Beating the Google Link Spam update — Brie Moreau // White Light Digital Marketing

Brie Moreau, Director at White Light Digital Marketing (WLDM), explores beating the Google link spam update. In the past, website owners could simply purchase or exchange links with other sites, regardless of their relevance or quality, in order to improve their search rankings. However, search engines are now able to detect and penalize such manipulative practices, and are placing greater emphasis on natural, high-quality backlinks earned through content creation, outreach, and relationship-building. Today, Brie discusses a more sustainable approach to backlinking efforts in SEO.
About the speaker

Brie Moreau

White Light Digital Marketing

 - White Light Digital Marketing

Brie is Director at White Light Digital Media (WLDM)

Show Notes

  • 03:05
    Sustainable approaches to building backlinks
    Backlinking agencies should have a highly structured process to determine if a website is authoritative in the niche, has page traffic, and is relevant to the target keywords. Unfortunately, most link-builders use databases and don't do genuine prospecting and outreach.
  • 11:14
    The importance of relevancy over domain authority in link building
    When it comes to backlinks, what matters is finding websites that are ranking for multiple keywords and getting traffic, not domain authority (DA). However, as Google is constantly shifting rankings, theres the issue of ranking and traffic fluctuations after links are built.
  • 13:52
    Ongoing monitoring of backlinks
    WLDM has been investing in building out custom software to automate the monitoring of backlinks. In general, as the focus is on increasing traffic, WLDM will renegotiate with the website owner if a link is removed or just build another to replace the lost one.
  • 16:13
    Leveraging genuine outreach to minimize backlink loss
    PBNs and database websites that are expired domains can randomly delete or replace pages and links, leading to a loss in backlinks. As a result, its best to rely on agencies that do outreach to secure legitimate backlinks and build relationships with website owners, to minimize backlink loss.
  • 17:11
    Taking a strategic approach to backlinking
    As Googles algorithm becomes more complex, diverse tactics will grow in importance. These tactics include PR and HARO links, building backlinks on pages with traffic and relevance, and basically not relying on a single strategy for backlinking.
  • 21:57
    The role of CRO and user experience in highly competitive niches
    In highly competitive niches, simply increasing the budget for backlinks may not be enough to increase ranking when already in the top three. In those instances, changing the page structure and how the user interacts with it may be ideal to increase engagement and the websites rank.
  • 25:43
    The value of getting internal linking right before investing in backlinks
    Within Google's guidelines, we can link from other pages on our website with the exact keyword term. As a result, internal linking is invaluable and should be prioritized before investing in backlinks as it helps with page sculpting.
  • 28:19
    Organic growth tips for new websites
    First, claim all of your social media domains and build citations for businesses with physical addresses. After that, start creating content and acquiring backlinks gradually instead of just building a website and pointing many PBNs at it.

Quotes

  • "The difference between PBNs, database-driven process, and what we're doing is that we're contacting companies that are genuinely making money because they're in the top 10 for a specific thing." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "The reality is that domain authority doesn't matter. Its relevancy." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "Most of our websites are DA 40 plus because they're authorities in that niche, and they get traffic." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "We're a lot cheaper than most other link-building agencies because we don't price on DA." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "I know a lot of backlinking agencies, and there are only two other ones that I know that actually do genuine outreach. So it's definitely an issue." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "HARO and PR links are really important. Links that other people can't get are just so valuable." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "We can throw three times as many backlinks to a page and still not get from position three to one." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "If clients get to the top three for a highly competitive keyword term, it doesn't matter how many more backlinks we build, we can't get them across the line. That's when CRO and user experience come into play." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "If you don't have the budget to begin with for external backlinking, just start getting the internal stuff right, and then work from there." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

  • "You can't just put a $20,000 a month backlink budget to one or two pages on the website as it just looks artificial. It needs to have that spread, and it needs to look organic." -Brie Moreau, Director, WLDM

About the speaker

Brie Moreau

White Light Digital Marketing

 - White Light Digital Marketing

Brie is Director at White Light Digital Media (WLDM)

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