In the digital marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) industry, link building plays a crucial role. High-quality backlinks from reputable websites can significantly improve a site’s ranking on search engines, leading to more organic traffic and better online visibility. However, the cost of acquiring these links can vary greatly.
Here’s the TLDR (now if only recipe sites did this 😉)
Factor
Impact on Cost
Metrics
High
Difficulty
High
Editorial review
Moderate
Use of brokers
Moderate
Broker pricing
Moderate
Exclusivity
High
Content creation
High
Link inserts vs. guest posts
Low
Metrics (Domain Rating, Traffic, etc.)
Links from high-quality websites with strong domain ratings and high traffic are more valuable, leading to higher prices. These sites tend to have a more significant impact on your website’s SEO performance, so acquiring backlinks from them is more expensive.
Difficulty in obtaining the link
Some websites have strict standards for accepting backlinks, making it more challenging and time-consuming to build links on these sites. The additional effort required increases the cost of link-building services.
Layers of editorial review
Websites with rigorous editorial processes require more content resources and project management, which can drive up the cost of link-building. The more layers of review, the higher the price.
Use of brokers
In some cases, link-building services use brokers to acquire backlinks. These brokers charge a fee, which is added to the cost of the link, along with a small markup. At Searcheye, we try hard to avoid the use of brokers (and go direct to the source) – unfortunately, this isn’t always possible.
Broker pricing
Some brokers charge higher fees than others, which can impact the final cost of a link. Many link-building services are actively trying to bypass brokers and work directly with websites to reduce costs.
Exclusivity
There are websites where only a few content marketers have access to build links. These exclusive relationships are often the result of significant upfront investment, leading to higher costs for these unique backlinks.
Content creation costs
For guest post opportunities, link-building services often work with internal teams and high-end freelancers to create top-notch content. The cost of producing high-quality content can significantly influence the overall price of the link.
Link inserts vs. guest posts
Link inserts are generally cheaper and quicker to acquire since they don’t require creating new content. The link is inserted into an existing piece of content, which reduces the overall cost and effort.
Understanding the factors that influence link-building costs can help you make informed decisions when investing in SEO and digital marketing services. By considering these factors, you can optimize your link-building strategy and maximize the return on your investment.
When it comes to building links for search engine optimization (SEO), there are several strategies to choose from. Two popular approaches are guest posts and link inserts. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and understanding the differences between the two can help you make the best decision for your website’s SEO. In this article, we will explore the differences between guest posts and link inserts, what to look for when choosing either approach, and their pros and cons.
Link Inserts
Link inserts involve updating an existing page or article with a link back to a relevant page on your site. The process is typically quicker and easier than guest posts, as you do not need to go through the usual content approvals and editorial processes. This also results in a lower cost. However, customization options are limited with link inserts.
When selecting an existing page to edit with your link, consider the following factors:
Traffic and keyword ranking of the existing page
Presence of internal links pointing to the page
Backlinks from other high-value sites
Number of external links on the page
Relevance and value of your link to the reader
Guest Posts
Guest posts are new pieces of content crafted from scratch, with a link or mention added to a relevant page on your site. This approach takes longer and requires a content writer to adhere to website editorial guidelines. However, guest posts offer more customization options and control over the page you want to link to and the anchor text.
When selecting a guest post opportunity, consider the following:
Review samples to ensure articles are not buried in hard-to-find directories
Opt for articles published on actual blogs or resource pages
Pros and Cons of Guest Posts vs. Link Inserts
Guest Posts
Link Inserts
Customization
High level of customization and control
Limited customization options
Speed
Slower, requires content creation and approvals
Faster, as no content creation is needed
Cost
Generally more expensive due to content creation
Lower cost due to simpler process
Relevance and Naturalness
More natural and relevant, as content is customized
Depends on the relevance of the existing page
Which is Better for SEO: Guest Posts or Link Inserts?
Ultimately, the preference between guest posts and link inserts is stylistic. The primary goal is to build links on high-quality, relevant sites, whether through guest posts or link inserts. Both approaches can be effective in boosting your website’s SEO when implemented correctly.
When it comes to SEO, understanding the differences between guest posts and link inserts can help you make an informed decision on which strategy to pursue. Guest posts offer more customization and control but are more time-consuming and expensive, while link inserts are faster, more affordable, but with limited customization. At the end of the day, the best approach for your website will depend on your specific goals, resources, and the opportunities available in your niche.
A piece of content travels through various algorithms of search engine results pages (SERPs). With the help of search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting, your content can land on the first page of SERPs. You can gain clicks, shares, and new followers when this happens.
According to Statista, Google’s top pages list had a 33.59 percent organic click-through rate in 2020. This data could mean people may never browse past the first pages when searching online. With billions of searches across social media, your content strategy must be effective to reach your potential audience.
Google’s search systems are ever-changing. To help you meet its standards, you should know how to do SEO copywriting. Keep reading to learn and understand how it can help improve your digital content marketing strategy.
What is SEO copywriting?
Search engine optimization (SEO) increases your website’s ranking in search engines, especially Google. It organizes and transmits your content across search engines. Additionally, it helps by checking your website’s technical health to deliver quality content.
Meanwhile, copywriting is a marketing strategy dedicated to crafting written content to promote businesses, products, and services. Its goals are to inform and persuade potential consumers. When done correctly, this boosts your company’s sales and recognition.
Combining the two makes SEO copywriting. SEO copywriting is content creation that aims for maximized value and readability optimized for everyday users looking for information. Here, appealing keywords are used to prioritize higher algorithm rankings. Content is not only written to sound good but also to expand profit.
SEO copywriting also makes Google search-friendly, engaging, and organized content. It targets specific keywords and phrases, and answers relevant search queries. At the same time, it encourages readers to buy products and subscribe to services by using calls to action.
Keep in mind that quality content remains the priority of SEO copywriting. Calls to action only come second.
How SEO Copywriting Affects Ranking
Conventional beliefs are often linked when people think about “copywriting.” They commonly associate the term with content writing in newspapers, which shouldn’t be the case. Copywriting is more than just traditional writing styles because it can direct higher Google rankings.
SEO copy is optimized for both searchers and SEO tools to create more backlinks, lower bounce rates, increase dwell time and click-through rates, and gain significant social shares, comments, and community.
High-quality content is enhanced by an SEO strategy appropriate for search engine rankings in a page SEO. Through this, search engines can utilize relevant content for various search queries.
The Best SEO Practices
It’s risky to lose to competitors when your website and content don’t appear in search engines. SEO copywriting makes it crucial for businesses to attract consumers to keep up with the game. Your SEO content needs to employ the best SEO practices to be efficient.
Effective SEO writing builds your company’s credibility by increasing website traffic with high-volume search terms. It focuses on intent-driven content, grabs the readers’ interest through persuasive copies and CTAs, and boosts Google rankings through upgraded metrics.
You must learn SEO copywriting because writing good copy isn’t enough. Let’s look at the SEO copywriting tips you can do to produce high-performing SEO content.
Focus on keywords and search intent
Do keyword research. Relevant content uses the right keywords to target potential visitors. Search terms are essential tools for users to see your content quickly. Sometimes, spammy ones, called keyword stuffing, generate more ranking advantages. However, this is unethical.
Keyword density can be excessive if stuffed, so it’s also ideal to use long-tail keywords since they’re easier to target and rank.
Now, classify those keywords based on their search intent. Searchers always look for certain information using specific keywords, so practice this religiously. You can categorize them as informative (search queries), transactional (purchasing matters), or navigational (research purposes).
You can find high-volume search terms in keyword research tools like Surfer SEO, Ahrefs, Frase, or Semrush.
Assess your competitors’ best content
Analyze your competitors’ content by searching the target keyword and looking at the first page. It gives you insights into what search engine results pages (SERPs) are likely to show. Similar tools like Frase do this by smoothly laying out the first 20 pages’ subheadings.
Look at each of them and analyze what’s missing. You can use this as a guide in including these missing pieces in your content. Moreover, see what kinds of content your competitors are publishing.
Content styles, formats, and angles are necessary to study to see what’s ideal for the content type you’re writing. It can be a blog post, landing page, or sales page. See whether you’d like it to sound positive, negative, or neutral for beginners or experts.
Plan and structure your article content
Think about the type of content appropriate for your target audience. What’s the purpose, and what do you want to achieve? You can inform, educate, promote, solve problems, or answer questions. Get the website more visitors or persuade them to take action after seeing your content.
For logical structuring, outline your headings and subheadings. List it by summarizing important points using bullets or numbers.
Start writing your article
Remember the users’ search intent and maximize readability. Also, make headings and subheadings easy to skim. Sometimes, users read snippets of the content to see if it matches what they’re looking for.
Avoid using block paragraphs, as they can be challenging to read on mobile devices. You should write it by putting the introductory information in the first paragraph and then detailing the supporting ones next. Make it concise and clear by avoiding unnecessary fluff.
User experience is worthwhile when readers can understand simple vocabulary. SEO writing is SEO-friendly when user intent is prioritized with keyword research and search terms that search engines can rank high.
SERPs show the metadata to users on the webpage first. High-quality content consists of influential metadata that increases organic click chances for your website.
Google may alter your meta based on queries. Nonetheless, you must tailor meta titles and descriptions for search engines and users.
For successful meta title tags, use target keywords to make them unique. These tags are also based on search intent that corresponds to user expectations. Avoid using 55-80 characters. The pixel width should be 600 at most as well.
Regarding meta descriptions, it should describe the webpage and have calls to action that focus on emotions. Google prefers your meta descriptions to have 155-160 characters, so for the best experience, make it short and sweet.
Lastly, with headers, the same 600 pixels width applies. You must use numbers, brackets for clarifications, and action verbs that stimulate user click-through rates and engagement with the site.
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Boost Your Rankings With SearchEye
SEO copywriting is a complex process, but once you get the hang of it, it’ll be easy to navigate. SearchEye helps your business site’s conversion rate skyrocket by following the best SEO writing practices. Your digital marketing strategy will also be on top, making it possible for your brand to appear on SERPs’ first page.
SEO copywriting has never been easier with SearchEye. Contact us today to know more about how we can help improve your conversion rate and level up your digital marketing strategy.
When we created the Searcheye platform, our central goal was to empower businesses to elevate their brand and enhance their online presence. Recognizing the importance of brand signals and search improvements, we designed solutions for a stronger digital footprint in the industry.
Before diving in, it’s important to recognize the difference between our 2 main products: Active Opportunities (Articles in Progress) and our Entire Inventory.
Comparing Guest Post Opportunities and Shop the List
Searcheye presently provides two link-building products, namely:
Open Guest Post Opportunities: These are articles that we are presently collaborating on with the publisher.
Shop the List: This is a comprehensive list of all available opportunities in our database that you can choose from, and we will take care of the entire fulfillment process.
Active Opportunities
Entire Inventory*
Pros:
20-50% cheaper
Quicker turnaround (article topic already approved by publisher, content in progress)
Higher standard of site quality
Pros:
Near unlimited inventory (10k+ sites, Link Inserts, Guest Posts and Digital PR available)
Can approve content & strategy
More flexibility in supplying anchor text / pages
Cons:
Limited inventory (150-200 sites available at any given time)
* Entire Inventory is available to Pro, Enterprise and Agency Members Only
Our Criteria for ⏰ 3pm Links
At Searcheye, we are committed to maintaining the highest standards of quality when it comes to offering link-building opportunities. We have an unwavering obsession with quality and have painstakingly built and refined each aspect of our process. To select opportunities that meet the requirements for our “Open Guest Post Opportunities” available on 3pm Links, we meticulously evaluate each opportunity based on the following criteria through manual vetting:
Criteria
Does the site meet the minimum threshold requirements:
Domain Rating – 50+
Traffic – Minimum of 2,500 search visitors / month
Trending Traffic – Upward traffic over the past 12 months
Keyword Rankings
Analyze the sites’ keyword rankings, looking at both difficulty and trend of keywords ranked in the top 3 and top 10 over the past 2 years.
Traffic Value
Review the sites’ traffic value, and select only those that have a minimum of $5k per month in traffic value.
Industry Focus
Evaluate the sites’ niche focus, and select only those that have a specific, non-general focus. We also evaluate site content to make sure nothing is considered spammy or written for “SEO purposes”.
Authenticity
Assess the sites’ authenticity and avoid “cookie cutter” sites. This can be done by looking at the design, the content, and the overall user experience on the site.
In addition to the above, we also look at 10+ other metrics to ensure each site meets our threshold requirements. The above procedure serves as a universal recommendation and is, often, customized to cater to the distinct requirements of specific publishers.
Questions & Feedback?
At Searcheye, we are of the opinion that the entire industry should strive to maintain higher standards of quality and accountability. We welcome any questions or feedback you may have regarding our evaluation criteria. Please feel free to contact us here if you have any queries or comments.
See For Yourself
Discovering the most valuable backlinks for your business has never been simpler. By signing up for 3pm Links, you can receive the internet’s top link-building opportunities delivered straight to your inbox every day at 3pm.
For software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are effective ways to boost organic traffic. These two avenues of digital marketing are crucial ways to sell their offerings.
For SaaS marketers, getting high-quality and relevant backlinks remains one of the most critical SEO ranking factors. But the link-building process can be more challenging than it seems. Read on to learn effective link-building strategies that can help you improve your content marketing campaigns.
What Is Link Building?
Link building refers to any efforts aimed at getting backlinks to a site. For SaaS companies, link building aims to get potential customers to visit their SaaS website.
Over the years, link-building strategies have evolved because search engines like Google changed how they value backlinks.
Before, link building was all about quantity, meaning the more backlinks pointing to a site, the higher the site will rank on the search engine results page (SERP). But now, search engines value the relevance and the quality of the backlinks.
This shift made link building more challenging for modern marketers. Now, they cannot just produce high volumes of content without considering the relevance of posts to searchers.
Today, marketers can use three approaches when developing a link-building strategy: outreach, broadcast, and paid categories. Learn more about these below.
Outreach
This approach refers to the manual process of reaching out to a potential source of quality links. The procedure involves building relationships with site owners and influencers relevant to your industry.
The most basic form of an outreach campaign involves reaching out to an influencer and asking for a backlink. But, outreach efforts can come in different forms, including social media mentions or comments on a blog post.
Broadcast
Also known as the cold-calling version of link building, broadcast campaigns involve announcing your request for backlinks. For this content strategy, the goal is to reach as many people as possible in the hopes that some of them could give you backlinks.
For example, you can promote your quality content through an email newsletter to your 10,000 subscribers. You can even link your content to press releases or guest posts.
Paid
Paid link building uses various paid promotional channels, like Facebook ads or Google Ads, to promote great content with the aim of getting relevant backlinks.
When designing your link-building campaign, remember to consider the three approaches given above. If you need help getting more backlinks, you can get professional link-building services from SearchEye.
Why Is Link Building Essential for SaaS Companies?
There are many reasons why establishing a solid backlink profile is crucial for many modern marketers. Read more to discover why link building is essential for SaaS companies today.
Improve Site Rankings and Visibility
When search engines assess your website, they consider which sites link back to yours when they try to rank your content. If you have more quality links that lead to your site, you have a higher chance of ranking high in Google search results.
This is why a solid link-building campaign is important. It can help drive more organic traffic to your SaaS site from potential customers who may not know about your existence otherwise.
Establish Authority as Brand Leader
If you have backlinks from credible and authoritative websites or resource pages, you increase your brand’s authority. If your audience views your website as credible, they can bring in quality referral traffic and make your SaaS company an industry leader.
Being an industry leader can show that you are an expert in your field. This advantage can help build trust with potential customers and helps boost sales in the long run.
You can position your SaaS website as leaders in your industry easier by using an effective link-building strategy.
Boost Conversion Rates
One crucial advantage of link building is that it can help you boost your brand’s conversions. When potential customers see your content rank well in search results, they will have more confidence in your services and are likely to convert.
Organic links can be the best way to ensure your target audience views you as an authority figure. The more people trust your SaaS company, the more likely they will become customers.
So, if you are aiming to take your marketing strategy to the next level, consider backlink acquisition. If done right, the process could make all the difference for your SaaS brand.
How Does Link Building Work for SaaS Brands?
SaaS companies today span a wide range of industries, including marketing automation, SEO, sales customer relationship management (CRM), and even document signing. The business model for each firm is essentially the same across the board, charging clients a recurring annual or monthly fee for the use of the service.
Link building SaaS companies help clients get more backlinks, so they do not have to do the process themselves.
When ranking content, search engines only looked at the number of backlinks. But now, they also determine the relevance and context of the backlinks. They also look at the quality of the source.
This change means your site will not rank higher than your competitor’s because you have more backlinks. Now, you have to focus your efforts on link acquisition from high-quality sites relevant to your services.
To determine the relevance of a site, Google looks at its Domain Authority (DA). This metric demonstrates a site’s relevance for a specific industry or a subject area.
Although knowing your site’s relevance is crucial, you should refrain from solely focusing on what your DA is. Instead, you have to understand how your site can be more powerful in terms of SEO. You also need to determine how to rank for more competitive keywords as you get more high-quality backlinks to your site from more authoritative sources.
To help you in this effort, you have to conduct thorough competitive research. Doing so can help you determine if your rival’s website is better than yours and where to make adjustments in your link-building strategy.
Effective keyword research is also vital to successful link building. Keywords are words or phrases that potential customers type into a search engine to find specific services that address their needs.
You have to ensure that your backlink’s anchor text is a relevant keyword when link building. Remember to keep your anchor text natural and relevant when linking back to the desired webpage.
Additionally, be careful from using a single source that links to your site more than once. This mistake can result in the loss of ranking power. Remember that the total number of sites and DA is the most important, not the number of times they link to your site.
Types of Links You Should Know
When developing an effective link-building campaign, you need to focus on two types of links: dofollow and nofollow.
Dofollow Links
Follow links drive SEO link juice, which is the amount of authority and value a link can provide a website. These links boost the page rank of the website they link to.
Dofollow links help websites rank higher and are the best links you can acquire. The more reputable the site, the more significant boost of SEO link juice the linked-to site gets.
For example, if you get a good backlink from sites like Forbes or BBC, you may get more link juice.
Nofollow Links
On the other hand, nofollow links do not boost link juice. They also do not improve a site’s page rank or a site’s placement in the results of search engines.
You can create nofollow links using the nofollow link HTML tag, <a rel = “nofollow.” This specific tag functions as an indicator for search engines, so they do not pay attention to the links.
You can use nofollow links if:
You sold a particular link
Someone asked you to post their content on your site
You are concerned about possible penalties for a link
You have widgets on the page
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Effective SaaS Link-Building Strategies
Your SaaS link-building strategy has to get you relevant and high-quality backlinks to your site. Here are some examples of the tactics you can use for successful link building.
Guest Posts
Guest posts are a simple yet excellent way to improve your backlink building. This process involves promoting your brand in a guest post for a website relevant to your industry.
If done right, this strategy can be one of the easy ways to gain high-quality backlinks. You have to look for high-tier and mid-tier publications in your field and request to publish a guest post.
Guest posting can make your company look active on industry news in the eyes of your audience. Additionally, it allows you to underscore exciting takes on your business.
When writing a guest post, you write about any topics that will put your SaaS in the spotlight. Write about what you discovered as you’ve built your SaaS business. You can also create how-to guides on SaaS marketing.
Remember to focus your efforts on high-authority and reputable websites that will add more value to your backlinks for this strategy. Refrain from writing hundreds of guest posts for every website out there.
If you want to earn backlinks with guest posts, you must produce quality content that your readers will value on referring domains.
Resource Pages
Resource pages refer to websites that provide readers with several resources on a specific topic. These pages have curated lists of the best blog posts, tools, communities, or websites a particular audience may find useful.
The purpose of resource pages is to link to other sites that offer products or services that their audience may find interesting.
If you produce link-worthy content, you can reach out to high-authority resource pages within your SaaS industry and request a link.
To find resource pages, you can reverse engineer the resource page links of your competitors. Find the resource pages driving the audience to your client’s competitors and try to use the same links.
Another way to find these pages is by using the search queries below:
SaaS useful resources
SaaS inurl:roundup
SaaS helpful links
SaaS best resources
SaaS intitle:links
SaaS inurl:resources
With high-quality content and the right strategy, using resource pages can help provide new paying customers for your business.
Create Linkable Assets
If you want to acquire high-quality backlinks, write content that influential bloggers and authoritative websites would like to link to. Two things that make a post linkable are uniqueness and usefulness.
Unique content is a post that provides new perspectives on common topics. Most of these types of content are mission or value-driven content, thought leadership, or opinion pieces.
Mission or value-driven content can be an article telling readers what made you create your product. You can also talk about how you address your customer needs differently than your competitors.
Meanwhile, thought leadership pieces offer readers fresh perspectives or insights about topics relevant to a specific industry.
Finally, opinion pieces present contrary angles that argue against an industry’s status quo. These articles stir emotions and readers, whether they disagree or agree with the author’s point, feel compelled to share them with others.
Aside from unique articles, you can also write useful content. Most authoritative sites will be more likely to agree to link to your site if you have shareable, comprehensive, and valuable content assets. These assets can include surveys, studies, tools, and guides.
If you publish surveys and studies, you can post statistics that matter to your industry, which can help establish authority. These types of helpful content provide a way for other people within your industry to cite your statistics in their content.
Collaboration With Bloggers
It can take up much of your time to send pitches to the websites where you want to post your content. You can skip this step by reaching out to influencers or bloggers already posting their content to your target sites. Ask them to feature your SaaS offering in their posts.
This way, you do not have to come up with the article pitches and wait for them to get approved. This advantage can help you save time and energy in the long run.
You can pay your partner blogger a fee or a free subscription to your service in exchange for the feature. When working with a writer, you have to give them the technical data they may need when they are writing an article promoting your product.
If you are looking for a blogger, go to the website where you want to publish your content. Look for authors who write about the topics relevant to your business.
Check their author page, if there is any, and see if they are a regular contributor to the site. You can reach them on their website or through social media. If they answer your inquiry, you can make them an offer and request a feature article.
To increase your chances of getting a positive response, you can compile a list of link-worthy posts on your site and send it to them.
This process is much easier than trying to do the writing yourself and reaching out to your target websites to pitch your content.
Broken Link Building
This simple yet effective tactic is one of the most common link-building strategies today. The process involves finding broken links or inactive links on a website relevant to your industry.
A broken link occurs when a website has links that redirect to pages that no longer exist. These links can be bad for the user experience because when the reader clicks on the links, they are taken to an empty page. It can be annoying for the reader expecting to see additional information on what they are reading.
These broken links present an excellent opportunity to boost your link acquisition. If you find a broken link on your target website, let them know and offer your content as a replacement link. Suppose you do not have a post with a broken link that can be redirected; you can create one.
This strategy can get you relevant backlinks and boost the rankings of your replacement content on search engines.
SaaS Directories
Getting your brand featured on SaaS review sites and directories can help you get links, potential customers, and social proof. Most of these sites get lots of traffic from people exploring different options for products. Examples of these websites include:
Top Ten Reviews
Capterra
SaaS Genius
GS Crowd
TrustRadius
If you want a more comprehensive review of your product, you can reach out to bloggers who review SaaS within your industry. This content can be much like a feature article, but it will focus on the efficacy and the pros and cons of using your service.
If you choose to work with a blogger who will review your product, you have to give them two months to use your service for free. This way, they will have enough information about your offering, which can help them create a more accurate review.
Another alternative is to launch an affiliate program for your product. Doing so can give you a consistent source of backlinks while also boosting sales.
When affiliate bloggers sign up for your new program, they can publish posts and reviews on their websites about your offering.
Brand Mentions
Backlink mentions can be an excellent way to make use of the website, services, and companies you mention in your posts. You can try to use three methods for this strategy: mention-me-back, co-mention, and unlinked brand mention.
Mention-Me-Back
When writing your content, you may mention a fair number of other brands, websites, products, or services. While you might not be directly partnered with these other businesses, you can try to reach out to them for backlinks.
These companies may not always respond, but if they do, then it is an avenue for easy and quality backlinks.
Co-Mentions
Co-mentions involve looking for a few contacts who do guest blogging and then asking them to mention your brand or product on some of their posts. In exchange, you offer to mention their company in your guest posts.
Unlinked brand mentions
If another website mentions your brand with no links or attributions, you may reach out to them and request a backlink. Because the site is already familiar with your brand or service, they will likely agree to link to your site.
Backlink Exchange
Backlink exchange involves partnering with another company and agreeing to link to them if they link to you. Although this strategy seems lucrative, you should not rely on this link-building tactic alone to be the foundation of your whole SEO campaign.
Under Google’s link scheme, excessive exchange of links between partner websites can negatively impact ranking in search results. This does not mean you cannot use backlink exchange altogether. You only need to avoid overusing it.
If you use this strategy, remember to use it sparingly. Ensure the links you are using make sense for your SaaS product and provide value to your content.
Examples of Effective SEO Backlinks for SaaS
Remember that SaaS SEO backlinks can come in different shapes and sizes. No one type of backlink will provide you with the most value. While you will most often see links as hyperlinked text, they can also be in the form of:
An image on a homepage
A URL on a social media post, a website, or a description on a podcast
A video with an embedded link
An infographic with an embedded link
Additionally, backlinks come in different values. If a link comes from a high-authority website, like The New Yorker or The New York Times, it will be more valuable for your site. This is compared to the value you get on the links from a small local newspaper.
A site with a high DA means it is a trustworthy and influential website. If a high-DA site links to your website, you can get more attention for backlinking.
Best Link-Building Tools You Should Use
The process of link building can boil down to sending emails to other websites and asking them to add links to your content. This means you have to build relationships and understand the owners’ needs of relevant websites. Your partners will only add links to their site if the links enhance their value.
Since there are a lot of complicated steps involved in the link-building process, you have to use different SEO tools to make it easier. Here are several tools that you can use to improve your link-building strategy.
SearchEye is an SEO tool that offers link-building services. The tool aims to help its users visualize how the target keywords affect each element of their website. It also identifies the areas where you can make adjustments and optimize your website’s content better.
Aside from link-building services, SearchEye also offers content ordering services. The company has a team of writers who produce high-quality content focusing on SEO. Each article from SearchEye comes with a comprehensive guide outline.
Ahrefs offers a Content Explorer service that makes finding suitable links easier for link builders. You can find fresh links that match all your requirements with this tool.
The tool gives you the most popular articles on any given topic. It allows you to filter the results depending on the following factors:
Organic traffic or the estimated monthly traffic of the article from search engines
Referring to domains or the number of unique sites linking to the page
Domain rating or the popularity of a website
Traffic value or the pay-per-click value of the organic traffic
Social shares or the number of shares on Twitter, Pinterest, or Facebook
Ahrefs also supports advanced search and helps users find broken links. You only need to combine the live or broken and referring domains filters to look for dead pages on a topic with backlinks.
If you are looking for a source of link prospects, Google is the tool for you. Although some may not see the search engine site as a link-building tool, it has an extensive index of web pages, making it one of the best sources of link prospects.
If you know how to use it the right way, you can find thousands of relevant link prospects without spending a single dollar.
Google has a search operator feature that can help you filter search engine results. Some are unique to the site, but not all of them. Even the ones that are not unique to Google can still be powerful there because you can combine them to find exactly what you need from its massive index of web pages.
But, the downside of using Google for prospecting is there is no way to download the results. You can try to use Chrome extensions to download SERP data.
SEMrush is a keyword research tool that collects data about online keywords from search engines, including Google and Bing.
The brand’s Competitor Gap Analysis solutions allow you to find where your competitors are acquiring their valuable backlinks. With this tool, you can monitor your rivals’ link-building strategies and study their backlinks to find ones you can use.
You only have to provide your domain and your competitors’ domains to use the tool. The solution will generate a list of sites that link back to them. With Competitor Gap Analysis, you can see if your rival sites are using citations, guest posts, or sponsored posts.
The solution provides good prospects that you can pitch to link to your website. By default, it shows the “best” links, which are the sites with links redirecting to your competitors and not to you.
You can also view weak, shared, and unique domains with this product. Shared sites are those that only link to both of you, while weak sites are those that link only to your competitors. Finally, unique sites are those that link to only one domain.
You can use this new data to address the backlink gap in your link-building efforts by finding new sites that do not link to your competitors. This SaaS product allows you to stay ahead of your competitors, regardless of their SEO strategy.
When creating an SEO strategy, you often check a site and ask yourself if anyone from your marketing team has reached out to them. Contacting bloggers and writers featured on authority sites is a part of the link-building process. You can make this process easier and faster by using BuzzStream.
This tool produces contact information for online accounts. It can give social media profiles and email accounts if they are available from a website.
With BuzzStream, you do not have to leave the software to do your own research. It can help you find and build the connections you need to acquire quality backlinks.
For example, you want new bloggers who can feature your SaaS business on another site. So you read an article with the list of top bloggers in your niche. BuzzStream has a highlight tool that tells you which authors you are already in contact with and which ones are new.
This feature allows you to manage your connections easier and make the link-building process less stressful.
Improve Your Link-Building Strategy with SearchEye
SaaS link building can be challenging and time-consuming if you do not know where to begin. The process can be more overwhelming if you do not have enough content or if you are only a startup.
Fortunately for you, there are several link-building tools today that can address your SEO needs. With these tools, you will get your hands on relevant and high-quality links for your site.
If you want to improve your SaaS marketing and SEO strategy, SearchEye is the best tool for you. The brand’s unique offerings can solve the challenges you are facing in your SEO campaigns,
So reach out to SearchEye and get high-quality backlinks for your SaaS website today! We can effectively help you in every stage of your SEO campaign, from content creation to link building.
Need help building links to your site to increase your website’s authority? Schedule a free consultation with SearchEye today!
A resource page is a list of the most useful resources in your space. It includes links to blog posts, articles, slides, videos, products, tools, and other resource related to the website’s niche. These pages are a creative way of sharing and organizing information to provide a map of the topic.
A resource page is a library where all the useful content distributed across different websites is compiled. Done properly, these are helpful pages that boost user engagement, elevate your brand by demonstrating usefulness to your audience, and can also lead to partnership opportunities with the resources you’re sending users to.
There are several ways you can build a strong resources page, and we give you the templates and frameworks you can use to make sure your resources page achieves its goal.
Reasons to use a Resources Page Template on Your Website
You’re likely already familiar with the other types of pages on your website: product landing pages, the homepage, pricing pages, pages with functionality like calculators, and so on. Resource pages are different to each of these pages.
A resource page, also called a recommended links page, allows visitors to find useful and relevant resources. It serves as a useful reference page that generates value for web users. It lays down your recommended articles, ebooks, products, videos, blogs, and photos posted on other websites. By placing all relevant information on this important page, visitors understand the products and services you provide.
But there is still more than meets the eye. Here are the best reasons to integrate resource pages into your website.
Provides Value to Customers
Logic is important to visitors, so remember that they check out your website for a reason. They are looking for information or resources to help them solve a problem or satisfy their needs. You can share concise information with a great resources page, such as how-to or need-to-know blogs and other articles.
Makes for a Sticky Website
Resource pages may work better for first-time visitors. They may find information that they do not look for but that appears relevant and entertaining. They click the links and other resources to view other pages and return later to find more information, making them stick around your website.
Drives More Traffic to Your Site
A large number of users find a website through search engines. They may type keywords that may include your web in the search result, so resource pages with rich keywords are at a greater advantage. Meaning resource pages are your avenues to add content to your website and boost search traffic.
Types of Resource Pages With Samples
Now that you know why you need resource pages on your website, the next step is to learn their types and format them to gain more attention. Essentially, there are two main types of Resource Pages: the open and the gated resources page.
The open resource page is open to all web visitors. Resources can be accessed without restrictions or requirements, such as an account or email address. Meanwhile, the gated one is, of course, the opposite of this. Readers must provide personal information to access the resources, including an email address or a phone number.
Once deciding which kind of resources page works better, choosing and presenting topics is crucial. You may provide a lot of resources to attract users with different interests. You may post only a few so they will not get overwhelmed. Here are the types of resource pages to choose from:
One Topic on a Single Page
Single topic pages focus and delve into topics you often blog about. You may opt to use three topics for the resource pages to avoid posting hundreds, and visitors will not get overwhelmed. The Garden of Eating presents an excellent example of a single-page resource page. They zeroed in on food photography, providing various products needed to create magnificent images of dishes.
Start Here Page
The start here page guides new visitors through the information they need to understand your website better. It helps make them feel valued and be more aware as if resource pages are created for them.
The City of Victoria is an example of this resource page type. It provides links to sites people could click if they want to help in building back the city after the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
All Topic Page
This resource page type covers a broad range of topics to attract and provides tips to visitors of different backgrounds. This type makes the website a go-to source to get the most reliable information.
A perfect example of this is Weber State University. It presents all topics related to its website on a single page. Web visitors may find different video tutorials and playlists for their fitness sessions.
How to Format Attention-Grabbing Resource Page Templates
By now, you may already know what type of resource page template you need for your business. So the next thing on your mind is how to create one to draw in your target audience and make them stick around. Here are several pointers to consider:
Don’t forget to use these elements:
Subheadings for easier scanning
Images for visual appeal
Different text formatting to catch attention (bullets, numbered lists, or brief paragraphs)
The perfect combination of these elements can create a beautiful resource page design. It will entice readers more to check out for relevant information.
Create it for your audience
You and your audience may be using different tools, so you are a hundred steps ahead of them. The goal of your resources page must be helping them and vice versa. Otherwise, they will hardly understand what you can provide them, leading to high bounce rates.
Provide tools and products, even those connected to affiliate programs
Regardless of the platform, people visit websites for relevant resources. It is wise to add tools connected to affiliate programs. For example, a fitness coach creates a help section for various products, such as gear and food supplements.
Create Your Resource Page for Your Customers Now
Show your customers you care. Provide them with a resources page that serves them. Make it so that it answers their questions and solves their problems. This will make them come back for more.
A resource page done right will give you the repeat customers you want for your business. It will provide you with a website so sticky it will decrease your bounce rate considerably. This will lead to a better return on investment than you ever expected.
Visit SearchEye now to learn more about Resource Pages and get the kind of content that will make them stand out. Want a ton of link opportunities that will help strengthen your marketing efforts? We can help. Contact us today.
When it comes to content writing, it can be difficult for small businesses to assess quality. Does it come from length? Accuracy? Style and flair? These are all relevant factors, but optimizing content can be difficult to do independently.
This is why many content marketers rely on SEO software like Clearscope to aid in keyword research and content optimization. Keeping up with search engine optimization (SEO) trends is integral to improving your website rankings.
Forty-nine percent of respondents in a poll by Search Engine Journal reported that organic search brings in the highest return on investment. This placed organic search as the top digital marketing channel for marketers, followed by paid search, social media, and email marketing.
What Is Clearscope?
Clearscope (clearscope.io) is a content optimization and keyword research tool designed for digital marketing. It helps content creators and marketers optimize their content to perform better in search engines.
The SEO tool, founded in 2016 by Mushi Labs, uses IBM Watson Services to automate the content optimization process. It analyzes the top-performing content pieces for each keyword given, making it easier for marketing teams to create compelling and competitive content for their niche.
Clearscope helps speed up the content creation process, as content teams don’t need to manually find relevant keywords for each of their articles. This is very helpful as search engine ranking and search traffic are of high priority for content marketing.
How does Clearscope work?
Clearscope’s main event resides in its Optimize feature, which many companies use in their content marketing strategies. It provides relevant tools that help improve search engine rankings for businesses that use it.
To start using Clearscope’s Optimize feature, you simply need to type in the keyword you want to target and hit enter. The software will then parse through search engine results and generate a report for you.
The report will consist of a list of key terms that you can use to dictate the topics you cover. It will also include links to top-performing pieces of content for that keyword.
In one report, you get keyword recommendations and competitor analysis that can help you craft potentially high-ranking content. You also get a recommended word count typical of articles related to your target keyword.
The Optimize feature has a large text editor where you can write or paste in your article draft. Clearscope then analyzes the content of your article and assigns it a score considering readability, word count, and the number of relevant keywords it manages to hit. It also ranks your draft against the current top-ranking competitors.
Main Features of Clearscope
How does Clearscope help you create better-ranking and quality content? It has a wide array of features specifically designed with SEO in mind. Here are some of its key elements that can assist in streamlining your content creation and optimization process.
Topic and Keyword Research
Clearscope’s keyword reports help users save a lot of time and effort, especially for keyword research and conceptualization. Seeing what topics go with specific keywords can help writers make better and more comprehensive content that addresses their audience’s needs.
This feature is handy when working with clients and making pitches. Instead of spending hours researching an article that is yet to receive approval, you can use Clearscope to generate concepts and topics for approval quickly. This leaves writers plenty of time to craft and polish good quality content.
These reports also come with search volume data, which helps you prioritize specific keywords and topics that people are actually searching for.
Content Optimization
Optimization is Clearscope’s main claim to fame. Upon finishing your content draft and pasting it into their interface, the program analyzes your piece and gives it a letter grade assessing its quality. It then provides suggestions on how to improve your content.
The SaaS tool makes these assessments by checking other high-ranking articles your content would have to compete with. It makes suggestions regarding potential keywords, phrases, word count, and readability. These suggestions help increase the quality of your content.
The better you comply with their suggestions, the higher your grade. This, in turn, will help your content perform better in search engine rankings and increase website traffic.
Clearscope Support
The Clearscope support system is pretty straightforward. It consists of a single-page form on the website, accessible to anyone—Clearscope subscriber or not. It requests your name, email address, and your question or issue regarding their service.
Clearscope support agents often make responses within the same day, as long as it is within office hours. They will answer anything related to the service, be it an easy technical question on functionality (e.g., “How do I generate a Clearscope report?”), or something outside of the common concerns of clients.
Integrations
Most writers often already have a preferred program or application for writing. Clearscope integration helps writers get automatic feedback without visiting the Clearscope website.
So far, however, Clearscope only has an integration plugin for Google Docs and WordPress. They do not have integrations yet for other platforms and word processors. If you wish to write or edit on other platforms, you can copy and paste your content between Clearscope and the platform of your choice.
Still, the integration Clearscope does have with Google Docs and WordPress is pretty solid. It allows writers to see their content score and keyword recommendations in a sidebar within their document. This feature allows users to do the writing and optimization processes at the same time, speeding up the workflow.
Ease of Use
Clearscope’s user interface definitely makes it shine. It has clearly-labelled sections that guide users intuitively through the screen. The site clearly organizes the information you need into relevant tabs, making them easy to access and explore. Each section loads fast (or all at once), minimizing wait times.
Its main features are well within sight. You can see checkmarks appear beside keywords you hit. You can see your content score’s progress bar move and change colours depending on your article’s optimization.
You can also write directly on Clearscope, minimizing the need for copying and pasting from one word processor to another. It has a few of the relevant formatting tools you may need when drafting a piece of content.
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Pros of Clearscope
You probably already have a pretty good understanding of Clearscope and what it does. It has a solid set of features that can be very helpful for businesses.
Many of its clients attest to its benefits, as it is very helpful for content teams everywhere. Here are some of the top reasons Clearscope may be the perfect content optimization tool for you.
Saves Time
Content creation can be tedious and time-consuming, especially when considering client specifications and SEO requirements. Content writers may have to go through several rewrites to produce something of quality while adhering to content optimization best practices.
Clearscope’s content reports and keyword suggestions help cut down the time needed to do these things. Writers don’t have to spend hours doing content research and finding the right keywords for pitches that are yet to receive approval.
This tool helps writers and marketers get a lot more done within a given amount of time. It aids in the ideation, writing, and optimization of content, thus streamlining the content creation process for the individuals and teams that use it.
Helps Produce Better-Optimized Content
Every digital marketer knows the importance of SEO. However, creating SEO-friendly content can be pretty complex, requiring several steps to complete.
Content writers may prioritize style and readability, which are also standards for quality content. However, a piece of content that reads well doesn’t necessarily mean that it is SEO-friendly. Meanwhile, SEO experts can put in the right keywords, but too many in the wrong placements can make content clunky or awkward to read.
Clearscope helps writers find the right balance between content and SEO performance through its reports and suggestions. It helps integrate the writing and optimization processes, allowing for both SEO-friendly and well-written content.
Real-Time Content Grading
Upon opening Clearscope’s optimize page, you can see a list of suggested terms or keywords on the right-hand side. Once you write or paste your content into the text field, the software immediately gets to work. You can see your draft’s content grade on the page’s sidebar within seconds.
If you make any changes to your copy, the content grade also adjusts. Adding a relevant term or keyword would help increase your grade and tick a little box beside the keyword, almost like a checklist.
This feature allows you to track your progress and get an immediate look at how your content would perform in search engine rankings. It also makes standards easier to communicate, especially when your writing and optimization processes involve more than one person.
Offers Insights on Competitor Performance
Although you can make independent content assessments for quality, it can be challenging to determine how your content would stack up against competitors.
Clearscope helps you get a clear view of other content pieces within the same niche. It generates content reports by parsing through the different search results for your target keyword. Here, you can see the top-performing pieces of content that you may have to contend with.
Aside from showing you your competitors, Clearscope also gives them a content grade, much like what you receive. As you optimize your content and increase your grade, you’d then have a pretty good idea of how your content compares to what’s already out there.
Improves Organic Traffic
Better-optimized and SEO-friendly content helps your website rank higher on search engines. SEO is no longer an afterthought for many companies, with 69 percent of marketers investing in an SEO strategy in 2021.
Clearscope helps your business get tangible results through better SEO. For example, Optimizely, an experimentation platform based in the United States, achieved a 53 percent increase in organic traffic by following Clearscope’s content recommendations.
Most consumers use search engines to find services and items they might find interesting. The higher you rank in these web searches, the more likely you will attract new customers. Clearscope has earned its reputation by giving businesses great results in these aspects.
Cons of Clearscope
Every organization has different needs and ways of doing things. What might work for some may be inappropriate or lacking for others.
Despite Clearscope’s many benefits, it might not be the best choice for some companies. Here are some areas where Clearscope might fall a little bit short compared to other content optimization tools in the market.
High Cost
A Clearscope subscription is not cheap. It starts at the Essentials tier, which costs $170 per month. With this plan, users can only generate 20 content reports a month. The Professional tier costs $350 a month, which increases the content report cap to 50.
Clearscope is a beneficial tool, but these prices are likely inaccessible for freelancers or small businesses to sustain. Clearscope is still pretty unique for the most part, but other tools such as Ahrefs and MarketMuse provide similar services at a fraction of the price.
With its pricing at the higher end, Clearscope is most suitable for established businesses with a high enough income to justify the pricing. If you’re just starting with content optimization, it might be best to try out other tools in the meantime.
Limited Integrations
At the moment, Clearscope only has integrations for Google Docs and WordPress. These word processing and blogging platforms are already quite popular, but they might not be the ones you use for your business.
For example, if you wish to write on Microsoft Word or your content editor wants to make edits on Grammarly, you’d have to copy and paste your content back and forth between the programs. This extra step might not be ideal for streamlining your content optimization process.
Limited Customer Support
Clearscope does provide adequate customer support. However, they only issue responses during office hours, Monday to Friday, between 9 am and 6 pm CST.
Upon making an inquiry, you’d also have to expect to wait a few hours for a response. Although not awful, this type of support can fall short compared to other tools. And especially in an industry that relies heavily on deadlines and timeliness, late response times can be problematic.
The official Clearscope website also lacks a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page, which could be a helpful resource to get timely answers and minimize the workload of Clearscope’s customer support staff.
Content Report Cap
Unless you contact Clearscope for a custom plan with custom pricing, regular subscribers can only get from 20 to 50 content reports a month.
If your business focuses extensively on creating and optimizing content, these numbers can be very limiting. Twenty to 50 content reports aren’t a lot, especially if you need to produce lots of content on a regular basis.
If you consider the prices you have to pay as well, the costs can run pretty high. If you really want to use Clearscope for your business operations, make sure you can justify the costs for the services you will get.
Limited Features
Clearscope does many things well, but it isn’t an all-in-one content production tool. It is missing a lot of features and add-ons that other tools within a similar (or lower) price range could provide.
It isn’t capable of providing content briefs, assigning production tasks, or giving authoritative access to more than three or ten people at a time. This factor can be limiting for larger teams or companies.
The only way to give multiple people access to content reports is by sharing the link. Although mostly adequate, you might need to rely on other tools or software to track employees’ activity on Clearscope accurately.
Another feature that could make Clearscope better is providing link-building recommendations and automated website audits. Some of its competitors offer these services at a lower cost.
Plans & Pricing
Clearscope is a very useful and effective tool for businesses everywhere. Its clients consistently rave about its excellent service and good return on investment. However, its pricing is admittedly on the higher end compared to other similar tools in the market. Here is Clearscope’s current pricing plan.
Plan
Features
Price
Essentials
Three user seats
20 content report credits a month
100 keyword discovery credits a month
Integrations with WordPress and Google Docs
Support for five languages
$170/month
Professional
All features included in Essentials
10 user seats
50+ content credits a month
250+ keyword discovery credits a month
$350/month
Enterprise
All features included in Professional
Custom credits and user seats
Custom Google top-level domains (TLDs)
Custom pricing
Final Words on Clearscope as a Content Writing SEO Tool
Clearscope is one of the most prominent keyword search and content optimization tools in the industry today. It uses IBM technology to browse through various websites and search engine results, recognizing patterns and best practices. The data Clearscope collects and presents helps businesses create competitive and compelling content.
The entire SEO writing process can take quite a bit of time. From ideation, drafting, and polishing, creating quality content that also performs well in search engines can be quite challenging. There are a lot of factors to consider, such as style, accuracy, and keyword usage.
Clearscope’s automated process allows content creators and businesses to create quality, well-performing content in a much shorter time frame. It helps make the content creation workflow more streamlined and efficient.
Need to Learn More? Contact SearchEye Today!
Nowadays, digital marketing is becoming more of a necessity for most businesses. Crafting an effective content strategy can be challenging with the responsibility it takes to run a business. This is especially true for small enterprises with a limited staff.
SearchEye helps take this concern out of your hands. With its easy onboarding process and point-and-click ordering, you can get optimized content and reliable backlinks for your business at any time.
You can request various articles and receive expert advice from our team. We aim to help businesses like yours thrive through excellent content. Contact us today if you want to learn more or make your first order.
Content marketing can provide advertisers with a wide range of benefits. According to a 2021 report, roughly 56 percent of bloggers say that blogging is an effective strategy. Additionally, 10 percent of the respondents note that the tactic produces the biggest return on investment (ROI).
But, to reap these benefits, writers must optimize the quality of their content. And, if you are running a team, improving every member’s writing skills on an individual basis can take time, effort, and patience.
Luckily, there are content creation tools for search engine optimization (SEO) to help your company produce high-quality posts. Read on to discover the best tools that can support your content writing team today.
Recommended
SearchEye
SearchEye is an SEO solution that offers a universal view of keyword usage on your website. It provides simple adjustments that can improve a site’s traffic and click rates.
There are several types of SEO content that brands use to boost their visibility. Below are some of them:
1. Blog Posts
Copywriting can be an easy way to generate a consistent stream of effective SEO content. Blog posts, which usually use a friendly and lively tone in providing information, are good at attracting links. This makes them efficient in building your site authority.
Additionally, blogging is a flexible strategy that lets you host any type of content.
2. Product Pages
Product pages serve as the bread and butter of modern e-commerce sites. They can function as a pay-per-click (PPC) landing page and SEO content.
3. Articles
Articles can be news, interviews, or feature pieces. It is the primary type of content you’ll find on news and magazine sites.
4. Guides
A guide is a long piece of content that outlines how to accomplish something. The topic has to be relevant to your audience. For example, if you offer SEO services, you can post an SEO marketing guide.
This type of content is often divided into multiple web pages. But, for some sites, it can be smarter to have visitors view long content as a single page if they want.
You can write a complete guide on your website and post them as it is. Another option is to post a summary or an excerpt of the manual then require site visitors to register to read the full post.
This tactic can help your brand generate leads. But doing this can also reduce the amount of SEO traffic you can drive to that particular guide.
5. Infographics
Infographics are large-format images that highlight data in the form of graphs or charts. Generally, it tackles a single topic relevant to the site’s audience.
An infographic can help you rack up a lot of links and page views. Because most content in an infographic is embedded in an image, however, search engines cannot read what’s written in them as text. To address this problem, you need to carefully optimize the other areas of the page.
6. Listicle
A listicle is a type of article framed as a list. These are contents with titles like “10 Ways to Reduce Your Energy Bill” or “101 Things Google Needs to Change.”
The list format of the article makes it easier for readers to scan. This type of content is more engaging when you use them on social media sites.
7. Videos
Depending on the kind of company you have, videos can be an effective way to attract and reach an audience. Try creating short but helpful video tutorials on how to use your products. You can also create a video about a process related to your business.
For example, if you offer construction services, you can post a video showing how to determine the structural integrity of buildings. If you are a plumber, you can make a video teaching viewers how to unclog a sink.
Remember to include text transcripts in your videos. Doing this can help drive SEO traffic to a particular post.
8. Slideshows
A slideshow displays a series of related images and videos. Like videos and infographics, this type of content needs optimized texts, like titles, captions, and image file names. They can help give search engines something to read and recommend.
9. Glossaries
Now that phones are handier than a dictionary, people use their mobile devices to look up unfamiliar terms. This is why having a glossary on your website can be helpful.
If you are a part of a specialized industry, having a glossary with a list of well-defined terms on your website can effectively boost search traffic. It is helpful for entrepreneurs in various sectors, including fashion, finance, architecture, medicine, and even cooking.
10. Directories
A directory serves as a helpful taxonomy of links to resources or sites around a given topic. For example, a blog about perfumes and colognes might create a directory of places where people can buy them, from major stores to independent shops around the country.
These are only some of the most common types of SEO content available today. But remember to not limit yourself to only these when creating content online. Do not be scared to experiment and explore. The possibilities are virtually endless.
Importance of Content Writing Tools in SEO
Digital marketers today need to make data-driven decisions about which keywords to target. They need to know how long each blog post or article should be. They have to be aware of what to include in the content.
Aside from looking at spelling and grammar, digital marketers need to create content accessible to searchers. It should be easy to find and must be trustworthy. That means advertisers need to optimize things like meta-tags and URLs.
With effective content writing tools for SEO, digital advertisers can automate these requirements. In some cases, SEO tools can even reduce the time it takes to complete optimization tasks.
How SEO Writing Tools Can Help
Today, it is not enough for you to create high-quality content. Without proper optimization, your posts will not rank on search engines consistently.
However, high-quality SEO writing at a reasonable pace can be a challenging feat. To help in this effort, you can use content writing tools for SEO.
These tools can help you find the perfect topics to write about. With these SEO writing solutions, you will have the highest possible chance of coming up with content that your audience will take the time to read.
This advantage is only one of the several benefits that today’s digital marketers can get from using these tools. Read on to know more about how SEO writing tools can help you optimize your content.
Topic Selection and Research
Keyword research or topic selection is one of the most crucial tasks when planning and creating online content. The keywords and topics you should be paying attention to depend on various factors, including the nature of your business and your site’s authority.
Generally, you want to look for long-tail keywords with low to medium competition but can attract enough clicks to your site to make it worth writing for.
Several SEO tools can help you determine topics for your article. Remember, using tools that estimate traffic volume for a particular keyword suggestion can be difficult. You need to determine if there is an active interest in a specific keyword and if it has other related keywords.
Outlining, Writing, and Editing
Outlining your post and setting the correct order of sections can be a crucial step that affects the success of your article. Additionally, the outline can also influence your overall writing progress.
One tip to remember when outlining an article is using a mind map or illustrating the connections between concepts in your head.
An outline is essential because it functions as your guide once you write the article. It also ensures that you do not leave out anything crucial in your post.
Before you write, you may get a content brief about the topic you will write about. The document includes relevant data like questions and links to top-ranking articles on Google. The purpose of the file is to help you write the article and guide your writing.
If you have a content brief, you need to incorporate the elements of the document into your outline. After you are done with a detailed outline, you can move on to the next stage: writing the article.
There are SEO content writing tools that can help you in this stage. The best solutions you can use will largely depend on your writing style. Some writers prefer to dictate articles, while others write the body of the post first before coming up with the introduction and conclusion.
Today, several artificial intelligence (AI) writing assistants have appeared on the market. The solutions make grand promises about the final results they can deliver.
But remember, there’s no substitute for writing the article and doing SEO optimization yourself. You can always use the tools recommended in this article to support your research.
After writing the article, you can move on to editing. Note that there are two crucial stages of editing. The first phase is rough editing, where you work to get the article in good shape to proceed with the final draft.
The second stage is improving the grammar, spelling, and the article’s readability. You can use the Hemingway Editor, an online grammar checker, to spot mistakes in your post. You should also look for a plagiarism checker to ensure your draft is original.
Even if you are working with an editor, you can always self-edit to make their job easier. To help you edit your article, you can use free tools online to detect grammar and spelling mistakes.
Content Optimization
After editing, you need to optimize your content. This stage is all about making sure that search engines will have no trouble finding your article.
Today, the most popular search engine is, of course, Google. It is vital that the keyword density is optimal without stuffing too many keywords in your content.
You should avoid keyword stuffing at all costs as it could lead to a search penalty. Instead of improving your chances of ranking higher, it will decrease them.
It is recommended to use content optimization tools towards the end of the article creation process. If you wrote a well-researched and well-written post, optimization could be as easy as inserting a few relevant keywords in your article.
Publishing
It can be time-consuming and tedious to link in and out of your articles when you publish them. Luckily, content writing for SEO tools can support you in this step.
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Reviews of the Best Content Writing Tools for SEO
Content optimization can be a walk in the park if you are equipped with the best tools that can make the process easier. However, there are hundreds of solutions to choose from, making it challenging for writers to pick the one that suits them.
To help address this challenge, we’ve compiled a list of popular content writing tools for SEO today. Read on to know the pros and cons of each and discover the best solution for you.
SearchEye
SearchEye is a content writing tool that can help users visualize how keywords affect each element of their web page and website. The tool detects areas where you can make adjustments and add keywords to tags to optimize your content better.
Below are some of SearchEye’s offerings:
Link building: SearchEye removes the need for consultations and allows you to pick the SEO deliverables that best fit your brand’s needs.
Content ordering: SearchEye has a team of writers who can create high-quality content with a focus on SEO. Each article includes a comprehensive guide outline. Options for Clearscope optimization and editing by a Subject Matter Expert (SME) are also available.
SEO deliverables: SearchEye allows users to outsource tedious and time-consuming content optimization tasks. The tool can address specific SEO requests, including audits, keyword research, content outlines, FAQs, and product hunt launches.
Pros
Cons
Point and click ordering
The SearchEye website is still new; development is ongoing
Minimal onboarding
Pricing and FAQs are only accessible if you sign in
Real-time updates
The price for Searcheye’s keyword optimization starts at $79 per keyword. This package includes content recommendations, meta tags suggestions, and FAQs.
The company also offers competitor analysis worth $1000 per domain. The firm can also help develop your SEO strategy for $1500 per deliverable. For this price, SearchEye can evaluate your website, your space on Google, and your competitors.
If you need to expand your brand’s digital footprint, Searcheye provides link-building services starting at $75 per package. Custom orders are worth $100.
Clearscope
Clearscope is a helpful keyword research content optimization solution for online creators. The tool aims to help users produce content that Google search will find relevant.
The content optimization tool uses IBM Watson services to automate and speed up SEO research and content optimization. It achieves this feat by analyzing articles that search engines rank the highest.
To use Clearscope, you only need to type your target keyword and run a report on the platform. Then, the tool provides a list of key terms, topics, and competitors that are currently ranking for that term.
With this tool, you can outline the scope of work and decide what topics to write about. It also helps you determine how long your article should be.
Additionally, Clearscope scores an article based on various factors, like word count, search volume, and readability. Then, it ranks your newly written content against the top competitors. The report will recommend keywords that can improve your score.
With Clearscope, you can ensure that your piece can be essential to your searchers. You can also boost website traffic by publishing relevant content consistently.
Pros
Cons
Easy and Practical
It’s challenging to determine where the keywords go
Helps you generate more traffic to your blogs
Expensive
Helps you create quality blogs
Has some issues with UI
Clearscope plans begin at $350 a month for the content optimization and keyword research tool. The plan includes up to 50 reports a month for a maximum of three users and it supports five languages: German, English, Spanish, French, and Italian.
If you are from a large organization, you can purchase an agency or enterprise plan, including a Whitelabel feature. It allows you to send reports to clients under your company’s branding.
SurferSEO
Surfer SEO functions as an on-page data-based SEO tool. Developers designed the solution to provide users with more information and save time in their SEO tasks.
The tool allows you to conduct a technical SEO audit and compare your content to competitors. With Surfer, you can compare various elements, including word count, backlinks, and keywords. It saves hours by automating what previously was a manual process.
Surfer can perform more than 500 ranking factors in its analysis. It can also inform you what related topics, content, and keywords you should use for your article.
Pros
Cons
Easy to use
Has no image editing features
Perfect for collaboration
The content briefs can be improved
It’s innovative
Design choice may be improved
Surfer SEO offers a $29 per month Hobby plan with a search engine results page (SERP) analyzer tool. But it does not include certain metrics, like domain score. You will get a 20 percent discount for paying annually, depending on the plan you choose.
MarketMuse
MarketMuse provides an impressive suite of tools designed to help you understand what topics to focus on so you can compete with the best-performing content for a given keyword.
The solution uses AI and machine learning (ML) to scan articles related to your target keyword. It looks for questions searchers are asking about a particular subject. Then, it gives actionable recommendations for optimizing your content to make it more relevant to readers.
Pros
Cons
Helps in finding the identifying topics and intent
Clunky and confusing UI
High keyword accuracy
Expensive
Easy to use and navigate
Bad explainer videos
The standard plan costs $149 per month and it supports 100 queries every month as well as unlimited projects. If this plan is above your budget, you can get the free version that offers 15 queries per month and supports 10 projects.
Frase
Frase is an AI-based content solution that provides two main products: Content and Answers.
The former is an SEO tool that identifies the questions your target readers are asking. The solution automatically generates in-depth content briefs. Additionally, it offers suggestions to optimize your content, which can improve your SERP ranking.
Meanwhile, Frase Answers is an AI chatbot that analyzes your entire website to develop an intelligent knowledge base. With the tool, you have someone who answers your site visitors’ questions at any time of the day. The primary goal is to improve user experience and give you more time to focus on other tasks.
Frase is a solution designed to help you create SEO-friendly content while also improving website content.
Pros
Cons
Gives valuable insight into what you are missing in your content
Has trouble understanding British English
Helps you create AI templates
Has problems in organizing topics
Provides the type of questions that users ask when searching for a topic
Slow load time
Frase offers three plans at different prices: solo for $19.99 a month, basic for $44.99 a month, and team for $114.99.
Dashword
Dashword is an online content optimization tool designed to improve the organic traffic of clients’ websites. The solution offers a comprehensive list of relevant topics that you need to include to improve your articles’ SERP rankings.
You can also use Dashword to compare top-ranking articles and adjust accordingly. The tool can help you produce great content by having questions and answers that your readers mostly search for.
Aside from working as an SEO content optimization software, the powerful tool can also function as a meta description generator.
Pros
Cons
Easy and convenient to use
Slow to generate reports
Helps you create a semantic network
Pricing for Dashword starts at $39 a month. This plan includes five natural language processing (NLP) reports per month, content briefs, content monitoring features, and three user seats.
RankIQ
RankIQ uses AI to inform you what to address in your blog posts. With this tool, you can write perfectly optimized content faster and without difficulties.
Additionally, the solution offers a hand-picked library of the lowest competition high-traffic keywords for over 200 blog niches. RankIQ has a team of keyword research experts to help you create posts that are relevant to searchers.
Pros
Cons
Easy to use
Not integrated to WordPress
Excellent customer service
Some topics are not covered in-depth
Helps users increase their topic
Does not show recommended frequency or density of topics
Unfortunately, the RankIQ website does not provide any pricing details.
SEMRush Content Assistant
SEMRush Content Assistant is an SEO writing solution that integrates with other SEMRush tools. It provides you with access to over 20 billion relevant keywords. It is also equipped with a competitor website tracker.
Users in 130 countries can use the Content Assistant’s social media monitoring and campaign management features.
Pros
Cons
Easy and straightforward to use
Shows too many words as a target
Excellent readability and plagiarism check
Subscription limits apply for some checks
Works with WordPress
Shallow on-page analysis
SEMRush is available in three paid versions: pro, guru, and business. The pro plan costs $119.95 per month, the guru version is at $229.95 every month, and the business version is available for $449.95 monthly.
Clickflow
Clickflow brands itself as content optimization software. It aims to improve the performance of a user’s existing content.
This feature makes it somewhat unique in the landscape of SEO solutions. There are several keyword research and link building tools available today. But there are only a few platforms focused on on-site optimization like Clickflow.
Pros
Cons
AB testing
Not beneficial to startups
Content management
Keyword rank tracking
The Clickflow Starter plan is available for $109 per month. It comes with various features, including content decay, content editor, meta title testing, and change monitoring.
It also has a professional plan that offers keyword research, content refresh optimization, and monthly analysis. The price for this plan is available upon request.
PageOptimizer Pro
PageOptimizer Pro (POP) functions as an on-page SEO platform that can help you develop perfectly optimized pages for search engines.
The tool uses a US-patented ranking factor scoring system to inform you of crucial details to optimize on your page. With POP, you can get more site traffic and improve your article’s SERP rankings.
Pros
Cons
NLP Reporting
Expensive
Great reporting tools
Lower tiers have limited features
Supports integration with Google Sheets
Limited report credits
The basic price starts at $22 monthly, with 12 reports included. After going through all 12, additional reports cost $1.65 each. Unlimited reports cost $44 a month.
seoClarity
seoClarity is an AI-enabled SEO platform that can give you insights into various SEO metrics. It aims to improve your online presence and help you reach your target audience.
The solution allows you to manage data downloading and extraction while enabling competitor comparison. seoClarity also supports viewing of ranking information.
Pros
Cons
Great customer service
Rankings are not live
Very responsive to features requested by clients
UI needs to be improved
Powerful workflow feature
Onboarding new clients might be an issue
If you need the essentials now but may want more capabilities from your SEO tool in the future, you can buy the seoClarity essential plan for $750 per month.
Meanwhile, if you have a small to medium-sized SEO team, you may want to get the core plan available for $3000 monthly. The seoClarity professional plan for global SEO teams is worth $4500 a month.
Searchmetrics
Searchmetrics is an SEO optimization solution that evaluates competitors and gives you relevant insights about peers in your industry.
With this tool, you will have a domain, subdomain, directory, and URL levels of data on hand. The research feature identifies keywords that can reel in new visitors and land you loyal customers.
Searchmetrics can help you deliver content that is relevant to people in your target market. It underscores topics that can transform curious visitors into brand ambassadors. It also compares your content strategy with your competitor’s tactics, which can help inform critical business decisions.
Pros
Cons
Makes content success a regular event
The keyword tool does not suggest alternate search terms
Drives audience engagement with relevance
The user interface can be improved
Boosts your content quality in real-time
Does not sort certain table columns
Unfortunately, Searchmetrics does not post pricing information on its website. You may need to call for a demo to learn the best plan and rate that suits your business.
The Bottom Line
These are the content writing tools for SEO you can try to help optimize your blog posts and other online content. These tools come with pros and cons that can affect their effectiveness in helping you reach your goals, so be sure to do your research before making a decision.
Understand what your company needs and learn what you need to improve when it comes to SEO. Doing this can make it easier for you to find a solution that can resolve the challenges your SEO team is facing.
So, reach out to SearchEye today and address all your SEO needs with ease! With the help of our SEO specialists, you are sure to skyrocket your rankings and boost site traffic faster and with zero difficulties.
Book a demo with SearchEye to learn more about how we can improve your current SEO content writing strategies.
Everything you need to know to dominate in local search. Includes more on citations, on-site optimization, content marketing, and Digital PR. Everything you need to know to dominate in local search.
In the offline world, we often look up to people who have a lot of connections. You get more respect if you have contacts with well-known people. In the online world, such relationships are called links. Links are slightly different from personal connections. Let’s understand how. When a website links back to your site, you get one link.
It means your website got one new connection. Search engines like Google see your website as a trustworthy and authoritative resource if you have more such links.
Chapter 2
Why is Link-Building Essential for SEO
Links are a signal to Google that your website is a reputable online asset—thus, it’s a critical search ranking factor. With Google’s PageRank Algorithm, the search engine started giving importance to sites linked to a page.
Here are some interesting facts about the importance of link-building:
SEO experts say the third most important factor for search optimization is external linking. (Databox)
More links help get you more search rankings, more referral traffic, and more leads for your business. The search engines use links to learn more about web pages:
The merit of its content.
To determine their topical relevance.
It’s a way that Google finds new web pages.
Are all backlinks equal? No. The search engines qualify links on the following parameters:
Content optimization and authority level of linking sites.
Authority and trust level of a site linking to your site.
The anchor text of an inbound link.
The text surrounding the link.
The placement of the link in the text – the higher up, the better.
The Penguin update ensured that businesses could no longer ignore link-quality. If you generate a backlink from an authority site in your niche, it gives a positive signal about your site. Let’s learn more about the nature of a high-quality backlink.
What is the difference between inbound and outbound links in SEO?
An inbound link or also referred to as a back link is a hyperlink on a third-party web page that points to a web page on your site. Whereas, outbound links are links that are meant to take you elsewhere. These are links that are going to direct you to another specific webpage or different website altogether.
Is it possible to increase my search traffic without building links?
You can increase your website traffic without doing any link building and without violating any Google webmaster guidelines by concentrating on less risky and easier ways that will also lay the foundation for long term success. However, it may not be easy to improve your Google ranking without link building, especially when you’ve been trained to believe that links are the only currency of the web.
What is an editorial link?
An editorial link is a link that results from a site having good content and marketing techniques. Editorial links are not paid for or directly requested, as with acquired links. Editorial links are important for a strong link profile.
Chapter 3
What is High-Quality Backlink?
If a niche website with high domain authority links to your site, it’s considered a high-quality backlink. Such links come from sites that are trusted by online searchers and search engines—they are leaders in the online world. In essence, if these figureheads are linking to your site, then your site must be worthy of attention and trust.
Did you know?
65% of marketers measure their link quality by looking at their domain authority. Meanwhile, marketers also use domain ratings (48%) and page authority (36%) to determine link quality. (Aira)
According to Google’s Search Quality Rater Guidelines, a site’s content must be expert, authoritative, and trustworthy (E-A-T) to be qualified as high quality. If you’re getting a link from such a quality site, it would carry a lot more significance and will be more valuable.
If you earn high-quality backlinks:
You won’t have to worry about losing your search rankings to another Google Algorithm update.
It won’t just fetch you higher search rankings but also an impeccable online reputation.
You’ll get a stream of passive traffic back to your site. Such visits will be relevant to your business and help boost sales.
What is Domain Authority and Page Authority?
In simple terms, Domain Authority is a metric that calculates a website’s thought leadership. The search engines use this metric to understand whether your website can produce expert content in a particular niche. That’s how they rate different niche websites. Domain Authority is a score between 0 to 100 that was developed by Moz. The metric is based on factors like the total number of links and linking root domains.
Page Authority is a metric that measures the power of individual website pages. When you get links to a specific website page, it’s Page Authority goes up. Working on the Page Authority of different website pages helps you improve the Domain Authority of your site.
Now that you have a basic idea of quality backlinks and why they are so critical to SEO success let’s get deeper insights into the concept. Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the types of links that are worthy of your time and effort.
Follow vs. No-Follow Backlinks—What you Need to Know
All relationships in the real world aren’t counted equally; it’s the same in the online world. Search engines keep track of all of your site’s inbound links. Each site with many links gets more points or ‘link juice’ which then adds to its authority. But some inbound links won’t bring ‘link juice’; why? Because the site’s webmaster chose to give you a no-follow attribute. Here’s how it looks:
Such an attribute signals the search engines that they need not follow a link. Does that mean that you should be aiming to get only ‘Follow’ links?
Well, ‘Follow’ links should be a priority for an SEO professional. But getting No-Follow links from quality sites could do a world of good to your business.
In fact,
48% of marketers report on “no-follow” links as part of their process. (Aira)
They fetch relevant referral traffic and improve a business’s visibility and improve direct site traffic.
Is the Link Natural and Editorial?
Whether it’s connections with people or links from websites, you’ll get caught if you fake it. Many SEO professionals make the mistake of acquiring links through manipulative and spammy tactics. You should remember that:
Unnatural links are as good as no links.
When your website page or a content piece fits into another site’s content, it’s a natural link.
“Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.”
Displaying a healthy link profile is about being authentic. It’s about creating value-driven content that has the potential to attract links from notable sites.
Anchor Text of the Link
Each link comes with a clickable text called anchor text. Some links may come with an exact keyword anchor, while others may have a similar phrase.
The anchor text can be an exact match, a branded term, a partial match or a random phrase. Why does anchor text matter? Google uses anchor text to understand the context of the link.
Google employs several techniques to improve search quality, including page rank, anchor text, and proximity information. – Source
An anchor text is something that displays a page’s topical relevance. You can target exact match anchor texts for your links, but that’s not mandatory. A partial match or a similar phrase anchor text is also a worthy way to fetch a backlink.
After Google’s Penguin and Hummingbird bird updates, you want to showcase context and try to rank multiple similar search-terms. The goal should be to use a relevant anchor text that conveys the content of the resource. Using exact keyword anchors that aren’t relevant to your content is a spammy practice, and that’s why you should refrain from it.
Things to Avoid
When trying to build a healthy link profile, here are some things that you should steer clear of:
Purchasing links at scale: It’s hard to decipher if a link is bought or organically earned if you. But search engines prohibit buying and selling of links. A better way is not to rely on this link-building method.
Link exchange: Reciprocal linking should not be a big deal unless you’re doing it on a large scale. That’s when your site runs the risk of getting penalized. If you’re swapping links, make sure the process is legitimate and value-driven.
The overall idea of high-quality link-building is to develop strong relationships with niche websites—offer them utility through great content, so they’re happy to link to your site. Let’s learn more about it in the next section.
Chapter 4
Content-Driven Link-Building—How to Earn Quality Links
Today, content is a powerful way to build links for your business. Here are some creative content marketing techniques that earn coveted links from high-authority websites.
Publish Infographics
There’s no doubt that an infographic is a fantastic educational content format.
According to HubSpot, infographics are liked and shared on social media 3x more than any other content type.
According to Search Engine Journal, an infographic is 30 times more likely to be read than a text article.
You can use trending statistics and studies to put together an insightful infographic. Here is an example of a Map-o-graphic that got more than 200 backlinks:
Next, you need to spread a word about the content pieces, and it will soon get picked up by niche websites. Make sure to generate an embed code for your infographic.
You can use a tool like Siege Media’s Embed Code Generator to generate the embed code—makes it easy for prospects to embed the infographic into their website.
Create Roundup Articles
Many businesses use this creative way to earn links to their website. Producing an expert round-up is a terrific way to build connections with niche experts. When you curate a round-up, you’re adding tremendous value to your audience.
The best part is that the experts contributing to your round-up may want to talk about the feature on their press page and give you a link. They might even link to the piece in one of their upcoming blog posts.
Write Guest Posts
One of the most common ways to earn editorial links for your business is to write guest posts. Many good publications and niche blogs are hungry for expert content. If you can offer them content that meets their guidelines, you have a chance to get your site a link.
Make sure you understand each website’s content style before you go out there to send your pitch. Within your guest post, you can include a natural link back to one of your resource pages or blog posts. Plus, you’ll get a website homepage link in the Author Bio section below the article content.
Guest posts work well to help establish niche authority and get quality links. Guest posts also offer a way to develop a long-term relationship with site editors—you can become a regular contributor to some prominent publications in your industry and bag more links pointing at your site.
Publish Original Research
One of the things that can get you to become an authority in your niche is original research. It’s a content format that digs deep into an industry’s problems and comes back with useful insights. Take a look at this State of Webinars report by ClickMeeting.
Be it yearly ‘state of the industry’ reports or market surveys, primary research is a content format devoured by journalists and influencers. The report from ClickMeeting managed to get 2k backlinks.
That’s precisely why this content format is a treasure trove of links and brand mentions.
Long-Form Blog Content
As a marketing professional, you must be aware of terms like pillar content and sky-scraper blog posts. Such blog posts aim to clear the air on every possible question that an audience has on a given topic. Besides increasing website dwell time, such posts attract links! That’s because publications and bloggers want to add more value to their audience.
Did you know?
Long-form content gets an average of 77.2% more links than short articles. Therefore, long-form content appears to be ideal for backlink acquisition. (Backlinko)
Information-rich, long-form content pieces come across as resources that deserve to be linked. You can create giant five thousand word guides or ebooks, or knowledge-packed listicles; all of these are excellent content formats for attracting quality links.
Embrace Video Content
When speaking of engaging content formats, video is number one on any list. It is estimated that the average person will spend 100 minutes every day watching online videos in 2021. That’s not all; studies show that it’s one of the most effective content formats for building backlinks.
Video content works well for link-building because they’re user-friendly and highly shareable. For building links, businesses can look at creating a variety of video content types:
Explainer and how-to videos
Video infographics
Video case studies and customer testimonials
Besides putting them up on YouTube, don’t forget to embed videos to landing pages and blog posts. You can even publish an educational video as a blog post by adding a transcription below the actual video. Videos make your web-pages a lot more enticing, and that’s how they help attract quality links. A video engages the audience to create a page worthy of their attention, making the page a highly valuable and linkable resource.
Online Calculators and Tools
Are you getting sleepless nights trying to build links for your business? Try this method if you want to sit back and see your link tally soar.
No kidding. If you’re creating a free online assessment, calculator, tool or template, you could build thousands of links from a single linkable asset.
Such pieces of free interactive content pieces are highly linkable. You need to figure out the challenges faced by your audience and offer a free solution.
Coined Terms
If you’re an industry expert, you can coin terms like ‘skyscraper technique’ (Brian Dean) or ‘inbound marketing’ (HubSpot). The term usually conveys a methodology that you may have developed through years of industry experience.
It may not be the easiest way to create a linkable asset, but a useful one.
What to do when you have coined a term and talked about it in a blog post?
Create an alert in Ahrefs and find articles using the same or similar phrases.
Reach out to those sites and request them to link to you.
You can promote the coined term by using it in multiple content pieces such as blog posts, guest posts, and social media updates.
You’ll also find that many bloggers are already linking to your content piece while referring to the said phrase. The single blog post from HubSpot got over 23k backlinks.
Chapter 5
Building Links Through Email Outreach
Many businesses are producing valuable content assets. All of them don’t end up with an equal number of links. Why? That’s because you need to go out there and spread the word about your link-worthy content. Plus, build some relationships with bloggers and publication editors.
If you don’t know how it all works, read further to learn about how you can look for the right prospects and build relationships with the help of an effective outreach campaign.
Find The Right Link Prospects
Scrap SERP Results
One of the primary ways is to find relevant content opportunities in Google’s SERPs.
Start with typing a niche search query in the Google search bar.
You can go to Google’s search settings and set the minimum number of results to 50 or 100.
This way, you can get a list of 100 or more link opportunities with a single download. You now want to decide which ones you want to use for your link-building campaign. A nice way is to use a tool like Upper Ranks Prospector. The tool shows you a quick preview of each of the URLs you paste in it.
It also gives you an option to ‘Accept’ or ‘Reject’ each URL. You can then export the list of final prospects to a CSV or an Excel file. You can add up to 60 URLs in this easy-to-use free tool.
Use the Skyscraper Technique to Find Link Opportunities
The Skyscraper Technique is a super-effective way to find quality link-prospects.
You first need to find top-notch content in your niche.
Next, you need to find sites that are linking to this content.
All of these sites are your link prospects. Let’s learn this method with the help of an example. For instance, let’s say you’re selling an email marketing tool, and some of your target keywords include the following:
A. email marketing best practices
B. email marketing best practices 2020
When you type these queries in Google’s search bar, you’ll find some of the top content pieces for these terms.
These are your top competition content pieces. Pop these in the SEMrush backlink analytics tool to find their backlinks and referring domains.
CoSchedule’s blog post on email marketing best practices has 75 backlinks and 37 referring domains. Similarly, you can check the link-profile of other competing content pieces. Put them together in an excel sheet and see which ones would be your best link prospects. Your goal should be to create an excellent content asset—something that’s better than your competitors. Once you have published a more substantial content piece, you can go there and reach out to all the selected prospects.
Prospecting for Guest Posts
Writing guest posts lets you have your personal space on authority sites. It’s a terrific way to build links and an online brand. But you need to be careful while scaling up your guest posting campaign. Don’t be lured into publishing posts on low-quality, spammy guest posting websites. Look for niche websites that accept guest posts. It is pretty simple.
a. Let’s suppose you’re looking for sites in the marketing automation niche. You can type the following search queries in the Google search bar, and you’ll get a bunch of options:
marketing automation + “guest post”marketing automation + “write for us” marketing automation + “guest article”marketing automation + “guest posting opportunities”marketing automation + “guest contributor”marketing automation + “submit blog post” marketing automation + “become a contributor”
b. Another innovative way to find guest posting opportunities is to make a list of influencers in your niche—especially those who regularly write guest posts. Pop their name in the Google search bar to browse through their author profile on different niche websites.
This way, you can make a list of quality sites to pitch your stories. Make sure you choose sites whose Domain Authority is higher than your site.
Prospecting Resource Pages
Resource pages offer their audience some of the top niche content pieces and guides related to a specific topic. Resource page link-building is about finding a place in top-ranking resource pages in your industry.
In 2016, Moz surveyed 435 SEO professionals. 56% said they used resource page link building, making it the second most popular link building tactic amongst respondents.
Most resource pages are looking to include quality resources. That’s why some of them even have a submission form that allows content creators to submit their resources for your review and inclusion. Finding resource pages to reach out and pitch your content is no rocket science. To start building your resource page prospects, you can make use of Google search modifiers such as these:
travel intitle:resources inurl:links.html
travel intitle:links inurl: resources.html
travel inurl:.com/resources
travel inurl:resources intitle:resources
You can replace the main keyword and find many similar pages:
vacation intitle:resources inurl:links.html
vacation intitle:links inurl: resources.html
vacation inurl:.com/resources
vacation inurl:resources intitle:resources
Download the search results and see which ones are best suited for your link-building campaign.
Competitive Backlink Analysis
The most evergreen way to find backlink opportunities is to do a quick competitive analysis. Make a list of some of your top competitors and check their backlinks in SEMrush or Ahrefs. In SEMrush, you can add up to five competing sites and find their backlinks and referring domains.
You can export the list of referring sites and refine your list based on the link-quality checklist. To know about the latest links of competing websites, you can set up link alerts in Ahrefs.
The unique feature helps you get regular updates on new and lost backlinks about the said URL. The tool also offers you web mentions alert—you can use that feature to track the latest competitor brand mentions. If you’re looking to know about your competitors’ shared links, you can use the Ahrefs link intersect tool.
Finding Broken Links
Looking for broken links on content pieces may sound like a tedious manual tactic, but can be very useful to find genuine link-building prospects. There are many valuable content pieces with dead links, and you could replace them with valuable content pieces!
You can use a free tool like dead link checker to find broken links in top niche resource pages and guide posts. Here is an example of a broken link from this email marketing resource page:
The web page from litmus does not exist.
Now, here’s how you can use this broken link to find new link prospects.
Pop this dead link in the SEMrush backlink analytics tool to see a list of resource pages and guide-posts linking to it.
Next, you can create an alternate content piece and pitch to all the link prospects.
Looking for Unlinked Brand Mentions
A great and legitimate practice to build links for your site is to find brand mentions that don’t have any links. It’s a simple tactic as you can reach out to a site owner and request her to add a link to your brand mention. You can use a tool like Ahrefs’ content explorer to find all of such unlinked brand mentions. Pop your brand name in this tool and choose the following features of the tool:
One article per domain
Highlight unlinked domains
You can export the highlighted web pages to get a list of all of your unlinked brand mentions.
Directories and Citations
First and foremost, you should build citations on Google and popular social media platforms. Linking to these top platforms is a bare necessity. Moving on to directories, you can look for the top and the most reputed ones in your niche.
Here’s a quick checklist on creating a list of niche directories for submitting your website:
Analyze a directory’s strength by checking the Page Rank.
Check the backlink profile of directories in Ahref’s or SEMrush before submitting your site.
Review the details of each submission, including your website link.
Directory submissions are not a big part of your link-building process. Placing your site on a handful of notable directories can be beneficial to your link-building efforts.
Are your link prospects good enough?
You don’t want to come across as a cheap spammy link-builder shooting link requests left, right, and centre. As a well-mannered SEO manager, you need to start by figuring which sites are the most relevant for your link-building campaign.
Before you send out your outreach email, you must understand whether you’re adding value to your email recipient. The goal is to create a relationship that’s beneficial to both parties. Let’s take a look at some parameters to understand if a site is worth your outreach efforts:
Check if the site is of topical relevance—that’s basic.
Are you pitching a content piece that adds value to the site/post you’re pitching? For instance, this link-building guide would be a good fit for pillar content that educates the readers about Search Engine Optimization.
Does the website have a high enough Domain Authority/Domain Rating? Choose a site whose Domain Authority is higher than your website.
Consider other metrics such as traffic and ratio of referring domains to linked domains.
With this checklist, you’ll be in a better position to understand whether a content piece is a good link prospect or not.
Personalizing the Email Outreach
One of the critical pillars of your link-building campaign is email outreach. When you have many prospects and relevant content pieces to pitch, you need to go out there and break the ice. While you can find quite a few email templates to automate your outreach campaign, it may not get you the desired results. Why? Here are some drawbacks of relying on email templates to reach out to webmasters and blog editors:
Many SEO professionals are using the same outreach templates. It is the reason why most prospects get frustrated and mark such emails as spam.
When it comes to building long-term relationships with blog editors, running a bulk outreach campaign is the least effective.
When you set up a mass outreach campaign, you end up mismatching the pitch with the prospect’s content piece. That’s because each prospect is a new content piece.
If you really want your link prospects to answer your email, you must create tailor-made outreach emails. Here’s how you to get it right:
The first step is to not sound desperate for links. You need to come across as someone who’s looking to build a relationship.
When you’re writing a personalized email, make it sound like one. Know more about the prospect and the website. Take a look at this template for a guest post pitch:
Show genuine interest and showcase the quality of the content piece you’re pitching.
Communicate that you know about the prospective site’s content. Tell the email recipient about how your content piece would be a good fit.
Are you connected with the prospect on social media platforms? Use a common ground to start your conversation. Need inspiration? Take a look at this sample:
Write an email like an expert or a writer and not an SEO professional who’s looking to meet her link-building targets. In-fact you could outsource outreach emails to a writer.
So whether you’re pitching to a guest posting site or a resource page, you can use the tips mentioned above to convey the value you can offer to your link prospects.
Chapter 6
Digital PR for Generating Quality Backlinks
No, Digital PR is not the buzzword; it’s the reality of how you should do SEO in today’s times. With new Google Algorithm updates and the search engine’s determination to offer a quality experience to online searchers, there is practically no room for spammy link-building practices.
The ideal way to build links and press mentions is to display niche authority and build relationships with trustworthy niche sites.
Let’s learn about some essential Digital PR techniques that can help fetch quality backlinks for your business.
Tip Journalists on Platforms Like HARO
HARO is a free platform that helps connect PR professionals and journalists. Most journalists use this platform to look for experts who can share tips and advice for their upcoming stories. You can sign up on this platform as a source and start browsing niche queries. Once you create a HARO profile and select your business category, HARO sends you topical queries to your email inbox.
Here’s an example of what a HARO query looks like:
You can choose the most relevant queries and start replying to them. Be persistent, and you might land up with links on large publications like
Forbes and Inc. Here are some tips to win more features, links, and press mentions by offering to become an expert source on HARO:
Make your submission comprehensive and valuable. Most reporters are busy and would not have the time to request for more information.
Be quick at responding to queries. If the first few submissions are good, a reporter may not bother to go further.
Write an email subject line that catches your reporter’s attention. At the same time, you need to make it authentic.
One of the most critical success factors is value addition. Are you sharing a unique case study or experience? Because if you are, it will work to your advantage. Understand the story angle and ponder a while to know how to make your submission befitting and insightful.
Communicate your credentials. If your business has won some awards or has been featured in other reputed publications, then you must mention it in your email. Establishing credibility is a crucial way to earn yourself a feature.
Make yourself available for a call or to send more information.
Besides HARO, you can connect with journalists through alternate platforms like ProfNet, SourceBottle, and Muck Rack.
Journalists often post their queries on Twitter using the hashtag #journorequest—follow the hashtag to find relevant PR opportunities for your business.
Be relentless about understanding what journalists are looking for and creating value—that’s an excellent strategy to win a ton of quality backlinks to your site.
Tell Your Brand Story
If you didn’t already know it, then here’s a simple truth—the media is always looking for stories. They’re looking for authentic anecdotes that will find readers. Inspire news outlets and journalists with your brand story, and it’ll get you real backlinks and press mentions. Here are things you can do:
Talk About Your Brand’s Purpose
As a business, are you doing something that changes lives? Does your business help save the environment, or are you offering employment to a socially backward section of the society? Are you sponsoring a charity or giving away a service for free?
Creating a social impact helps you bring about positive change in society, and it naturally attracts media attention. Plus, you get to build a positive reputation for your business.
Business Achievements
Every business has its unique journey towards achieving certain milestones, such as client wins or awards.
You can talk about how you went from 0-100 clients in the first 12 months in business.
Maybe a story about how you and your founders started the business.
Tell your audience about your company culture—the behind the scenes action.
Take a look at this example from Clif Bar and Company:
News outlets want to cover business owners who have used creative ways to grow their business.
Create a Viral Campaign
Going viral with a video or a stunt may seem fancy, but it’s not as simple as it sounds. You need to brainstorm and execute many viral campaigns and ideas before hitting that one home run. A viral campaign gets you mass visibility and coverage plus backlinks. How to ideate a viral campaign:
Create a script that’s exceptionally outrageous, funny or thought-provoking.
Think of ideas that might get a very high number of social shares.
You could try a scalable user-generated-content campaign and get a large number of people to participate.
For example, e.l.f. cosmetics created a viral TikTok campaign that received over 4 billion video videos, which led to unprecedented media attention.
Connect with Influencers on Social Media
When it comes to building links, niche influencer relationships can make a big difference. Try connecting with influencers through social media channels like Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can start building a relationship by quoting an influencer in your blog post or a social media update. You can find the best of industry influencers using platforms like Traackr.
Once you know an influencer, there are many ways to start a collaboration:
Offer them a free product to review it and write about it in an upcoming review post or listicle.
Ask them for a sponsorship opportunity. Many niche bloggers and influencers have a sponsored content program.
Reach out to them with a piece of original research or a press release.
Niche influencers have a big audience, and that’s why getting links through influencer-partnerships is a terrific option.
Become a Guest On Podcasts
Podcasting is the content format of today. People love listening to podcasts because of their personal and engaging nature.
One of the things you can do as a business owner is to become a guest on niche podcasts. The strategy works well to help you:
Fetch publicity and followership.
Establish yourself as a thought leader and a sought-after expert.
Get quality backlinks for your business.
How to get booked as a guest on some of the top podcasts in your industry? The fastest way is to hire a podcast booking agency.
They help you to build up a profile and reach out to the most relevant industry podcasts.
Such agencies also help you create a strategy around the podcast interview.
Alternatively, you can hire an in-house team to do all the legwork. Since podcasting is fast gaining ground as a popular content format, you must use this channel to build quality links for your business.
Promote Content Assets
The more you spread a word about linkable content assets, the higher their probability of earning links and mentions. Here are some common and effective ways to promote your content:
Make sure that your content pieces are optimized for search and user intent.
Share every content piece on your social media channel.
Repurpose content to use it for different formats and channels. For instance, you could convert blog posts into videos and slideshow presentations.
Create a newsletter to share your content pieces with your list of contacts.
Content promotion helps you build content popularity and visibility—a necessity to attract quality sites to link to it.
Share Expertise Through Omni Channel Publishing
In today’s times, you have the option to display your expertise through various content platforms. The best way to come across as a thought-leader is to be persistent about publishing content. Here are some ways to expand your audience through and become a leader in your niche:
Publish articles and expert updates on LinkedIn.
Use YouTube to create helpful videos for your audience.
Publish unique and useful answers on Q&A sites like Quora.
Repurpose your existing blog posts and put them up on Medium.
Become an active community participant by commenting on authority blog posts.
Submit content on well-known niche syndication platforms.
Create content for community websites and platforms.
Digital PR is about expanding your online footprint and offering quality content to your target audience. It’s an automatic route for getting more content shares, links, and mentions.
Chapter 7
Buying Backlinks
Another quick way to get quality backlinks is to buy links for your business. In this section, let’s explore paid backlinking as a way to get quality links for a website. Plus, you can check out our link-price calculator as well.
What are Paid Backlinks?
Paid backlinking is a way to get a quick backlink from a domain by paying a fee for it. Paid backlinks are different from organic backlinks. The former is earned through quality branded content. You simply buy the latter by getting a site to agree on linking to your website or content piece.
All said and done; all organic backlinks don’t come for free. You need to either hire an agency or an in-house team to earn those precious organic links.
If Google finds out that you’re buying links, it may impose a hefty penalty on your site. It can cause your site to lose all the traffic you may have earned so far.
How and Where to Buy Backlinks?
If you follow the industry’s best practices and stick with purchasing quality backlinks, the link-buying process can be fruitful. Ensure you do not buy links from spam sites or freelancers who offer bulk links for a low price. Here are some channels to buy backlinks for your site:
Guest Posts
When it comes to quality link-buying, then guest posts are your number one bet. There are two ways to buy guest posts:
Reach out to bloggers who are open to selling links. Work out a deal to publish a guest post on their site along with a paid backlink.
Hire an agency to create quality guest posts on your behalf. Pay the agency to get the guest posts placed on high-authority websites in your niche.
Private Blogging Networks
Private blogging networks are created for the sole purpose of passing on link juice to a specific web property. Many such PBNs offer paid links to other websites in the niche.
Although buying links from a private blogging network is considered a black hat technique, many businesses find it useful to get quick rankings for their website.
Not all paid links come from PBNs, but PBNs mostly offer links for a fee.
If you decide to buy a link from a PBN, make sure to analyze the site’s quality and domain authority.
Product Reviews
When it’s about legitimate link-buying, getting a paid product review is one of the best options.
You can reach out to a prominent niche blogger to crack a collaboration deal.
Offer a free product trial plus a fee to get a backlink on their website.
Links in Existing Content
When you go out there to buy backlinks, you’ll find many sites happy to link to your content or site pages for a fee.
How do links in existing content work?
Start by finding prominent blogs in your industry. You need to pitch a relevant content piece for inclusion in their site. Pay a fee for link inclusion.
You can also hire an agency to get you such links for a price.
Buy a niche edit link for a slightly lower price. Niche edits are often cheaper because such links may be a slight deviation from your niche.
What’s the Cost of Buying Backlinks?
Let’s now look at some of the critical factors that determine the price of a link.
Publication Popularity
We’re all looking to buy links from high-authority websites. That’s why the higher the Domain Authority of a site, the more the demand, and the pricier the link. Besides the site DA, you need to look at its traffic and content quality.
Niche
Backlinks in every industry are different. The cost varies as you move from one niche to another. For instance, the SaaS niche cost will differ from the price of links in the real estate niche.
Brand Authority
How much a link costs you is also determined by the Domain Authority and popularity of your site. If you have a high-authority, you’ll find it easy to get more links at a lower price. But if your site is still new, you should be ready to shell out more money for each backlink.
Do-Follow vs. No-Follow Backlinks
One factor determining the cost of backlinks is whether it’s a Do-Follow link or a No-Follow one. Do-Follow links work better and cost more.
Anchor Text
If you go for exact anchor text in a backlink, it’s price may go. Flexible anchor texts come at a lower price. The idea should be to match the context of the link you’re placing on a site.
To get detailed know-how on paid link-building, you can check out our in-depth guide on buying backlinks. And, if you wish to get an instant estimate on the cost of buying links, do check out our fantastic link price calculator tool.
Chapter 8
Final Thoughts – What’s The Future of Link-Building
Links are and will continue to remain a decisive ranking factor. Search engines like Google have a mission to improve searcher-experience. That’s why they continue to keep a check on spammy and manipulative link-building practices. Therefore, high-quality link building remains an essential part of a winning SEO strategy.
Links are and will continue to remain a decisive ranking factor. Search engines like Google have a mission to improve searcher-experience. That’s why they continue to keep a check on spammy and manipulative link-building practices. Therefore, high-quality link building remains an essential part of a winning SEO strategy. Infuse awesomeness in branded content and make use of personalized outreach campaigns to get to the desired outcomes. Combine your link-building efforts with robust Digital PR strategies, and you’ll stay ahead of your game. Last but not least, you don’t need to build links for the sake of links, but for the sake of creating value and for making authentic connections with authority sites.
Having an online presence has now become one of the pre-requisites of running a local business. Before buying from local brick and mortar businesses, people look for products, services, and recommendations online.
If you’re not doing local SEO, your business stands to lose out to competitors who understand the importance of this essential online marketing strategy.
[info_box id=”695″]
Local SEO is a strategic approach to helping your business get in front of a local buyer looking for a solution online.
This ebook will help you learn how to execute local SEO and get your business to feature among the top of Google’s search engine results.
This guide will give you a complete know-how of building an impeccable reputation and online presence that fetches repeat customers for your business.
[pro_tip id=”696″]
Learn the basics of Local SEO, it’s benefits, and core elements.
Get an understanding of Google’s search ranking factors. What makes and breaks the deal for your business website in the local search arena.
Find out why and how you need to build backlinks for your local business.
Understand how to build a local brand through community participation and event sponsorships.
Get to know how online reviews work and how to get those excellent reviews and ratings on your online business profiles.
Learn about the best SEO tools and how they can make your life simpler, get you higher rankings, and qualified leads.
Know about the local SEO best practices for multi-location businesses and large enterprises.
Get tips on how to get off the ground with your social media marketing efforts. Learn how social media marketing is good for local branding and local SEO.
Are you looking to master local SEO and make your local business stand out? Do read this comprehensive local SEO guide from My SEO Sucks.
Check out the ultimate guide to mastering local SEO by downloading the complete ebook now.
If you’re running a business that caters to a local audience, local SEO might be the best way to market your products and services. For those who’re new to the concept, here is a simple definition of local SEO marketing:
Local SEO is an online marketing technique that helps your website to rank for location-specific Google search queries. The optimization technique helps local and multiple location businesses to reach out to prospective customers in their business location.
Local SEO helps you attract new business from local searches on search engines such as Google, Bing, Apple, and Maps.
Benefits of Local SEO
Whether you own a restaurant or a salon or fashion store, local SEO helps you generate leads for a business. Here are some interesting statistics about local SEO:
46% of all Google searches are local. (WebFX)
97% of consumers search online for a local business. (Adaptive Marketing)
Every month, Internet users visit 1.5 billion locations related to their Google searches. (GeoMarketing)
70% of consumers will visit a store because of information found online. (bluelist.co)
28% of local searches result in a purchase. (Digital Logic)
These stats show that most consumers go online before making a local purchase decision. Local SEO is, therefore, an important way to showcase your business to potential customers. Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits of investing in local SEO:
1. Improve your business’s visibility by getting on top of Google’s local search results.
2. As more people click on your search listing, you get more website traffic, leads, and sales.
3. Enhance your business’s visibility in Google Maps.
4. Build an impeccable online reputation—vital to generate long-term sales and revenue.
5. Stay ahead of the competition by conquering this critical online marketing channel.
What Kind of Businesses Need Local SEO?
While local SEO is a powerful online marketing channel, it works for specific business types only. The nature and structure of every business are different. For instance, a SaaS company selling software may not need to focus on local SEO—they would look to target search terms on a national or international level.
But it’s not the same for small businesses targeting customers for a specific city such as Houston or New York or Ottawa. Let’s look at business types that need local SEO:
Law Firms
Most people who’re looking for legal help, start with a simple online search. Plus, a large percentage of new queries for law firms come from online searches. If you have a law firm or you’re an independent attorney, local SEO is a great strategy to get leads.
You must have a local SEO optimized website and a Google My Business profile. You can target keywords based on your area of specialization. Take a look at these sample search terms:
a. divorce attorney in florida
b. real estate lawyer in philadelphia
c. family lawyer in ottawa
If you type ‘real estate lawyer in philadelphia’ in the Google search bar, you’ll find that Harper J. Dimmerman’s website shows on top of the search results.
Plumbers and Plumbing Companies
As a plumbing business, you’re looking to target homes in your area, and hence local SEO is the best way to get in front of potential customers.
When they have a clogged dishwasher or a drainage pipe issue, people often type search queries like plumbers near me or plumbers in my area, to look for the right person to help.
Whether you’re an independent plumber or a plumbing company, local SEO is a great way to start building a connection with potential customers.
Medical Services
Doctors, medical practitioners, urgent care clinics, and healthcare service providers can benefit from local SEO. Your medical services business can rank for local search terms, but you have to do the groundwork first.
You need to get your website up and running, make it user-friendly, and start publishing content that helps your community.
Local Restaurants and Bars
Imagine yourself planning an outing with family or friends. You would look up Google for the ‘best places to eat’ in your area. Or check out Yelp reviews of popular local restaurants, right?
That’s what most people do, and that’s why local SEO is such a perfect strategy for restaurants and bars.
60 percent of respondents said they had read online reviews for restaurants, the highest of any business category.
List your restaurant in the best of directories, and work on getting incredible customer reviews—these are two essential local SEO strategies for your restaurant business.
Real Estate
The real estate needle may be slow to move, but things can be different with local SEO. As an agent, investor, or a broker, local SEO can help you promote yourself. As a real estate professional, the key for you is to target long-tail search terms by starting to focus on home buying in your closest neighbourhood. A hyper-local SEO strategy can help you lay the foundation for bigger goals and markets. Take a look at some of these narrow, long-tail search term examples:
1. buy home in beverly hills
2. homes for sale in brentwood los angeles
3. house for sale in santa monica
Another way to rank for local searches is to list your business or property on prominent real estate directories such as Zillow and Trulia.
How to Do Local SEO?
Local SEO works like the usual search engine optimization. But in the case of local SEO, the focus is on a specific location. Getting your website to rank for local search terms involves a good deal of strategic effort. Let’s look at some of the critical elements of local search engine optimization:
Content Marketing For Local SEO
Prospective customers often use search queries to look for information that’s about a specific region. Create content that meets the informational needs of online searchers, and they’re likely to land on your website.
You need to create content after doing thorough research on local search terms. Delve into the intent behind these keywords and create content that best meets the needs of your audience.
Localized content speaks to a community of individuals who belong to a specific region. This type of content caters to local needs and finds its way into SERPs.
Here are local content ideas that can fuel your local SEO strategy:
1. Content related to local news stories and their impact.
2. Industry content that’s unique to a location.
3. A content piece that attracts local media attention.
4. Content that answers location-specific queries.
5. A story that covers a local event.
6. Interviews of experts and community leaders from the said location.
Content is an integral part of a robust local SEO strategy. You need to create and publish localized content with the intent of adding value to your target audience.
Local Backlinks
Local backlinks help a site to achieve local relevance as opposed to site authority. A local link offers an opportunity to get a link to your site to reach a local audience. Studies reveal that local link-building is the most sought after SEO tactic by local SEO marketers.
Here are some tasks that help you to get local backlinks for your site:
1. Build a list of citations and correcting the NAP (Name, Address, and Phone Number).
2. Create valuable local content and research that attracts links.
Local backlinks play a vital role in helping you establish a substantial presence in SERPs for local search queries. The strategy helps earn rankings for geo-targeted search terms and a presence in Google’s local pack.
Google My Business Optimization
A Google My Business profile helps you list your business on the world’s largest search engine. Google My Business is a free service from Google—it allows you to create and manage your online presence. It lets you add essential business information, such as opening hours, category, address, and reviews.
Since Google has over 90 percent of the world’s search engine market share, creating and optimizing your Google My Business profile is an essential local SEO strategy.
Here are some ways in which a Google My Business profile can help you:
1. Showcase accurate information about your business and make your search listing a lot more professional.
2. Display photos of your office, team, products, and services.
3. Get your customers to post reviews about your products and services.
4. Run location-based ad campaigns while running Google PPC campaigns.
As a local business, your primary target is Google’s local pack. The local pack shows the top three map-based results for any local search query.
More and positive reviews on your business listings ensure you a place in Google’s local pack, which is the same as Google’s top local search results.
Work hard on making your customers happy—get them to give you good reviews and ratings, and it will make a world of difference to your local SEO efforts.
Website Optimization
Optimizing your website for search and user experience is a core activity for local search engine optimization. You need to make sure that you’re optimizing your landing pages for local search terms.
Optimized URLs, page titles, and meta-descriptions play a critical role in getting you more clicks on your website pages—a higher click-through rate gives a positive signal to search engines.
Showcase local relevance by including your business’s NAP details as a crawlable HTML text on your site.
To get local search rankings, create an impeccable experience for your visitors. Make it easy for visitors to navigate the site and find the relevant information. In short, have a robust internal linking structure that adds to website-usability and helps page-authority. A mobile-friendly website is necessary for local SEO success.
An error-free and fully functional website is essential for search engines to consider it for local search rankings
Chapter 2
Local SEO Ranking Factors 2020
Search engines, especially Google, make sure that users find the best information related to their search queries. Google’s complex algorithms filter out sites that don’t offer a relevant user-experience to online searchers. A set of ranking factors govern which site will get to the top listings in Google’s SERPs.
Being aware of local search ranking factors paves the way for small business owners like you to optimize your site for higher rankings. Let’s learn about some of the key local SEO signals that affect website rankings:
Distance
By their very nature, local search queries have local intent. Google ranks those businesses that are located nearest to the searcher’s physical location. The search engine checks for NAP citations to understand which company would best meet an online searcher’s current requirement.
Relevance
Google is looking to rank sites that are most relevant to a search query. For instance, if a user is looking for the nearest nike shoe store, the search results will showcase only those selling Nike products. Optimizing your website, GMB profile, and social media pages with the most relevant search terms is the best way to display relevance.
Prominence
There are quite a few parameters that measure a business’s prominence in a niche within a locality. If your company has excellent reviews, higher website authority and CTR, more social shares, higher user-engagement, it’s better off than its competitors. The bottom line is that you need to have a solid web presence—overtake your competitors, and Google will pay you in terms of higher local search rankings.
“Entity Authority” is being seen as the key local SEO ranking factor for the year 2020:
How much do people know your business? Let’s say your business is a part of many discussions on social media or local communities; those things add to your authority. An easy way to fetch more brand mentions is to produce audience-centric local content. Add value to the audience in your local area, and earn a good reputation for your business.
Another key aspect of “Entity Authority” is business engagement. Are people saving your business’s contact information on their Android phones? Are they looking up for your business’s location in Google Maps? Google will be tracking user engagement data from Gmail, Google Chrome, Android, Google Maps, and Google. The search engines track if the audiences in a specific location love your business, and move it up in the search results.
Overall, local search rankings depend on the quality and worth of your products, services, and content.
Voice Search
More and more online searchers are using voice to perform a search.
A study by BrightLocal revealed that restaurants, grocery stores and food delivery are the top three local businesses that people search for using voice.
There were over a billion voice searches a month, as of January 2018, and 40% of those mobile searches had local intent.
Considering that many users have switched to voice-search, businesses need to optimize their web presence for conversational and voice search-terms.
Besides optimizing location-specific keywords, you need to focus on long-tail keywords. Voice queries are usually longer than text searches.
While the queries may be longer, you’ll benefit from offering your users concise answers to their voice-search questions.
Backlinko’s study says Google prefers short, concise answers to voice search queries. The typical voice search result is 29 words in length. Take a look at this example:
By optimizing for voice search, you’ll have a greater chance of showing up in Google’s featured lists such as Knowledge Graphs, Rich Answers, and Featured Snippets.
Voice searches are in vogue and form a large part of how local searchers find products, services, and information. That’s why voice SEO is a significant ranking factor in 2020 and the times to come.
a. Mobile Optimization
Nine out of ten smartphone users conduct local searches on their mobile devices. Since most online users and local searchers are mobile, a mobile-friendly website is an essential prerequisite for local search rankings.
Make sure that the user experience of your website is consistent across devices and browsers.
Ensure that your website loads fast across mobile devices. 29 percent of smartphone users will switch to another site or app if it doesn’t satisfy their needs.
Tap into a searcher’s micro-moments and optimize content and experiences to meet prospect needs in the best way possible.
A local consumer is increasingly going mobile—for purposes like learning, buying, and visiting places. Mobile optimization is, therefore, a key local SEO ranking factor.
Chapter 3
Content Marketing for Local SEO
Content marketing is a terrific organic growth strategy that helps you build an online brand. When you localize your content strategy, you can achieve higher search rankings for local search terms. Creating content for a local audience is different from doing content marketing for a national or international audience. Head in the right direction, you’ll set yourself up for success.
Let’s learn about some of the key local content ideas that’ll help you gain traction, engagement, and search rankings for your business:
a. Turn FAQs Into Content Pieces
There are quite a few questions that prospective customers have on their mind before they make a purchase. A nice way to show up in Google’s SERPs is to create content around frequently asked questions.
Take a look at some of these examples of questions that a home buyer might ask:
How long does it take to buy a home?
How much do I have to pay an agent to help me buy a house?
What is earnest money?
Consider creating videos or blog posts around common queries.
Start by understanding standard buyer pain-points, and you’ll have a host of new content ideas. Make your content pieces as helpful and actionable as possible.
b. Talk About Local Events
Creating content about local events starts with getting involved with your community. If you own a restaurant, you can cover food cultural events in the city, or if you own a fitness studio, you could sponsor a marathon and talk about it on your web properties.
Create blog posts of forthcoming and current events. Consider doing live videos of popular local events. Event-related content is an excellent way to inform and entertain a location-specific audience.
Such content pieces foster local brand engagement and level up local SEO outcomes.
c. Interview Experts
Go out there and be a local journalist. Are there community leaders you could interview? Reach out to subject matter experts, and see if you can tell their story in a blog post.
A good way to optimize such content for local SEO is to mention the interviewees’ business and location. Customer interviews and case study pieces also work well.
All such content pieces allow businesses to link to each other and earn local credibility and reach.
d. City-Specific Landing Pages
As a local business, your priority is to rank for location-specific landing pages. These pages are going to be your primary source of leads and new business. Whether you own a single-location business, a hyper-local business, or a multi-location company, you want to come across as a worthy contender in the said local market. Depending on the location and needs of your business, you can create neighbourhood specific, city-specific, and state-specific landing pages. Here is an example of a top-ranking city-specific landing page:
Now take a look at this example of a neighbourhood-specific landing page:
Make sure to optimize your landing page content with location-specific search terms. Showcasing some of the key USPs of your products and services is another landing page essential.
Add customer testimonials on the landing pages to build trust among your target audience.
A map helps your users to find your business location or locations with ease. At the same time, it helps your landing page to find a place in Google’s ‘map pack.’
Besides these features, have a clear call-to-action to ensure that visitors can take the desired action.
Well-optimized, location-specific landing pages form the backbone of a winning local SEO strategy. Depending on your business presence and focus, you can create multiple location-specific pages.
e. Product/Service Specific Landing Pages
As with any other business, creating specific landing pages for different products and services works well for your local business. It is a great tactic to rank for product or service related search terms in your location. Here is an example of a service landing page:
Make sure to optimize product or service related pages with the relevant location-based search terms.
f. Special Offers For Locals
A unique strategy to get the community to engage with your local business is to create ‘local only’ offers, discounts, and sweepstakes. It makes the audience feel exclusive. A contest or a giveaway helps generate a buzz among the members of the community.
Sharing campaign pages on social media handles are likely to get audience attention and shares, and thereby, better local search rankings.
Co-promotions with other local businesses also work well to fetch local visibility and benefits of cross-promotions.
g. Create Local Content
One way to get the local people interested in your business is to write about your city or state. The right practice is to tie in niche-specific content ideas with location-specific ones. The content piece could be a local guide or a ‘best of list’ that helps the reader know more about the place. Here’s an excellent example of a blog post about ethnic eating in San Jose, California.
h. Hack Local Trends
You can easily find local trends by browsing through local newspapers. Is there a news piece or a trend that’s related to your industry? If yes, you can create a blog post around it.
Make use of local studies and research papers to understand and share their implications. Newsjacking is about staying aware of the latest in your community and sharing information that locals would consume.
Another cool way to find local trends is to use a tool like Google trends. Type a variety of topics in this free tool to see which one is most popular.
Understanding the nature of recent online conversations helps understand which topics will grab the highest number of local eyeballs.
Chapter 4
How to Get Local Backlinks?
If you had reliable connections in the real world, people would think you’re a big guy. Similarly, Google measures a website’s worth based on the quantity and quality of sites that link to it. Links also showcase the niche and location relevance of a business website.
So if you had local backlinks from authority sites, it would stand a better chance to rank on local search results. What’s more, links would help a website reach out to a bigger audience and attract a higher click-through rate.
Hence, local backlink-building offers direct and indirect local SEO benefits. Before getting down to understanding local link-building strategies, let’s first look at the definition of a useful link:
What is a Good Link?
Local link-building can be a tricky business, but if you follow a few simple rules, you’ll know if a link is worth an effort or not. A useful link will fetch you:
Visibility amidst your target audience
Referral traffic back to your site
A positive online reputation
Let’s now learn about some effective local link-building strategies.
How to Get Local Backlinks
Connect with Local Influencers/Media Outlets
There are macro, small, and big influencers in every city or state. Influencers and media outlets have an existing audience.
Look for local motivational speakers, fitness gurus, and even stand up comics—people who’ve worked hard to build a reputation.
The correct way to get quality links is to build a relationship with such influencers. Reach out to them, and see if they’ll be interested in linking to your products, services or business.
Also, get in touch with local journalists and media outlets. Journalists are often looking for expert sources—offer them quotes and tips to get rewarded with links and mentions to your site.
Do Something Newsworthy
Another solid link-building strategy is to get news outlets to talk about your business. Announce a free service for residents or create a scholarship, for instance. You could even offer to speak at local events. These strategies can help you earn links from the best of local news outlets.
Here is a three-step local PR plan to get backlinks from trustworthy local publications:
Think of an idea that will appeal to the local people.
Create a landing page that communicates about your activity.
Write a press release that talks about it.
Reach out to the most relevant journalists and news outlets.
Sponsor a Local Event or a Charity
Find a way to sponsor a local event that’s relevant to your business. Look for sponsorship opportunities in local sporting events or stand up comedy shows or even business conferences. As a sponsor, you can get a link on the event website.
Sponsoring a local club or a charity is another way to get links. The strategy also helps to associate your business with a good cause. Plus, you can distribute a press release about the donation to earn more links and media coverage.
Do an online search to look for potential opportunities, and reach out with your offer.
Create a Local Resource
Attracting links is also a game of adding value to a local audience. There could be a variety of local resources that other websites may want to link. For instance, you could create a tool that helps locals find real estate for sale or investment.
Similarly, you could develop an in-depth guide on the best of local restaurants or bars in your city.
Something like a calendar of high-school sporting events or movie premiers is a good option too. That’s not all; you could publish original research and survey results that offer rich consumer insights.
Value-driven content or technology is a fantastic way to attract natural links back to your website.
Apply for Local Awards and Recognitions
Getting an award is not just a way to build a reputation; it also helps get links. The award website would list and link to each of the winners. An award also generates media coverage, which promises additional links and visibility.
Perform simple Google searches to know about upcoming awards in your location:
“best of STATE or CITY”+”nominate”
“Nominate”+”entrepreneur”
“City Name” + “Nominate a business”
Make a list of all potential opportunities along with participation criteria.
Use Business Connections
Local businesses have the chance to co-market with other companies and build links in the process. For instance, if you have a cafe or a restaurant, you could consider tying up with a local fashion store to run a giveaway. A co-branding exercise is an opportunity for both businesses to earn a new link.
Scout for guest-posting opportunities with complimentary local businesses or even customers.
As a retailer, you can also ask manufacturers for links—companies often mention a list of dealers on their sites. Dealer locators help provide each retailer with an authority link.
Build Citations
BrightLocal surveyed 388 Local SEOs and discovered that 76% of all respondents used citation-building to secure links.
A commitment to quality citations is an indispensable local link-building tactic.
A citation is an online mention of your business that includes its name address and phone number (NAP).
You can start by including the NAP details on your business’s social media handles on platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Besides these platforms, you can create a free business profile on Google (Google My Business), Bing, and Yahoo.
Next, create a listing on popular local directories like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Foursquare.
The best way to get authority links in your niche is through listing sites that rank in your niche. For example, Zillow and Trulia are popular listing platforms in the real estate niche.
How to Find Local Link-Building Opportunities?
A large part of the local link-building success depends on how diligently you find local link opportunities.
Local link-building techniques are different from the usual backlink acquisition strategies. When thinking local-SEO, you may have to overlook that a backlink isn’t from a very high-authority site or a niche site. Understand your turf; you’ll find many valuable link-building opportunities within the boundaries of your location.
Here are some actionable tips on finding the relevant local link-building opportunities:
Keep Track of Local SERP Results
The primary way to find link opportunities is to understand the local SERPs. The moment you type some of the sought after local search terms, you’ll see a list of sites that rank in Google’s search results. Make a list of competing businesses and sites that are ranking for prominent niche keywords.
A typical list of ranking websites will include niche directories, generic directories, and niche local businesses.
The directories in the list are your link opportunities—create or correct citations on these platforms. Next, you need to create a list of existing competition backlinks and expand your link opportunities.
Make a List of Competition Backlinks
Finding backlinks of competing businesses is a straightforward process. Pop their URL in a tool like SEMrush or ahrefs, and you’ll get a list of referring domains. Filter out those URLs where you already have a link, and the rest are all potential link-building opportunities.
You can also check the backlinks of similar but non-competing local businesses to get many new opportunities.
Chapter 5
How to Get Reviews for Your Local Business?
Online reviews build trust in potential customers, make your business popular, and attract higher click-throughs and search rankings. But getting positive reviews can be challenging. That’s because most customers don’t have an incentive to write good stuff about your business. Nevertheless, some honest approaches can help you make the most of this critical local SEO strategy. Ready to hit the home run with some kick-ass user-reviews on your business listings? Read on to learn about some proven review acquisition strategies:
Use In-store Signages
Most small and local businesses print marketing collateral like store signages, business cards, banners, flyers, and posters.
These communication pieces are great for adding a personal message that encourages customer feedback—an online or offline review of products and services. In-store QR codes and apps also allow you to point the user to the relevant online business listing.
Being polite while asking for feedback is the best way to say you care. And it’s a superb way to earn positive reviews.
Bonus tip: At the same time, make sure not to set up a kiosk to collect reviews. That’s because multiple reviews from a single IP are likely to get removed by business listing platforms.
Use Social Media to Request Feedback
Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow businesses to interact with customers and understand them better. Create a post update that asks users about a new service or a product feature. Ask them to leave their feedback or special request in their review—point users to the business listing with a feedback call-to-action.
For instance, restaurant owners could request users to share their experience of a new dish on their menu.
Bonus tip: Make sure you’re not getting an immediate rush of reviews on a single platform. Such reviews are considered spam and often get removed.
Be Nice When Responding to Reviews
Reviews flow when you have strong customer relationships. Keep the interaction two-way by responding to every review on your business listing.
Responding to negative reviews is a top priority. If there’s a customer who had a bad experience, you must accept, apologize, and assure. Take a look at this example:
If it’s possible, you must share an explanation and express empathy with the aggrieved customer. Offer to make things right and be very personal with your message.
Bonus tip: Be honest when responding to all types of reviews. Review responses should be human and sympathetic. Review threads speak a lot about a business’s online reputation.
Coach Your Staff to Ask for Feedback
In December of 2019, a BrightLocal study showed that 76% of those who are asked to leave reviews go on to do so and that this was a 70% increase from the prior year.
Whether you’re running a restaurant or a plumbing company, one way to serve the customers better is to train your team to be nice to them. Customer service representatives or in-store staff can ask customers to leave their feedback. A friendly, well-mannered reminder makes the customer feel comfortable in sharing their experience.
Bonus tip: Be authentic when asking for reviews. Paying customers or marketing agencies for reviews is not a good practice. Never ask your staff to add online reviews.
Request Reviews Through Personalized Email
The good old email marketing is a fantastic channel to collect positive reviews for your business. One way is to include a Google My Business review link in an email campaign.
When requesting a review in an emailer, target a happy and loyal customer segment. Make the email copy as personal as possible.
Bonus tip: Make sure to understand the guidelines of each review platform into consideration. Some platforms, like Yelp, forbid businesses from asking customers for reviews.
Offer Outstanding Customer Service
It’s not possible to produce reviews out of thin air; you need to earn them through consistent quality in products and services. Delight customers through exceptional experiences and they’ll be happy to go out of the way to write a review for your business.
It’s essential to track each customer touch-point and audit the customer experience on all of them.
Whether you get a complaint on social media or in person, make sure it’s resolved quickly and amicably.
The most straightforward technique to attract positive reviews is by trying to be the best in the business—well, it could also be the hardest one!
Bonus tip: It’s not advisable to add negative reviews on competing products and services. Most review platforms prohibit such practices.
Review Sites and Platforms
Finding the right review sites and platforms is one of the key ways to get optimum visibility in Google’s SERPs. Here are some popular review platforms and sites:
Google My Business
The quality of activity on your Google My Business profile is one significant local search ranking factor. Irrespective of the business niche, Google is one platform where you must get good reviews for your business.
Facebook Local
As of the third quarter of 2019, total monthly active Facebook users numbered 2.45 billion, making it comfortably the world’s largest social media platform. Facebook works as a search engine for many of its active users.
Having already set up a Facebook business page, you need to enable the reviews feature and start encouraging customers to share their feedback on the platform.
Niche-Specific Review Sites
When you track search terms in your industry, you’ll realize that niche-review sites and directories own a large portion of the local SERP real estate. These sites have worked hard to move up the local search rankings.
For instance, Yelp is the go-to platform for restaurants, Zillow for real estate businesses, and TripAdvisor for hotels. Check for the best ones in your industry and put your efforts into getting great reviews on these platforms. Make a list of industry review sites by performing simple Google searches:
[Niche] + reviews/ratings
[Competitor Name] + reviews/ratings
Create a listing on each relevant platform and go through their respective review guidelines before asking customers for reviews.
Product Review Sites
Search engines trust product review sites while forming an opinion about a business. If you’re looking for product page rankings and conversions, you must tap into some of the well-known product review sites.
Product page visitors who read and interact with online reviews have a 58 percent higher conversion rate.
When a site goes from having zero reviews to having 30, it can result in a 25 percent increase in orders. 100 reviews can result in a 37 percent increase.
Sites like Trustpilot, Yotpo, and Reviews.io offer their visitors with unbiased product reviews. Plus, reviews on these platforms play a big role in moving a local business up in Google’s SERPs.
Chapter 6
NAP Consistency – How to Build Accurate Citations for Local SEO
Listing your business in prominent online platforms and directories helps to improve business visibility in local search results. A business’s local search rankings depend on the quality and accuracy of such citations. Citations can help improve a business’s website rankings. Plus, many niche and local directories rank for local search terms—the best way to get listed for those earch terms is to list your business in these directory sites.
Why is NAP Consistency Important?
The benchmark 2018 Local Search Ranking Factors Study by Moz has NAP listed twice within its top five local pack ranking factors. A local business’s rankings largely depend on the overall user-experience—a consumer’s path to purchase starts with an online search.
Studies show that 96% of users turn to their smartphones when they need to get something done, with 87% of those consumers making a search engine their first port of call.
A potential customer looking to contact a local business wants current information. Inconsistent NAP details (Name, Address, and Phone Number) is likely to create confusion and terrible customer experience.
NAP consistency is, therefore, a vital part of attracting the right customers to your local business. It’s one of the core local SEO strategies:
NAP consistency helps search engines to know the exact name and location details of your business. Before putting it on top of search listings, Google needs to recognize your business as a credible contender.
It makes it easy for online searchers to locate a business and start a conversation.
Inconsistent NAP means a consumer is likely to move on from your listing to a competitor’s listing whose information is consistent and comes across as more trustworthy. Studies show that more than 9 in 10 consumers say they’re frustrated by incorrect information in online directories.
NAP consistency is critical for a business looking to rank for mobile and voice searches.
Most users rely on map listings to find a business’s physical location. Also, NAP details impact map listings and appearance in Google’s Map Pack.
NAP mentions take various forms: website, social media presence, listing on directories and review sites, mentions on social media, and upcoming events. A business’s NAP details should be consistent across each of these mentions.
How Could NAP Discrepancies Arise?
NAP citations take an inconsistent course because they’re often generated through involuntary action. For instance, an online newspaper mentioning your website and business location may end up skipping the Pincode.
There are numerous such instances of a NAP citation generation that are beyond your control. It’s hard to be sure that each such citation will have the same business details. Since you’re not physically creating each citation, you can’t be sure of a hundred percent consistency.
Some of these inconsistencies may arise because of a change in your SEO agency or freelancer. Here are some examples of why an incorrect citation may occur:
A change of business location.
Use of 800 number and not a local number.
Change of contact number.
An aggregator had the wrong business information.
You weren’t aware of NAP consistency while submitting business information.
Business name variations.
How to Maintain NAP Consistency
Focussing on small things like spelling and formatting of your business’s NAP details is a good thing. Consistent NAP ensures that your business can find a place in Google’s Local Pack, and gets more website clicks. Here are some steps to optimize your NAP details:
Figure out Correct Business Details
A good way to start is to make a note of how you write the NAP details. Make sure to keep in mind details like:
How are you spelling the name?
Whether using an abbreviation or not?
Adding area code in the phone number or not?
Create a final version and make sure you’re sticking to this version for each citation.
A business’s NAP details (on any other site) should be precisely the same as those mentioned in its Google My Business profile. Do your best to avoid false, duplicate or incorrect information.
Check for Duplicate Listings
Businesses often change their location, and this can be one reason for duplicate listings to occur. In case there is a change, you need to update your business location in each of the listings.
To check for similar listings, you can use a tool like Moz Check Listing.
Once you do an audit, you need to contact the relevant websites and request them to remove the duplicate listing. You need to use an email template like this to ask those websites to remove a duplicate listing:
Hello,
I recently discovered that your website has two listings for my business, “Business Name” located at “Address.” I was hoping you could help me delete the duplicate listing.
The correct listing is: 1) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing1
The listing I need deleted is: 2) http://www.YellowPages.com/Listing2
Could you please notify me once you have had the chance to fix this?
Thanks!
– Business Owner
Another way to avoid an identical citation is not to include multiple phone numbers for specific business locations.
Audit Variations and Request Corrections
Optimizing the NAP details is a constant process. Don’t worry; to begin with, you need to focus on the top industry and location-specific citations. You can check out this list of top citations. Tools like Whitespark can also come handy when cleaning up your NAP citations. They also have a citation finder to help you track current citations and discover new citation opportunities. You also use Brightlocal to make a list of business citations.
1. Once you have the relevant excel sheet or CSV file, you can start auditing each of the sources.
2. Colour code rows which need to be fixed. Use different colours according to the priority level of each citation.
3. Reach out to the sources with the correct information. Make sure you follow-up until the error is fixed and live.
How to Choose the Right Citation Management Tools?
While citation management tools make it easy for you to manage and correct business citations, it’s essential to choose the right tool. Here are some features to look for in a citation management tool:
A direct API with listing platforms and directories
Accuracy with which the tool detects duplicates
Does the tool sync with other tracking tools?
The accuracy of tracking citations
The ease with which it helps to manage and suppress duplicates
Consistent NAP citations are vital for you to optimize search-experience and achieve higher local rankings.
Chapter 7
Optimizing Your Google My Business Profile
Google My Business is a free tool that helps businesses manage their listing in the search engine results. The platform allows businesses to list their physical business location.
Benefits of a Google My Business Profile
Google maintains a database of local businesses so that it can provide online searchers with accurate information.
It helps connect your business with potential customers through Google Knowledge Panel, Local Pack, and Maps.
Knowledge Panel
You must have seen an information box on the top right-hand side of the search results. A knowledge panel includes vital business information such as a business address, hours of operation, and a website link.
Google Local Pack
Whenever you type a local search query, Google shows three search listings below a map: Google Local Pack.
Google Maps
This feature helps searchers to learn about a local business’s location and directions.
If you didn’t have a GMB profile, it would not get featured in any of the search listings mentioned above.
A Google My Business profile helps businesses to collect and respond to customer reviews.
The platform also helps businesses in gaining insights into stats like audience profile, engagement level, website clicks, profile views, and phone calls.
A profile helps enable prospects to know more about your business. It’s a way to build trust and achieve more sales.
Let’s now understand the nuts and bolts of setting up and optimizing a Google My Business profile for better local SEO outcomes.
Setting Up a Google My Business Profile
It’s easy to set up a Google My Business profile by visiting google.com/business. Add your business name and address.
If you deliver goods and services in your area, tick the box at the bottom of the location form.
Add your address if you have premises where customers can visit. Else you can leave the address field blank and tick the box that says ‘Hide my address (it’s not a store).’
Also, choose whether you serve customers outside your location.
If yes, then you can select the areas that you serve.
Next, you need to choose your business category. Choose the category carefully as it impacts how your business appears in the search results.
You need to add details such as contact number and website URL.
Once you’ve added these details, you need to go through a verification process. Most businesses need to opt for a postcard verification process, while some can choose phone or email verification.
Google sends you a postcard at your mailing address. You need to enter the code mentioned in the postcard in your Google My Business profile.
After you have a verified Google My Business profile, you’ll see a profile dashboard to help you manage and optimize it. Let’s learn about some essential GMB profile optimization strategies.
Include a Business Description
You can add a brief description of your business from the GMB dashboard. This description has a chance to appear in Google Local Pack or Knowledge Panel. Go to the Menu bar in your GMB profile and click on ‘info.’ You’ll find the ‘Add a business description’ here.
Try to highlight the unique aspects of your business. It’s not advisable to stuff the business description with keywords. You can read Google’s business description guidelines and make sure the content is relevant to search engines and the audience.
Opening Hours and Attributes
The feature allows local businesses to communicate about their
business hours. You can add and edit timings by choosing ‘Info’
from the menu bar and heading to the ‘Hours’ section.
Besides regular hours you can add ‘Special Hours’ to display opening
hours on special events or public holidays.
Most businesses attract new customers because there is something unique that they have to offer. The Attributes feature in your GMB profile helps to showcase the USPs of your company. Whether you provide a free Wi-Fi or wheelchair accessible elevator or some other service, add it in the profile using this feature. Head to the ‘Info’ section in the menu to add Attributes related to your business.
Add High-Resolution Photos
According to Google, businesses with photos on their listings receive 42 percent more requests for driving directions on Google Maps and 35 percent more click-throughs to their websites.
Photos help searchers and prospects to get a peek into your business. Include high-quality pictures of your products.
You can also add a virtual tour of your business location or showcase your team. Images showcase the human side of your business and a much-needed human element to a business listing.
Manage and Respond to Reviews
Speaking of Google My Business, the first thing that users look for in a search listing is reviews—good reviews attract new customers, and bad reviews keep them away.
You should encourage happy customers to add reviews to your Google’s My Business profile.
Reviews don’t cost you money, but you need to go the extra mile to please your customers and request them to add reviews.
Try using review management platforms like BirdEye and Pozative. These platforms help you to organize and reply to customer reviews.
You can also use these tools to send review requests to customers. Ask customers to include photos—makes the reviews authentic and a lot more effective.
Reviews lie at the heart of a GMB profile—do the hard work, and you’ll set yourself up for higher local search-rankings and an excellent reputation.
Add Questions and Answers
Google allows online searchers to ask questions about the business—stuff they wish to know about its products and services. A good strategy is to keep reviewing all such questions and be prompt about answering them.
Since anyone can answer these questions, businesses should ensure they’re answering them first.
Pre-populating this section is a good way to share more information about your business.
The Questions and Answers feature helps to optimize a GMB profile; makes it more comprehensive. It enhances the searcher-experience of a business listing and attracts more conversions.
Publish Content Using Google Posts
The Google Posts is a terrific feature to promote coupons and deals—you can publish images and blog posts to drive traffic and conversions from your Google My Business profile. Take a look at this example:
As you can see above, the posts that you add to the GMB page are displayed on Google’s Knowledge Panel.
Start creating content by selecting ‘posts’ on the left side of the Google My Business dashboard.
Here are some content types you can create with Google Posts:
Offers/Specials
Create a post promoting a promotional offer or a discount. Use a high-resolution product photo and explain the offer in the description.
Events
If you’re hosting a yoga or a recipe workshop, you can promote it using Google Posts. You can include a title in the event post and set the date of the event.
Announcements and Product Updates
Update users about a new location, or tell them that you’re hiring—any announcement relevant to the audience works well. You can use high-quality photos to launch a new product line.
Promote Blog Content
You can use snippets from popular posts in your business blog and a link back to the original post.
Google Posts is a unique feature that allows you to use photos, descriptions, and a call-to-action to drive engagement on your GMB profile and search listing on Google.
Chapter 8
Enterprise Local SEO: A Quick Guide
Local SEO isn’t just for family-owned, small or local businesses; large multi-location companies need local SEO to promote their regional offshoots. Businesses like restaurant chains and large clothing retailers need to play the local game. Else they’ll lose out to smaller regional competitors. People typing local search queries have a stronger intent to make a purchase.
Local SEO isn’t just for family-owned, small or local businesses; large multi-location companies need local SEO to promote their regional offshoots.
Businesses like restaurant chains and large clothing retailers need to play the local game. Else they’ll lose out to smaller regional competitors. People typing local search queries have a stronger intent to make a purchase.
Local searches have higher purchase intent; 18% of local searches on smartphones led to a purchase within one day vs. 7% of non-local searches.
Plus, most people support small businesses and local retailers.
55% of consumers choose to shop local rather than with large chains simply because they “love supporting local businesses.
94% of people think that buying from small businesses is important.
That’s not the end of the story.
Big brands with hundreds of local stores and outlets have to face quite a few implementation hurdles while attempting local SEO.
Challenges in Local SEO for Enterprises
Complex Processes
Big companies have a multi-layered organizational structure, and a small task like claiming a GMB listing may take a long time. A small business enjoys complete freedom to finish one-off tasks and quickly move to the next.
Lack of Clearly Defined Roles
Most large enterprises have a centralized corporate marketing team. In such a scenario, it becomes difficult to assign and delegate local SEO responsibilities. One bad review from a single location can cause chaos and blame-game without any resolution on the ground.
Scale of Tasks
For a local fashion store, it’s relatively easy to populate five questions and their answers in a Google My Business profile. The thing is that a fashion store chain with 100-plus locations has to implement this tactic in all those different profiles. Scaling each local SEO task with the desired accuracy level becomes a huge obstacle.
Before getting down to understanding the enterprise local SEO process, let’s take a look at some key don’ts of such a strategy:
Don’ts of Enterprise Local SEO
Link Local Listings to Website Homepage
Some SEO experts suggest that linking a local listing to a home page would improve search rankings as the homepage has more authority.
85% of all consumer engagement occurs on the local pages (e.g., Facebook Local Pages, local landing pages). A minority of impressions and engagement (15%) happen on national or brand pages. – Local Search Association
But since it’s the location landing pages that offer the most relevant user-experience, it’s advisable to link each local listing with the specific local landing page. You can link the local landing pages to the contact page on your website.
Focus on Just One Important Tactic
Many enterprises fail to implement a host of local SEO tactics. They often start believing that relying on a single tactic can get them the results. Following a short-term trend, to forget about the foundational tactics isn’t the right way to go about local SEO. From creating local content to link-building to citations, each local SEO tactic is relevant to enterprises, as much as it is for a mom and pop store.
Since you’ve got some background on the subject, let’s now delve deep into how you can create and implement a winning local SEO strategy for a large multi-location business.
Implementing Enterprise Local SEO
Executing Google My Business
Optimizing Google My Business profile for an enterprise means you need to create accurate listings for all the business’s local shops. Here are some steps to follow:
1. Establish a set of guidelines on how to create a detailed listing. Include instructions on how to populate the most relevant Google posts and Q&As.
2. Create a process to map the competition listings regularly.
3. Track metrics like clicks and engagement within each of the GMB profiles. Analyze the location-wise growth rate vis-a-vis a predefined growth target.
4. Make use of tools like Moz Local and Brightlocal that come with features that fit enterprise requirements.
5. Appoint and train specific personnel to request and respond to reviews on GMB profiles.
Building Local Backlinks
Most large companies find it hard to get involved with the local community—it’s where they could see the bulk of link-building opportunities.
a. The first step is to have a local team that takes charge of understanding the region.
b. The team would host and sponsor local events that can generate the right level of local PR. Plus, create link-worthy local content that can add to the backlinking efforts. Take a look at this example of a localized content piece from Airbnb:
c. Getting local links is tricky—you need to get people in your team to take ownership of one or a set of locations. Putting micro-level effort in content and PR can make a big difference to your local link-building efforts.
On-Page Optimization
The basic on-page optimization applies to enterprise SEO—make sure each of the local landing pages is optimized for local searches. Include the NAP details and Schema markup on each such page.
A good strategy is to include store photos and videos on these landing pages. You also need to link each landing page with the store locator page on the website.
Publishing localized blog content that links back to the relevant location landing page is the best way to get local engagement and page traffic.
Managing Citations
Every store needs to have a separate plan-of-action when it comes to citation management and NAP consistency. You can use tools like Moz Local to manage store listings on generic and industry-specific listing websites.
A dedicated resource should take responsibility for a store or a group of stores and manage manual and automated citations.
Collecting and Managing Reviews
Local reviews are crucial to the reputation of an enterprise brand. Making sure to align a dedicated review management team can help manage the process.
You need to develop a clearly defined process to respond to negative and positive reviews. Plus, you would need a centralized review tracking system to escalate unresolved issues to local teams.
Managing local SEO for a multi-location enterprise is a subtle art—it requires the right combination of data vigilance and an agile approach to implementing SEO strategies at the local level.
Chapter 9
Local SEO Tools: How to Choose the Best Ones for Your Local Business
From auditing your website to managing citations and reviews, various tasks need your attention, while implementing a local SEO strategy. Thankfully, there are a bunch of tools that can make the whole process a breeze. Let’s learn about some of the top local SEO tools and how they can help you:
Moz Local is a powerful suite of local SEO tools. The local SEO platform offers an automated process to track and delete duplicate local listings. This tool integrates with Google and Facebook and makes it easy to publish business data on these platforms.
Besides that, Moz Local helps manage and respond to customer reviews across different platforms. This tool is excellent for populating and correcting NAP data across generic and niche directories.
Plus, you can cleanse your data as and when required. Moz Local comes at a price range of $129 to $299 per year.
Whitespark is a popular local SEO and listing management tool. The tool comes handy when finding the best citation opportunities for a local business. The local rank tracker feature helps in tracking and improving organic search rankings.
The tool also comes with an incredible link prospecting feature that lets you locate the best link-building opportunities.
Its reputation builder tool helps businesses to collect, track, and respond to online reviews. All-in-all, you get a complete range of local SEO tools. The pricing of this SEO tool starts at $55 per month.
SEOprofiler is a terrific option if you’re looking for a tool to automate the website auditing process. It not only checks a website for common errors but also offers solutions related to local on-page optimization. You can use this tool to check your site’s local search rankings.
The local SEO tool is useful for analyzing competition search campaigns and backlinks. This incredible tool comes at a starting price of $9 a month.
Synup is a local SEO tool that works for small businesses, agencies, and enterprises. The platform lets SEO professionals manage a business’s digital profiles across global business locations. This tool helps optimize your business for voice searches by connecting it with platforms like Amazon Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google Assistant.
The tool helps optimize and distribute local content to relevant online platforms. It’s a great tool to track and manage local customer sentiments and feedback. Synup’s pricing starts at $30 per month.
As a local SEO manager, one of the things that you should not ignore is content optimization. Surfer SEO offers you a powerful content editor that helps optimize content for the right search terms and phrases.
The tool can help you with local keyword research, SERP analysis, along with backlinks analysis. You can use this tool at a starting price of $49.2 a month.
Elevatie is a popular online reputation management tool that takes care of customer reviews on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Trustpilot. The platform helps SEO executives to send text-based review invitations and respond to reviews in real-time.
This unique tool allows businesses to set up a review funnel—a feature that lets customers choose whether they wish to leave feedback on a single platform or multiple platforms. The cloud-based tool enables you to track reviews as and when they occur and respond directly from the platform.
Yext is a tremendous local SEO tool to help you cleanse your NAP data across listing platforms and directories. This tool is useful for suppressing duplicate business listings and optimizing your brand experience in the local search landscape. With Yext, SEO managers find it easy to create audience-centric local content and call-to-actions for higher website traffic and conversions.
From optimizing landing pages to great business reviews, this tool has everything you need for taking your local SEO efforts to the next level. You can buy this SEO tool for a starting price of $199 per year.
Geo Ranker is yet another robust local SEO tool that makes it easy to rank higher on local search results. The software offers its users all the SEO data they’re looking to level up their search optimization efforts. Pop in your keywords and this tool will give location-specific information related to organic, paid, and map search-listings across different search engines.
The tool also doubles up as a keyword researcher offering complete intelligence on your SEO campaigns. GeoRanker comes at a starting price of $99 per month.
Looking for local sponsorship opportunities can be a lot of manual effort. ZipSprout is a tool that helps to automate this tedious process. The platform has a database of sponsor-able organizations in 1000 US cities. You can use this tool to download a list of sponsor-able organizations in your town instantly.
It’s an excellent tool to help you participate in the local community and build some quick links for your local business.
Many times, SEO managers find themselves in a tricky situation when they fail to understand whether a bad review is genuine or not. This free AI-based tool helps to check if a review is authentic or not. You can copy and paste any review to learn if it qualifies for removal.
Adding structured data to a website is vital to tell search engines about your web page’s purpose. This free tool helps you to fill in a form and generate the relevant code for your website.
Chapter 10
Social Media Marketing for Local Businesses
In today’s world, a large percentage of the audience is online and glued to social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn. According to Digital 2020: July Global Statshot, more than half of the world uses social media, and there are 5.15 billion unique mobile users. Marketing on social media platforms is essential for local SEO and marketing success.
Set Yourself Up for Local SEO Success
Social media channels help local businesses to display their location, prominence, and relevance to search engines. Through social citations and engagement, a local company can demonstrate its authority in the local search arena.
Publishing useful content and updates on channels like Facebook and Instagram attracts local engagement. Hang on, and you can also get targeted traffic from these channels.
Optimize Your Social Presence
Lots of people use social media platforms as search engines. They look up information and business from their social media profiles. A well-optimized profile helps social media users to find your business with ease.
Include your business’s NAP details on your social media handles.
Include your company logo as the profile picture of your social media pages.
Use your business name as the username of your social media page.
Fill out the profile section—add a business bio that reflects what your business does. You can optimize the business description with the relevant key-phrases.
Make sure you have an active social media presence. You can upload content in the form of photos or videos with the relevant caption.
Use the most relevant local hashtags in post captions. Hashtags help social media searchers to find your posts and start engaging with them.
Run Targeted Ad Campaigns
Most social media platforms offer businesses a way to run paid ad campaigns. As a local business, you can quickly set up an ad campaign targeting a location-specific audience.
A social ad campaign is a terrific way to complement your SEO campaign and get qualified leads for your business. It’s also a great strategy to spread brand and product awareness in the local community.
Build a Social Reputation
Social media users often ask their friends and family for recommendations before making a purchase. Facebook recently launched a feature that enabled users to ask for such advice from their peers.
A social presence helps users to tag a business when referring to a product or a service. Having a business page enables you to collect and display positive reviews of your services. Social media platforms allow you to interact with customers, offer them advice, and solve their queries.
All of these strategies help convert probable customers into local business evangelists.
Create a Community
Social media platforms allow businesses to start a community with the click of a button. As a local business, you could create a Facebook Group and get people of similar interests.
For instance, if you’re running a fashion store, you could probably create a community where people can exchange clothing ideas or trends. Make it location-specific and encourage more and more people to participate.
Getting known in your region is about adding value to the lives of its residents.
A social media community paves the way for you to create a platform for like-minded people—and these are all your prospective customers and word-of-mouth agents.
Events and PR
Social media platforms are suitable for talking about achievements such as media coverage and awards. Also, if you’ve created some useful blog posts or videos, you can promote them on your business pages on these channels.
Social media platforms like Facebook allow you to create events and invite your friends. These events could be online or offline. Hosting local events works well to promote your business and generate new leads.
Create a Focussed Strategy
Most local businesses have limited resources for social media marketing. With so many social media platforms out there, trying to be everywhere won’t get you the results. For instance, as a restaurant owner, you may feel that most of your audience is on Facebook. A fashion store may find that Instagram is the most rewarding channel to connect with a local audience.
This way, you need to find one channel and aim to build a large following on it. Here are some tips on how to create content for a focussed social media platform:
Understand the social media platform to know the type of content that works better. For instance, Instagram is about visual content, while for LinkedIn, you need to create long-form text-based posts.
Native videos work on almost all social media platforms, and live videos are pretty much the new trend.
Temporary content formats like stories have also become quite popular—the design is useful for creating interactive quizzes and Q&As.
Map competing businesses on social media platforms to learn about their content strategies.
Aim at being a thought-leader on one social media platform, and you could gradually expand your footprint on other platforms.
Build An Audience
Having a bunch of followers works well to maintain a two-way conversation with potential customers. Besides creating content, you can ask offline customers and store visitors to follow your social media handles.
Create a giveaway that’s exclusive for social media followers.
Create a poster or a hand-out that requests the audience to like or follow your page—include the page name and link in the collateral.
Consider offering a discount for those who follow your page.
Besides having an optimized website and local landing pages, having an optimized social media presence is essential for small business growth. It’s the best way to reach a local audience and to build a relationship with them. A social marketing strategy integrates well with your local SEO and offline marketing efforts.
