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How I Built 5,660 Backlinks in 30 Days [New Strategy]

Brian Dean

Written by Brian DeanIn collaboration with Semrush

How I built 5,660 backlinks in 30 days

I built 5,660 backlinks last month.

Backlinko – Last month backlinks

(Without sending a single outreach email.)

My secret?

A new strategy called Reverse Outreach.

And this case study I’m going to show you exactly how I did it, step-by-step.

Outreach-based strategies like The Skyscraper Technique still work GREAT.

(When done right.)

But there’s one big problem with most link building strategies:

They don’t scale.

And if you’re in a competitive niche, you NEED to do link building at scale.

For example, take a look at Backlinko.

According to Semrush, I have 47.3K referring domains.

Semrush – Backlinko – Referring domains

That sounds great. Until you look at some of my competitors.

Like Yoast (67.2K referring domains):

Yoast – Referring domains

Search Engine Journal (214K referring domains):

Search Engine Journal – Referring domains

Or other huge brands in the marketing space, like HubSpot (341K referring domains):

HubSpot – Referring domains

Let’s say I wanted to close my link gap with Yoast using email outreach.

I’m currently about 20K referring domains “behind” Yoast.

And let’s assume that 5% of the outreach emails that I send result in a backlink.

That means I’d have to send 400K outreach emails just to catch up to Yoast.

(Plus, this assumes that Yoast isn’t going to get any more backlinks during that time. Which isn’t going to happen.)

So when I did the math, I realized that I needed a different approach to link building.

One that could scale. Big time.

After months of testing, I think I finally found it.

It’s called “Reverse Outreach”.

Here’s how it works:

How “Reverse Outreach” Flips The Script on Traditional Link Building

Reverse Outreach completely flips the script on outreach-based link building.

Instead of reaching out to bloggers and journalists, you have them come to you.

Specifically, you target keywords that bloggers and journalists search for. And create content that they WANT to link to.

Let’s look at a real-life example.

A few months ago I published this post on my site:

Backlinko – TikTok users

This post was designed specifically to get backlinks from journalists.

(More on that later.)

I also made sure to optimize that post around keywords that bloggers and journalists search for.

(Like “TikTok monthly users”, “How much time people spend on TikTok” and “TikTok downloads by country.)

Sure enough, that post eventually ranked #2 for “TikTok users”.

Google SERP – TikTok users

And started to rank for dozens of other keywords too.

TikTok users – Google rankings

Yes, this brought in some traffic.

TikTok users – Traffic

But that’s not really the point. The people searching for these terms aren’t really my target audience.

The goal with this content was simple: get backlinks from authority sites.

And that’s exactly what happened.

That page now has editorial backlinks from Bloomberg:

Bloomberg – TikTok users backlink

Inc:

Inc. – TikTok users backlink

Business Insider:

Insider – TikTok users backlink

And dozens of other authority news sites and blogs.

TikTok users – Backlinks collage

With that, let’s jump into the step-by-step process.

Step #1: Find “Journalist Keywords”

Your first step is to find a “Journalist Keyword”.

A Journalist Keyword is just like it sounds:

It’s a keyword that journalists use when researching or writing an article.

For example, this page from Backlinko is optimized around the journalist keyword “social media usage”.

Backlinko – Social media users

Who searches for that keyword?

A blogger or journalist writing about how popular social media is!

When they do, my page gets in front of them with the data they need.

And they cite me as a source in their articles:

Adoric – Backlinko citation

(In fact, that single page has 11.5K total backlinks. 95%+ of which came from Reverse Outreach.)

The question is: how do you find Journalist Keywords?

People Also Ask Boxes

Just search for a topic in your niche…

Google search – Social media users

…and look for People Also Ask questions that are looking for data.

Google SERP – Social media users – People also ask

These are usually questions that bloggers and journalists want answers to.

If you get stuck, just search for a different keyword (it can take a few to get going).

Or expand the People Also Ask boxes to reveal more commonly-asked questions.

Reverse Engineering

Next, look for a page on a competitor’s site with a lot of links.

Semrush – Backlinko – Indexed pages

Then, find the Journalist Keywords that the page ranks for.

For example, you can see that this page from Backlinko has a lot of backlinks.

Backlinko – Page speed stats – Backlinks

And if you look at the keywords that the page ranks for, you’ll find LOTS of journalist keywords.

Page speed stats – Ranking keywords

Target Trending Topics

Specifically, trending topics that don’t have a lot of easy-to-find data sources.

That way, YOU can be the go-to source for data on this emerging topic.

For example, remember Clubhouse?

Well, when Clubhouse was poised to become “The Next Big Thing”, everyone and their mom was writing articles about it.

There was only one problem:

It was a huge pain to find useful data about Clubhouse!

So I found every Clubhouse-related stat that I could. And whipped together this collection of Clubhouse stats.

Backlinko – Clubhouse users

That page quickly picked up passive links from The Guardian, Cosmopolitan Magazine and more.

Clubhouse users – Backlinks collage

Note: Interest in trending topics (like Clubhouse) can fall off the map. But the upside still makes the approach worth it. Even though Clubhouse is no longer relevant, that single page (which took about 2 hours to write) still brought in 1.6K total backlinks!

Now:

You can definitely target Journalist Keywords in your niche (or in related niches, as I did with my Clubhouse post).

But don’t be afraid to go outside of your niche a little bit.

For example, this page about Tesla is quickly becoming one of Backlinko’s most linked-to pages.

Backlinko – Tesla stats

Obviously, Tesla isn’t super relevant to my niche (digital marketing). But Tesla is in tech (which IS somewhat relevant to Backlinko). So it’s not like I’m creating a stats page about the keto diet.

Step #2: Outline Your Content

Your next step is to outline your article.

Specifically, you want to answer the most interesting questions that journalists have around the topic.

This means most traditional keyword research tools are out.

Instead, you need to think of the types of data someone would need when writing an article on that topic.

For example, take my post about Tesla.

What would a journalist writing about Tesla want to know about?

  • Tesla’s revenue
  • How many Teslas are sold each year
  • What models are most popular
  • Charging locations
  • Vehicle sales by country

How about another example?

My stats post about DuckDuckGo covers pretty much everything a journalist would want to know.

Backlinko – DuckDuckGo stats

Specifically, each of that post’s subheadings covers a key subtopic about the search engine:

DuckDuckGo stats – Content

Pro Tip: Check out the “Related searches” for even more ideas.

Tesla sales – Related searches

Step #3: Collect Your Data

Next, it’s time to gather all of the data that you’re going to include in your stats page.

Where you find your data depends on your topic.

But in general, here are some great places to find data for stats pages:

Statista

Statista is a curated database of stats on pretty much any industry under the sun.

Just search for a topic…

Statista – Search – Netflix

…and you can browse through stats that they’ve compiled about that topic.

Statista – Netflix data

“Work for Us” Pages

If you’re writing about a brand, check out their job listings.

Companies love to entice potential hires by bragging about user numbers, revenue growth and more.

Stats in job posting

In fact, you’ll sometimes ONLY find this info in job listings. Which makes it the exact type of juicy data that journalists want (but is currently hard to find).

S-1 Filings

US public companies have to share key business metrics with shareholders each quarter.

Again, this data is usually sort of buried in a PDF.

Twitter – Investor relations

But you can use your stats page to make the data easier to find and consume (and earn a ton of links along the way).

Google News

Google News is a goldmine of industry data in the form of:

  • Press releases
  • Milestone news stories (“15% of Americans now consider themselves vegan”)
  • Data from industry publications
  • Quotes from experts

In fact, I relied heavily on Google News for my Clubhouse stats page. I literally searched for “Clubhouse” in Google News every single day for WEEKS.

Sure enough, I found plenty of stories with data I could use.

For example, a New York Times piece was the first to report that the app had been downloaded 600k times:

The New York Times – Clubhouse article

The problem with Google News is that stories like this disappear from the platform after a few days. Plus, a lot of those stories are behind a paywall.

But those problems are an opportunity for you.

By sharing that data on a stats page, you’re preserving compelling data that would be otherwise hard for journalists to find.

Step #4: Optimize Your Stats Page

Now it’s time to organize and optimize your stats page.

Here’s how:

Snippet Bait

I’ve talked about Snippet Bait before.

And this strategy is PERFECT for Reverse Outreach.

Why?

Because each stat has an opportunity to show as a Featured Snippet.

In fact, this approach has helped my stat pages show up in dozens of Featured Snippets, like this:

Google SERP – Roblox users – Backlinko snippet

All you need to do is format your stats page with a subheading optimized around a Journalist Keyword.

Journalist keywords in subheading

Then, provide a short and sweet answer to that question right below that subheading.

Answer below subheading

Rinse and repeat for every stat on your page that you can.

Include Visuals and Charts

Visuals help your stat pages get more backlinks for two reasons:

First, they give bloggers a visual they can use in their content.

(And they’ll usually link back to you as the image source.)

Backlink from visual

Second, according to the Victoria University of Wellington, visuals make your content more credible.

This is obviously HUGE if you want big-name publications to use your stats.

Add Lots of Tables

Tables can help you rank as a table Featured Snippet.

But they also are just a great way of making a lot of data easy to understand at a glance.

You can use tables to show growth or decline over time:

Stripe post – Valuation table

Or for rankings:

Twitch post – Rankings table

Either way, when you can use a table, you should use a table.

Include “Crunchy” Stats

Crunchy stats are bite site stats that are easy to understand at a glance.

And the more crunchy stats you include, the more links you’ll get.

In fact, most of the links that I get to my stat pages are people citing crunchy stats.

Stat backlink anchor text

For example, here’s a crunchy stat from my TikTok stats page:

TikTok users – Crunchy stat

This is a stat that ANYONE can understand in 3 seconds. And is easy to cite in an article.

Crunchy stat cited in article

Examples of crunchy stats include:

  • Industry size
  • Company revenue
  • The number of people doing a thing (eating keto, mediating, etc.)
  • Time spent doing X
  • % growth over time

That’s not to say 100% of your stats need to be crunchy stats. For example, here’s a relatively complex stat from one of my pages:

TikTok users – Complex stat

But you want to include as many crunchy stats as you can (especially towards the top of the page).

Depending on your content, the keywords you targeted, and your Domain Rank it can take some time for your stats page to pick up some traction.

I like to check the page’s organic rankings periodically:

Bumble users – Organic search positions

Just to see if it’s starting to rank for long-tail keywords. If so, that’s a GREAT sign.

But yeah, it can take 3-4 months for your page to start to rank and get passive links.

But once it does, you sort of get into a link tornado situation:

You get links. Those links push your rankings higher. So you get more links. And the cycle continues.

For example, this page continues to rack up new links each and every month.

TikTok users – Backlinks growth

Which helps it rank higher in Google for its existing keyword. And rank for completely new terms.

I also like to review and update these pages AT LEAST once per quarter.

That way, all of your data is up to date. And you keep getting that temporary freshness boost that comes from a legit content update.

Conclusion

So yeah, that’s Reverse Outreach: my go-to link building strategy right now.

Now I’d like to hear from you.

Have you tried getting passive links before?

If so, how did it go?

Let me know in the comments section below.

290 Comments

  1. Excellent content. This is actually traditional link building, but with a twist on that it’s not you bragging about “your” product. Very well thought out ‘how-to’ that content managers can put into play easily.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hey Matt, thank you. Yup, it’s definitely focused on providing value (in the form of data) vs. a bunch of self-promotional blog posts.

  2. It would be great if you come up with strategy for science and technology blog.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Why wouldn’t this work for a science + tech blog?

  3. Thank you for this link-building strategy. I am learning to do link building and I will definitely look into this one. Good job Brian…by the way. So glad I came to read your article.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Sibusisiwe, you’re welcome! Glad you learned something new from this case study.

  4. As always great content brian, found some new interesting tips.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  5. Great article Brian, thanks, I will try it! I’ve just launched a new site on climate change, so I’m a newbie on the passive link building path. But I’m motivated to implement as many winning strategies as I can to get my message out there… Reverse Outreach is now top of my list….

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Mel. Let me know how it goes.

  6. Very well explained, latest techniques for link building, much appreciated.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  7. Thanks a lot for sharing this post via email!! Looking forward to implementing this tactic.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ruben. Hope it works for you!

  8. Years ago tried a few. No results. Never gave it another thought.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      OK…

      1. I think one never forget that linkbuilding is a marathon and not a sprint. And even though, u never always win the first time, especially since first time = less experienced. But when a strategy makes sense, success require some persistence. This one does definately !

  9. Oh great strategy. I used the search topics in general but not as an unique article. That’s so smart and easy. I will try it immediately.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Jan. Let me know how it goes.

  10. Is there a minimum domain rank you’d recommend for this?

    I’d assume very new sites would struggle to get enough rank to start the tornado, even after 6 months.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Existing authority definitely helps. If your site is new I’d 1. Focus on more manual link building strategies and 2. Target low competition journalist keywords.

      1. Hi Brian
        How do I build manual back links
        I have been struggling for years to on the Photigraphy industry
        Do you have a services to help creating back links

  11. About the ‘Military History’ niche … sounds unthinkable uh ? I’ve been trying it for years but it’s like dropping a small little red fish into a swiming pool full of crazy sharks

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You can do it Doc!

  12. I’m happy to hear you in this new post, Brian!

    You gave me many ideas to promote my website!

    Many thanks!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Happy to help, Laura. Let me know if you have any questions along the way.

  13. I agree with you Brian, I’ve tried this technique with a client of mine and it worked great!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Nice!

  14. First time to know this strategy. simply Amazing! Thanks Brian. Surely would try it out.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Jason. It’s a strategy definitely worth trying.

  15. Great content Brian. I’m learning always something new 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Glad to hear that.

  16. The interesting thing about this strategy is that it starts with what people do. Journalists today, like yesterday, look to the internet for answers! Very inspiring indeed, thank you 🙂

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Absolutely, Roberto. And they’re going to do the same 2, 5, 10+ years from now too.

  17. Great content as usual, thanks Brian.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Dan.

  18. Humayun Wajid Avatar Humayun Wajidsays:

    But If I have a low authority and niche specific site like “games stats”, so do you think that I can earn journalist trust with a low authority site?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      In that case you’d want to go for a much more specific topic, like “Elden Ring sales”.

  19. From last two days I was focusing on building backlinks for my blog and got your email today.

    Reverse outreach seems like a really great strategy, I will definitely give it a try and get back to you once the results are out.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Amit. I look forward to seeing how it goes for you.

  20. This is a smart strategy, Brian; adding to the long list of ‘SEO’ things I am learning from Backlinko. Thanks.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  21. Awesome, the key is finding the correct topic and focus on the research

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Absolutely. That’s why I dedicated so much of this case study on topic selection and research.

  22. Excellent suggestions, Brian. I will be sharing these ideas with our SEO team.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Beth, thank you. I hope your team finds it useful.

  23. Thanks for this Brian! I am really struggling to get links without going the paid route (which I am not!) and will try this approach for sure. I’m just concerned that on a new site, the article page will not feature in search and not get the traction to draw in the links.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Steve. That’s a legit concern for sure. In that case, I’d focus on really targeted Journalist Keywords. And doing more outreach-focused link building for a while.

  24. Omigod, here finally is something I can do! Always knew stats was the thing most linked to because that’s what I link to when I write a blog.

    But never thought of this method of the “journalistic” topics idea! Thanks, Brian! You’re a rare one!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Shobha, I went through sort of the same experience. I knew that people primarily link to data. But only sort of recently figured out how to turn that realization into a strategy.

  25. Hey Brian,

    This is really awesome idea to get backlinks using reverse outreach and it would great we can do using trending content right?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Maulik, absolutely: trending topics are your best bet. They’re not as competitive. Plus, there’s usually not a lot of data already out there on the topic. Which increases the odds that your stats page becomes THE go-to resource (like what happened with my Clubhouse stats page).

  26. Excellent approach and strategy, keep up the great content Brian.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Tom, thank you!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re wlcome, Ashiqur 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

  27. Isn’t it like publish and pray approach? What if your keyword does not get ranked? Should we use other link building techniques+this technique in combination?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      To a certain extent, yes. That’s why you want to publish quite a few of these. That boosts the odds that one will rank. And, as you said, use more manual link building strategies at the same time.

  28. Great brian
    Sounds cool, but the question is how can you come up with this research study…like studying thousands of pages and getting data from multiple research studies/experiments.
    That is not going to be easy and do you need third-party tools or partner with a brand for this research.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Yup, creating these pages takes a ton of work. It’s perfect for outsourcing.

  29. Hi Brian. My name is Anna and I´m a Spanish´s doctor
    At first, I´d like to tell you that I really enjoy with your content… always
    I have a question
    Do you think is it possible find journalist keywords to get backlincks to website about healthcare?
    Thanksss

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Ana, great question. Yes, absolutely. More mainstream health stats (like number of people that die from a certain disease per year) will probably already be covered by health authorities in your niche. But other health-related stats (number of people that eat keto, average number of hours people sleep per night etc.) are usually pretty wide open.

  30. Jason Avatar Jasonsays:

    As usual, this is awesome insight, Brian! But I would expect it wouldn’t work very effectively for smaller brands that don’t have the DA of Backlinko. Journalists likely link to you (at least partially) because of your brand/site authority. Not to say a smaller site/brand shouldn’t try this, but I wouldn’t expect it to lead to the same interests from journalists. Curious on your thoughts. Thanks!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Jason, a site with lots of authority and brand recognition definitely helps. But I’ve also used this strategy on other sites (which are much smaller brands and has much less authority than Backlinko) and it worked well on those sites too.

  31. I love how creative and natural this idea is!! I’m going to give this a shot over the next couple of months. Thanks!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Austin. Hope it works well for you.

  32. Great write up here as always, Brian! I am excited to test this out.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Mark 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Lucretius

  33. Brain If we do this technic for the Fresh website even bloggers and Journalist will be happy to feature us or give backlinks, Before we do this kind of blog, Website needs Any credibility? What are your thoughts on that

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Credibility definitely helps. But that’s more of a business thing than a straight up SEO thing.

      1. Okay Got you, I will try this and let you know

  34. Dev Avatar Devsays:

    Great content, as usual. But to be quoted by news website as a source, your blog needs to have some authority and reputation. Any specific insights on what approach can be used for new or small blogs will be appreciated.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      If your site is brand new, I recommend mixing this approach in with manual link building.

  35. Thank you so much for publishing this important content. We have been trying to rank our business website and getting backlinks is the hardest task of all. We are surely going to try “reverse outreach” especially now that we have a guide on how to do so. Thanks for always going an extra mile and freely sharing working strategies.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Paul, you’re welcome. Link building is definitely the hardest part of SEO: you’re not alone there! But yeah, actionable strategies definitely help put the pieces together.

  36. James Avatar Jamessays:

    Hi Brian,
    As always, that was an amazing post with a lot of insights.
    I do have a few questions about all the Data and Stats you find and add to your posts.
    1. How do you know, that the Data & Stats are really credible?
    2. Do you have to cite and give credit and a backlink to the source?
    Thank you.

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks James. 1. I usually draw from reputable original sources. 2. You don’t have to but I do.

  37. Sam Avatar Samsays:

    Hey Brian,

    Hope your well – great post as always.

    I did something similar with an old personal finance blog (now sold!), it was my most linked to post ever.

    Notes jotted down for the future.

    Sam

    P.S. Do you have dabble to programmatic SEO? These kind of stat sites lend themselves to it well. I’ve been tempted but never had the time to crank it out.

    P.P.S Come to BrightonSEO this Friday!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Sam. I appreciate the kind words. PS: I’ve never done much with programmatic SEO. But I’ve seen others use it for this exact strategy. PPS: I’d love to but I can’t make it.

  38. Nice to hear again from you!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Lorenz. More good stuff on the way. Make sure you’re on the Backlinko newsletter so you don’t miss anything.

  39. What a strategy Brian! 👌🏼

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks!

  40. The king is back!!

    Loved the whole guide, Brian. I was actually worried that I won’t read posts from you anymore since you sold backlinko to Semrush.

    But loved that you are still providing awesome content for your students like us

    Thanks for always being with us.

    Thanks
    Nishant

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Nishant. I’m not going anywhere.

  41. Like always, great content and tips. I should definitely try this “stats” link building strategy. Do you think it would work on small sites?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Vladamir, it can worm for smaller sites. I’d just choose very low competition Journalist Keywords.

  42. Thank you Brian; this is so clever! The previous commenter asked about disadvantage in not having an authoritative website or recognised brand, but I know from my own experience that despite that, there simply aren’t citable sources readily available for a lot of my industry ‘hot-topics’ yet the raw data must be available, so harnessing that and creating something focused on what I know the journalists always like to cover is presumably well worth while!

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Nina, well said. And you’re right: I’ve also linked to plenty of smaller sites myself because they had a unique stat or piece of data that I couldn’t find anywhere else.

  43. Great article, once again. The “problem” that I see here is that sites without a solid backlink profile (unlike backlinko.com) that will publish such a “statistics article” won’t rank on Google page 1 even for “journalist keywords”, and thus journalists won’t even be able to find such an article…

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Thanks Boris. That’s a legit concern. This is definitely a strategy more for scaling link building vs. something that’s going to work on day 1 for a brand new site.

    1. Very nice analysis Boris.
      Consider yourself to be smart !

  44. jayjit dasgupta Avatar jayjit dasguptasays:

    Useful. Powerful. Awesome. In short, as I always say, deantastic! Keep it up…

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Deantastic! Love it 😂

  45. Thanks Brian for sharing this super amazing reverse outreach method. I’m going to use this strategy to my link building campaign.

    Lots of love
    Ayush Mishra

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      You’re welcome, Ayush.

  46. Hi, Brian!
    Thanks for the interesting article. You are on top as always!)
    I am interested in if your strategy can be used to improve the ranking of an e-commerce site?
    For example, for a site that sells chandeliers, write an article in a blog about chandelier trends in 2022. Will it help to rank higher for the main category “Chandeliers” with online store products?

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Hi Taras, I’ve seen this work super well in ecommerce. The key is internal linking to key product and category pages.

  47. Hello Brian,

    I’ve been weighing up for some time now my best route to achieving this kind of ‘link tornado situation’ you speak of (ideally, without the labour intensity of traditional outreach).

    Not because outreach isn’t worth the time expense, but because it comes at opportunity cost of writing content for my own blog.

    A kind of catch 22 occurs…where you need links to rank posts, but you need posts to link to…and with only 1 pair of hands it breeds a kind of double mindedness. Which one should I do next? Post? Or, outreach? And how much? And which topics? etc.

    I always thought HARO might be a happy medium i.e. pitching bespoke answers to ready-made journalist questions via a 3rd party platform.

    But instead, this method you’ve described above I think is the real WIN-WIN.

    You keep slamming out the ‘journalist bait’ proactively and eventually when Google becomes overwhelmed and gives you some shine (I too like some other commenters here currently have low domain authority so this will take some persuasion), but when that day comes, passive links should avalanche.

    More links = higher rank & higher rank = more links.

    And actually when links begin to come through to those individual posts, then this should lift the search performance of the ENTIRE site.

    I’ll give it a try.

    What gives me confidence is that the subjects (companies) you chose to write stats posts for were not exact matches for your primary theme/topic of ‘digital marketing’.

    Perhaps this area of statistics is softer ground to break up in the increasingly tougher field of SEO?

    Thanks for sharing this one.

    MORE (!) tips would be welcome though – that is, whenever you get a spare minute or two 😉

    Thank you.

    Selmore

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Sounds good, Selmore. You’re right: many of the topics aren’t directly related to digital marketing and SEO. But they’re not completely unrelated (like if they were about low-carb baking). So the links do help.

  48. George Avatar Georgesays:

    I like the idea, smart, and interesting. The one vital point that is not covered is your status as a thought leader, leading to the credibility of the content…and the data behind it. Someone who is an unknown with similar insights would not get the same level of backlinks from this method unfortunately. Who you are plays a lot into this strategy? As a backlink experiment it would be interesting to see the next content piece go up on a brand new domain with a writers alias and see if the results are the same. I’m guessing a big no, as thought leadership doesn’t happen overnight from one blog (in most cases).

    1. Brian Dean Avatar Brian Deansays:

      Being an authoritative site and a well known brand definitely help. Which is why every business should try to achieve those things!

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