I try not to be hyperbolic in titles – but when listening back to this episode, a “masterclass” is the description that keeps coming to mind. You can tell when I throw spontaneous and challenging questions out like “how important is link velocity?” and Garrett gives a thoughtful, experience-based, unique answer – without even skipping a beat – that he’s is a true expert at link building. It’s the information and insights I think anyone would expect from a ‘masterclass’.
We chatted for 90 mins about:
- Two new strategies he’s using for link acquisition (and how you can use them),
- How Garrett builds links for his own companies
And thanks to your awesome questions on Twitter we also talked about…
- Building links directly to sales and product pages
- How Garrett decides what links to go after
- Judging the value of a link
- Link Velocity – does it matter?
- Best approach to anchor text
- Big publisher links vs niche publisher links
- Do guest posts still work?
- Why is link building stigmatized?
- What’s the future of link building?
- And TONS more…
Note: There are a few quick spots of ‘dead air’ in the audio – #podcasterproblems – just a heads up!
Listen Now!
Related Episodes You Might Like
- What Link Building Success Really Looks Like w/Mark Johnstone
- The Story Behind Orbit Media’s 1,200+ Backlinks w/Andy Crestodina
- Proven Rules for Outreach and Link Building Success w/Gisele Navarro
Show Agenda and Timestamps
- Episode Introduction and topic overview [0:21]
- Garrett’s Introduction [0:55]
- The type of link building Garrett does at Citation Labs [1:06]
- When did Garrett begin doing SEO? [2:25]
- From Vertical Measures Interview June 16, 2010 – Garrett’s biggest struggle in link building- has that struggle changed? [3:34]
- From WordStream interview March 16, 2010 – What link building tools does Garrett recommend? What would he remove and what would he keep now? [7:12]
- Link Building with local sponsorships [9:30]
- What is the general concept? [9:38]
- How does the strategy works? [14:05]
- What are some ways National clients can find groups/cities to find a match to sponsor? [17:55]
- Does Garrett do any traditional link qualifying with this strategy? [21:07]
- How do you approach the event/company about the sponsorship opportunity? [22:29]
- Are there any considerations for anchor text or url? [23:37]
- Twitter Questions [24:37]
- Judging and measuring the value of links [24:45]
- Bill Slawski- What signals do you look for to decide if a site is one that you might want a link from? [24:53]
- Andrew @Optimisey- If you gain a load of links around the same time, and your rankings go up, how do you know which ones moved the needle? In your experience, how long is the lag time for gaining/losing a link(s) to the impact on rankings? [29:22]
- Malcolm Slade- What do you feel is more important / has more impact, 10 links from indexable pages on major news sites or 10 links from indexable pages on relevant niche websites? [34:19]
- Marie Haynes – Are you still seeing any benefit from links obtained from guest posting? [38:50]
- Judging and measuring the value of links [24:45]
- Citable elements for making sales pages more linkable- break down this strategy [46:49]
- Example of this strategy [49:06]
- Link Strategy Twitter Questions [59:22]
- Ashley McNamara – What’s a good framework to determine how many links/what link velocity you need to succeed in a given vertical? [59:32]
- Scott Clark – During new client discovery found 404s from CNN, MSNBC, WSJ, LATimes, and 15-20 other EDU, GOV & VERY high DA sites. Spaced fixes – 3 weeks. Otherwise good site. 3 months later ZERO rank increase. Client now questioning us. Ideas on why this auth surge didn’t help with rank? [1:04:25]
- How else does Garrett measure the value of the link work that he does for clients? [1:08:58]
- Britney Muller – what do average link builders get wrong? [1:11:48]
- Jonathan Waller – Why is link building frowned upon or hush hush by the vast majority of influencers in our space? Especially when it is still the number one ranking signal and always has been. [1:16:33]
- Does Garrett think links are the number 1 ranking factor? [1:18:40]
- Gisele Navarro – I’m interested to know, what does the future of link building look like to you? [1:25:12]
- Where you can find Garrett online [1:27:07]
Tools Mentioned
- Ontolo – https://ontolo.com/
- Link Prospector – https://linkprospector.citationlabs.com/
Articles, Resources, and Links Mentioned
- Citation Labs- https://citationlabs.com/
- ZipSprout- https://zipsprout.com/
- Vertical Measures – Link Building Tool Interview with Garrett French – https://www.verticalmeasures.com/blog/vm-news/link-building-tool-interview-with-garrett-french/
- WordStream- Five Experts on SEO Link Building- https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2010/03/16/five-link-building-experts
- Twitter Questions- https://twitter.com/dan_shure/status/1133364801239998465
- Julie Joyce- https://twitter.com/JulieJoyce
Find Garrett Online
July 9, 2019
Jayakrishnan J
This was a great listen. Thank you Garret and Dan.
I was wondering if you may just have time to answer a question. I’m using WordPress default keytags to optimize my listing. But each of these keytags are creating seperate URL’s that are being indexed in Google. I know that this isn’t the best experience for visitor or Google. Is there a way to prevent keytags from being indexed in Google in future?
Once again, thank you for sharing so much either way.