Link Building: Feel like ive hit a wall
-
Hi, I have been doing SEO on my business website for about 4 years now. And it ranks #1-3 for my desired keywords and i always try to add new backlinks and keep uploading new content to a blog on the site as this is where nearly 100% of our customers come from so its important to me to rank high for the keywords related to my industry.
However the last few months a competitor has taken over me for a certain keyword, i have researched their backlinks and site and from what i can see they have less content, and less backlinks, onpage seo isnt that great, and alot of the backlinks arent even related where all mine are in the same industry and i always research my backlinks to make sure that site has good backlinks also (i currently have about 48 root domain and 12,000 page backlinks for various pages of my website). The only thing they have over me is domain age, their domain is about 10 years old.
I am also trying to target another hard to get keyword that im currently on Page 3 for, im sure over time i will rise to the top and its something i have to keep working at however i feel i wont get to where i want to be because im running out of ideas on where to get backlinks.
After 4 years of building backlinks i feel like i have hit a brick wall, i started out by directory submission, then just links from other related sites, then i did a few article submissions and then i started finding it hard to get links so i started buying related links, however i seem to just keep buying and buying because im running out of ideas and it feels easier just to buy them, the only problem is its getting expensive and im now probably spending $80/month on paid backlinks! Although considering im not paying an SEO company its still a lot cheaper!
I have gotten to the point where im researching sites that arent even in my industry (however still automotive related) and getting links on sites their on which was going really well, but now even that feels like its coming to an end and im back to submitting to directories their on.
So other then directories, paid links, articles etc. what else could i be doing to build quality backlinks? I stopped doing articles because they were so time consuming and i felt like i was only getting backlinks from them that were worthless and held no authority.
I have about 4 blogs (all on different IPs) would it be worth blogging on them and building content and dropping links from those to mine or is it not worth the effort when i could just submit articles to article websites?
-
Thanks you all for your anserws, i've learnt a lot
-
The directory submission might not be helping so much either... depending on where they are, of course.
-
my domain is over 7 years and I have hard time ranking for some big words.
-
@Scott Fern, Kris is correct in highlighting the massive average links per domain there... It should be a lot lower! The IP issue is something you might want to look into also, as getting involved with bad neighborhoods is a bad idea!
-
Follow David's instructions and you'll be sorted in no time! Very useful and informative answer, thanks!
-
I'd agree with Kris that number/divirsity of linking domains might be what's holding you back.
As far as re-energizing your link building, you might try this approach:
-
Block off a couple days on your calendar for "Epic Link Discovery Days"
-
Stock up on sugary candy and create a high-energy playlist (>100bpm)
-
Create an spreadsheet (I call mine my "Link Building Briefcase") with separate worksheets for each category of potential link sources, for example:
- Sites/Domains you control
- Partner sites
- Associations & Charities you support
- Relevant 3rd-party sites who could link to a resource on your site
- Social Network Profiles (do-follow)
- Q/A sites with do-follow profile and answer links
- Blog and Forum Commenting
- Human-edited sites that repost blog articles
- Article Submission Sites (relevant, do follow)
- Press Release Sites
- Industry/Vendor Directories
- General Directories (free and paid)
- When your allocated days arrive, do some warmup exercieses, put on your headphones, break out the candy and use the following tools to rapidly discover potential link sources, pasting links to the pages and sites in your spreadsheet as you go:
- OpenSiteExplorer.org (focussing on links to competitor sites)
- OpenSiteExplorer.org (focussing on finding the most powerful pages on sites you can generate links from)
- SEOmoz Keyword difficulty tool (discover competitors for your keywords, and quickly see the top links that are helping them acheive their rankings)
- SEOmoz Labs Competitive Link Research Tools (input several competitors and find links they share, that you're missing).
- SEOmoz Juicy Link Finder (great way to quickly find some links you may have overlooked).
- SEOmoz's compiled list of top paid and free directories (find ones that are relevant to your industry).
Later, you can keep going back to your Link Building Briefcase and conquer each one-by-one.
Carpe Linkum!
-
-
Thanks everyone,
The low number of root domain links is something i have been working on, which is why i have started submitting to directories again etc. to try and get this number up as its lower then my competitors, i also need backlinks from sites with domain/page authority. At the moment my competitors backlinks have a handful of seomoz 60+ point domain authority backlinks and i only have a few around 40.
I will definetly subscribe to paul & angelas backlinks though, i noticed a competitor came out of no where with a new domain and ranked #3 pretty much overnight and i looked into it and there backlinks looked like they were from paul or angelas backlinks, after a few months theit site started to drop off though cause it wasnt maintained. I did try picking up on some of their backlinks though.
-
The very first thing that strikes me here in this is you say you have about 12,000 links from only 48 domains.
Site age may be helping them but I'd be willing to bet that they probably have a more ip-diverse link profile than you do as well. Sounds like you have the niche relevant links down so now its time to get outside that box and start going after other metrics. Here are the big 6 I look at:
Trust/Authority
Niche Relevance (you have this covered)
Segmentation (where the links appear on the page)
Anchor
IP diversity (links from many domains > many links from few domains) <- start here
Link-weight (link juice, pagerank, whatever you want to call it)I'd be willing to bet your 80 bucks would be better spent on something like a pauls or angelas backlink packet than it would be on renting one or 2 links a month. And a lower risk too.
-
I agree. It's also always so hard to rank against those older domains. Stay consistent, diligent, and try to break some bigger stories. Keep on writing the articles, and get as creative as humanly possible to get those stories that bigger sites want to link to. Reach out to as many site owners as possible to form a small group that you can fall back on when distributing your content. And like Martin said, definitely leverage community on your site, and maybe even UGC/contributors to help write the articles. Good luck!
-
It sounds like you have a very good idea of what you're doing and what you're trying to achieve, so I'll be brief with my response:
- If you feel like one of your blogs may be of interest to your readership of another, you should absolutely consider linking two (or more) of them. Just be honest, transparent, and try and do it in a natural way that provides value to your readership. (Glen Allsopp does a good job of this.)
- Do any of your blogs have a community element? Have you considered ways you can leverage them to essentially automate your link building efforts, either through social media (FB, Twitter) or their own blogs? If not, is this something you could work on?
- It sounds to me like by doing what you're doing, blogging, and providing high quality posts in your niches as link bait, then you're doing the right thing. You could try and scale this up with interviews, guest posts (this works both ways) etc.
It's hard to give any specifics without knowing in which niche you operate.
Hope this helps,
Martin
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
-
Site review : Should I finish on-page optimization before I start link building ??
Site Review am seeing slight improvement with a few keywords and have revamp site do i need to first on page before link building ? I was wondering do i need to complete all on page seo before i move on to link building & marketing content ?? Kindest regards, Stephen sportingdesires
Link Building | | sportingdesires0 -
Link Building - Affiliate Link Programs
I'm getting some conflicting information when researching this... I want to create the most organic link building strategy that not only gets high authority sites linking to a website, but relevant websites. I'm creating an affiliate link program where I link to partner and affiliate companies, who in turn link back to me. The question is where to put these links. I was initially thinking of putting them in the footer so they add credibility to every page, and in turn ask my affiliates to do the same thing. However; some sources say that Google no longer looks at links in the footer section. Is it true that Google doesn't count links in footer sections? And do you have any tips on creating this Affiliate Link Program?
Link Building | | reidsteven750 -
Link building external trusted help out there?
Hi there guys and Girls, I am a newbie to the seo world but learning quickly. Unhappy with seo services offered for startups I have taken on the role myself for my website. I think so much of what can be learnt online here I can implement myself with a few hours of work each week. So my dilemma! I have lots of ideas of for content which i know will be valuable and I was considering outsourcing just for link building (the long haul work) The trouble is I am wary of who to use and if such service is out there? I have tried searching on o'desk and freelancer etc but I guess i am too frightened of spammy links or postings on irrelevant sites. I guess initially I am looking for someone who can help my link building campaign whilst I build up my own blogging contacts etc. Does anyone know if these types of services exist? and if any are recommended for small companies? Thanks Michelle
Link Building | | nutjobshell0 -
Are the following considered bad links for Link Building.
I've been doing a lot of research lately on link building & I've read a lot about having a diverse amount of links. Social links, Blog links, comment links, footer links, No follow links, Directory links as well as links with Anchor text URL match, brand match, partial brand match, non-descriptive, and with keywords. But there is a lot of talk of removing those links that look like a site that's built just for link building purposes.... but Directories are basically built for link building are they not? I'm wondering if anyone can tell me if they feel links from the following directories would be bad links. (Non-Paid) http://www.yoganza.com http://www.wkool.com http://www.wee-directory.com http://www.voicelet.com www.hotfrog.ca http://www.webdirectorieslist.com http://multiplelistingboard.com http://mozdirectory.net http://freedirectorypr.info Industry specific below: http://bestautolinks .com http://automotivedome.com http://automobilebuzz.com http://craigsautolinks.com Thanks so much for the help!
Link Building | | DCochrane0 -
Which link should I use for link building?
I have an article which have high rank on Google. But recent, I use mod rewrite url so this article have new url. old: mywebsite.com/c1/p-1 new: mywebsite.com/c-e/p-1 Now, google is indexing old url. I want to ask when I build linking to my site, which link should I use for link building? I should build linking for new url or old url. Thanks
Link Building | | sonzin13040 -
Link Building: No linked to content in industry
Hello, I'm doing link buidling for a small ecommerce niche. There's no resource content in the niche (looking at OSE Top Content) that has attracted backlinks (on any sites) How should this effect what resource content I should create. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
I'm interested in knowing link building strategies for regional businesses.
I'm not just interested in sites to target, but also how to manage anchor text when you are targeting phrases that include a keyword + a geo modifier. Thanks!
Link Building | | medtouch0