Day 11 - Off-Page SEO

[Ryuzaki]

When you say 'You know those links people are selling on forums for $300 each from PR8 sites? Those can all be acquired for free. I won't list them here, but go find them and register to be a writer. ' - I don't quite follow. Do you have any example sites? What's the best way to find these?

I'm talking specifically about people that sell "editorials" as they came to be called. Many of these are big sites who get all of their content from contributors, and not the kind they hire, but the kind where anyone can join up with open registration. Of course you have to do a good job and will be moderated, but you can build your own links if you're really crafty and patient. It's not a walk in the park by any means if you want to get on high quality sites.

The same goes for giant magazine sites like Forbes and others. You can't just freely register, but you can join and become a contributor and eventually drop your own links. All of these scenarios are ones where, if you don't have the money, you can make up for it with grit, time, and patience. And of course you need a quality site so your outbound link won't look suspicious.

Whether or not spending months gaming a bunch of editors is worth your time is up to you. One of these links isn't going to change the trajectory of your site or even a page. It's almost easier to get SERP exposure and social media exposure and earn them naturally. But the point is, those links are out there and can be yours without spending a dime. I'd rather bribe an editor or contributor, myself, and be done with it.

Would you rather target guest posts or a few larger editorial links as a strategy?

This feels like a false dichotomy. I'd do both. The problem with both of these is your plans and reality are going to clash. You can either spray and pray at volume, or you'll have to start doing social engineering and getting on your target's radar (like befriending an editor over time).

The best move here, and for the section above this one, is probably to do manual outreach to sites in your vertical and be a real person. Become friends first, then ask later. That's for guest posting. For big editorial links, I'd just respond to HARO every day till you get what you need.

Going back to bribing and open-registration and social engineering and all these efforts... it's better to be a marketer and get such massive exposure that you end up being cited in stories. That could be hitting #1 on Reddit, or ranking #1 for 100,000 search volume keywords. That's a lot of eyeballs, and many are journalists or magazine writers looking for ideas or citations. And usually they'll search Google and pick one of the top 3 simply because they have to have a citation.

Success breeds more success. Getting that initial success isn't easy. I'd say most people should operate within their sphere of influence until that expands outwards (with more content published and more links gained). Eventually you'll have the mojo and influence to pick up a lot of these links naturally or be able to outreach without getting ignored.

 

[NSG]

I've been working on blog commenting, and I've noticed a frustrating trend.

When looking for websites in my niche, I would say about 50% have commenting either turned off, or with no URL field available (understandable, and also a huge time waster when you're doing this process manually). When I find one that allows comments/URLs, I check to make sure other people have commented and that they have URLs that are showing up. I'm getting approval on the comments, so I know the web owner doesn't see mine as spammy, but for whatever reason, my URL is getting stripped out of the comment.

Any idea what is going on or if there is something I can look for to further weed out websites I have no chance with?

 

[DanielS]

I've been working on blog commenting, and I've noticed a frustrating trend.

When looking for websites in my niche, I would say about 50% have commenting either turned off, or with no URL field available (understandable, and also a huge time waster when you're doing this process manually). When I find one that allows comments/URLs, I check to make sure other people have commented and that they have URLs that are showing up. I'm getting approval on the comments, so I know the web owner doesn't see mine as spammy, but for whatever reason, my URL is getting stripped out of the comment.

Any idea what is going on or if there is something I can look for to further weed out websites I have no chance with?

How old are the comments that have been approved with URLs? The website owner may have updated comment filters to not allow URLs but not removed old, existing comments with URLs.

 

[NSG]

I checked a couple that got declined and they had recent comments within a month with links approved. Is it possible they are stripping out links from sites with low domain authority? Or potentially it's a fluke and the owner very recently updated their filters.

 

[DanielS]

I checked a couple that got declined and they had recent comments within a month with links approved. Is it possible they are stripping out links from sites with low domain authority? Or potentially it's a fluke and the owner very recently updated their filters.

It certainly could be either of these cases or the issue could be the comments themselves that you're leaving- maybe they are too self-promotional or scream "I'm only commenting on your post to drop a link to my website" etc.