Never Waste Money on Backlinks Again
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Nathan Gotch, founder of Gotch SEO Academy, discusses the anatomy of the perfect backlink for SEO. He emphasizes the importance of relevance, including topic and location relevance, as well as quality, such as site and content quality, editorial guidelines, and outbound link quality. He also highlights the significance of keyword relevance and backlinks' quality. Gotch advises treating backlinks like paid ads, focusing on relevance and potential for referral traffic. He concludes with tips on prioritizing link opportunities based on performance, ease of acquisition, and quality metrics.
Takeaways
- 🔒 Relevance is the most critical aspect of a perfect backlink, encompassing topic relevance, location relevance, and page-level relevance.
- 📈 Location relevance is often underestimated but is crucial for localized businesses, as links from trusted local entities can significantly boost SEO.
- 🔍 Keywords are important for ensuring that the linking website has relevant traffic and can potentially send you referral traffic that converts.
- 📊 The quality and relevance of the backlinks of the link opportunity are essential, and tools like SEMrush can help assess the authority score and link profile.
- 🤔 UI and UX matter; a good-looking, high-quality website is more likely to be a legitimate and valuable backlink opportunity.
- 📝 Content quality is vital; avoid links from websites with spammy or low-quality content as they can harm your website's reputation and SEO.
- 📜 Editorial guidelines are a sign of a trustworthy website; look for sites that are transparent about their standards and practices.
- 🔗 Outbound link quality should be examined to ensure the website is linking to other reputable and relevant sites, avoiding those that link to low-quality or spammy sites.
- 🗑 When in doubt, discard a link opportunity; prioritize quality over quantity for impactful and safe SEO practices.
- 📊 Performance metrics like Authority score, total referring domains, and organic traffic should be considered after filtering for relevance and quality to further prioritize link opportunities.
- ⏱ Ease of obtaining a link, including the time, effort, and cost involved, should be factored in after prioritizing based on performance to streamline the link-building process.
Q & A
What is the main focus of the video?
-The main focus of the video is to explain the anatomy of the perfect backlink for SEO and provide a checklist to ensure that only the best backlinks are acquired for a website.
Why is relevance considered the most important factor in backlinking?
-Relevance is the most important factor because it ensures that the backlink comes from a website that matches the topic of your website, which significantly impacts SEO results.
What are the different components of relevance discussed in the video?
-The video discusses topic relevance, location relevance, and keyword relevance as the different components of relevance in backlinking.
How does topic relevance affect backlinking?
-Topic relevance ensures that the linking website discusses the same topic as your website, which is crucial for SEO. It is assessed both at the sitewide level and the page level.
What is the significance of location relevance in backlinking?
-Location relevance is important, especially for localized businesses. It involves getting links from websites that are trusted and relevant to the specific location of the business.
Why is it important to consider the keywords of the linking website?
-Considering the keywords of the linking website is important because it helps determine if the website has relevant traffic and can send referral traffic that converts, which is beneficial for SEO.
What role does the quality and relevance of the backlinks of the link opportunity play in backlinking?
-The quality and relevance of the backlinks of the link opportunity are critical as they indicate the trustworthiness and authority of the linking website, which in turn affects the SEO value of the backlink.
How does the UI and UX of a website impact its backlink value?
-The UI and UX of a website impact its backlink value because a high-quality, user-friendly website is more likely to be perceived as legitimate and trustworthy, which can enhance the SEO value of the backlink.
What should be the approach when evaluating the content quality of a potential backlink?
-When evaluating the content quality of a potential backlink, it's important to assess if the content is high-quality, relevant, and not spammy. This helps ensure that the backlink comes from a reputable source.
Why is it recommended to look at the outbound link quality of a website?
-Looking at the outbound link quality is recommended because it helps determine the trustworthiness of the website. A website that links out to high-quality, relevant websites is more likely to be a good backlink source.
What is the final advice given in the video regarding backlink opportunities?
-The final advice given in the video is that if there is any doubt about a backlink opportunity, it should be discarded. The focus should be on quality over quantity, ensuring that only the best backlinks are pursued.
How should performance metrics be used in the backlink evaluation process?
-Performance metrics such as Authority score, total referring domains, and organic traffic should be used to filter through high-quality opportunities after relevance and quality have been assessed. They help in prioritizing the most impactful backlinks.
What is the significance of ease in the backlink evaluation process?
-Ease refers to the difficulty level of acquiring a backlink. It is important to consider the time, assets, and cost involved in getting a link, as these factors can influence the prioritization of backlink opportunities.
Outlines
🔍 Importance of Relevance in Backlinking
Nathan, the founder of Gotch SEO Academy, emphasizes the critical role of relevance in acquiring effective backlinks for SEO. He outlines a checklist to ensure high-quality backlinks that yield tangible SEO results. Relevance is broken down into topic relevance, where the linking website's overall content aligns with the target website, and location relevance, which is crucial for localized businesses. Nathan provides examples to illustrate perfect relevance, such as a site about SEO linking to another SEO-focused site, and contrasts it with irrelevant links that do not benefit the website. He also discusses the importance of page-level relevance, where the content of the linking page matches the target page's topic.
🌐 Assessing Keyword Relevance and Backlink Quality
Continuing the discussion on backlinks, Nathan highlights the significance of keyword relevance and the ability of a linking website to drive relevant referral traffic that converts. He advises treating link opportunities like paid advertisements, focusing on whether they can send traffic that converts. Nathan warns against relying solely on metrics like organic traffic, which can be manipulated, and instead recommends examining the linking website's keyword rankings using tools like SEMrush. He also discusses the importance of the quality and relevance of the backlinks of the potential link opportunity, suggesting that a high-quality link profile is a good indicator of a valuable link.
🏆 Evaluating Website Quality and Content
Nathan delves into the aspects of website quality, including user interface and user experience (UI/UX), and content quality. He argues that a website's appearance and the quality of its content are crucial indicators of its legitimacy and potential to provide valuable backlinks. Nathan uses examples to demonstrate how some websites with poor UI/UX and low-quality content are not suitable for linking opportunities. He also emphasizes the importance of editorial guidelines and outbound link quality, suggesting that a website linking to reputable sources is more trustworthy and desirable for backlinks.
🚫 When in Doubt, Reject the Link Opportunity
In this segment, Nathan advises a cautious approach to link building, advocating for the elimination of any link opportunity that raises doubts. He likens this to discarding questionable food to avoid health risks. Nathan stresses that link building is not about quantity but quality, and one good link can be more impactful than many mediocre ones. He reviews the importance of relevance and quality in link opportunities and introduces performance metrics such as Authority Score, total referring domains, and organic traffic. These metrics should be used to prioritize high-quality opportunities rather than as the primary筛选 criteria. Nathan also introduces the concept of 'ease', suggesting that the effort required to obtain a link should be considered in the prioritization process.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Relevance
💡Backlink
💡SEO
💡Topic Relevance
💡Location Relevance
💡Keyword
💡Link Profile
💡Quality
💡Performance
💡Ease
💡Editorial Guidelines
Highlights
The anatomy of the perfect backlink for SEO is discussed, emphasizing the importance of following a checklist to ensure high-quality backlinks.
Relevance is the most crucial component for a perfect backlink, including topic relevance and sitewide relevance.
An example of perfect relevance is when two websites with similar topics link to each other, creating an 'Apples to Apples' type of relevance.
Location relevance is highlighted as an often-underestimated factor, especially for localized businesses.
The importance of a website's keyword profile and its ability to send relevant referral traffic that converts is discussed.
The quality and relevance of backlinks on the potential linking website are critical factors for a perfect backlink.
User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) play a role in determining the legitimacy and quality of a website for backlinking.
Content quality is scrutinized, with a focus on avoiding links from spammy websites with low-quality content.
Editorial guidelines of a website are considered as part of the quality assessment for a potential backlink.
Outbound link quality is examined to ensure the website does not link to undesirable or irrelevant sites.
A perfect backlink should come from a website with a high-quality link profile, including trusted and relevant links.
The 'when in doubt, throw it out' approach is recommended for eliminating questionable link opportunities.
Performance metrics such as Authority score, total referring domains, and organic traffic are introduced for filtering high-quality opportunities.
A strategy for prioritizing link opportunities based on performance metrics is discussed to ensure impactful backlinks.
Ease of obtaining a backlink is considered, including the difficulty level, time investment, and costs involved.
The importance of starting with relevance and quality before considering performance metrics for backlink evaluation is emphasized.
A comprehensive checklist for evaluating backlink opportunities is presented to ensure only the best links are pursued.
Transcripts
so what does the perfect backlink look
like for SEO in this video I'll share
the anatomy of the perfect backlink I'm
Nathan got the founder of gotch SEO
Academy and the author of The SEO
entrepreneur so like this video right
now to show me you're excited to learn
about backlinks and let's Dive Right In
so just follow this checklist and I'm
about to go through and this will ensure
that you're only getting the best
backlinks for your website that actually
will produce real SEO results okay
there's a lot of backlink opportunities
out there but 80 % or more won't
actually move the needle for you so just
follow this process and you'll never get
a bad backlink again okay so number one
let's begin with relevance so relevance
there's a few different components of
relevance and it is the most important
piece of this entire puzzle and that's
why it's number one so let's begin with
the first year which is topic relevance
so what does that mean so when we're
looking at a website we want to look at
the overall relevance of the website
compared to our website okay so we're
looking at that link opportunity you
want to make sure that that topic
matches our topic okay and we're looking
on a sitewide basis so here's an example
okay so you can see here that learning
seo. actually links to got SEO okay and
this is a perfect example of you know an
Apples to Apples type of relevance this
is 100% relevant to my website and I'm
100% relevant to this website this is
perfect relevance so we want to be
looking at the site as a whole do do
they do they talk specifically about
your topic and if they do that's going
to be your best opportunity you're going
to want to assign uh that a higher
priority okay so we're looking at at the
entire website as a whole to really get
that pure relevance okay now here's
another example where we don't have pure
relevance and it's completely off this
site actually does link to gotch SEO it
looks like my site ended up in some
scraper based website but you can see
this is not what we want right this is a
completely off-the-wall type of
relevance and this is not going to
benefit our website really at all okay
it's really not going to be good and we
shouldn't waste our time with anything
that's this irrelevant okay now keep in
mind you don't have to have pure
relevance like this like this is a 100%
match but like let's say it was a
digital marketing blog that's also
relevant right so we're still staying in
this General relevance but this is a
matter of how we're going to prioritize
these opportunities and the more
relevant it is along with a lot of the
other metrics I'll be showing you that
should just go higher up on your
priority list right so this is just a
matter of priorities okay all right
another one here is not just looking at
the sitewide relevance but also looking
at the page level relevance and keep in
mind I'm talking about a perfect
backlink here so perfect backlink here
is we have a website that's talking
about Google eat in an article and
they're linking to my article that's
about Google eat as well okay that's a
perfect perfect MCH right and that's
ideal so you would have hyper hyper
relevance on the domain level and the
sitewide level and then you have hyper
hyper relevance on the the content level
okay that's really what we should try to
aim for now of course that's not always
going to be possible for example if this
is an article about SEO or link building
or anything else that's within the
general topic it would still be very
valuable to get a link from that right
but this perfect match like this is
going to be the most impactful all right
next is looking at location relevance so
we know that topic relevance is really
important but also location relevance a
lot of people underestimate how
important this is and it's a little bit
more Nuance than topics so topics are
easy because it's if you have a website
about plumbers you want to try to get
links from other websites about plumbers
okay pretty simple but let's say you
have a a localized business and let's
say I have my St Louis SEO company and I
offer SEO services to St Louis
businesses well me getting links from St
Louis websites is a good thing
especially entities that are highly
trusted so for example take a look at
this one this is the uh KSDK website in
St Louis and I have a link right here
that's going to my website all right and
this is a very trusted entity in St
Louis linking to my St Louis business
all right so these are very good
citations these are very good entities
that you want linking to you and that's
really what we're thinking about here is
how can we get more trusted entities to
link to our to our website right that's
what we're trying to do so whether
that's going to be on the you know the
topic level or whether that's going to
be on the location level both are going
to be really really important okay
they're both beneficial next is keywords
okay so how relevant are the keywords of
the website that's linking to you so for
example yeah they might be relevant on
the domain level yeah they might have
relevant content but we also want to see
do they actually rank for stuff that's
relevant to what we're going after as
well because what it means is they have
relevant keywords it means they have
relevant traffic and if there's relevant
traffic that means that we can start to
ask this question which is can this
website send me relevant referral
traffic that converts right this is the
standard that you should live by when
you're thinking about a link opportunity
like like don't think about it in terms
of Link building or you know
manipulating Google or building up your
side Authority like don't even think
about that literally just ask a simple
question does this website actually send
me relevant referral traffic that
converts treat it as if it was a paid
advertisement right like if you were
paying for an ad you would get really
really specific with your targeting you
wouldn't just Target anything because
you know it wouldn't convert therefore
you would just waste your money but for
some reason in the case of Link building
no one thinks like this they just think
about how can I get links from you know
any site that's Loosely relevant to me
but they don't ever consider like am I
actually going to get anything from this
am I actually going to make more money
from this link right so for example you
know if I got a link from uh you know
from Mo I know that that referral
traffic coming to got SEO would be
highly highly relevant and it would have
a high probability of converting okay so
this is what we need to be thinking
about as far as relevance like don't
just look like the metrics are way last
as you'll see here that's not even that
important what matters is how relevant
is this traffic now keep in mind when
you only look at metrics let's say
you're you're uh qualifying your link
opportunities based on organic traffic
well unfortunately that can all be
manipulated same with Dr all these other
third party metrics those can all be
manipulated so you got to be really
careful you actually need to dig in go
into sem rush and actually look at the
keywords that they're ranking for if
they're ranking for Relevant keywords
then there's a high probability that
it's going to send relevant traffic to
your website it really is that simple
okay next one is looking at backlinks
okay the quality and the relevance of
the backlinks of your link opportunity
is also critical right and you can
actually go to sem rush and they have a
quick little authority score kind of
metric you can look at and it will tell
you you know if it's good and Niche
relevant that's a good thing you had a
high level but you also want to dig into
their link profile so looking at this
link profile this is the gotch SEO link
profile and let's say you want to get a
link from my site and I was a link
opportunity well you'd see Neil Patel
search engine Journal search engine LAN
that's really good right because that
means that my link profile is extremely
relevant to any other SEO website okay
so if you see that that's a very good
sign but the opposite is true as well if
you don't see any relevant links in the
link profile uh that's not something you
should prioritize so the next piece of a
perfect backlink is quality and there
are five parts but before we dive in I
want to give a quick shout out to Ferry
and the team from search intelligence
who is sponsoring this video they
understand the importance of quality and
we'll land you backlinks on some of the
most trusted websites on the internet
and they do it in a very unique way
which doesn't actually require you to
create any content at all instead all
you need is a subject matter expert and
they'll pitch journalists on stories so
you can get brand mentions and Powerful
backlinks so go to search- intelligence.
co.uk or check the link below this video
next is quality all right so we've got
relevance in order we know that we want
to get actually we'll go back and review
here so we want to know we want to get
links from websites that are relevant to
us uh either on the topic or location
level we want that website to have a
good keyword profile or or in other
words relevant traffic and then we want
it to have relevant backlinks okay if
you just get these four things right
you'll probably be fine in most cases
but let's just add a couple extra layers
to this since we are talking about the
anatomy of a perfect backlink okay so
the next one is UI and ux now you don't
hear people talk about this very often
but just from a purely subjective point
of view is the website actually good is
it actually high quality okay now if we
go back and look at one of the websites
from earlier you know this learning seo.
like this is clearly a very Nic looking
website this is a legitimate website
very high quality you can tell a lot of
time has been put into a lot of effort
um and it's a good site okay it's very
clear you don't it doesn't take rocket
science to know that this is a good
website at a glance you can tell it's a
legitimate website okay at a glance on
my website you can tell mine's a
legitimate website I got an actual
person that's on the homepage right so
I'm clearly a legitimate person so it it
it doesn't take like excessive uh
investigation to know you just can
literally look at a glance now we'll go
to what I'm talking about here to give
you a different example example so you
know looking at this site right this
site links to got SEO I guess it
acquired it naturally but just look at
what this site is I mean we've got we've
got a crazy menu over here that's
totally irrelevant uh and and very
strange in many ways um and then we've
got a bunch of random stuff over here
that they're linking out to so stop
smoking uh losing weight apple cider
vinegar you name it okay at a glance in
about about 1 second maybe even less
than 1 second you can tell that this is
not a good opportunity okay it didn't
take you reviewing the link profile and
doing all that stuff you could just look
at it and say this is not a good website
like it's not um just from a subjective
point of view I don't think anyone would
would argue that this is a greatl
looking website and that's purely just
from UI and ux we haven't even talked
about the content itself right so just
look at the site itself and just use
your use your your opinion use your
subjective point of view and actually
get serious about that and this is a
good elimination tactic okay next is
just looking at the content quality once
again people don't go to these levels
they're just doing real basic stuff oh
does a site have good Dr and does a site
have organic traffic okay let's get it
but that's why so many people waste a
fortune on backlinks because they don't
think about any of these things uh and
they don't go any layers deeper as far
as their their prioritization
qualification so also look at the the
content so when we look at this site
once again this is someone who's selling
this link opportunity it's just you can
just tell it's a spammy website right
there doesn't take it doesn't take a lot
of Investigation a lot of due diligence
to see that this is just a spammy
website with mediocre content or even
lowquality content okay this is not
where you want your website to live
think about it you you have to think
about where where you are associating
your business and your website and if
you're you're associating it with sites
like this then you should not expect to
a get good rankings uh B maintain those
rankings uh and C to ultimately keep
your website safe from penalties okay
links are the number one variable for
getting penalized so they should you
should have this level of this type of
checklist to confirm that you're getting
the best links possible okay next one
here is guidelines all right so when we
look at the New York Times like they
have a very they have a dedicated page
that talks about uh and and this is I
don't agree or disagree with New York
Times or whatever it is but I'm just
saying as far as what they do is at
least their attempts to be as
transparent as possible they have all of
these things right there's a lot they
have a whole page dedicated to their
ways of doing journalism their editorial
standards and all this stuff now we look
to the right over here you know uh not
looking too good as far as uh editorial
guidelines like right for us that's
about the extent of their editorial
guidelines so you fill this out and you
can probably get a link for you know3 to
$50 right super cheap link that will
probably do nothing for your performance
okay so look for guidelines that's what
we need to do next one is looking at the
outbound link quality another thing a
lot of people don't consider but you
need to look at what is this website
linking out to and if you see that
they're linking out to gambling websites
and adult websites and then they're
going to sprinkle in your personal
injury lawyer website in there like that
is not what you want you want your
website to live in a good neighborhood
so when you look at this this is once
again the uh gotch SEO external link
profile and I'm talking about the
websites that I link out to from my
website right and let's say got SEO is a
link opportunity you'd want to see stuff
like this okay he links out to Moz he
links out to search engine land hrfs you
know HubSpot search engine Journal all
highly relevant trusted entities
in my industry that I'm linking out to
you don't see any gambling websites you
don't see you know anything sketchy in
this link in this external link profile
okay so you want to examine what they're
linking out to and this is one way that
Google can start to identify footprints
for websites that are selling links
because you start to see this kind of
odd you know outbound link profile uh
that just doesn't really add up a whole
lot and it's linking to a lot of
websites that are really low Authority
and not trusted right that's when you
know okay next is quality all right so
we want to look at the quality of the
backlinks so I mentioned before we're
looking at the relevance so highly
relevant links but these are also highly
trusted links and when you look at the
links in between you know we've got Neil
Batel and seent journal and sege land
all highly trusted and relevant but we
also got you know this publ. iio which
is a trusted website logo.com rev.com
like these are trusted websites so they
may not be 100% relevant to our core
topic but they are extremely trusted so
that is also okay all right so now the
most disturbing part of this
presentation which is when in doubt with
a link opportunity throw it out okay so
I actually stole this from uh you know
whenever you're uh questioning whether
you should eat a particular meat uh if
it smells bad the the the the phrase is
if it you know when in doubt throw it
out so if it smells and you doubt that
meat just throw it out don't eat it
right um and it's the same with your
link opportunities if you doubt it throw
it out there's so many opportunities and
the goal of Link building is this is not
a quantity game you can one one really
good link that abides by all of these
standards that I'm giving you is so much
more powerful than a thousand of these
mediocre links I'm telling you it is so
much more impactful okay so just a
review here we've got we've got we'll go
all the way back here we've got
relevance uh just a review we've got
relevance which is the most critical
part we're keeping it highly relevant
across multiple points the topic the
traffic and the relevance of the
backlink profile and then we'll go to
Quality and we've got a few key things
we make sure it's a good-look website
it's high quality it's got good content
it's got editorial guidelines in place
to prevent spam uh it's got good
outbound links it's linking to relevant
outbound uh rinking linking to relevant
websites and high quality websites and
its link profile is high quality itself
okay then when in doubt throw it out if
it is not good all right last one here
is actually based on perform actually
two more uh number three here is
performance all right so now we can talk
about the metrics all right so Authority
score this is a semrush metric you are
only going to use these metrics when
you've already tackled those first two
points once you've tackled relevance and
quality now you can you can introduce
Authority score which is the overall
strength of a website and its link
profile you can also introduce the total
referring domains how many what is the
quantity of websites that is linking to
this site and then lastly organic
traffic organic search traffic to this
website these metrics should only be
used to to filter through your high
quality opportunities because it does
make sense to get links from high
quality opportunities that also have
high metrics because that's an
indication that it's going to be it's
going to be very impactful right so you
could technically have a website that's
super relevant uh is high quality but
it's not super strong right it may just
not have a lot of links it may not have
a big link profile it may not have a ton
of organic traffic and it may not have
an a strong Authority score doesn't mean
it's a bad website doesn't mean it's a
link you shouldn't get it just means
that it shouldn't be at the top of your
priority list cuz it's not going to move
the needle as much as a website that has
huge numbers on all of these right that
just makes perfect sense so it's a
matter of prioritization it's not a
matter of elimination because the other
two variabl should have eliminated all
the junk and left you with that 20% of
Link opportunities that are really high
quality then with that 20% of Link
opportunities you're just going to use
these metrics to filter through those
good good opportunities okay so a lot of
people start with this and they neglect
the other stuff so you're going to do
the opposite you're going to start with
you know with relevance and quality and
then eventually get to this next one is
ease okay very very simple thing but
what you want to do is once you've
prioritized based on performance now you
want to prioritize based on what is it
actually going to take to get this link
okay so looking at the difficulty level
getting a link on a New York Times is
much more challenging than getting a
link on let's say a smaller blogger's
website okay so you should consider that
and consider what it's going to take to
get that link from a Time perspective
from a asset perspective you might have
to create a specific asset to land that
link and also the cost okay how much is
it going to cost you to get that link
and cost is not just Financial it's also
time investment okay so those are really
the four the four ways that you can
really go through your link
opportunities and make sure you're only
focusing on the best link opportunities
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