Contents
Text Link
Links are one of the most fundamental parts of any SEO campaign. The more you have pointing to your domain or page, the higher your rank will be on search engine results.
The concept behind it is Google judges websites and determines their ranking using a mathematical algorithm called PageRank. You can learn more about it here.
Knowing how vital links are, it pays to get it right and put in a good link building strategy. One method that we’ve had a lot of success with here at Profit Engine is link insertions. In fact, we’re currently building north of 500 links for our SEO clients every month this way.
In this quick guide, we walk you through the exact steps we follow when building links using link inserts.
Remember, you can always reach out to us for link building services and we’ll quickly rank your business higher on Google for more customers and revenue.
Link insertion is a simple way to build links at scale, especially when compared to tactics like guest posting and skyscraper technique (does this even work anymore?).
Essentially, it entails reaching out to website owners and requesting them to add a link to your website on already-existing content, usually topically relevant to your resource. In some SEO circles, this link building method is also known as niche edits.
Say you run a home and gardening website and are embarking on a new SEO campaign. You could approach a local real estate company and ask them if they’d be interested to embed a link that points to your website.
Of course, this is almost never going to be given to you for free, but we’ll explain how to go about that shortly.
As long as the real estate website has some authority and doesn’t engage in spammy activities, you should notice an uptick in your rankings once the backlink goes into effect.
For starters, link insertions serve to create partnerships, raise brand awareness and site authority, and bring in traffic. But what makes them such a powerful link building strategy?
Let’s admit it; unless you have a lot of patience, time and deep pockets, it’s never going to be easy getting a backlink via guest posting today. Normally, you’d have to spend time writing, editing and formatting new content to be published on another site, and still pay in exchange for a backlink.
Link insertions offer an easier route for the same (or even better) results. This is because you’re not creating any new piece of content. And this goes two-way – the owner of the site offering you a link won’t also need to go through all the hassle of reviewing and publishing your content.
Instead, you’re simply identifying an already existing blog post that covers or mentions something related to your site and inserting your link(s) within those posts.
If someone offered you some money to edit one of your posts and insert a new link, would you be completely against it? This is what makes link insertions so tempting even for established webmasters.
Most will be happy to collect a payment for a 5-minute task as long as whatever they’re linking to is worthwhile.
So you’ve decided you want to try out this strategy? Let’s go into the nitty-gritties of it all, starting with how to find decent places to get links from.
The idea here is simple; if someone can accept money for a guest post, then they’re more likely to do the same for a link insertion, which is even easier because the content already exists on their site.
Seen some prospective sites that link to your competitors and you want a similar link from them? Contact them to find out if they can do a link insert for you.
Here, you simply look for relevant websites with decent authority, locate pages on their sites that you’d like links from and ask them if they can link to your site.
When launching a new outreach campaign, you need to pay attention to a few link building metrics:
Whenever we’re launching a link insertion campaign for our clients, the latter two factors matter the most to us.Â
For starters, we don’t want to link from a page with zero or spammy backlinks pointing to it. Also, we want our link to be surrounded by content that’s relevant to our client’s site.Â
Suppose you have identified a few websites that you deem relevant and reached out to them. What next? Before anything else, you want to keep the price per link as low as possible. At Profit Engine, when we are link building for our own site we try to keep this below $80 per link.
Here’s how to negotiate with webmasters and close a deal:
With your budget set, reach out to your list of targeted websites for a quote. A quick tip here is to refrain from telling them what your budget is. Force them to make the first move.
Often, site owners will quote a huge amount. Don’t panic or go cold on them. There’s always room for some negotiation.
In your response, you can say something along the lines of “Sorry, but that’s beyond our budget this month and we simply can’t afford it”. Then suggest something like “Could you do link insertion into an existing post for $20, instead of a guest post?”
Should they accept your offer, go ahead and request their payment details right away. Then complete your payment and share your URL and anchor texts for link insertion placement.
Quick tip: avoid sharing your URL before your request is accepted, otherwise you risk attracting bad publicity if things fail to go to plan.
Let’s now take a look at some best practices to acquire high-quality links that will actually elevate your brand and improve your SEO results:
We can’t emphasize this enough but you want links coming from high authority domains in your niche or shoulder niches for maximum topical relevance.
For this, we use Ahrefs for domain ratings and amount of traffic the website you want to link from has. Even better if you can link from a blog post that already has several links pointing to it; the result is going to be even more powerful.
Topical relevance is a key aspect of any link building strategy. Link insertions should only happen on content, articles and websites that align with your niche. Ideally, the link should look and feel 100% natural. If not, let it go.
Let’s go back to our example on home and gardening site above:
Say you want to build a link to a page titled “Home Inspection Checklists”. And you know a high-authority realtor that has published a popular blog about “Essential Steps for Buying a Home”.
You could approach this realtor and ask them if they’d be interested to add your link within their blog post.
This helps to serve two purposes: to enhance user experience for readers that want more in-depth information on “steps for buying a home” and to boost your brand’s visibility and authority. A perfect example of a win-win situation.
This is key. Write a concise and compelling anchor text that contains your target keywords, but be sure to also mix it up with partial and generic ones. You can learn more about anchor text ratios here.
With the right approach, link insertion can be an extremely effective way to improve your website's SEO. By following the tips in this guide, you can ensure that your link insertion strategy is helping rather than hurting your site's ranking.
Finally, if you’d rather outsource the process, Profit Engine can help. Get in touch with us now for a free strategy call.
‍