Link Wars: The SEO Awakens

Transcript

1. Link Wars: The SEO Awakens Amanda Jordan RicketyRoo Speakerdeck.com/ajordanseo @amandatjordan
2. Why This Topic???
3. 2023 Local Search Ranking Factors Source: https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors Local Pack 12 of top 50 Local Ranking Factors Organic 5 of top 15 Local Ranking Factors
4. Local Organic Ranking Factors
5. Link Reminder: Quality>Quantity
6. What Makes a "Quality" Backlink
7. Quality backlinks for local businesses can be relevant to either the topic or the location
8. Hypothesis High-performing websites are more likely to focus on locally relevant link building instead of topically relevant link building.
9. Why? Ideal backlinks provide context and helps establish clear relationships between your site, your topic, and your location.
10. This is the Way These types of backlinks are more likely to provide actual referral traffic in addition to providing more connections, more information, and more context for AI and LLMs.
11. Case Study
12. Methodology Top 50 Cities & HVAC Industry Websites with First-Page Rankings Categorized Links
13. Top 5 Sites and Their Link Profiles 1st-Page Rankings 63 Average # of Keywords 87% Of 1st-Page Rankings Came from 5 Sites
14. Top Performing Pages High # of Backlinks ≠ Better Rankings
15. Top Performing Pages Site # of Backlinks Page 1 Terms Site 1 59 133 Site 2 58 191 Site 3 32 121 Site 4 17 146 Site 5 7 118
16. Top Performing Pages
17. What You’re Probably Missing Truly Local Links A Diverse Link Profile
18. So How Do I Use This to Build Better Backlinks?
19. Identify Competitors Choose competitors who are consistently eating your lunch. Tip: BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid is great for identifying these types of competitors.
20. When Competitors Have Poor Links Choose a larger nearby metro and complete the process again. High-ranking local businesses in a more competitive city could turn up more opportunities than your smaller, local competitors.
21. Get Backlink Data Use your favorite link analysis tool to get competitor backlink data.
22. Categorize Backlinks Create your categorization guidelines and start categorizing. Tip: You can do this one-by-one, you can use a tool, you can build a tool. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, friend.
23. Analyze Data What does the data tell you about your top-performing competitors? Are they favoring a type of backlink you currently ignore?
24. Identify Opportunities Identify backlink opportunities that meet the traditional link quality guidelines PLUS have a local focus.
25. Acquire Links Once you’ve identified where the gaps are in your backlink profile, go after your competitors’ best quality backlinks.
26. Okay But I Don’t Have Time to Categorize a Ton of Links
27. What We’ve Been Up To
28. What We’ve Been Up To
29. Case Study: Local Links Increases Franchise Clicks by 38%
30. The Client Nationwide house cleaning franchise The Competitors SMBs and national franchises The Findings Competitor-based link acquisition WORKS
31. Results Test Locations 38% Clicks Increase YoY Control Locations 14% Clicks Increase YoY
32. Find Out More ricketyroo.com/blog/link-benchmark/
33. Capitalizing on Competitor Opps Reverse Engineering Most Linked Content Target Links from 301s or 404s Find Unlinked Competitor Mentions
34. Reverse Engineering Most Linked Content Target Competitor Articles That Are: Outdated - Published over a year ago Evergreen - Topic is always relevant
35. Target Links from 301s or 404s Use This Tactic When: A relevant article/post has been removed but still has links pointing to it A relevant page has been redirected to a home or contact page
36. Find Unlinked Competitor Mentions Target Competitor Mentions When: Content isn’t competitor-specific Industry or niche blog with no brand bias
37. The Power of Round-Up Articles Round-up articles that your competitors are listed on can be extremely helpful and could be the difference between an AI search recommendation or not.
38. Round-Up Articles & AI AI uses round-up articles to create many of their recommendations for local businesses. They are often shown as the sources in ChatGPT and AI overviews.
39. Round-Up Articles are Good for AI It’s easy to understand why. These roundup pages are often from topically relevant or local sites and provide a significant amount of context.
40. Round-Up Articles Testing & AI During testing, I discovered that in addition to getting a link, businesses that are highly ranked on roundup pages are more likely to be featured in AI results.
41. Round-Up Results & AI All three of these sites from this one cited source show up in AI results in exactly the same order. This is the only cited source that included all 3.
42. Round-Up Articles Increase Visibility Your visibility on these round-up pages could be the difference between showing up in AI searches.
43. The Benefits of Choosing the Right Sites is More Than Having Just Another Link
44. Remember: Having the Right Links is More Important Than Having the Most
45. Remember: Truly Local Links and Topical Links are Best
46. Thanks!!!!