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If you are serious about your SEO…
You need to diversify your backlink profile!
One of the best ways to do that is with link inserts. They offer a ton of unique benefits that will boost your overall SEO:
- They’re easier to build
- Cost less than guest posts
- Impact your rankings quicker
- Don’t require you to create content
But before you start building link inserts all over the internet, there are a few things you need to know first.
In this blog, I will tell you everything you need to know about link inserts and show you 4 proven link insertion strategies to build them effectively.
What Are Link Inserts?
Link Inserts (also known as niche edits) are links that get placed into existing content on a page already indexed by Google.
It’s a proven link building technique that can boost SEO while also generating referral traffic for our website.
Link inserts have become popular because:
- The outreach process is much quicker
- You don’t have to create a piece of content to place the link
What does this really mean?
It’s easier and faster to get link inserts placed on other websites. And you get the benefit of them being placed on a page that’s already been indexed!
That means you’ll often see the positive impact of each link placement quicker.
How Do Link Inserts Work?
Link inserts work by reaching out to a site and requesting a link be added to an already indexed piece of content.
Sometimes, the website owner will just add your link to the content. Other times, you’ll need to write a short paragraph to be placed with the link insert.
It depends on the website and its editorial guidelines.
Why would someone insert a link to your site?
The short answer is: They won’t!
During the outreach stage of your link insert campaign, you need to pitch to each website owner to try to secure a link.
The main value proposition is that your website/content is a resource that would benefit their audience.
You get the link and they can recommend your content which helps their readers.
Sounds good, right?
Here’s the truth:
Most website owners understand the value of link insertions. That means they usually request an editorial fee to add the link to their content.
Finding website owners who will give you a link insert for free is getting harder and harder.
But that doesn’t mean it’s impossible…
Guest Posts VS Link Inserts
Guest posts and link inserts are different.
Guest posting requires you to write and publish an article that include a link to your site on another website.
LINK INSERT
Link inserts just require the website owner to “insert” a link into existing content on a website.
But which one is better?
I see so many SEOs arguing guest posts vs link inserts online.
The truth is that guest posts and link insertions work hand in hand. Both should be a core part of your link building strategy.
Let me explain:
Link inserts often require far less work than guest posts, making it easier to build more links. And because the page you’re inserting the link into is already indexed – it takes less time to see the positive impact on your rankings.
Guest posts help build:
- Your backlink profile
- Your brand online
…simultaneously. While they take longer to gain traction, they often offer a bigger boost to your website’s overall authority.
The bottom line is that guest posts and link insertions add value to your link profile in different ways.
A diversified link building strategy should involve both link inserts and guest posts.
4x Link Insertion Strategies You Can Use
Ready to build link inserts for your own website?
Here are the top 4 proven link insertion strategies that work right now.
1. Outsource Your Link Inserts
Link building is hard work.
It takes a lot of time, resources and money to build quality link insertions that actually boost website domain authority and rankings.
If you want to build link inserts but don’t have the time to build them yourself – Outsource it to a trusted link building service.
Let professionals take care of your link building needs while you focus on growing your business.
This is the easiest way to build links that actually help you rank higher.
But not all link building services are created equal…
Hiring a link building agency you can trust can be challenging. There are tons of dodgy services that deliver sub-par results.
Who do we recommend?
They have a reputation for building the highest quality link inserts in the industry.
They also take quality control seriously, meaning you get higher-quality links that actually increase rankings and organic traffic.
2. Broken Link Building
The internet is full of broken links.
This creates an opportunity to build tons of links while helping clean up the web.
Broken link building is when you find a broken link on another website and suggest a piece of content on your site as a replacement for that link.
The owner fixes the link and you get a nice link insert backlink.
Win-win, right?
To start you need to find broken links on topically relevant websites.
Go to Google and search for the target keywords you want to rank for.
Add each domain ranking at the top of the Google search results to a spreadsheet.
Next, you need to find broken links on each of your target websites. There are two ways to do this:
If you are serious about broken link building, Ahrefs is by far the best way to do broken link building at scale.
I will be using Ahrefs for this example.
Read my complete Broken link building tutorial if you want to see how to use Check My Links for free.
Find Broken Links
Sign up for Ahrefs and log in to your account. Get the first website on your list, add it to “Site Explorer” and click “Search”.
Under Pages on the left, click “Best by links”, filter by 404 and click “Show Results”.
This site has 18 “dead” pages on their site. Some of those pages have decent Dofollow backlinks!
These are your outreach targets. Spend some time looking through the backlink profile of each of these pages to find good opportunities.
Found some?
Now, paste the orginal dead page into Wayback Machine and click search.
Wayback Machine is a free web archive that shows you how the content used to look on the dead page.
Look for the blue dates on the calendar – You might need to go back a few years.
It should bring up a page that looks something like this:
If you have a similar piece of content on your website, you can suggest it as a replacement.
Otherwise, you’ll need to create a piece of content that closely fits. You’ll have to make a judgment call because creating good content takes time.
And the site owner is not guaranteed to add your new content as a replacement link when you notify them of the broken link.
Let The Site Owner Know About The Broken Link
You first need to find an email address for the right person to contact.
Use a tool like Hunter.io to quickly find the right person and email address to contact.
You can also look for an email address manually on their website!
If you are having trouble finding the correct email address to contact, follow my email address lookup guide. It has all the answers you need!
Write an email and click send!
Explain that you came across a broken link and just wanted to let them know. Then, suggest your own content as a replacement.
Be friendly and don’t be pushy.
Your goal is to help them first and then ask for the link!
Follow the email template in our broken link building guide if you need more help.
3. Press Mention Link Building
Press mention link building is the easiest type of link insert you’ll ever build.
It takes 5 minutes to set up and has a very high success rate.
Here’s how it works:
If your brand is mentioned online without a link, that’s a missed opportunity. Fortunately, it’s often an easy fix…
You just need to get in touch with the website that mentioned you!
First, you need to set up a way to track mentions of your brand online. Google Alerts is the best tool for the job and it’s completely free.
Login to Google Alerts and create an alert for your brand name and your website’s URL.
Enter the necessary information and click on “Create Alert” to finalise it.
If you need some help we’ve created a complete how to set up Google alerts tutorial with some bonus tips for SEOs.
Now, every time your brand gets mentioned online, you’ll get an email from Google Alerts with the website and page where your brand was mentioned.
All you have to do is reach out to the site owner.
Look on their website or use Hunter.io to find the right email address to contact. As a last resort, you can use their contact form.
But ideally, you find an email!
Now, write an email to them using the template below:
Hey [NAME],
I’ve seen you mentioned us on [PAGE].
Thanks a lot!
By the way, I saw you haven’t linked to our site. It’d be of great use for your readers if you added a link, so they can learn more about us.
Here’s the link you can use: [URL].
Thanks a lot,
[YOUR NAME]
Remember to tailor each email to the recipient.
Don’t just copy and paste the template!
A personal touch can significantly boost your chances of getting a response.
Press mention link inserts are one of the most passive link building tactics that every business should take advantage of.
Go set up those alerts now!
4. Resource Pages Link Building
Many websites have resource pages containing tools, guides, articles and other sites they use and recommend to their audience.
The resources page link inserts strategy is pretty straightforward:
- Find resource pages within your industry
- Reach out and ask if you can get listed
That’s it!
Here’s how to do it step by step:
Head over to Google and use the following search operators to find relevant resource pages:
These will bring up a ton of potential link insert opportunities!
Sift through the search results and write down any pages in a spreadsheet that fit your content.
These are your resource page targets!
Keep in mind that resource pages come in many formats:
- Static pages that list recommend resources
- News articles with a list of resources
- Monthly round-up posts
- Blog post with the best resources
You get the point!
Getting linked in any of these is great! But how you approach the outreach depends on the type of resource page.
Let me show you that now…
The next step is to reach out to each of the site owners and get your website/content added to the resource page.
The truth is that this is easier said than done.
So, I recommend a two-prong approach for each target website:
- Send an initial outreach email that doesn’t ask for anything
- Then pivot to a pitch focusing on securing the link insert
The first email could look something like this:
Hey,
I am a frequent reader of #INSERTROUNDUPNAME# – thanks for putting it together every #WEEK/MONTH/YEAR#.
When you featured #INSERTURL# it really helped me to #INSERTRESULT#
Looking forward to the next round-up!
Thanks again for putting it together all the time!
– Your Name
Once you get a response, you can pivot to a pitch!
It’s as simple as that.
Don’t forget to customise the first outreach email based on the type of resource page you want to get listed in.
It will make it much easier to pitch in your second email!
What You Need To Know About Link Insertions
The truth is that to really see the benefit of SEO, you need to build backlinks.
And link insertions are a great way to do that!
But there are a couple of things that you need to know before you build your first few link inserts.
Paying For Links Is Against Google Guidelines
Buying or selling links to manipulate Google’s algorithm is against their terms of service.
Anytime you exchange money (or anything else) for a link from someone’s website, you violate Google’s webmaster guidelines.
That includes link exchanges!
Does that mean you shouldn’t do it?
Often when you reach out to get a link insert, the website owner will respond saying they can but you will need to pay an “editorial fee”.
That’s just the nature of link building!
This is really normal, and many people do it. When you build link inserts properly on quality sites, the chances of Google penalising you are extremely low.
But you need to know what you are getting into.
Link Building Always Comes With Risks
I’m not trying to scare you…
But the truth is that if you do any link building to improve your website’s visibility, you go against Google’s guidelines. Period.
That means that link building always comes with some risk.
Now you can see why the whole topic of “white hat link building strategies” is kind of stupid.
All link building is, in theory, “black hat” because it’s against Google’s webmaster guidelines.
Links are essential to SEO, and people will still need to build them manually – especially the big sites.
If you aren’t building links, you will ultimately lose out to your competitors.
That’s just the way it works!
The key is to only build quality links from trusted and authoritative sites.
Want to learn more about what a quality backlink looks like?
Check out our ultimate link building checklist
It has everything you’ll ever need to know about link building!
If you do run into any issues with Google penalties, we offer a dedicated Google penalty recovery service to get you out of trouble.
LinksThatRank: The Best Link Building Service For Link Inserts
LinksThatRank is the best link building service for link inserts that we can recommend.
They have a reputation for building the highest quality links in the industry.
And they have the results to prove they know what they’re doing…
Here’s an example of one of their recent case studies:
They’ve also simplified the buying process which makes link building accessible to anyone regardless of how big or small your website is.
Every link they build:
- Passes a strict 23-point quality control checklist so you only get excellent links
- Includes anchor text selection to make sure you don’t trigger an anchor text penalty
- Is placed with 1,000 words of content by default
- Includes internal and external links to placement pages to appear more natural
- Is guaranteed not to be on a strict blacklist of sites with “write for us” pages, known guest post farms and PBN networks
LinksThatRank is so serious about quality that they even went as far as to build their own link building tool to identify toxic backlinks!
All this means you end up with great link inserts that actually move your website forward.
If you want someone else to take care of your link building, check out LinksThatRank
Pro Tip: Before outsourcing your link inserts, determine how many backlinks you need to accomplish your website goals.
Wrapping It Up
There you have it…
Everything you need to know about link inserts, including an abundance of ways to build them!
Link inserts are a great addition to your overall link building strategy.
They offer many unique benefits and will help you diversify your backlink profile.
Remember:
Don’t ONLY build link inserts. It’s best to combine it with other link building strategies so you end up with a strong and natural-looking link profile.
If you need someone to take care of your link building for you, then make sure that you check out LinksThatRank.
