[v1, This post will be updated in the future. This is a rough draft.]
Every time you read “How to gain back links” you read about guest and every “guest post tutorial” you read mentions Search “Write for Us + Industry” to find list of sites that will accept guest post.
The reality is, most of the sites having pages “Write for Us” are actually not free.
What’s the reason! They are generally owned by bloggers/business that understand the market of links and organic SEO.
It doesn’t mean that they don’t work. It just means that a good percentage of people demand some kind of value exchange in return. Let be it a monetary exchange, link exchange or anything that can value them.
Small business do not haves $10,000+ budget to hire dedicated SO company for link Building.
As if you are an experience SEO, you know Link building cost money, A decent amount of money when you are on the way to build links from authority sites.
But in this article, I have tried listing a few ways that still exist. These are the list of methods to gain back links for free and in many a cases, brand feature for free.
A brand feature is also something google values, so don’t worry if you don’t get a chance to get a direct link.
Ways to gain link without paying hefty for guest posts
Note: paying doesn’t mean it’s completely free. You are giving away the content they value. That still costs you time, and money in case you hire a writer to do that for you.
1. Contact websites having that do not have “Write for Us” page
Process: make list of topics you want to publish > Do google search, export > Unique Domain > Reverse URL Find and confirm that there is no write for us page > Mail them and main them at least 3-4 times
Cons: May end up with low profile domains. If you are looking to build links for technology company, find developers on hashnode.
2. Contact the publishing site that invites guest authors
Industry experts, let me it painters, artists or bloggers in general. Collaboration with competitive people can really bring good content to the audience and people are generally open for this.
make sure, that you don’t go the old way to approach them. “I would like to do a guest post and blah blah blah”. You have to spend time in building connection first and then when ind time right, offer a collaboration.
Professionals, apart from SEO professionals, like to collaborate with people and share value and do discussion. This can happen between
- 2 mangers from 2 different company or
- CEO from 2 different company or
- 2 Freelancers working in same domain or cross domain IE: Web Designer with an SEO=Valuable content for audience
Contact the publishing companies that publish content about news, startup and industry updates
– These sites are for free. The only hard you need to put is to research good content, write and proofread it professionally and execute. These sites are generally for free, accept company stories, and expert ways to do things for free. In rare case they also accept listicle article that can include the company or link you want to publish.
3. Industry Updates and asking consent if they would like to receive Intel 71
Industry updates like Hacking, Data breach, Flaws and malware disctribution, China Overtake on App catgories, Any agreesion by country company on privacy, any unethical ways of data collection, big tech doing any wrong can be really valuable. When this news can be disctributed through mails with consent to send proof if they need can become a very valuable authority and link building opportunity. This should be done fficiently otherwise this can become ineffective.
Process: Make a list of writer from that specific niche who has written in last 30 days > Generate some content, add stats and estimates that can be interesting and send a brief. You can also publish this data first on the page you are willing to receive the link and send to publishing companies.
Care Required: Try to have no commercial intent on the informative page you are sending. Otherwise google mail other mail providers may mark it as spam and you will not reach the max audience.
This process can be done by email but the footprints like URLs should be removed as it may get categorised as spam.
This process can be repeated as an authority building process. The accurate info and better relationship you have with PR people, the more higher chances of approval you will have.
– PR companies
Example 1: PR Done to attract links and brand mentions
Mail 1:
Mail 2:
Example 2: A PR campaign done for education niche
4. Expert Updates
Taking business leader opinion the businesses and other similar business and sending it to a list of PR companies can boost your publishing. The reason why this works is, there are very fewer chances of getting bad data. Every news company wants sensitive company and when you are sharing an opinion it should have those metric that can be eye opening. It doesn’t mean that you have to fake the data, it means that you have to research enough.
ie: Grandpas has more patience than millennial reveals a digital data analyst from publish industry.
ie: Cutting education GST to 0% may push students to become job ready says Education Startup Founder XYZOoo
5. At the end, Do Paid PR with strategy to build link and authority
Example: https://www.treadmillreviews.net/water-bottle-germs-revealed-2019/
Water bottle contamination report => Being used to the verge, news wire, outlook and many more high authority publishing companies.
6. Curate Linkable Content and Publish
Something your organisation can do
- Facts and Stats (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- New and Original Case Study (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Survey Data (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- New Breakthrough innovation (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Manipulation (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Corporate Theft (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Crypto and Bitcoin (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Hacking of big company, app and etc (The one company that publishes publicly first with restriction to copy and credit)
- Data Breach (The one company that publishes publicly with restriction to copy and credit)
- Big tech data harvest report without consent (The one company that publishes publicly with restriction to copy and credit)
- Products Leaks (credit often given to one company that comes first)
Note: Do any disclosure following governmental guidelines and responsible disclosure guidelines.
2. How to get a lot of people read a content
Keep it very generic. Things that a lot of people do.
Remember that cancer news articles that pop up once in a while:
6.1. if you are drinking too much water, you might have serious health conditions
6.2 You should drink a lot of water to loose weight.
I know, it’s silly. But that’s what people are medical companies publish and that what people read.
Example: Why you should never reuse your plastic water bottle.
Think about?
Is every blog post on a high auth site is a paid post?
Is every blog post on a high auth site is about big tech?
What high auth like to publish in general?
Can you create a similar respot that makes that happen?
Will going in smal lmedia first and then approaching high auth site will work?
Look at
1. Intel 471 links, they have been building using the Info on Demand
2. Look at Geekster brand mentions
3. Look at Admit Kard links and brand mentions
Brand mentions can be searched by doing brand name search in double quotes ""
In the worst case and risky,
Do you have any big competitor who is doing something wong?
Do have access to experts who can share info that people generally do not have? Especially facts and stats, working methodologies and etc.
