioned in the intro. 

For example, if you work your butt off and send 100 emails in a day, you’ll likely only receive a handful of replies if you’re lucky – and even that’s no guarantee of a link placement. 

Not only that, but random outreach tends to only work for low-DR backlinks (50 or below), which won’t have that much impact on your SEO profile – even in higher quantities. 

When it comes to link-building, links from reputable, trusted websites with high domain ratings have the most impact. 

How do you get those?

The best way is to focus most of your energy on forming relationships with the site owner and key decision-makers at the business/website. 

If you’re able to form a partnership with one of the leading websites in your industry (think DR ratings of 80 and above), you’ll see a far more positive impact on your SERP rankings. 

Not only will you land backlinks from their site, but you can get connected to their pipeline of other high-authority sites, too. 

Besides making it easier to acquire high-authority backlinks, relationship-based link-building provides many other benefits, so let’s take a look at the cream of the crop. 

Earn repeated business 

Arguably the biggest benefit of forming link-building relationships is the ability to keep obtaining high-authority links well into the future. 

Instead of getting a one-and-done backlink from a random email, a positive relationship with a link partner can yield you dozens or even hundreds of links past the point of initial contact. 

For instance, let’s say that you form a lasting bond with one of the top websites in your industry. 

It starts with you offering a backlink placement on your website for one of their posts. From there, the two of you regularly trade guest posts for more traffic and brand awareness. 

After that, you start to share your best link sources with one another, granting you even more backlink opportunities. 

The fact that one partnership can lead to so many desirable links is one of the top reasons why relationship-based link-building is more than worth your time. 

Stand out from the crowd 

The last thing a website owner wants to see in their inbox is another generic email template requesting a backlink. 

More often than not, your message will likely blend in with the other spam and cold outreach emails in your prospect’s inbox, causing them to ignore it. 

This is another reason why forming relationships is the superior link-building option.

Think about it, who would you reply to first – a trusted colleague that you work with to build links or some rando that didn’t even mention your company name in the subject line?

By forming a relationship with another website owner, replying to your emails will shoot to the top of their priority list. 

Even in the early stages of forming relationships, a friendly, personalized email is more likely to receive a response than a generic template. 

Develop a vast link-building network 

The more connections and partnerships you can form for your link-building strategies, the better. 

If you can rub elbows with the top thought leaders in your field, developing a rock-solid backlink profile for your website will be a breeze. 

While it’ll certainly take some time to build such a network, once it’s up and running, you won’t have to waste so much time conducting cold outreach trying to build links. 

Relationship-Based Link-Building Guide 

Now that you’ve seen the light on the new way to build links, it’s time to learn how to start forming link-building relationships in your niche. 

Just like traditional link-building methods, it starts with finding and vetting relevant prospects online. 

From there, you need to engage each prospect and start building the relationship. 

Another great way to break the ice and kickstart your correspondence is to be generous and offer something valuable from the get-go. 

Here’s a closer look at each step of the process. 

Discover relevant prospects online 

You need to uncover companies and websites in your industry to form relationships with, and there are several ways to do so. 

Also, you should be picky about who you choose to correspond with, as not all sites in your niche will be worth reaching out to. 

Here are the criteria you should look for when vetting websites:

• A domain rating of 50 or above 
• Consistently high levels of organic traffic 
• A positive reputation in your industry 
• Large social media presence & following 

To ensure that a website is able to tick all these boxes, you can use our free SEO Audit Tool. 

It will provide all the key SEO metrics that you need to determine if it’s worth pursuing a relationship with the site owner or not. 

If you aren’t sure who the top thought leaders are in your field, you can take to social media platforms like Instagram to find out. 

Enter specific hashtags related to your niche, and then check the most popular posts to discover relevant influencers and brands. 

Another option is to analyze your competitor’s backlink profiles to see if they have any powerful connections that you’re lacking. You can use our free Backlink Checker Tool to view the link profiles of the websites currently outranking you on the SERPs. 

Check to see if they have any backlinks from prominent brands with high DR scores. If so, it could be worth reaching out to them so you can start building relationships of your own. 

Find out who to contact

Once you have a list of websites/brands to start building relationships with, you must uncover their key decision-makers’ contact information. 

Instead of digging for webmaster email addresses, try to reach out to CMOs, SEO Managers, Link Builders, and Content Strategists on social media. In particular, look for their LinkedIn profiles and Twitter handles.  

Engage and build rapport 

Remember, you’re not there to shamelessly beg for a backlink on your first point of contact with a new prospect. 

Instead, you’re there to engage and interact with them to start building rapport. 

Start reading their LinkedIn and Twitter feeds to get a feel for their interests and the type of content they publish. 

After that, comment valuable insights on their posts to encourage conversation. 

Don’t be too eager to introduce the idea of being link partners, either. Let the relationship naturally grow for a while before you bring backlinks into the equation. 

Another tactic is to offer them something of value without expecting anything in return. For instance, you could reach out to a website offering them a backlink simply because you really enjoy their content. 

Not only can this lead to a backlink in return, but it’s also a great icebreaker to begin building a relationship. 

Embracing the New Way to Build Links 

Relationship-based link-building is a long-term game, but its payoffs are immense. 

By forming relationships with valuable link partners, you will enjoy a steady flow of high-authority backlinks without having to dedicate countless hours to cold outreach. 

Not only that, but you’ll build brand awareness and generate more targeted organic traffic by rubbing elbows with the most influential people in your field. 

Do you not have time to engage in relationship-based link-building?

Then you need to check out our Link Outreach and Link Insertion Services from The HOTH. 

Our digital marketing agency has powerful established relationships with industry leaders in many fields, and we have what it takes to significantly boost your brand’s online visibility – so don’t wait to get in touch today.    

The post Relationship-Based Link-Building: The New Way to Build Links appeared first on The HOTH.

Research has also uncovered that the top-ranking pages on Google have more backlinks than lower-ranking pages, reinforcing the need for effective link-building campaigns. 

Yet, obtaining high-quality backlinks is challenging, involving countless hours of outreach, research, and content creation. 

That’s a big reason why link insertions (placing backlinks in existing posts on relevant websites) have become popular recently, as they tend to be easier to pursue than other tactics.  

However, link insertion outreach is still very much a thing, and it’s something you’ll need to get the hang of if you want to snag desirable link placements. 

Whether you’re replacing a broken link or are offering money for a link insertion, your email outreach needs to be on point. 

That means writing an attention-grabbing subject line, making a convincing case for inserting your link, and then highlighting the benefits of the link to the webmaster (i.e., money, freshening up an old piece of content, exchanging one backlink for another). 

Besides that, finding the right websites to target is half the battle. 

In other words, your outreach emails will have more success if you choose relevant websites that will genuinely benefit from adding one of your links. 

Since there’s a lot to know, we put together this guide containing 4 steps that break down the link insertion outreach process – so read on to learn more. 

Why Are Link Insertions Worth Pursuing?

Until the last few years, link insertions weren’t very popular in the link-building world. In fact, they went by the not-so-flattering name link begging, and they carried a negative stigma. 

That began to change once SEOs realized that it’s actually an effective way to acquire high-authority backlinks, and it’s a simpler technique than others – such as guest posting. 

For instance, with a guest blog post, you first have to find a relevant website that accepts guest posts. 

After that, you have to send a cold email explaining who you are and why you’d like to write a post on their website. Should you get a yes, the work still isn’t done. You’ll have to create an informative, well-written blog post from scratch before you get to place one of your links on their website. 

Not only that, but the backlink won’t directly impact your SERP rankings until it’s indexed by Google, which can take weeks. 

Compare all that work to pursuing a link insertion. 

Instead of limiting yourself to sites within your niche that accept guest posts, you can target virtually any website in your industry. 

As another bonus, you don’t have to create any original content. All you have to do is write a bit of anchor text for your link insertion, and you’re done! 

Additionally, you’re placing a link in an existing article that’s already performing well in the search – meaning that it’s already in Google’s index, so the backlink will impact your SEO profile straight away. 

What’s Link Building Outreach?

If you’ve never conducted a link-building campaign before, the outreach process is likely brand-new to you. 

Essentially, whenever you find a link-building opportunity like a guest post or a broken link, you need to reach out to the website owner via email and persuade them to insert an outbound link pointing to your website. 

Since your goal is to get other websites to link back to yours, you have to communicate and network with other site owners to make that possible. 

After all, you can’t hack into a site and place links without their permission, so you need to play nice and build relationships with other websites, blogs, and forums in your industry.

Link outreach typically involves sending emails, although phone-based outreach also exists. 

Unless you have existing connections in your niche, you’ll have to start with cold outreach – which involves emailing website owners that you’ve never spoken with before. 

While this can be a bit intimidating and time-consuming, the quality of your outreach emails will determine the success of your response rate. 

The more attractive you can make the link-building opportunity sound for the website owner, the better, so don’t forget to include what’s in it for them. 

Outreach email best practices

Here’s a brief look at the components that make up a high-quality link outreach email:

• An attention-grabbing title. Titles like ‘Requesting a Backlink’ are too generic and boring and will likely get ignored. Instead, frame it as an ‘exclusive offer’ or a question. If possible, include the primary benefit for the site owner in the title (as well as their company name). 
• Display knowledge of the website. Make it clear that you’re a fan of their website and are very familiar with what they do. 
• Highlight the benefits. Include how you plan on providing value to the website owner, either through a valuable guest post, money, or freshening up their old content with new insights. 
• Make it personalized and exclusive. The last thing you want is for your outreach emails to read like form letters that you send to countless website owners. Instead, personalize each message and frame the link-building opportunity as exclusive to them. 

These best practices apply to all link-building emails, not just link insertions – so be sure to include them when conducting outreach for guest posts, broken links, case studies, and link exchanges. 

How to Conduct Link Insertion Outreach in 4 Steps 

Now that you know a bit more about backlink outreach campaigns, it’s time to learn how to target link insertions in particular. 

While the outreach for link insertions is more straightforward than other link-building strategies, it still involves a level of nuance. 

For instance, if you obtain a link insertion on a website that’s A) not relevant to what you do or B) has a terrible domain rating – the link placement may wind up hurting your SERP rankings instead of helping them. 

Or, if your emails aren’t professional/convincing enough, you may miss out on golden link insertion opportunities. 

That’s why you need to know how to conduct proper link insertion outreach, and that starts with finding the right websites to target. 

Step #1: Finding the right content for your link insertions 

The first step is the most critical for the sake of your SEO profile, as targeting irrelevant or poor-quality content won’t do you any favors. 

For a link insertion to positively impact your SERP rankings, it has to appear on a high-quality website that’s directly related to what you do. 

If you sell pet supplies, then placing links on blogs and websites related to pet ownership is the way to go. Inserting your links on websites that sell sporting equipment, on the other hand, won’t carry any clout. 

Also, you don’t have to limit yourself to published blog articles for link insertions either. 

You can insert links on forums, social media posts, videos, podcasts, and infographics – as long as they’re all relevant to what you do. 

How do you find relevant content?

The easiest way is to use a search engine like Google to find relevant websites. Going with the pet supplies example, you could search for phrases like ‘pet lover websites,’ ‘social media groups for pet owners,’ and ‘pet videos’  – just to name a few. 

Finding relevant content tends to be the easy part, as after you accrue a list of websites – you’ll need to vet their SEO metrics. 

In particular, ensure each website has a favorable domain rating (anything at or above 60). It also doesn’t hurt if they generate lots of traffic each month and have an overall sound SEO profile. 

Step #2: Finding webmaster contact information 

By now, you’ve got a list of relevant websites to target. 

You’re ready to start sending out emails now, right?

The only problem is you don’t have the contact information for each site owner, which is definitely an issue. 

The good news is that finding webmaster contact information doesn’t have to be difficult. 

Your first step should be to search the website itself, particularly the About Us page and website footer. 

If you can’t find anything there, you can check the domain registration history to uncover the owner. 

The WHOIS records hosted by ICANN contain each domain owner and their contact information, which is a huge help. 

By going to the ICANN Lookup and typing a domain name into the search bar, you’ll get to see who owns it and their contact information. 

Step #3: Create email outreach templates 

Now that you’ve got the contact information for each site owner, it’s time to start drafting some email sequences. 

What’s an email sequence?

It’s a series of emails that you send out to prospects at set intervals. For link outreach, the most popular email sequence consists of a pitch and a few follow-up emails. 

If you have a tool that enables marketing automation, you’ll be able to automate your email sequences, which saves a lot of time. 

If not, you’ll have to send each outreach email from your sequence manually. 

For your initial pitch, make sure you follow the best practices mentioned earlier for the subject title. In particular, mention the website’s name, and include your primary value proposition (i.e., money, a link exchange, etc.). 

The body of your email also needs to focus on the benefits you’ll provide to the website owner. 

A big mistake SEOs make when sending link outreach emails is they make it all about them. 

They go on and on about the quality of their posts and links but fail to mention what’s in it for the website owner. 

If you want the site owner to click on your email and actually read it before deleting it, you need to dangle a carrot in front of them first. 

That’s why you should include your value proposition as early in the email as possible. That will catch the site owner’s eye and will increase your chances of landing a link insertion. 

How do link insertions provide value to website owners?

A challenge with link insertions is how you’ll provide something of value to the site owner in exchange for placing one of your links in their content. 

That’s because adding one link to an existing post isn’t enough to make it relevant & rankable again. 

As such, you’ll have to get creative when convincing website owners to add a link insertion. 

The easiest and most obvious way is to offer money in exchange for the link insertion, but that’s not always the best option – especially in light of Google’s recent Link Spam Update. 

Instead, here are some popular value propositions you can use to obtain link insertions:

• Find ways to update the existing post. If you’re adding one of your links to an aging blog post, try to find ways to make it relevant again. That could be updating old information, adding new insights, or including a supplementary video. 
• Offer a free trial of a service or product. Do you offer a SaaS platform or another type of service? If so, offering a free trial (or a free product) is a great value proposition for link insertions. 
• Link exchange. Another tactic is to offer the website owner a link insertion or guest post on your website to repay the favor.

Step #4: Personalize each message before sending 

Last but not least, you don’t want to send out your email templates in their raw form, as they’ll be too generic. 

Instead, you need to personalize each email – and that goes beyond just stating the website’s name. 

Try to mention a few specifics from their website to make it sound less like a run-of-the-mill email template and more like an exciting, exclusive offer from a real person. 

If they create great content, compliment them on it, and bring up actual examples from their blogs and videos. 

This type of personalization will increase your chances of getting a response and forming a relationship with a site owner in your niche, which is always a good thing. 

The Wrap-Up: Conducting Link Insertion Outreach 

A big reason why link insertions are so popular is due to how easy they are to target, but that’s not to say that link insertion outreach is a cinch. 

In fact, this type of outreach can be even more challenging due to how creative you have to be with a value proposition. 

Guest posts come with a built-in value prop, but you have to think outside the box with link insertions. 

Do you need help conducting link-building outreach at your organization?

Then don’t wait to check out our stellar link outreach services from The HOTH. Our link-building gurus will handcraft a winning outreach campaign for your backlink profile, so don’t wait to get in touch now.     

The post Link Insertion Outreach: 4 Steps to Master the Process appeared first on The HOTH.

In fact, it’s been discovered that the #1 ranked page on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the other results. 

The catch?

Link-building strategies tend to be extremely challenging and time-consuming. It can take months of outreach to acquire just one guest post opportunity, not to mention the time it takes to create the content. 

That’s why niche edit links have become so popular recently. 

What are niche edits?

A niche edit (also called a link insertion) refers to placing one of your backlinks into an existing article on a relevant website. 

It differs from a guest post in that you’re placing the link into an older blog post instead of creating a new one. 

The good news is that you don’t have to create any original content to acquire niche edits, and they will provide the same amount of link juice as a guest post (assuming you target an existing page that has relevant content and high authority). 

Niche edit backlinks also benefit website owners too, so you won’t be begging for a handout. 

Adding new outbound links can help freshen up older content, giving site owners a chance to generate more organic traffic from an existing blog post. 

There’s a lot to know about niche edit link building, so stick around to learn more. 

What are Niche Edits Used For?

There’s a reason why more than 63% of businesses choose to outsource their link-building to third-party agencies – it’s both time-consuming and extremely challenging. 

Link-building services have established networks and infrastructures they use to target guest post opportunities, citations, fix broken links, and more. 

They also use niche edits to acquire high-authority backlinks for their clients. 

The good news?

Niche edit link building tends to be less time-consuming than other methods, and it doesn’t involve the creation of any new content. 

That’s not to say that niche edits should comprise your entire link-building strategy, but they can help startups and small businesses begin to build their link profiles without having to spend too much time or money (especially if their niche doesn’t have much in the way of competition). 

Once their efforts start to gain some traction, then they can consider outsourcing to continue to grow their online presence. 

You can use niche edits to boost your domain authority, acquire quality link placements, and increase the number of links for your website.

There are also a few types of niche edits, including the following:

• White hat niche edits 
• Black hat niche edits 
• Gray hat niche edits 

Each of these types involves different tactics and will have varying effects on your link profile, so let’s learn more about each one. 

How do white hat niche edits work?

What makes a niche edit considered a white hat tactic?

First, it’s essential to understand the difference between white hat and black hat SEO techniques. 

The white hat/black hat dichotomy originates from old American Western movies, where the good guy wears a white hat, and the villain wears a black hat. 

In terms of SEO/link-building, white hat techniques are considered ‘good’ in that they won’t land you in hot water with Google & other search engines. These techniques don’t violate any guidelines, and they typically provide mutual benefit for the website and search engine users. 

White hat niche edits involve reaching out to high-quality websites in your niche to request a link placement in one of their existing pieces. 

In return, you need to offer something of value to the website in question. 

The preferred white hat method is to point out ways to enhance and update their existing blog post. 

How do you do that?

Here are some recommendations:

• Provide current metrics and statistics to update the post to the current year 
• Create an infographic that enhances the existing piece 
• Find areas where you can add new insights or go into further detail 
• Add a supplementary video if you have one (another link opportunity)

You should offer whatever you can do to update & enhance the post to encourage the webmaster to add your backlink. 

This is the best way to acquire quality niche edits, and you won’t attract any negative attention from Google. 

How do black hat niche edits work?

There’s no shortage of black hat niche edit techniques out there, although we highly recommend that you avoid them at all costs. 

Not only will they tank your SEO profile through penalties and manual actions, but black hat practices also tend to negatively affect users and website owners. 

One black hat niche edit technique is to place backlinks on hacked websites. 

As you can imagine, this tactic violates search engine policies and also violates the privacy of website owners. 

This technique is not only ill-advised, but it’s not effective – as your link will be removed in a matter of minutes. 

Another black hat strategy is to acquire link placements through SAPE links. 

What’s SAPE?

It’s a Russian link network that will inject your backlinks into hacked websites, artificially boosting your link profile in the process. 

Black hat SEOs that run ‘burn and churn’ campaigns use SAPE links due to their long shelf life and effectiveness. 

However, SAPE links are in strict violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, so you will incur hefty penalties if you get caught using them. 

For the sake of your SEO and link profile, we strongly recommend staying away from all black hat niche edit techniques. 

How do gray hat niche edits work?

There is a third type of niche edit that’s neither white hat nor black hat – thus the name gray hat. 

Gray hat niche edits aren’t explicitly black hat tactics, but they aren’t a pure white hat strategy, either. 

A gray hat niche edit is when you bribe a webmaster for a backlink with money or another incentive. 

Most of the time, this involves paying a site owner money to include one of your backlinks in an existing piece of content. However, it’s also common to offer discounts or free products as leverage for obtaining a link placement. 

While this is also against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (technically, all link-building tactics are frowned upon by Google in one form or another), it’s less abrasive than using hacked sites, and it’s harder to track. 

Gray hat niche edits are popular because they’re easier and less time-consuming to acquire than white hat links, and they attract less attention than black hat link insertions. 

What are the Benefits of Niche Edits?

Why should you focus on niche edits instead of (or alongside) guest posting & other link-building techniques?

While you should always employ a mix of link-building techniques if possible, niche edits can help you obtain powerful link placements without doing too much outreach or creating new content. 

They also provide a myriad of other benefits, so let’s take a look at them all. 

They’re easier than guest posts 

While guest posting is one of the most popular link-building techniques, it doesn’t always come easy. 

For one, you need to find relevant blogs in your niche that accept guest posts in the first place, which can be difficult if you’re in an obscure niche. 

After that, you have to conduct rigorous outreach to get in touch with webmasters and persuade them to allow you to write a guest post. 

Once you do land an opportunity, you have to produce a high-quality piece of content that gains the webmaster’s approval. If your content is subpar or inaccurate, the webmaster may reject your guest post, and all your hard work was for nothing. 

With niche edits, all that you need is a link, some relevant anchor text, and perhaps a line or two to add to the original piece. 

Not only that, but you can conduct outreach to any blog or website within your niche, not just ones that accept guest posts. 

That opens up many more websites you can target, increasing your chances of landing a quality link placement. 

Of course, you need to make sure the website’s content directly relates to yours, but other than that, any piece of content is fair game. 

Conducting white hat outreach will take a bit longer and involve more effort, as you’ll need to identify ways to improve the aging piece of content to make it relevant & rankable again. The upside is that you’ll have followed the rules and won’t have to worry about receiving any penalties. 

You decide on the anchor text 

The anchor text you use for a link has a significant impact on its authority and ranking power. 

In particular, Google values highly relevant anchor text that previews the page it links to. 

Generic anchor text won’t earn you any favors, as Google is explicit about its dislike for generic phrases like ‘click here’ or ‘buy now.’

Instead, you want to provide a few more words and a bit of context to the page in question. 

Additionally, squeezing in your target keyword will also boost the power of your anchor text, so include it whenever possible. 

What’s great about a niche edit is you have full control over the anchor text you use for your backlink. When doing so, you need to ensure that the text directly relates to your web page and contains the target keyword. 

For example, if you’re using a niche edit to promote a product page selling motorcycle wheels (target keyword) to enthusiasts, your anchor text could look something like this:

Check out our premium-grade motorcycle wheels.

The anchor text previews what the user can expect, and it even includes a CTA (call-to-action), letting the user know that you want them to click on the link. 

They’re excellent for building authority 

To rank higher on search engines, your content needs to have a high domain authority rating, and acquiring high-authority backlinks is the best way to raise it. 

Niche edits are great because they will raise your authority just as much as guest posts and other tactics but are less time-consuming. 

For instance, if you find a relevant website in your niche, it’ll be much quicker to just add a backlink to one of their existing posts instead of creating a new one from scratch. 

Not only that, but the end result is the same – a backlink pointing to your content that exists on their website. 

The amount of link juice it will generate depends entirely on the domain rating of the website in question (and the relevancy/quality of your anchor text). 

It wouldn’t matter to Google if that link came from a guest post or a link placement, which is why niche edits are worth your time. 

An extra perk is that the website you’re placing a link on already appears in Google’s index, so you won’t have to wait very long for your link to appear in the SERPs. 

Targeting Niche Edits 

Here are some quick white hat techniques for acquiring niche edits. 

We won’t go over any black or gray hat tactics, as we don’t want you to receive any manual actions or penalties. 

Broken link-building 

The tried-and-true process of broken link-building actually counts as a niche edit. 

It’s where you find broken links (pages that no longer appear) on relevant websites and then offer to replace their broken link with a related piece of your own content. 

It’s a win-win because they get to fix a broken link (which isn’t good for their SEO or user experience), and you get to acquire a backlink. 

You can use Ahrefs’ free broken link checker to discover broken links on related websites. 

Unlinked brand mentions 

Regardless of how notable your business is, there are likely websites that have mentioned your brand but neglected to link to your content. 

These are golden niche edit opportunities, and you can use Google Alerts to find them. Creating an alert for your brand name and URL means you’ll get a ping every time someone mentions your brand online, enabling you to pursue the link opportunity. 

Resource pages 

Lastly, listing your website on relevant resource pages is a great way to acquire niche edits.

Plenty of websites across all industries have resource pages where they link out to related sites in their niche. 

You can target these pages for backlinks by searching for ‘your niche + resources’ on Google or Bing. 

This will provide a list of resource pages related to your industry, which you can then reach out to for link opportunities. 

Concluding Thoughts: What are Niche Edits?

Niche edits (also called link placements and contextual links) are excellent for building domain authority and ranking higher on search engines.

They involve placing backlinks on existing pieces of content found on related websites. 

Do you need help acquiring high-authority backlinks for your company?

Then don’t wait to check out our five-star link-building services at HOTH Link Insertions. Our link-building gurus have a ton of experience and will take your link profile to the next level, so get in touch now.     

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