The 2013 Guide To Link Building (Part 2)
This is part two of “The 2013 Guide To Link Building”, click here to go back to part one.
In part one I talked all about conventional backlinks and their important role in link building in 2013. In this post, I’m going to cover the second half of the link building strategy that is working right now.
High PR Links
High PR links are what are crushing the search engines right now. Google assigns a Page Rank from 0-10 to every page and domain on the Internet. The higher the number, the higher the authority of the page and the more powerful it is.
Whenever you get a link on a page with Page Rank, some of that PR flows through to your site. PR flows through all links, internal and external. Most of it stays on the page that has the PR, while much of it flows through links.
Getting links on relevant high PR pages is what is killing it in Google right now. Just a few of these links can sky-rocket your rankings.
Link Building Strategies
The only trouble is getting links from high PR pages can be difficult or highly expensive in a specific niche. You have several options:
- Buy Links On Competitor Sites
- Guest Post On Competitor Sites (Hope some PR passes to the blog posts)
- Rent PR Links via DigitalPoint.com & other forums.
- Buy into public Blog Networks
- Buy Expired High PR Domains (and set them up as relevant sites)
The trouble with #1 is that it can be super expensive, still a great strategy if you have the money to spend (expect to pay $50/month for PR3+ links). Number 2 is pretty pointless if your goal is to get high PR links as it’s hit or miss unless you’re posting on PR6+ sites.
Number 3 is a good option for getting fast rankings, but it costs a lot long term to rent links. It’s like renting a house your whole life, money down the drain.
Number 4 is dangerous with all the blog networks being infiltrated by Google. That leaves us with #5, buying expired high PR domains.
Buying Expired Domains
Really simple strategy. Go to expireddomains.net & purchase PR3+ domains that have expired on GoDaddy auctions. Make sure they have a good link profile (if you’re not sure how to do that, stick to building conventional backlinks until you do).
These expired domains are just old domains people have let expire that have Page Rank. You can buy them, set them up on SEO hosting (like SEOhost.com), install WordPress, and build little relevant blogs.
Once built, publish a relevant article on them with a contextual link to your site. Lastly, change the site’s SEO settings (all in one SEO) like the meta title and description to something relevant.
This results in a relevant high PR site that links to you from within a relevant article using your desired keyword as anchor text. Really easy trick for getting POWERFUL high PR links. You can find these domains for:
- PR3: $30-$60
- PR4: $50-$100
- PR5: $150-$300
You only need to buy 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s. Obviously, there’s a little more to the strategy, but there’s an abundance of training/info out there on how to do this.
Anchor Text Strategy
These high PR links will account for the majority of your rankings. One relevant link from a PR5 page is literally worth 5000 PR0 links. However, conventional links are important to diversify your anchor text (like I talked about in part one).
So a mix of high PR linking and conventional backlinks are essential to rank in 2013. You probably already know this, but anchor text is the next major element of link building in 2013.
Your anchor text is the keyword or phrase used as the clickable text that links to your site from a page. Google watches anchor text like a hawk because it’s an easy signal for catching out SEOs.
If they see a website getting 1000’s of links and 60% of them have the same keyword being used as anchor text, they’ll penalize the site. When you link to a site, let’s imagine it’s a product review. PS4 review, and the person wants to rank for ‘best PS4 review’, you also run a review website; but you know nothing about SEO.
Creating a Natural Anchor Text Profile
When you link to this other dude’s site, you don’t use the term ‘PS4 review’ as the clickable text link. You’d probably use something like ‘this other review’, ‘this review’, ‘PS4 review site’ or ‘another good review’.
Very few people will naturally link to a site using a specific keyword as anchor text. A specific keyword being a search term that a lot of people are searching. And Google KNOWS which keywords are getting a lot of searches—they own the Google keyword tool.
So, you have to create an anchor text profile that closely mimics what a natural profile would look like. Naturally, no more than 10% of people will ever link to a site with the same keyword or phrase as anchor text.
Anchor Text Summary:
- 10% exact match, 20-30% for small link profiles (best leprechauns)
- 50% relevant match (‘top leprechauns’, ‘leprechauns for sale’)
- 10% broad match (‘leprechauns’ and ‘leprechaun discount site’)
- 10% random match (‘click here’ and ‘website’)
- 10% brand match (‘lowcostleprechauns.com’ and ‘low cost leprechauns’)
Remember, always keep your anchor text profile looking as natural as possible. This is one of the key factors in ranking in 2013 and beyond. Leverage the power of high Page Rank domains and backlinks as much as possible. Use them for your exact match anchor text backlinks.
Diversify your link profile with the easier-to-build conventional links. Always strive to get backlinks from relevant websites. The more links you can get from competitor websites, the more secure, stable, and higher your rankings will be.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions below.
Comments
Chris
I’ve tried buying expired domains, and it really boosted my rankings, but it took some time to find the right domains. Thanks for the extra tips on PR link building!
Sarah T.
I’m a bit skeptical about renting PR links. Has anyone else had success with this long term?
Comments
Emily Ross
This is such a helpful guide! I’ve been struggling with link building for a while, and your tips really clarified a lot for me. Thank you for sharing this!
Alex M.
I have to admit, I’m not entirely convinced by the expired domains strategy. Do you have any case studies or specific examples that show this works in the long run?
Jordan W.
I have a question regarding the anchor text strategy. If I have multiple keywords I want to rank for, should I be creating separate links for each keyword or mix them within the same article?
Vanessa Lee
This post really got me thinking. While I appreciate the strategy, I wonder if relying heavily on high PR links could lead to issues down the road, especially with Google tightening its algorithms.
Matthew O.
Hey David, great post! It’s been a while since we last talked. I hope you’re doing well. Would love to catch up and maybe even collaborate on something soon!
Sandra Green
It’s interesting that you mention expired domains. I actually had a similar experience with an old domain that I bought. It helped my rankings, but maintaining the blog became challenging.
Ivan R.
There’s a tool I’ve used that does something similar to what you mentioned with PR links. It’s called Majestic SEO, and it helps analyze the link profiles of expired domains. I recommend giving it a try.
Lily K.
I had no idea that the anchor text profile was so important. I’ve been doing link building for a while, but this post really taught me the nuances of creating a natural-looking anchor text profile. Thanks for the insights!
