April 27

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Not all links are created the same

By Jason Khoo

April 27, 2020


Transcript

Hi, guys, and welcome to another edition of Zupo's SEO Talk & Tea. 

Today's conversation is about how not all links are created the same. This is really important because as people get into SEO, link building becomes a priority for most if not all SEO campaigns. And then generally, it becomes a numbers game, and we just want to make sure that we understand what link buildings entails.

But before we jump in, this is SEO Talk & Tea. Today's tea, what we have is a Dragonwell Green Tea. This is one of my more favorite green teas. It's a classic green tea. So, if you've ever had a green tea, you've probably had Dragonwell Green Tea. It's pretty classic. This one and jasmine are pretty classic, so today's a really hot day. Apparently in California, Orange County, Southern California area, it's used to be 100 degrees, so I'm doing teas that are a little bit less hot today, and green tea is something brewed very, not as hot compared to other teas but 85 degrees Celsius, where the other average tea is about 99 degrees Celsius. There's a fun fact for you if you want to learn more about tea.

But anyways, let's jump into the conversation about how not all links are created the same. So, when you're link building, I like to give the really good example of when you think of link building, some people think of it as straight numbers like, "Oh, if we have 10,000 links, we'll be better than 9,000 links of our competitor." That's not really the case in most SEO campaigns. Generally, what you want to see is that the best way for me to explain this is a metaphor I love to use. I use this in all of my training sessions or speakers when I, well, as speakerships when I'm talking at different colleges or meetings and discussing SEO.

This is an example I like to give, which is let's say you move to a new neighborhood, and in that new neighborhood you really will want to have some pizza. And so, you ask your neighbors, and nine of them say, "Joe Schmo's Pizza," and then one of them says, "Hot Dogs Pizzas." Obviously, these are fake names, but you have Joe Schmo's Pizza that got nine votes and Hot Dog Pizza got one vote. You're probably going to take the nine votes because more people just said that one. That's genuinely how we take recommendations in the real world, and that's generally how Google takes it as well.

But there's a little bit of nuance. Let's say as you ask your neighbors, the nine say the Joe Schmo's Pizza, and the one you asked you figured out is the local city's food critic. Now, in that case, the vote of that one person may heavily sway you, actually, because they have authority. They're a critic for the local newspaper. Second, they're relevant in that authority that the expertise is in that field of food. And third, their vote might carry more weight for you because of all the expertise and authority. Whereas, the nine, they count, but maybe not so much as that one vote from that authoritative figure.

So, in that case, link building is very much the same in the sense that when you're building links, the value of each link is different. If you are building 10,000 links from websites that are either they look fake, spammy, or they just have zero strength, for example, a common example of this is when someone buys 10,000 URLs and then they use those URLs to link back to their site. Those have just like almost zero weight. It's almost spammy and a negative in a sense. Now, if you get links though, instead of those 10,000, but you get 1,000 links from Time Magazine, New York Times, BuzzFeed, and all of these strong publications, those links actually carry much more weight in Google's eyes, and therefore, your SEO will benefit more from those links.

So, when you're link building, yes, you have to have a metric and a KPI that you're going to be measuring but ensure that you know that all the links that you have aren't just low-quality links. And there's a lot of tools out there that you can use to measure how many links you're getting but also break it down by the value of those links. I personally use Ahrefs and SEMrush. A lot of people use Moz and other tools out there. This isn't a video to endorse anybody, but those are just the tools I use. And so, you can easily find those out there as well.

So, again, when you're link building, yes, in the beginning, if you're just trying to get a link, you can get any link that you possibly can. That's usually okay. But as you hit a certain point in link building, there is a threshold where the value of low-quality links, like directory links and citation links pretty much end, and that you need to go to a higher level. So, in that case you need to go for more editorial, publication links, or thought leadership links. And in those cases, the only way you're going to really get those is if you provide value. You go. You do a guest post. You do guest speaking. You give them value or a reason to reshare your post.

So, when you're beginning, yeah, link building will be pretty monotonous in that you just need to link build just like citations, directories, or wherever you can find them. But at a certain point, those will dry up, and then you need to go beyond that. How do you get that food critic's link? How do you get that local publication, that local newspaper, or the industry authority's link? And that's where the real battle of SEO begins, where you need creativity and also just some hustle to kind of try to get those links.

So, again, not all links are created the same, and if you'd spend all your entire time chasing low-value links, you're not really going to benefit in the long term for SEO. The companies and SEO campaigns that focus in on trying to get high-quality links from these high-quality authorities and publications will end up winning because those links carry so much more value.

So, again, I hope if as you walk away from this video, remember your link building campaign needs to be tiered. Of course, there is a part to play where you can get any link that you can, but the more informed part where it's really going to move the needle is these high-quality links that you need to acquire. So, when you're building your own link building campaigns ensure that you have a long-term strategy of getting these high-quality links.

I'm going to leave that at that. There's a lot more to kind of dig into it within your each own customized campaign, but that will give you kind of a starting point. I'm going to go ahead and pour out my green tea, and if you guys enjoyed the video, please like and subscribe, and I hope to see you guys again soon. Thanks. Ooh, hot.

Jason Khoo

About the author

Jason is founder and CEO of Zupo, which is an Orange County based SEO consulting agency helping construct powerful long term SEO strategies for our clients. Jason also enjoys multiple cups of tea a day, hiding away on weekends catching up on reading and rewatching The Simpsons for the 20th time.

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