Backlinks in 11 questions by field experts
We gathered in this article our Backlinks expertise into 11 questions and answers to power up you and your website with the best possible approaches that help top companies to rank first on search engines.
What’s best is that you will soon realize in reading these Backlinks questions, that nothing is out of reach. Big or small, businesses around the world use the same technics. You can gain experience with a blog and become top of your field if you work consistently within your niche.
Top customer’s Backlinks questions we collected by email, during phone calls, and in meetings. There are no stupid questions and each of us, before being a web project manager or web expert, is and has been a web user. The ability to answer single users’ requests and address concerns outside projects stakeholders’ goals is an asset worth developing in any agency. At Ohma, we decided to isolate the most asked questions from users and from the client’s experts.
Ready? Let’s dig into the first of these Backlinks questions selected for you.
- Can I exchange links with another website?
- Can I automatize outreach?
- What outreach email template do you use?
- Is acquiring backlinks necessary for all industries?
- I need help, what resources could I use for free?
- I need quick backlinks, where to go?
- I want to scale up my outreach, what to do?
- When to use your brand and when not to
- I work hard, when will I see the results?
- I have a limited budget, how to get backlinks?
- Should I hire an agency or doing it myself?
Can I exchange links with another website?
Is link swapping a good SEO Strategy?
One of the Google algorithm update disadvantages is the websites that have link swapping. Why? Because it’s not natural, organic SEO. Better avoid this easy solution of offering or accepting a simple link swap if you want your website to rank high.
Can I automatize outreach?
Outreach seems a very manual task, can we use marketing automation?
Marketing automation is great to automatize a regular task. Which means that AI will not replace the human brain. Automation with algorithm complete our skills but do not replace the essential basic work which is to understand the business niche, the content, and setting up a strategy.
Mind that people you are reaching out are usually drowned by outreach messages, so even if the quantity on your side matter, quality and personalization does too. You can pay somebody to do it for you, or do it yourself on your time. I tend to stay away from early outreach automation offers as I didn’t find yet a tool doing it in a way that aligns with my values. As long as I don’t have the absolute certainty that it brings me more value and results than doing it manually, I stay away from quick gains offers.
It’s not about working hard here but maybe a little more about working smart, which automation that deals with large volumes will not be a huge help to you.
What outreach email template do you use?
Do you have an outreach template for bloggers and niche websites?
Yes and no.
The email template is quite the same. You ought, to be honest. If you really liked the content or the blog, it is worth mentioning it. Great outreach works when you build long-term relationships and gain to collaborate over time.
- Explain why you’re reaching out to them, and you’d like a link from their site or blog to yours.
- Give them an idea of the content you’re working on, or you will write in the future, with enough material for them to evaluate if that fits their audience.
- Mention clearly that you are open to edits and to their ideas on the content creation. As already mentioned earlier, the most important is to be niche relevant. It’s also indispensable to stipulate if you are willing to pay for the link or not. Too many emails are unclear about this, and that’s better when you make it a no-brainer for your reader.
- Remember that quality always beats quantity.
Is acquiring backlinks necessary for all industries?
Are there some industries or businesses that don’t need backlinking?
Backlinks are important for large businesses and global companies. For local reach, social media and local SEO strategies using GMB and on-page SEO can be enough to ameliorate your rankings on search engines. It really depends on the service or product you are selling, your long-term vision or strategy for the business, and your competitors. Simply put, if backlinks are not a must-have for your business, but you feel stuck with your rankings, given the fact that everything else has already been done, backlinks are useful to help you gain visibility.
I need help, what resources could I use for free?
I am a beginner, what free resources can I look at?
Neil Patel’s blog. Another industry reference is Brian Dean’s YouTube videos and newsletter are brilliant. Yoast SEO is not too expensive and well explained for beginners. Google Analytics Academy, it’s quite long but free and so far a great way to use the tool Google Analytics. Ubbersuggest allows you to perform three free searches per day.
Answer the public free version help to build content around real user questions. Google trends is great to have early insights on keywords. I love WebFx to analyze the readability of a content created. With Moz Keyword Explorer Tool you get 10 free Keywords requests per month. When using Semrush free subscription, you get 10 keywords to track, 100 pages to crawl which is often enough for local SEO on small websites, and 1 pdf report. Ahrefs have a trial offer that is brilliant! It is really up to you to find which tool you like the most.
I need quick backlinks, where to go?
How can I get quick links?
If you have limited time, head for a high domain authority website and pull out outstanding quality content that targets specific keywords. Quick gains don’t exist, and backlinking is a long-term job. Health, travel, tech, and food are the easiest to get links from as there are many websites related to the topic around. But if it’s not relevant to your niche, it may be more harmful to your website.
I want to scale up my outreach, what to do?
How to scale a backlink method?
That’s a great question. Finding new blogs and targets to pitch your content is one of the biggest challenges when doing outreach.
Depending on your niche, you might have only a few trustworthy bloggers you can interact with. Unfortunately, as it is more a matter of quality and research than quantity, you’re better off thinking about scaling your outreach and backlinks.
When to use your brand and when not to
How do you decide which backlinks will use branded vs non-branded anchor text?
Non-branded have my preference because what you’re looking for is to build awareness for those not already searching your brand name online. Branded content and anchor text appear when people seek your brand directly when doing direct search. But if they search for a more general term, this is where you do not come up on the first Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). It really depends on the business and the client. Strategy is better when built together with the business you work with. Branded anchor text works for sure, they are not as natural as non-branded ones. A mix of both can work.
I work hard, when will I see the results?
How long does it take to see results?
First, it depends on the domain authority you are starting with. You may or may not have to change or refine the keywords you are using. Usually, it takes from 3 to 6 months on average to see results in terms of backlinks. But obviously, it depends on the effort and the money you are putting in. 2 hours a week will take longer than 10 hours work a week. It’s more about discipline and consistency than a full-in work for a couple of weeks, and then it’s done. SEO and backlinks are a long-term focus journey. You start small, and it’s worth it to build up more and more authority over time and constant focus. You learn as you go, adapt, and adjust to reach results.
I have a limited budget, how to get backlinks?
How to build backlinks with a low budget?
Focus on quality. Articles need to vary in length and topics. From 500 words minimum to an average of 1,500 words is good. I always try to work for 1,500 words when possible to do so. Better, doing closer to 500 words with quality content than 1,500 with low user experience. Pictures, infographics, videos add value to your users, and therefore your content.
With a low budget, narrow down your niche to the minimum ultra-focussed people or bloggers that can help you. Low budget isn’t really the problem. When it comes to SEO or backlinks, the information on how to do it is out there on the internet. Most people pay agencies because they lack the time doing it for themselves. Writing articles, outreach, and creating long-term relationships with bloggers is time-consuming, and you cannot always focus on growing your business and doing SEO at the same time.
Should I hire an agency or doing it myself?
SEO Agency vs in-house?
Both have pros and cons. You have more flexibility, and it’s cheaper overall when you outsource to an SEO agency but gain control and internal skills in-house. It really depends on you and the time you have to allocate to your website visibility. One of the great assets of teaming up with an SEO agency is that bloggers are more likely to collaborate with agencies. It makes sense, as you rarely build several links from one website when you work in-house, and you represent yourself.
From a blogger or an influencer perspective, pairing with an agency is a win-win because agencies tend to have multiple clients within the same niche. At the end of the day, we all have the same time to spend with our business, and bloggers go for what’s bring them the most qualitative and quantitative results. Indeed, most bloggers will work out lower rates if the other part guarantees numerous contents going forward, it gives them stability in their income and that’s priceless when you work for yourself.
Thank you for reading this article. If you want to share a question with our team, reach out. We have talented professionals dedicated to supporting our customers in their journey with marketing.
A great place to start is to read the fantastic introduction to our offers Search Engine Visibility and Communication Strategy.
Additionally, these articles around SEO and backlinks might interest you:
Google’s most important algorithm updates for SEO
The Ultimate top 10 Seo Questions
