As a reader of the Ethinos blog<\/a>, you obviously know the differences between black hat and white hat. But, in terms of purely white hat SEO, what it involves is not as complex or unattainable as some make it out to be. And if done correctly, can yield a benefit far better than any black hat campaign ever could! And your job as a white hat SEO is to continually refine these 3 points, making each campaign better and better.<\/p>\n Now does that sound too simple?\u00a0 Perhaps\u2026 But there are 2 key benefits of building high quality, relevant backlinks.<\/p>\n (1) It acts as \u201cfood\u201d for the search engines. If Google can detect through its algorithm and bots that your site is getting relevant, contextual backlinks – you\u2019re more likely to be rewarded with higher rankings. After all, when Google wants to show a result for a keyword, they want to show the most useful content. And these higher rankings will result in higher organic traffic.<\/p>\n (2) Direct traffic from the link. I.e. a recent client I worked with had a site which was a guide to arranging funerals. By displaying heavily useful free content in bereavement, arranging funerals and related items – we were easily able to convince suppliers of cremations urns and coffins to link directly to the site from theirs. So before we even start to look at rankings or organic traffic, we\u2019re already getting real people clicking through to the site from these links.<\/p>\n Within just a month, not many gains were made in rankings. However, there was a definite upsurge in weekly traffic, which most likely was direct referral traffic from a few links.<\/p>\n Great Content.. Not \u201cOptimized\u201d content<\/strong><\/p>\n By great content, we mean make it useful for the reader! That means not over optimizing it and trying to make it rank for a particular keyword phrase. Ever since 2012, the Google Penguin update<\/a> has penalised the over-use of anchor texts.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a a test site I created which shows this in action: http:\/\/www.pharmacyportal.co.uk\/buying-a-pharmacy\/<\/a> I\u2019m not saying it shot to the top, but considering its got no backlinks, is a fairly new site and competing with long established organisations –\u00a0 It already ranks for number 12 for the term \u201cbuying a pharmacy business\u201d <\/em><\/strong>(which is pretty decent!)<\/p>\n And as you can see, 2 other optimised (but still useful) pages on the site rank for spots 13 and 14 as well.<\/p>\n The point being, this is exactly the mentality you should have when creating content for marketing purposes. It needs to most importantly be important, useful and interesting enough that people actually want to read it. If you can achieve that, any link is possible.<\/p>\n When trying to gauge, where you should build a link from. There\u2019s just one metric you need to use. And best of all, no subscriptions or fancy tools are needed \u2013 its good old fashioned Relevancy. But how it shouldn\u2019t be used is to pick an arbitrary number and say for example, that you\u2019re only going to build links from all sites with DA equal to 50 or over. 2 reasons:<\/p>\n When doing outreach, what you don\u2019t want to do, is what 95%+ of other people do. Which is usually, going into a large boring sales pitch about what they do, and sharing a link to a sometimes very salesy and questionable article. You can have success by just building relationships with bloggers and influencers instead, and even asking them for content ideas. However, its not necessary. Here\u2019s an example of an outreach email which resulted in a link. Note the personal touch and the fact I personalized the email.<\/p>\n
\nA true white hat strategy involves quite simply:<\/p>\n\n
![\"1\"](\"http:\/\/www.ethinos.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/1.png\")
<\/center>So, we know why we need backlinks – but what is the best way to ensure we can get them?<\/p>\n
\nAs you\u2019ll see from the article, its probably in excess of 1500 words. It does have decent on-page SEO but I have only mentioned the keyword where it looks most natural and doesn\u2019t make the article unreadable. In other words – people actually find it informative and useful! And when getting this made I had one goal – I wanted this to be the BEST article in the entire internet on how to buy a pharmacy in the UK. There are other article\u2019s out there, but for that particular subject, I don\u2019t think any of them discuss the topic in such detail and accuracy.<\/p>\n![\"2\"](\"http:\/\/www.ethinos.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/2.png\")
<\/center>And by making it truly engaging and useful for readers, it falls in line with the way Google intended. And also, when you reach out to people to link to it, they\u2019ll be more likely to because of how useful the content is.<\/p>\nRelevancy is Key.. Not PR\/DA\/TF\/XYZ Metric<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nDon\u2019t get me wrong, these tools do have their value when trying to analyze competitors link profiles or for tracking how your site is doing overall. E.g. if there\u2019s a growing trend of your sites DA number going up, its probably a good sign.<\/p>\n\n
Be More Human and Don\u2019t Be Afraid To Show Personality<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\nThe first step is to get your content on point (which we discussed earlier). But also, don\u2019t be afraid to actually show an interest in their site!<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nMain thing is don\u2019t come across as too desperate or link-hungry. You need to show that what you have, has value for them.<\/strong>Once you can display that, the links will come easily.<\/p>\n![\"3\"](\"http:\/\/www.ethinos.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/3.png\")
<\/center><\/p>\nA, B, C \u2013 Always Be Calibrating<\/strong><\/h4>\n