How Much to Spend on Link Building Campaign?

between zero and a million dollars.

Zero.

1. In-depth articles

According to the MozCast Feature Graph, 6% of Google search results contain In-depth articles. While this doesn't seem like a huge numbers, the articles that qualify can see a significant increase in traffic. Anecdotally, we've heard reports of traffic increasing up to 10% after inclusion.

By adding a few signals to your HTML, your high quality content could qualify to appear. The markup suggested by Google includes:

Schema.org Article markup ? NewsArticle works too)
Google+ Authorship
Pagination and canonicalization best practices
Logo markup
First click free ? for paywall content
While Google seems to favor authorities news sites for In-depth Article inclusion, most sites that may qualify don't have the proper semantic markup implemented.

2. Improving user satisfaction

Can you improve your Google rankings by improving the onsite experience of your visitors?

In many ways the answer is "yes," and the experience of several SEOs hints that the effect may be larger than we realize.

We know that Google's Panda algorithm punishes "low-quality" websites. We also know that Google likely measures satisfaction as users click on search results.

"? Google could see how satisfied users were. ? The best sign of their happiness was the "long click" ? this occurred when someone went to a search result, ideally the top one, and did not return."

-Stephen Levy from his excellent book In the Plex
The idea is called pogosticking, or return-to-SERP, and if you can reduce it by keeping satisfied visitors on your site (or at least not returning to Google to look for the answer somewhere else) many SEOs believe Google will reward you with higher positions in search results.


3. Rich snippets from structured data

Google constantly expands the types of rich snippets it shows in search results, including events, songs, videos and breadcrumbs.

The first time I heard about structured data was from a presentation by Matthew Brown at MozCon in 2011. Matthew now works at Moz, and I'm happy to glean from his expertise. His Schema 101 presentation below is well worth studying.

See: Schema and Open Graph 101 - SMX Munich

4. Video optimization

Pixel for pixel, video snippets capture more search real estate than any other type of rich snippet, even more than authorship photos. Studies show our eyes go straight to them.



Unlike author photos, video snippets are often easier to display and don't require connecting a Google+ account.

Video snippets generally require creating a video XML sitemap and adding schema.org video markup.

To simplify things, many third party services will take care of the technical details for you. Here at Moz we use Wistia, which creates a sitemap and adds schema.org markup automatically.

Pro tip: Both schema.org and XML sitemaps allow you to define the video thumbnail that appears in search results. As the thumbnail highly influences clicks, choose wisely.

5. Google authorship

Scoring the coveted author photo in Google search results doesn't guarantee more clicks, but getting the right photo can help your click-through rate in many results.

What makes a good author photo? While there are no rules, I've personally tested and studied hundreds of photos and found certain factors help:

Use a real face, not a company logo, cartoon or icon
High contrast colors. Because the photo is small, you want it to stand out with good separation between the background and foreground.
Audience targeted. For example, young Disney fans are probably less likely to click on an old guy in a suit who looks like a financial adviser.


Google recently got more selective about the author photos it chooses to show, but if you implement authorship correctly you may find yourself in the 20% (according to MozCast) of all search results that include author photos.

6. Improving site speed

Improving site speed not only improves visitor satisfaction (see point #1) but it may also have a direct influence on your search rankings. In fact, site speed is one of the few ranking factors Google has confirmed.

One of the interesting things we learned this year, with help from the folks at Zoompf, is that actual page load speed may be far less important than Time to First Byte (TTFB). TTFB is the amount of time it takes a server to first respond to a request.

As important as page speed is for desktop search Google considers it even more important for mobile devices. Think about the last time you waited for a page to load on your cell phone with a weak signal.

"Optimizing a page's loading time on smartphones is particularly important given the characteristics of mobile data networks smartphones are connected to."

- Google Developers

7. Smartphone SEO

Aside from speed, if your website isn't configured properly for smartphones, it probably results in lower Google search results for mobile queries. Google confirms that smartphone errors may result in lower mobile rankings.

What is a smartphone error? It could include:

Redirecting visitors to the wrong mobile URL
Embedding a video that doesn't play on a particular phone (Flash video on an iPhone, for example)
Pop-ups that aren't easily closed on mobile
Buttons or fonts that are too small on a mobile device
Google recommends making your site responsive, but many of the top brands in the world, including Apple.com, don't have responsive sites. Regardless, a good mobile experience is imperative.

8. Expanding your international audience

Does your website have traffic potential outside your existing country and/or language?

Oftentimes, the opportunities for appearing in international search results are greater than staying within your own borders, and the competition sometimes less.



9. Social annotations with Google+

When you share content on Facebook and Twitter, your network basically sees it only when they are looking at Facebook and Twitter.

On the other hand, when you share content on Google+, your network can see it every time they search Google.

Google's own research shows that users fixate on social annotations, even when presented with videos and other types of rich snippets.

The easiest way to take advantage of this is to expand your Google+ network and share good content regularly and often. Rand Fishkin elegantly explains how to use Google+ to appear in the top of Google results every time.

Additionally, content shared through Google+ often ranks in regular search results, visible to everyone on the web, regardless of their social connections.

10. Snippet optimization

This goes back to basic meta tag and title tag optimization, but it's a good practice to keep in mind.

In the past two years, Google changed the maximum length of title tags so that it's no longer dependent on the number of characters, but on the number of pixels used, generally around 500 pixels in length. This keeps changing as Google tests new layouts.


11. Updating fresh content

Websites that stop earning new links often lose ground in Google search results. At the same time, sites that never add new content or let their pages go stale can also fall out of favor.

Freshening your content doesn't guarantee a rankings boost, but for certain types of queries it definitely helps. Google scores freshness in different ways, and may include:

Inception date
The amount (%) your content changes
How often you update your content
How many new pages you create over time
Changes to important content (homepage text) vs. unimportant content (footer links)


12. Ongoing on-page SEO

The factors listed here only scratch the surface of earning more real estate in search results. Issues such as indexing, crawling, canonicalization, duplicate content, site architecture, keyword research, internal linking, image optimization and 1,000 other things can move ranking mountains.

The job of the Technical SEO becomes more complex each year, but we also have more opportunities now than ever.

It's easy to think nothing is new in SEO, or that SEO is easy, or that Google will simply figure out our sites. Nothing is further from reality.

good advice from Harmon, but very few sites rank without links, so zero is not the correct answer...

if this is a mainstream site, and you are looking for mainstream links, I have some for sale... icq: 33375924 or email me at woj#a#t#wojfun#.#c#om to discuss details

Interesting info Harmon. I will read through it all in more detail when I get time.
woj, they are all adult sites. I only have one mainstream site.

Ideally I want mainstream sites that will link to my nsfw site.

Buying links based on what criteria exactly? Either you need high quality or volume or both. 1000.00 isn't going to get you very far and it will be even worse, when you have no experience in understanding the value of the links you want to buy. Additionally, those with great links want absurd prices. Those with volume (assuming some of the old, larger networks of days past still sell links) will want just as much for a ton of shitty links.

I used to sell links to pornhub and I don't think they ever spent more than 10k per month total to completely dominate high volume phrases.. But they had a decent formula and spent well and it still took a great deal of time to see results.

It's also worth pointing out that a lot of people are going to give you advise and it's almost certain that none of them will have bought and sold links and have little to no experience but tons of advice as usual.

don't know about that. when pornhub just launched mansef bought every decent link that was to be had.

I know very well. And at the end of the day, when you look at how few people were selling links, the problem is that there is not really a lot to buy.. The problem for them was not how much to spend, it was that there wasn't enough to buy.

maybe. only matt keez really knows in the end ...

Hmm, you accidently forgot to include the link to the original, I think.

12 Ways to Increase Traffic From Google Without Building Links - Moz

.

Wow, you are quick one. Actually I wanted everybody to believe that I compiled and typed out all of that information in 4 minutes between the time the OP posted his question and when I responded.

Moron.

I did not accuse you of anything. I even said you accidentally left it off because I didn't think you were actually trying to take credit for it. Excuse me for paticipating.

So just fuck off. At one point I thought you were ok, my bad for getting that wrong.

.

You're excused.

They had a couple guys buying links for them internally. One of them still posts here occasionally. They had a strict formula to follow and evaluate link value. There just wasn't a lot worth buying that would have meaningful seo value to a site that's already got the juice it had. After pornhub, they made the rounds again buying for tube8, keeze, camhub and a few others. All from the same few sources.

For a small site and a 1000.00 per month budget... who knows. You'd have to really understand the value of the links you are trying to buy and even if you did it well, you wouldn't see quick results and that 1000.00 is not 1000.00,... its 1000.00 a month. So the debt will climb faster than the rankings and revenue will.

in the long run probably get the best value leaning how to build a quality pbn and build quality campaigns with gsa ser yourself.

Bottom line: you can buy all the links you want, you can follow every single step Harmon laid out, you can spend ALL your time on SEO....but guess what? One Google Update and all your work is gone POOF. Also, you may do all of the above and still the best you may do is PR4. LOL

People waste their time competing via SEO when giant companies with giant resources have already beaten you (and everybody else) to the punch. So since there's no real way to compete I say fuck it. Spend your time building new sites and forget about endlessly tweaking existing sites 'cause it's a waste of time (and money).

1. Most of the right links, from PR 7+ domains are free if you know how to get them use them.
2. The best sites are the ones that:
   people like,
   and show it in low bounce rates,
   and get high page views per user session.
   These domains will win out in the SERPs.
3. Most of the old SEO is snake oil.

Carry on with parroting what they tell you

give up and spread the word more 4 me my evil

Well I would like to buy links from high trust domains. That and building up my own network perhaps.
Prices are very high especially when often you won't get much (if any direct) traffic from those links.

I guess I just thought there would be a percentage that those that do buy links put aside, say 20%. So in my example I would spend $200 a month, every month.

There is probably a lot of truth in this.

Sorry man, I am not trying to be negative or piss on your parade. LOL It's just that I do not see most SEO strategies working today in Adult. The more specific your long-tail keywords can be is great but then we're into niche territory. Trying to rank for 'common' terms (milf, blowjob, sex, etc) is already owned by "the big boys".

MUCH of Adult has solidified over the past five years. Big boys gobbling up little players, small-to-medium sized businesses folding or merging. This happens in every industry. Best of luck in any case!!

Really. Give me one place where I can get a PR7 backlink. Do these PR7 sites mind adult links?

Wow! Great info!!!

Do your own research, the information is out there to be found -- you just have to be able to sort through the 97% that is total or partial bullshit. Or, head to the 'backlink store' credit card in hand -- caveat emptor .

Effective back linking costs money or time ( time is money). SEO is not free.

Doesn't it make more sense to improve upon what you already have than to keep starting over?

In some cases, yes. But in many, many cases, no. Why? Because often websites "find their level" and you end up spending 100% of your time trying to improve revenue by 10% when you could take that same energy/time/focus and launch a new product to sell.

In my research, even the "big" sites/companies also have a myriad of other smaller sites. You may not know it's owned by them but they have them. Why would they do that if their one big site was endlessly scale-able?

Define "high trust"
Put a value on "high trust" per each link.
How will you identify "high trust" exactly and calculate your ROI on that investment?
What is the formula you will follow to identify links worth buying?

The obvious answer is that you can't. At best it will be a guess and without a lot of experience at watching linking + SERPs and moving up and down for phrases you target, it will be a horrible guess.

How do you make sure you get the most bang for your buck or that its even worth it when you are betting on ill defined and ambiguous concepts that have no clear, easily defined value?

There are very few high PR adult sites selling links that are worth buying.

I can't recall since i haven't personally bought links since 2008/9 and i am mixing so many deals up in my head between what I sold and what I bought. But a site like naughty.com as an example, would sell links as you can see in the sidebar, they appear to still be selling links and its going to cost you much more than 200.00 a month and give you a tiny bit of traffic.

The benefit from that, assuming your site/network and everything is perfectly optimized will be minimal. This is why itraffic guy is saying you are much better off just building your own link network. Something you own forever that will never go away. Something you control. Something that over time, continues to increase in value to your sites that you are linking to.

Build.
Build slow.
Build big.

Or... when it comes to investing your time and money, stick to what you control and stick to what you know.

Best thread I've seen on GFY in a long time...

Good SEO is work that does more for you than gain you ranks. There is ancillary value to a lot of the work that improved your ranks. Hard links are pointless. Making use of advertorial content, viral marketing, contextual link deals and other content-rich original placements will do a lot more for your ranks and metrics...

Depends on how bad you have mucked it up and what the new branding may accomplish.


Rebranding - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You continue to use your infrastructure or back-end development and present a fresh face to the world. This is not to be confused with a site redesign or cosmetic approach.

Two great posts from people who know so take their advice.

To be pithy: Build your own (good) shit.

3 billion dollars

You speak a lot of sense. Of course my "guess" is no better than the next man. I have tried buying links before and for the most part it's either worked out stupid expensive or it's had a negative effect.

I purchased one site a long time ago. Mainstream, aged with great trust and citation. I added a bunch of posts and linked out to quality sites (including my adult site). Since then I have ignored it but I know it affects the ranking of my money site in a good way.

I think building up my own sites is the way to go but it's time consuming, boring, repetitive and pretty expensive (short term).

The problem is I know that one or two or three good sites that I own aren't going to cut the mustard. I have many sites that all need help..
That's why I considered a link building campaign.

Thanks for your input.

that logic is as sound as advising steakhouse owner that he should raise his own cows... in some cases it makes sense, in many it doesn't...

building your own network of links correctly isn't any easier than buying them... one obvious downside of buying is the cost, but other than that there are plenty of advantages:
- instant result... buy today, within a week you start getting results...
- easily scalable... you see that 10 links worked great, can buy 10 more easily...
- easier to manage... no managing of multiple sites, hosts, registrars, etc...
.. etc

... but you are probably right though, building your own stuff is a better strategy for someone who has more time than money...

What meant is that the return will be better with one educating ones self and just building/linking. The return on 1000.00 a month on very poor buys will likely be zero. Over time and with experience and absorbing all you can along the way as well as watching your own successes and failures and learning all you can from practical experience, you are left with something you can use and something of significant value. AND... something you can sell links from ;)

A lot of people could give a simple 10 point check list - "build like this... follow these steps, link like this..." and he'd be much better off over time than trying to spend money on links with a tiny budget.

Well, i'd say your "guess" is going to be significantly worse than those who still actively buy links and have been doing so for years. You're right... good links are expensive and often bad links are expensive. It's a small industry full of people who largely prey on those who don't know, rather than cater to those who do.

Anyway man,. I know i am a downer and a shithead and a cynic. I get that. But one thing i have always despised in this business is the people who are just ruthless sharks preying on others. I don't know why it bothers me so much. I'd make the worst super hero ever... i'd rescue someone and then make them feel horrible about themselves and their lives.

I'm not selling anything. I'm not offering any service. I have no interest in these conversations other than to say "stop! think about what you are doing" and trying to say "this is why it will likely end poorly"

Link sales is one more area of this biz that has typically been full of con men and idiots with large networks of useless sites.

Invest in what you know and understand. Google updates its algorithms daily. That is not a great investment climate for someone who can't blast their way to the top for a valuable phrase and hold it long enough to pay off.

I appreciate your input, you are one of a few on this forum that actually talks sense.
I agree and hence forthwith I will be building up my own private network.
I would rather throw $200 at a domain once than spend $200 a month buying links.

Good idea... and if you do build a decent network of sites, you also open the opportunity to trade quality advertorial links to others in exchange for links back... or even to sell links yourself if you have sites worthy of ad placements or authority linking to larger sites...

B I N G O!!!!!!!

I CAN do it if I try, but damn, who the heck wants to! So much work.

Has anyone had success buying expired domains rather than expiring?
Obviously the costs would be much lower.

go search around blackhatworld tons of good threads there about buying expired domains and building a pbn.