Welcome to part 9 of our Common Blogging Questions series. We’ve answered a lot of questions and are working towards the end. I’m surprised no one has submitted any new questions over the last several weeks. It’s either you guys are shy or I’ve covered all the questions you have. In this part I’ll be answering link building questions because I’ve received a lot of these over the months. I’m not surprised because once you’ve published your blog and are ready to get noticed you have to put a solid link building campaign in place.
Let’s jump right in and please let me know if you guys have any feedback. There is “1†more part left in this series.
What’s The Difference between Sponsored and Non-Paid Links?
You have to be careful when building links making sure you are building natural links. Running a solid SEO campaign does take time and many will resort to sponsored links also known as “paid†links. These are low quality links because there is NO substance behind them. Many times the blogs accepting sponsored links are low quality and will ultimately hurt your blog. Google overtime will make note of “sponsored†websites and eliminate them from the SERP’s which will hurt your SEO campaign. Next,
Non-paid links are natural links and they include links on article directories and through guest blogging. Personally, the best types of links you can get are from guest blogging on high authority blogs. These blogs have been around for years and are established providing enormous link value.
Are Guest Blog Links Still Powerful?
Matt Cutt’s who is the head of Google Spam has said “guest posts†no longer hold link value. This has pushed many people away from guest blogging. However, you should look at the bigger picture. For example, a solid guest post on a high authority blog can be huge for building brand awareness and external links. Let’s look at a scenario…
Imagine getting published on a blog with 50,000 readers per day. Your post will be read by thousands and the links within your author bio will have a high CTR. Many of these readers are blog owners themselves and if you have high quality content on you blog it can lead to opt-ins, links, shares, etc. So,
The initial guest link might NOT add value, but the overall chain of effects of being published will be great for link building, etc.
If Hiring a SEO Company…What’s My Time Investment?
Running an SEO campaign is a long term commitment no matter if your in charge or hire someone to do the work for you. In this scenario we’ll consider you hiring an SEO company and what things to be careful about.
First, ensure you have the right money to invest because hiring a reputable company is expensive. If someone says they can do the job for cheap they’ll do a low quality job that might get you penalized by Google. Next, once you begin to see an increase in rankings it’s important to continue with the SEO campaign. Stopping will drop your rankings because your competition will be building links continually. However, here’s what I recommend…
Learn the process taking notes of what’s important. This way you can continue to build links on your own keeping a close eye on your progress. You’ll also save enormous money going forward. Remember, the company you hired will send you progress reports so pay close attention to them skimming through the process learning as you go on.
How Affective is Broken Link Building?
Broken link building is very effective and it’s important it’s done the right way. If you do a quick search online you’ll be able to find several resources walking you through the entire process. You can find high authority broken links needing to be replaced and this is where you can leverage this strategy. Here’s a quick breakdown of how to utilize this strategy…
- Start by finding niche relevant blogs with content. The best pages are those outlining resources because they list several links and this means higher chances of “1†being broken.
- Run a free tool like “Check my Links†that you can install on your browser. This tool will highlight broken links in “Redâ€.
- Write similar content of better quality and submit it to blog owner asking for feedback. Let them know of the broken link on their website and if they can add your content as replacement.