90-DAY LINK BUILDING BLUEPRINT

90-DAY LINK BUILDING BLUEPRINT

By Nathan Gotch

Provided as an educational service by Gotch SEO, LLC

The leading SEO and inbound marketing company in the Midwest

So, I promised that I would release my exact 15-day link building blueprint once the Gotch SEO Facebook page reached 500 likes.

And guess what? We already got there, so here it is.

Just so you know, at 1,500 likes I’ll release the complete 30-day blueprint., and on and so-forth until we reach the complete 90-day blueprint.

So if you haven’t already, make sure you head over to the Facebook page and click the “Like” button.

Gotch SEO Link Building

Days 1 – 15

I’m more of a slow and methodical link builder and don’t believe in blasting sites with links right away. As you know from reading my tier one link building article, I like to hit a site with a link(s), watch the movement, and go from there.

Keep in mind, I have a ton clients and niche websites, so I don’t spend more than an hour per campaign a day. So, if you’re only working on one website, you’ll probably be able to

complete some of these task in a day.

WARNING: what you’re about to see is not glamorous or cool. This is the process and it works for us like clockwork. It’s not designed to be cool or “hypey”. It’s designed to produce results for our clients and niche websites.

What I’m about to show you is a simple, but extremely effective process I’ve developed through a ton of trials and tribulations. It works as long as you take the time to do things right. Let’s jump in.

Identifying and Categorizing Your Competition’s Link Types

There are only four things you need to look for when you’re analyzing your competition’s link profile: link types, social signals, redirects, and anchor text distribution.

On day one, I focus on categorizing their link types.

Link Types – the first and most important thing you have to do when analyzing your competition is categorizing their links. The reason you want to do this is because if your competitors are ranking with nothing but directory links and you start drilling your site with private blog network links, then A) it will be overkill, and B) it will make your link profile standout like a sore thumb.

Don’t forget, your competitors are ranking well for a reason, so it’s essential that you copy at least some of their link profile.

Here are the main link types to look for: • Directory links

• Guest posts, blog mentions • Sidebar, footer links

• Article directory links

• DoFollow or NoFollow blog comments • Sponsored links, paid reviews

• Link parties, resource pages • Blog networks

What if you’re analyzing your competitors and there are no links are showing up in Ahrefs, Majestic or Open Site Explorer?

Then there’s a 99% chance your competition is using a private blog network and blocking the crawlers.

For the example I’m going to analyze two websites from the keyword “garcinia cambogia reviews”.

When it comes to categorizing my competitor’s links, I just combine them together. I do this because it gives me a general picture of what each site on the first page is doing to rank well. Here’s how a simple link type analysis would look:

This was a brief analysis of two websites on the first page. When I’m doing a complete

analysis, the file would be much larger because I would be analyzing all ten results on the first page.

Competition Analysis Part Two

Now that you have your competitor’s links types recorded, you need to analyze some other important ranking factors.

Question #1: Do they have social signals and do they have social profiles dedicated to their websites?

This is a critical question because social signals continue to grow in strength and social profiles are a “trust” indicator to Google.

Moral of the story: if your competition has social profiles and social signals hitting their site, then you need to replicate it.

Site #2 ranks first in Google for the sample keyword (garcinia cambogia reviews), so that alone should show you the power of social signals and having active social profiles. Site #1 actually has better links, but isn’t ranking as well because of the lack of social presence / signals.

Question #2: Do they have any 301 redirects?

Always check to see if your competition is using 301 redirects because they are extremely powerful.

Question #3: What kind of anchor text distribution are they using?

The last, but most important part of your analysis. Every industry is different, so creating a custom plan of attack for anchor text is important.

If your competition is using 50% branded anchors, then you should use around 50% branded anchors as well.

But this is when it get’s tricky...

You don’t ALWAYS want to replicate the anchor profile of a competitor. Especially in a spammy niche like Garcinia.

This is because a website may be ranking well for a keyword using extremely keyword-rich anchors, but it doesn’t mean they are going to keep those rankings and will likely get penalized in the near future.

If you’re working in local or lower competition niches, then replicating anchor profiles is much safer.

To be safe, you should check how long a particular competitor has been ranking on the first page. If they’ve been on the first page for 6 + months, but then there’s a good chance they will stick.

It’s difficult to know exactly how long a site has been ranking unless you’re consistently checking the results, but you can do two things to get a ballpark estimate:

1. Use SEMrush, click “Organic Research”, click “Positions”, and hit “All time”. This will give you how many positions they’ve gained over time.

2. Use Ahrefs and look at how many links they’ve recently gained. If they’ve acquired a ton of links in a short amount of time and they are using keyword-rich anchors, then they are likely churning and burning the site (do not replicate this).

If there’s no clear anchor text pattern for your competition (although there almost always is), then just use my proven strategies from the article I wrote about anchor text.

Link Prospecting

Now that you have a clear understanding of what you’re up against, you can start looking for opportunities to acquire natural links.

The best “white hat” links are relevant guest posts (with unoptimized anchors), content upgrades, and broken link building. For most of these, you need to make sure the content on your site is half decent because A) sites won't let you guest post unless you're somewhat of an expert and B) no one is going to link to your site naturally, which is the white hat dream. I don’t always pursue these types of link opportunities, but it’s still an important part of the research phase in case you need to score more links down the road.

For link prospecting, you just need to do a lot of research.

The best way to find link opportunities is through basic search functions on Google. I compiled a list of search strings you can use.

Download: http://www.gotchseo.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Links.xls (No Opt-in Required)

Day 4

Domain Research

As you probably know, I use expired domains as a link building tactic because it’s super effective. On Day 4, I spend my time trying to find high-quality expired domains that I’ll eventually bid on in GoDaddy auctions.

Finding good domains isn’t easy because I look for ones with specific metrics such as DA 20 +, PA 30 +, TF 10 +, and I also analyze whether or not the links will stick.

Any site with links older than a 1-2 years has a very good chance of keeping its link metrics. A site with newly acquired links doesn’t come with that guarantee.

I also check the types of links the domain has.

If most of its links are contextual within aged articles, then I know the domain metrics will stick. If the site has site-wide links, blog roll links, etc, then there’s a good chance those could be removed.

For a complete guide on expired domain research and bidding, and just building quality PBNs in general, download my free guide. No opt-in is required.

Domain Auctions

The guide above explains a ton of strategies for winning solid domains in auction. This step alone can take a few hours because you have to be monitoring the domains.

On Day 4, I find all the domains that are expiring within the next 24-72 hours, and then use Day 5 to bid and win them. In my experience, the best days to bid are Tuesday through Thursday because most people aren’t at home eyeballing expired domains like I do.

Make sure you download my free PBN guide because it will teach you the “sniper” technique for securing quality domains while flying under the radar and avoiding bidding wars.

Once you win a domain(s), there is a seven-day grace period before it officially becomes yours.

Day 6

Content Development

You’ll need content for the following days and links you’re going to build. I purchase content for my PBN websites, web 2.0s, and PDFs.

Deciding on what type of PBN content is completely dependent on how I’m going to use the website. If it’s going to a 100% match relevancy to the money site, I’ll purchase super relevant articles. To avoid footprints, the content ranges from 200 – 1,000 words in length.

The content I develop for web 2.0s is a little different. Since I build “super” web 2.0s, I buy five different articles per property ranging from 100 – 600 words in length.

For the PDF distribution, we use 400 – 1,000 word articles.

It takes about 1-2 days for all the content to be completed. I outsource this stuff, but if you’re writing it yourself it might take longer.

Web 2.0 Development

Developing web 2.0s is extremely time consuming, so it’s a two-day process for me when I’m not outsourcing it to my VA.

For Day 7, I create an email address, register 5-10 properties, and follow all of the steps I outline my popular post about super web 2.0s.

Click here to learn exactly how to build a super web 2.0

As I mention in the post above and many times throughout Gotch SEO, I typically build 5-10 web 2.0s per keyword I'm targeting. I do this because I want to keep the relevancy as tight as humanly possible.

Web 2.0s are some of the most relevant links you can get, so make sure you get the most out of them.

Day 8

Content Drip for Web 2.0s

Once the web 2.0’s are completely setup and looking pretty, we then drip feed the content if the platform allows it. Every piece of content has at least one image, a relevant video, and 1-2 outbound links to relevant authority sites.

If a certain web 2.0 platform doesn't allow for drip feeding, then you can just change the post date to simulate it. Google doesn't index these properties right away, so it won't be an issue. Make sure you let these properties index before you start hitting them hard with tier two backlinks. I did say hitting them “hard”. You can still hit these properties softly with some tier two links because this is the best way to get them indexed.

PDF Distribution

On Day 9, I create a PDF with a completely fresh and relevant article. My link is inserted at the bottom of the PDF. I use a naked link anchor text. I then submit this PDF to the top PDF, Doc sharing directories.

This sends a ton of relevancy and trust to your site. Plus, you’re getting more IP, link, and anchor text diversity. I submit the PDF to about 5-10 different websites.

We'll be hitting these PDFs with tier two links in the later days to boost their power. Since we're using naked link anchors in the document, we can hit the PDF with a decent amount of keyword-rich anchors.

More on this later.

Day 10

Directory Submission

People are always dissing directories, but it’s extremely misguided. There are still some solid directories out there.

Not only are you getting a free DoFollow backlink, but you’re also increasing your link, anchor, and IP diversity. Just make sure you use branded anchor text.

On this day, I submit my site to http://directory.r-tt.com/ and then use Rank Crew to submit my site to other decent directories.

Hosting Research New PBN Sites

Since my PBN sites will be ready on Day 12, I spend Day 11 getting new hosting for each websites. I use separate hosting providers for each because it keeps the network safe and also produces better results.

Getting hosting can be extremely time consuming, so it’s all I focus on for Day 11.

Once again, I'm not going to get in-depth on this. Just use different hosts, don't use SEO hosting, and try to avoid the super cheap hosts if possible.

For hosting:

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php? s=9240223d240e9dc14ab2209740b93891&f=4

Day 12

Private Blog Network Development

My team and I are extremely diligent when it comes to setting up our PBN sites, so we spend Day 12 getting these sites completely setup.

I'm not going to go too in-depth on this, but here's broadly what we do:

• Theme the site how it was originally or re-theme and keep everything on the site 100% relevant (if we re-theme to health, then every article will be health related)

• Use unique themes

• Create a unique personality and an in-depth about page • Create privacy policy, terms of service, contact pages

• Create social accounts for the websites (if they don't already exists) and get followers for those accounts

• Create filler posts with no links

• Populate the sidebar naturally: email suscribe form, brief author bio, popular posts, videos, social follow buttons, etc

• Place advertisements on the site • Logo (sometimes)

• Get “real” blog comments (sometimes) • Internally link within posts

A good PBN should look like a real site. Build them with that mindset and you'll never be deindexed.

Content Drip for PBN

Once the sites are all setup and looking like real websites, we then begin drip feeding content. For PBN links, we typically publish a new article with links every 3-4 days or so. We vary it up to avoid footprints or indications of automation.

As far as content on the homepage, all the general rules apply: • Keep outbound links low

• Don't link to the same sites • Link to relevant authority articles

• Use images and videos when it makes sense • Internally link to other relevant articles on the site • Create filler content without links

• Don't use terrible content

• Focus on injecting links as opposed to creating a new article for each new link • Content should be aligned with the personality you created

Day 14

Indexation (First Round)

Unlike PBN articles, web 2.0s and PDFs sometimes need a push to get indexed in Google. So, what we do is follow all the steps I outline in my popular post How to Get Your Backlinks Indexed 100% of the Time by submitting our site to Instant Link Indexer, using the “Blogger trick” (outlined in post above), and monitoring over the next few days.

We wait about a week before doing the second round of indexation, which is much more aggressive and is really just the beginning of our tier two link building campaign to boost the strength of our properties.

Business Directory Submission

If you’re going to long-term rankings and trying to build trust for your website, then you need to submit your site to business directories. We submit every site we work on to about 30-50 directories to create a “natural” link profile. Since it can take time for these to index, we create them all on Day 15.

I create a general description about my business and then manually spin it for the

submissions. Keep you mind, you should spend sometime developing at least some of these properties because it can send a ton of trust to your site.

If you haven't already, go back to Day 3 and download the excel file – it will give you a ton of business directories that you can submit your site to.

Day 16

COMING SOON (At 1,500 Facebook Likes)!

The complexity of our campaign increases as the days pass, so I think you’re going to enjoy days 16 – 30.

As soon as our Facebook page reaches 1,500 likes, I will release the next portion of the book. Sorry that the first portion was a few days late – I was caught off guard how quickly our

Facebook page was growing :P

If you have any questions about our link building routine please shoot us a comment on Facebook and we’ll respond ASAP.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this content and would like more then head over to Gotch SEO and

sign-up for our free newsletter – not only will you receive a free 4,000 + word guide on how to build backlinks in 2014, but you'll also get access to insider tips I don't share publicly. It's pretty serious business, so sign up now.

Talk to you soon and thank you for reading! Nathan Gotch