Are backlinks important to your website appearing in Google search? Absolutely, but do you have
to spend hours a day or per week on link building techniques? No, not at all. In fact in today's
video you're going to learn the truth about link building. When it comes to building a
brand that lasts online, has real authority and stands over time, I'm going to reveal
why I believe 98% of the link building methods you hear from SEO experts are a complete waste
of time. What you should focus on instead and three methods to earn links that will
be way more powerful, way more worth it than any of the short-term link building techniques
you'll read about or hear online. It's time you heard the truth on link building from
someone who's built multiple businesses out of nothing through content marketing. My goal
as the content hacker is to help you achieve real growth and stop wasting time, let's get
into our topic. Storytime: back in 2011 I was 19 years old
and I was going through college trying to earn an RN degree, I was failing, realizing
I would make a terrible nurse, I had no passion for that career. One morning I decided to
pursue my passion and make a career out of it, that was writing combined with online
entrepreneurship which I don't think I knew at the time. So that morning at 19 years old
in 2011, I did a Google search how to make money writing and after a ton of hard work
and dedication, a lot of 4 a.m. morning within 3 months I had a booming freelance business,
I was able to drop out of college and I took the last cash I had on hand which was $75,
I bought a domain name I formed a company and I coded and launched my first website.
My brand was called Express Writers, nine years later I have the freedom working from
home every day my husband does too. We have over 90 people on staff, we've worked with
over 5,000 clients and we've completed over 20,000 content projects. Our website, expresswriters.com
generates 99.9 percent of our business clientele and new revenue, it is our marketing engine.
Amazon's Alexa traffic rank which is a completely free tool that tells you the popularity of
your website, it's one of the only tools I trust for this data you can go to it at alexa.com/siteinfo,
has our site at the 24th thousand most popular website in the world globally. In Google Analytics
for earning over 100,000 organic visitors per month. No paid ads whatsoever.
So, why did I share this story, well we've done it without seeking a single backlink,
without sending one link building outreach email, true story. The truth is if you're
an entrepreneur marketer or a brand builder putting hours of your time into linked techniques,
link building outreach and you are focused and working on that, I believe you're wasting
98% of your time, those efforts should never really be the focus of someone whose goal
it is to build a real brand, why? Well you're essentially putting the byproducts of building
a great brand, link building ahead of building the actual brand itself, it's less ROI and
anti-long term to focus on building links instead of earning them and earning them while
it is far more work, investment, commitment, is much more worth it to your long-term online
and building real Authority online that lasts. If you want to create a brand that becomes
a legacy, that becomes known, you need to focus on building that brand not the byproduct
and if you're spending hours on that by-product, on the technique you lose focus on the important
things which are building your audience, building your brand, building your authority in the
marketplace. When it comes to link building even the best experts have strayed, one of
my personal industry heroes Brian Dean even has a story of back in 2012 he was focused
on blackhat SEO link building, when Google penguin rolled out which eliminated link farms,
link pyramids, all that crap, Brian Dean lost 98% of his traffic overnight and he had to
rebuild from scratch which he did and now he's a tremendous success story. Instead of
link building he focused on concepts, one of his concepts the skyscraper technique which
was an original thought he came up with published in one piece of content earned over five thousand
backlinks for that single blog post alone. Okay, so what should you be doing instead
of listening to and doing all of the link building practices that could be a potential
waste of time, remember the key here is to earn your links not build them.
Here are the three methods you can put to use right away to build your brand authority
and subsequently earn those backlinks. Number one; commit to brand consistency in content
and design. You can't have a strong brand if your audience never hears from you, you
must publish content consistently back when I was beginning in 2011, I knew that I wanted
to grow Express writers through content and the one thing I was able to commit to because
I wore so many hats as a new business owner was publishing one new blog every week. I
committed to that for about five years before writing and publishing my first book, before
creating my first course, before launching a podcast, before creating Facebook groups,
before even trying to spend ad money. I focused on one avenue to build consistency through
that I could commit to for months and years without fail every week. This is vital especially
for new brand owners to focus on, just as important as consistency and fresh content
is, so is the consistency of your overall brand design. You can't have a strong brand
if you well don't have a strong brand presence. So, invest in that web site have a great clear
logo have clear engaging well-written copy on your website, don't have pop-ups cluttering
the user experience, have consistent copy about who you are, who you serve, what you
do, in your BIOS, in your about page and wherever your brand appears, keep your colors consistent,
have your social media images designed, these things while they may feel tedious and unimportant
are vital in the long run to creating a brand that lasts and earns those backlinks. The
question to ask yourself is what can you commit to without fail to consistently grow your
brand and allow your audience to hear from you for the next 24 months.
Number two: grow your expertise and add value to your industry with original concepts over
time. Here's a secret a true thought leader never calls themselves that, instead they
earn that from others in their industry because of the thoughts they add to their industry
that provide instantaneous clarity, compelling commentary or shine light on an old topic.
Brand leaders are the ones behind the scenes, thinking, coming up with original branded
concepts. While many of us are stuck up here in the monkey work, in the hamster wheel of
just doing, thought leadership and expertise is not going overnight. You must invest in
your own personal growth and then let your brain marinate on industry pain points. Think
of concepts you can come up with that will give your audience and the industry you're
in instantaneous clarity. What you want to achieve is that aha moment from your audience.
I can give you countless examples of how one original concept one of the powerful thoughts
can generate a ton of brand authority, including what we all want backlinks.
Thought leadership and original concepts is not something done overnight, you need to
invest in personal growth and then take the time to let your brain marinate on industry
pain points. What concept can you come up with that will give your audience instantaneous
clarity? On that pain point, look to achieve that aha moment you want your audience to
experience that and I can give you countless examples, we can be here all day looking at
how original concepts created by marketers, entrepreneurs, added tons of clarity to their
industry and help them earn a ton, break loads of backlinks. For example, way back in 2007,
someone named Merlin Mann coined the topic inbox zero which was a Productivity hack where
you basically used your inbox as your to do list.
This topic generated over 5,000 backlinks for Merlin, if we look at another example
in the oversaturated market of marketing, about six or seven years ago Mark Schafer
coined the term content shock he identified one core fact in the marketplace and then
put a term on it that was recognizable, what he identified was that content production
will soon overcome content consumption and this ruffled the feathers of so many content
marketers but he earned over 900 backlinks on that one piece alone. We already touched
on this but back in 2015, Brian Dean coined the term skyscraper technique where he identified
the need for marketers to create content that was essentially the biggest building on the
block because why would you as a tourist go visit the second, the third, the fourth biggest
building knowing you would want to see the first and he earned over five thousand backlinks
to that single concept, that single content piece.
Back in 2017 after I spent about six years full-time in content marketing, growing several
businesses, I launched my original concepts, one was called the content house where I identified
the need for marketers to stop creating content on real estate they didn't own because they're
at risk for it being taken away and it's shown in clear terms how consistent content marketing
is much like building a house, it takes a lot of work but the long term rewards are
a house you get to live in, enjoy welcome visitors in. Now, unfortunately I launched
that concept in a book so it didn't earn as many backlinks but the subsequent content
pieces I've launched on that topic have. So, the question you want to ask yourself is what
concepts can you add to your industry that will provide instant clarity for your audience.
Number three: the last method be a guest if you get the Disney song for Beauty and the
Beast be our guest, be our guest, stuck in your head then goal is achieved. What you
need to know is that you need to be a guest on as platforms as you can, from the beginning
I knew it would be of tremendous value to express writers if I wrote for other publications.
So that's why I pitched and have written for content marketing institute like pro news,
search engine journal, KISSmetrics, quick sprout, marketing crop, smart tech just to
name a few. The key to earn backlinks is to make sure your author bio has a link back
to your site, each time a new post gets published on that platform, you earn a link through
your guest bio. Relevancy is really important here, you want to make sure that the audience
for that publication matches your client, your ideal buyer audience. So, the publication
topics should match their interests. Just adding one or two publications a month is
a massive way to grow your links and brand Authority.
Offer your time, your talks, your presentations, your content for free in exchange for being
published. How do you do this? well an easy way to do this is to Google your industry
and the term publications to guest blog for you can then often find lists that you can
kind of tap into, like for example 21 top SEO blogs that accept guest authors. So, look
for these ellipticals and then comb through them and pitch the ones that you want to write
for. So that's about it for today's video on link building remember you want to earn
those links not build them if you have questions as always let me know in the comments I'd
love to hear from you, give this video a like if you learned anything new today or if any
part of this video resonated with you. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button because
I'll be back with more videos just like these, thanks for watching.