In the past 3 months, i've been able to advance my website from a DA 2 --> DA 19 because of your videos! And recently i've been struggling trying to figure out how to land some of these bigger sites like Forbes and Entrepreneur. This is very helpful. Thank you!
@@ijojan you do not know how many resources Nicholas has, as well as the time that was invested to achieve such results. So do not undervalue yourself ;) - Max
@@ijojan I work 12 hour days 6 days a week, and I started my business in the music industry (have been working in this field for a long time). So, it was definitely just a combo of working hard and utilizing connections I already had. If you put in these hours, you can do it too!! I believe in ya. I'm around if you have questions about what I did :)
@@ijojan That's annoying. Sorry you got your content stolen. Not sure if I can show you any magical ways lol. But, i'd be willing to help you generate some ideas! Would probably be easier to talk off of CZcams. Are you on LinkedIn? Here's my link profile if you'd like to reach out :) www.linkedin.com/in/nick-voorhees-14047a73/
Great video Sam. I personally prefer the sniper approach as I like finding a way to go the extra mile with relationships. That being said, we have had great results with shotgun style outreach, particularly for lower authority sites or in certain niches. It's definitely more difficult to systematize sniper outreach as the process varies on a case by case basis, as you said. But if you are going for high end links, sniper is the only game in town.
Totally agree with you, shotgun works with lower quality links and probably fail every time when trying to get a link from authoritative resource. - Max
I do follow your every article & video that you uploaded then i do applied my projects & finally got maximum results from my expectations, seriously i don't have words to thanking of @Sam & Ahrefs team, may be you don't know that you all are the reason of smile at many faces :)
"Find out what motivates them" This was a huge takeaway for me. Don't just find out what they are posting about, but why they are posting it. Thanks again Ahrefs team!
Hey Sam, I believe that your network is correlated to your net-worth so the sniper approach of building relationships is better in the long run. Much appreciated.
Keiran, you are right. Generic shotgun approach will not make you stand out of a crowd, while sniper outreach helps you to build relationships, personal name and awareness. So, in long term game - this is the way to go. - Max
You might want to watch this video too - czcams.com/video/nAIWG8883uo/video.html I am sure it will give you some ideas on how to tweak your email outreach campaigns😉 - Max
So it’s my understanding you generally want to avoid link exchanges, but what if the site your linking with has a higher authority? Are there any other circumstances you might want to utilize link exchanges?
Thanks for sharing so many great tips - especially your mistakes. Sometimes helping others with no expectation of it being reciprocated is the way to go. Having said that, I will start with the broken link plan which is a no brainer. Fingers crossed...
I thought I was the only one doing this. It feels great to see even ahref taking similar steps. One more point I want to add is : demography. Journalist from US REPLIES way quick to some one in the same region. There can be exceptions but that's the hard truth.
I think it is a matter of interest. If there is some value, people will be more inclined to reply. While general pitch might be untouched due to lack of interest. - Max
When we contact the site owner to suggest removing posts/articles, I have got a question. Why would they want to give us a link to our website instead of their website? Because the link/post was removed of their post from the outsourced website. If we need a link back from prospect website why would not I outreach them and asked for link.
Hey Sam Awesome Video as always. One question: Most of the time the blogger asks for $$ in order to add links or guest post. Would love your thoughts on this.
i really like your video, the problem is im introvert in my nature , but i try to learn more and use different technique to create relations. i sent a message to your mail.
I'm not one for labels, but it's worth to note 'introverts' tend to be good listeners, understanding, and show a genuine sense of caring...which are great things to have in building relationships.
Ahrefs is the only source where you can get whatever you need in terms of SEO. As previously mentioned, I had Iearned SEO from noone and nowhere but only from Ahrefs.
@@AhrefsCom Physical product companies (like mine) as differentiated from companies where service is the primary component. Much of the SEO advice I read is about knowledge-based content around the service that a company provides. I think product retailers can be challenged by not having this kind of ongoing knowledge to publish from.
Michael, thanks for clarification. There are probably lots of generic things you can talk about when referring to your product (physical one) - features, types (collections), reviews, comparison posts, use cases (samples how product helped somebody / solved somebody's problem). Alternatively, think about services that you can offer along with your product (even delivery, personal customization or unique wrapping). Of course, it depends on a type of product you offer, so things you may talk about will differ as well. In any case, just look at your competitors - collect things that work for them and make sure you do not repeat their mistakes. Being better than your competition is game-changer for lots of product companies. Start with keyword research tutorial - czcams.com/video/OMJQPqG2Uas/video.html Then dive in keyword research playlist - czcams.com/play/PLvJ_dXFSpd2u5JCtiYWfvnSvAkoPwg5VY.html Hope that helps. - Max
Hi Sam, do you plan to make a video about wordpress themes that you can suggest are seo compatible, fast and mobile compatible? or are you thinking about writing an article?
Thanks Sam, but one thing remains unclear for me. Early in this video, you said that you don’t like to do reciprocal link building, and you actually turned down the request by a site owner asking that you link to their page after they linked to your page. Can you explain why? Is reciprocal link building not seen as legitimate in the eyes of Google?
Technically "excessive link exchanges" are against Google ToS. Or at least that's the advice they give to webmasters. I'm just personally not a fan of them. -Sam
Hi Sam, thank you for all your content, i love it ! I would like to know when your site ranks for "real estate agent in Paris" on page 1 of google but rank on page 5 for "Paris real estate agent" what should i do to be "always" on page 1 but with different keywords ?
I would check the SERP and pages that rank over me for a given keyword. Analyze their backlink profile and content, make sure you do not miss anything. Do you get same ranking results within a long period of time? Or this is just a one time check of the SERP for these two keywords? - Max
I mean do you check every day and get the same SERP results for both keywords? Or results change randomly? I assume the page that ranks for "Paris real estate agent" has stronger backlink profile. - Max
hey sam it hard to get backlinks my website have 4 DE and when i try to get backlinks using methods guest or broking links I failed to give me some advice
I don't get it. Why webmasters are so are reluctant to link to low and medium authority websites? They link to high authority websites all the time, and get nothing in return. But when you propose to link to your site, suddenly, their either want to get paid for, want free promotion or other personal gain. Where's the logic? I understand that no one does anything pro-bono in business, but they could at least not be so openly cheap. I seriously lose respect for that kind of people instantly. It's also funny that many of these people actually proclaim the idea of being nice and helping others. But when you ask such a minor aid as linking to you, it's overwhelming difficult for them. These people are just bunch on hypocrites and do not deserve the fame they have.
This type of link build tactics works for people who are an authority in a niche like Sam OH, this won't work for people who are trying to build a Niche site or building links at scale. I would say these strategies aren't practical for most of us. Possible but not probable
I do not think Sam was born as an authority. Everyone has to start with something. You will start with easy links first, but at some point you will need to grow and target authoritative contacts. - Max
3 days would not be enough to evaluate all of the tools, while still gives an opportunity to abuse our software and licensing. Current trial models works perfectly fine for us today. - Max
I am sure you will get to use it at some point. Look for the clients, who are able to cover the cost for you, so that you can perform SEO for them using Ahrefs ;) - Max
We do not support BlackHat SEO as well, but backlinks is still a ranking factor. There ways on how to get backlinks without Google's terms violation. We use techniques that we share with you and we never had problems with penalties. You might want to check that playlist - czcams.com/play/PLvJ_dXFSpd2tjUTuAHpHidz5e2hAedP_m.html - Max
@@AhrefsCom Well overall, asking for links is time consuming and the conversion rate for the total sent outreach e-mails is microscopical (even if you "have the best e-mail link-asking outreach copywriter" in your team and a high quality linkable asset for people to link to). Nowadays, pretty much everyone knows that you can charge people for "backlinks" and the trend only moves upwards on that. Hoping to get "free" links is just not happening in 2019 with manual outreach. It is better to invest your time in other marketing activities than write outreach e-mails and hope that they will link to you. In 2019 (and onwards), you just have to take into an account that you have to have a budget for "link-building". Especially true, if you have a new fresh website that no one knows about and no loyal traffic. Obviously paying for links violates the Google's guidelines but afterall, they do not see if a backlink is paid for or not. And most certainly, Google cannot advocate such behaviour but there is really nothing for them to do about it either. Paying for links is a normality in SEO and it suits Google well, since link-building is expensive and ranking time consuming, hence, people wanting to do business online need to cling to Google Ads which generates revenue for Google but also gives your business a chance to have exposure on the web quickly. When it comes to "asking for links" then almost always, a better method is to do content promotion on various channels/websites/platforms where your targeted audience resides and not to become overly spammy with it. Writing outreach e-mails for backlink purposes is a bad advice (but still advice I suppose) to give since it is highly ineffective way for actually getting something out of it.
Kristen, I totally agree with you, but here are some extra comments - 1. Building links is not necessarily an outreach. For example resources pages, local business listings, guest posting, broken linkbuilding (still outreach, but with much higher conversions), web mentions (outreach is involved, but getting a link from people who already talk about you is much more simple and does not require amazing copywriting skills) 2. We do not neglect content promotion. It is all about marketing, so all of these activities will bring you profit combined together, you just need to focus on those, which work better for you. 3. If you succeed with an outreach, this link brings more value in a long term game, you are not going to pay for it monthly and it does not have CPC. Anyway, thank you for the time spent to share your thoughts, I am sure lots of people will benefit from this conversation. - Max
@@AhrefsCom Not everyone will become known and an influential networker. And very few want to work for nothing all this time. Yes, within the current economic model one has to become a freak to become noticed. It is way easier to change the economic paradigm. The danger of your message: it is used by not so moral employers, who exploit desperate people who trying to make living doing link building. The systems you proposing for personal use, get put into policies of some SEO agencies.
Thank you for your sample. I hope people, who manage a group of SEOs, understand the actual idea of the video. This way of communication is more related to individual bloggers and SEOs. - Max
In the past 3 months, i've been able to advance my website from a DA 2 --> DA 19 because of your videos! And recently i've been struggling trying to figure out how to land some of these bigger sites like Forbes and Entrepreneur. This is very helpful. Thank you!
Nicholas, glad we published that video right in time for you;) Good luck!
- Max
@@ijojan you do not know how many resources Nicholas has, as well as the time that was invested to achieve such results. So do not undervalue yourself ;)
- Max
@@ijojan I work 12 hour days 6 days a week, and I started my business in the music industry (have been working in this field for a long time). So, it was definitely just a combo of working hard and utilizing connections I already had.
If you put in these hours, you can do it too!! I believe in ya. I'm around if you have questions about what I did :)
@@ijojan That's annoying. Sorry you got your content stolen.
Not sure if I can show you any magical ways lol. But, i'd be willing to help you generate some ideas!
Would probably be easier to talk off of CZcams. Are you on LinkedIn? Here's my link profile if you'd like to reach out :) www.linkedin.com/in/nick-voorhees-14047a73/
Thanks so much Sam......
I just started blogging and this tutorials are very much helpful to me i have been learning a lot.
That's great to hear! Keep it up!
-Helen
Great video Sam. I personally prefer the sniper approach as I like finding a way to go the extra mile with relationships. That being said, we have had great results with shotgun style outreach, particularly for lower authority sites or in certain niches. It's definitely more difficult to systematize sniper outreach as the process varies on a case by case basis, as you said. But if you are going for high end links, sniper is the only game in town.
Totally agree with you, shotgun works with lower quality links and probably fail every time when trying to get a link from authoritative resource.
- Max
Lll
Very informative. Like most things in life, relationships are the key & giving before receiving helps start that.
I do follow your every article & video that you uploaded then i do applied my projects & finally got maximum results from my expectations, seriously i don't have words to thanking of
@Sam & Ahrefs team, may be you don't know that you all are the reason of smile at many faces :)
Thank you for such a kind feedback! We are really glad to know our efforts help others to succeed!
- Max
"Find out what motivates them" This was a huge takeaway for me. Don't just find out what they are posting about, but why they are posting it. Thanks again Ahrefs team!
You're welcome!
Hey Sam, I believe that your network is correlated to your net-worth so the sniper approach of building relationships is better in the long run. Much appreciated.
Keiran, you are right. Generic shotgun approach will not make you stand out of a crowd, while sniper outreach helps you to build relationships, personal name and awareness. So, in long term game - this is the way to go.
- Max
Damn, wasn't expected content this good. Thank you.
You are welcome, Luis =)
Sam great content . I have tried hundreds of template out reachAnd rarely get any luck . Will try this version
Keep up the good work bro
You might want to watch this video too - czcams.com/video/nAIWG8883uo/video.html
I am sure it will give you some ideas on how to tweak your email outreach campaigns😉
- Max
Love AHREFs and love your content!
😍😍😍
So it’s my understanding you generally want to avoid link exchanges, but what if the site your linking with has a higher authority? Are there any other circumstances you might want to utilize link exchanges?
Sam equals legend.
Dave, do not make Sam feel shy =P Thank you for a kind feedback!
- Max
Thanks for sharing so many great tips - especially your mistakes. Sometimes helping others with no expectation of it being reciprocated is the way to go. Having said that, I will start with the broken link plan which is a no brainer. Fingers crossed...
Glad it was helpful!
I thought I was the only one doing this. It feels great to see even ahref taking similar steps. One more point I want to add is : demography. Journalist from US REPLIES way quick to some one in the same region. There can be exceptions but that's the hard truth.
I think it is a matter of interest. If there is some value, people will be more inclined to reply. While general pitch might be untouched due to lack of interest.
- Max
When I search on CZcams about SEO I usually click on two results ... Ahrefs and Income School I think that they provide the most value.
I hope these two clicks go to positions #1 and #2 as well =P
- Max
At the beginning, I thought this was a bad video but you changed my mind after 6th minute.
Thank you, glad you enjoyed!
- Max
When we contact the site owner to suggest removing posts/articles, I have got a question. Why would they want to give us a link to our website instead of their website? Because the link/post was removed of their post from the outsourced website. If we need a link back from prospect website why would not I outreach them and asked for link.
Hey, Sam Thanks for this video, it is beneficial for everybody who is in Digital Marketing.☺☺☺
You're welcome! ;)
one second in. Awesome content! :)
😍Thank you!
The sniper approach seems to work much better for me. People don’t want to dish out links to templated emails
Great to hear it's working for you!
- SQ
Thanks Sam, for evergreen and valuable content...
Keep posting good content and help people like me 😉
You are welcome😊
Thanks.Persuasion will help to get more client also :0)
Exactly!
I’m a fan of the sniper approach myself. It’s more work but the results are much better.
Hope you got some extra tips on how to achieve desired results with this video ;) Good luck with your outreach campaigns!
- Max
Always fantastic videos.. thanks..
Thank you, Miguel!
- Max
Hey Sam
Awesome Video as always.
One question:
Most of the time the blogger asks for $$ in order to add links or guest post.
Would love your thoughts on this.
Stay away from these if you care about what you do. Otherwise you might lose everything being deindexed
- Max
The last one was awesome
Thank you, Claude!
Great video man, thanks
Thanks, Biron :)
i really like your video, the problem is im introvert in my nature
, but i try to learn more and use different technique to create relations. i sent a message to your mail.
In my opinion most of SEOs are introverts, so you are in a right place =)
- Max
I'm not one for labels, but it's worth to note 'introverts' tend to be good listeners, understanding, and show a genuine sense of caring...which are great things to have in building relationships.
Ahrefs is the only source where you can get whatever you need in terms of SEO. As previously mentioned, I had Iearned SEO from noone and nowhere but only from Ahrefs.
Great to hear, Rahim! Hope our tips are helping your sites rank.
Thanks much, Sam. Do you by chance have an article or video that drills into SEO for product companies?
Can you elaborate on "product companies?" ie. our product is software. Or are you referring to SEO for product pages/sales/landing pages?
@@AhrefsCom Physical product companies (like mine) as differentiated from companies where service is the primary component. Much of the SEO advice I read is about knowledge-based content around the service that a company provides. I think product retailers can be challenged by not having this kind of ongoing knowledge to publish from.
Michael, thanks for clarification. There are probably lots of generic things you can talk about when referring to your product (physical one) - features, types (collections), reviews, comparison posts, use cases (samples how product helped somebody / solved somebody's problem). Alternatively, think about services that you can offer along with your product (even delivery, personal customization or unique wrapping). Of course, it depends on a type of product you offer, so things you may talk about will differ as well.
In any case, just look at your competitors - collect things that work for them and make sure you do not repeat their mistakes. Being better than your competition is game-changer for lots of product companies.
Start with keyword research tutorial - czcams.com/video/OMJQPqG2Uas/video.html
Then dive in keyword research playlist - czcams.com/play/PLvJ_dXFSpd2u5JCtiYWfvnSvAkoPwg5VY.html
Hope that helps.
- Max
Hi Sam, do you plan to make a video about wordpress themes that you can suggest are seo compatible, fast and mobile compatible? or are you thinking about writing an article?
Not at this time, but maybe in the future :)
@@AhrefsCom I'll be waiting with hope :)
Sam no words just ❤️❤️❤️❤️ 😍😍😍
🤐
Thanks Sam, but one thing remains unclear for me. Early in this video, you said that you don’t like to do reciprocal link building, and you actually turned down the request by a site owner asking that you link to their page after they linked to your page. Can you explain why? Is reciprocal link building not seen as legitimate in the eyes of Google?
Technically "excessive link exchanges" are against Google ToS. Or at least that's the advice they give to webmasters. I'm just personally not a fan of them.
-Sam
Any recommendations about link building budget?
Paying for links violates Google's guidelines, so we do not recommend that sort of practice.
- Max
Sam, Is there an advantage or disadvantage if the tags attached to the article are written in upper or lower case?
(WordPress)
Does not matter to me, it might be "eye catchy" in some places for a click bait, but would not influence your SEO in any way.
- Max
Might irritate readers as well, keep that in mind.
- Max
Hi Sam, thank you for all your content, i love it !
I would like to know when your site ranks for "real estate agent in Paris" on page 1 of google but rank on page 5 for "Paris real estate agent" what should i do to be "always" on page 1 but with different keywords ?
I would check the SERP and pages that rank over me for a given keyword. Analyze their backlink profile and content, make sure you do not miss anything. Do you get same ranking results within a long period of time? Or this is just a one time check of the SERP for these two keywords?
- Max
@@AhrefsCom what's considerate a long period of time ? I just checked yesterday so i'm not sure...
I mean do you check every day and get the same SERP results for both keywords? Or results change randomly? I assume the page that ranks for "Paris real estate agent" has stronger backlink profile.
- Max
@@AhrefsCom do you put google analytics code on every page of your website ?
hey sam it hard to get backlinks my website have 4 DE and when i try to get backlinks using methods guest or broking links I failed to give me some advice
Try different approach, play around with email title and body. Test which things people value more and eager to reply.
- Max
@@AhrefsCom thank's
😉
How to find the competitor's blog post from where they deleted the article?
I am sorry but I do not understand the question. Can you please specify?
- Max
@@AhrefsCom How do you know what are the links that don't exist in a blog, I meant the deadlinks
Check this video - czcams.com/video/IOSrx95e4lo/video.html
- Max
I don't get it. Why webmasters are so are reluctant to link to low and medium authority websites?
They link to high authority websites all the time, and get nothing in return. But when you propose to link to your site, suddenly, their either want to get paid for, want free promotion or other personal gain. Where's the logic?
I understand that no one does anything pro-bono in business, but they could at least not be so openly cheap. I seriously lose respect for that kind of people instantly.
It's also funny that many of these people actually proclaim the idea of being nice and helping others. But when you ask such a minor aid as linking to you, it's overwhelming difficult for them. These people are just bunch on hypocrites and do not deserve the fame they have.
Any Black Friday Ahrefs deal Sam? :)
We do not offer any deals or sales =(
Only option is two months for free with annual subscriptions
- Max
This type of link build tactics works for people who are an authority in a niche like Sam OH, this won't work for people who are trying to build a Niche site or building links at scale.
I would say these strategies aren't practical for most of us.
Possible but not probable
I do not think Sam was born as an authority. Everyone has to start with something. You will start with easy links first, but at some point you will need to grow and target authoritative contacts.
- Max
Hi sam, why don't you offers people 3 days free trial? So people can understand ahref
3 days would not be enough to evaluate all of the tools, while still gives an opportunity to abuse our software and licensing. Current trial models works perfectly fine for us today.
- Max
@@AhrefsCom Dear i really wish to use once this awesome tool, but your minimum trial is for 7$. 😥
I am sure you will get to use it at some point. Look for the clients, who are able to cover the cost for you, so that you can perform SEO for them using Ahrefs ;)
- Max
what about people selling legit services like "I'll put your link in a related blog" ?
Firstly, this violates Google guidelines. Secondly, you never know how long this link will be alive and what value it brings to your site.
- Max
Give us backling website
Choose any website on web;)
- Max
Yo
Wazzap! Do you plan to use these cases?
- Max
@@AhrefsCom I have done this once, but now i got it, clearly, let do itttttttttt.................
Good luck ;)
- Max
I don't know why everything goes over my head. Am I stupid? 🙃
May be not enough confidence? 🤔
- Max
No, you simply playing in the little league. You don't have negotiation power of the Warren Buffet.
@@timrutkevich3222 Ooo! That’s a good point. Should try that. Thanks.
Everybody start within a small league, but making a couple of unobtrusive connections might pay you big in future🤔
- Max
I found better thing 😜😜
?
@@AhrefsCom it's need a special video to explan it 😉
So what do you mean here?)
- Max
Asking for links in 2019 lol
What is your approach?
- Max
And your technique is...? If the guys from Authority Hacker AND Matt Diggity shy away from blackhat maybe it's something to consider...
We do not support BlackHat SEO as well, but backlinks is still a ranking factor. There ways on how to get backlinks without Google's terms violation. We use techniques that we share with you and we never had problems with penalties.
You might want to check that playlist - czcams.com/play/PLvJ_dXFSpd2tjUTuAHpHidz5e2hAedP_m.html
- Max
@@AhrefsCom Well overall, asking for links is time consuming and the conversion rate for the total sent outreach e-mails is microscopical (even if you "have the best e-mail link-asking outreach copywriter" in your team and a high quality linkable asset for people to link to).
Nowadays, pretty much everyone knows that you can charge people for "backlinks" and the trend only moves upwards on that. Hoping to get "free" links is just not happening in 2019 with manual outreach. It is better to invest your time in other marketing activities than write outreach e-mails and hope that they will link to you.
In 2019 (and onwards), you just have to take into an account that you have to have a budget for "link-building". Especially true, if you have a new fresh website that no one knows about and no loyal traffic.
Obviously paying for links violates the Google's guidelines but afterall, they do not see if a backlink is paid for or not. And most certainly, Google cannot advocate such behaviour but there is really nothing for them to do about it either. Paying for links is a normality in SEO and it suits Google well, since link-building is expensive and ranking time consuming, hence, people wanting to do business online need to cling to Google Ads which generates revenue for Google but also gives your business a chance to have exposure on the web quickly.
When it comes to "asking for links" then almost always, a better method is to do content promotion on various channels/websites/platforms where your targeted audience resides and not to become overly spammy with it. Writing outreach e-mails for backlink purposes is a bad advice (but still advice I suppose) to give since it is highly ineffective way for actually getting something out of it.
Kristen, I totally agree with you, but here are some extra comments -
1. Building links is not necessarily an outreach. For example resources pages, local business listings, guest posting, broken linkbuilding (still outreach, but with much higher conversions), web mentions (outreach is involved, but getting a link from people who already talk about you is much more simple and does not require amazing copywriting skills)
2. We do not neglect content promotion. It is all about marketing, so all of these activities will bring you profit combined together, you just need to focus on those, which work better for you.
3. If you succeed with an outreach, this link brings more value in a long term game, you are not going to pay for it monthly and it does not have CPC.
Anyway, thank you for the time spent to share your thoughts, I am sure lots of people will benefit from this conversation.
- Max
lol, waste your time and money to get these links. You have to be a person who known to others.
Nobody will know you if you do not tell them about yourself. Everybody needs to start somewhere, why not starting today?
- Max
@@AhrefsCom Not everyone will become known and an influential networker. And very few want to work for nothing all this time.
Yes, within the current economic model one has to become a freak to become noticed. It is way easier to change the economic paradigm.
The danger of your message: it is used by not so moral employers, who exploit desperate people who trying to make living doing link building. The systems you proposing for personal use, get put into policies of some SEO agencies.
Thank you for your sample. I hope people, who manage a group of SEOs, understand the actual idea of the video. This way of communication is more related to individual bloggers and SEOs.
- Max