Link Building Question
-
Hello,
Here is my situation - i'm number 10 for a moderate keyword and i want to rank higher .
Using the Open Site Explorer i studied the links of 12 competitors and noticed the following :
There are only 2 sites that are doing 100% white hat - one of them is on first page only because has a big,big domain autority, the other because is a brand name.
The rest of my competitors are on first page using directory submissions (i discovered 200+ directories - and not counting those that are not indexed.), buying links (for ex check these 2 :http://www.dentistsburbank.com/links , http://www.dentistinaustin.com/links/ - there are 50+ more sites like this), spam forums and article submissions.
For my site i tried to get only quality links, tried link bait, quality articles - etc(and this for more that 18 months). Unfortunately it seems that my efforts are not enough(seems that links from military.com are not enough to beat 200 low quality directories) and i want to ask the community what should i do.
Shall i invest in directory submissions (it will cost around $1500) ? If not in directories in what shall i invest the money ? Are there any companies able to create successful link baits ?
Shall i report the paid links hoping that Google will take action ?
Any other ideas
-
What about reporting the "black links" - did anyone had success doing that ?
-
Yes probably i need to get quantity and match them on number of c blocks (the only metric i;m behind)
-
I agree, directory submissions should cost no where near that, and the effort and cost far outway the benifits IMHO. Anyway, just a thought on the paid directories you mention - costs can be cut further if you do go down this route by applying to become an editor of a directoy such as Joeant , if accepeted, you can then get a free listing!
-
Good point and absolutely a must, though once you exhaust all that and have already a good content strategy and your competitors are still kicking your butt - what then?
Internally we go technical, big backlink profile analysis, do the maths and go hard and creative on links. It's kind of like brute force in some respect however within 2-3 months you're going up after many months of stagnation.
I see this all the time in highly competitive industries (e.g. insurance, flights...etc).
There have been cases though where we have seen quality beat quantities (in extreme differences)... still a bit of a mystery to me if I am to be completely honest.
-
The question that I always ask when a local service or retail site is involved is.... have you gotten all of the local and industry links that are available?
These include:
-- chamber of commerce and local service organizations (membership in these can be valuable for business reasons but their website often has a link to their members)
-- local business listings
-- your landlord's website
-- websites of your suppliers and service providers (do a testimonial for them)
-- trade associations for your industry (write an article for them)
-- med schools, law schools etc. often links to websites successful graduates
-- local charities often link to companies who support them (friends of the library, habitat, religious groups, little league boosters)
-- local business initiatives (tourism association, "buy local", downtown merchant association)
-- local online newspaper (advertise, write an article or column)
-- trade association publications (advertise, write an article or column)
-- local and state license boards
Go out searching for local websites. Although they might not be "dental" sites they are often very relevant for the name of your community. You can also draw up a charitable organization budget that will support your business in other ways.
Lots of people are amazed when they learn how many local links are possible.
-
Yeah I think you might be looking to hard at directories if the cost is that high... I wouldn't spend half that on them myself. You'll probably find that most of those directories aren't worth the dosh.
-
If your competition is getting quantities of links and beating you while your your best content effort cannot level up... that might be what you need to do - get as many new c-block links using all means possible apart from buying links and spam (I cannot recommend those).
Article submission and directories are not my favorite activity and I do not believe in it - however there is ample evidence that sheer quantities can win.
The answer I gave you is simplified as I have not analysed your and your competitor's links in details (anchor text, authority, numbers, velocity...etc).
-
I agree is not spam(Directory submissions)- and the cost is real - i made a list with url and cost per submissions and i'm getting close to 2k so far.
-
Directory submissions are not black hat... and they needn't cost you anywhere near that. There's a bunch of good directories out there, free ones that are fairly decent too. The only ones you should pay for in my opinion are BOTW, Yahoo Dir, and JoeAnt. But I wouldn't even bother with them, I never do... just go for some very relevant free ones that aren't spammy
What did you do for your link bait, and how did you promote it?
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
-
Link building too quickly
Hi all, I have recently started trialing to outsource some SEO to a 3rd party, who obviously promissed white hat techniques and manual links etc.. All has gone well for the first month. But on speeking to another expert they point out that the search engines will spot inconcistencies in link building and penalise me. I know there will not be a know ammount but as we stand at the moment, what is the current feeling of too fast. Links built for me in one month were 100 directory submissions 80 bookmarks 16 search engine submissions 15 Article submissions 46 forum links 10 local classified searches Is this too fast? , If to do I stop and create more inconsistency or continue at a similar rate. Of course quality of link will be an issue, but how much. Many thanks from SEO jnr
Link Building | | smartcow0 -
Reputable Link Building Company
We are looking for a company who can build high quality links, from high quality domains to specific pages of our website. We are not looking for companies who create content or add to directories or post on blog rolls. Has anyone had any experience and can anyone recommend a link building company who can build high quality links to specific pages of a website? Thanks!
Link Building | | torontojon0 -
Link building without using trademarked names
If a particular brand's terms & conditions stated that you cannot use their trademarked names in your backlinking strategy, what are some good ways to rank higher for those names?
Link Building | | aidin30000 -
What are the new ways of Link Building which will get quality links?
Hi We are doing following kinds of Link Building: 1. Article marketing 2. Directory Submission 3. Guest Blogging 4. Press Release submission 5. Infographics (Viral Marketing) I know blog commenting and links from discussion forums are considered as greyhat / blackhat by google. So I want suggestions on some other ethical(Whitehat SEO) ways of Link Building to get quality Links. Also suggest me some Free article submission sites which give " dofollow-links" Thank You
Link Building | | Virrtuo0 -
Link Building - Nofollow
Hello It's worth getting links nofollow? It will count for google? For example links from Yahoo! Answers.
Link Building | | eder.machado0 -
Link building strategy - black hat or white hat?
I have a competitor who always ranks very on alot keywords relevant to our business and using Open Site Explorer I note they have a tremendous amount of links. I also noticed that it appears their web company has gone out and set up numerous websites with relevant content, and then have linked back to the competitors main site. Is this kosher? I ask because before I settled on my current domain name, I purchased several keyword rich domain names; should I be thinking of setting up websites with relevant (and original) content and link back to my main site?
Link Building | | leonenobleseate1 -
Do you recommend using Mechanical Turk for link building campaigns?
The grunt work of linkbuildign can take a long time. Especially when doing it right. Can Mechanical Turk help me here?
Link Building | | VistageSEO0 -
Do you spend much time on the phone when link building?
When it comes to link building for a client how important is it to get on the phone when chasing links from other sites? Would you say this done all the time, half the time, not at all? Is this the SEO experts responsibility or the clients? Update: Really hoping to get an idea of how important this is to acheive good SEO results. Any chance the SEOMoz employees have any answers here?
Link Building | | iSenseWebSolutions0