Pay Per Post Blog Reviews - Does It Work?
-
I have come to realize that several SEO companies are basing their entire link strategy on paying bloggers to write a review about their client's website that also includes a link back to their website. I am thinking about adding this as part of my link building campaign. I am thinking about acquiring approximately 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs that pertain to my industry and target audience. I am thinking of using the network payperpost.com to find good blogs.
First question: Does this type of link building work well?
Second question: Is 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs (writing on my subject matter) enough to help out?
-
Really great insight, Ryan. Your input is greatly appreciated. Especially on the topic of deeper page links and multiple different domains. Thanks for contributing.
-
I think that you can get links that will lift your rankings from these services. However, I feel that these are risky links. The risk is probably one of the links being devalued and your site dropping an amount equivalent to the links being removed - thus you wasted your money.
I would not use this service. I would instead invest in content with the goal of having a quality level that is high enough that other webmasters will link to it without any work or payment from me.
-
Does this type of link building work well?
Absolutely
** Is 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs (writing on my subject matter) enough to help out?**
Yes.
Paid blogging exists because it works. With that said, Google is getting better at adjusting for low quality content and the blog farms. Usually a paid blogger posts in perfect English, with the right post title, the right keyword usage, etc. They are trained to write for SEO. The problem is the actual quality of the content they write is usually low. They don't know nor understand the topics they are writing about.
On the other hand, many experts will write about topics, but they are not always proficient with English. Also they don't understand SEO mechanics so while they share great information, it is often not presented optimally from a SEO perspective. So when Google balances things out, a paid blog article can rank higher then an article written from an expert on the topic. There are many factors involved of course, but these are some of them.
I am sure there will be others who will disagree with the perspective I am sharing. Of course all sites should strive to create great content. The internet has too many paid bloggers and others who just fill the internet with fluff making it harder for users to get the real content they need. Google still rewards sites for using paid bloggers with higher rankings. As long as that is the case, they will still be used by those without the resources to create the content on their own.
With respect to the amount of links, it is all relative. How many links does your site have presently? Are these articles linking to your home page? Or are they linking to deeper pages? Are the links from 15 different blogs with different root domains? Are they blogging from a general wordpress domain or from a topic specific blog? There are many factors used to evaluate the value of a link. Without seeing your site I would suggest that 15 links/month is enough to help most small to medium sites quite nicely.
-
So would you say that this method of link building (paying per blog post or review) is a good link building strategy?
-
Second question: Is 15 links a month from PR 2-5 blogs (writing on my subject matter) enough to help out?
Maybe Yes, Maybe No. It depends upon who you are attacking.
Linkbuilding is not a game of numbers, it is a game of relative velocity. Let's say that your competitor has 150 links and you might say... "If I get 15 links per month I should catch him in about a year." That works well if your competitor has a crappy site that attracts no natural links and if he is sitting on his butt instead of linkbuilding.
However, if your competitor is gaining 20 links per month and you are only gaining 15 then you will never catch him.
Also, if your competitor has 150,000,000 links and you gain 15 per month you will never catch him.
So, it depends upon who you are competing against, how hard they are working and how their content smells.
(I am not touching that first question... some people would say that they are paid links and even if they are not considered paid links those blogs could be into other types of manipulation. Be careful and realize the potential risks.)
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Can I include "commissioned" posts in my link building strategy?
Ok "Commissioned Posts" meaning industry influencers/bloggers etc writing about your brand, products or services and possibly "linking" to your website (in exchange for money, or not) a) I'm contacted by a blogger who wants to write a piece about our product and naturally links back. b) A blogger says, yes, we can write a fantastic article about your brand and link to you for $$$..$ - is this ok if not at scale? What is deemed as ethical? I want to make sure our link building campaign is done within Google's guidelines. Here is currently what we are doing, or intending to do; 1. We're producing unique content on our site and sharing this with key influencers organically on Twitter, Facebook and G+ communities. This so far is working well for a new start up. 2. Writing guest posts on authoritative sites (with only our author bio at the bottom, branded link to our site, social links) sharing knowledge or interesting content which readers will want to read. Sites like HuffPost, The Guardian would be great although we're starting on authoritative well maintained blogger sites within the industry to begin. 3. Reaching out to industry influencers who may like to review our products. Many of them have got back to me stating that they "can" run commissioned posts (normally requires a large fee) which carries a followed link, branded or unbranded. Although we may have initially contacted them, and money could be exchanged, in the eyes of Google wouldn't this appear as a natural post? Please let me know your thoughts on this? It would be great to gain more of an understanding exactly what I can or cannot do when it comes to developing high quality links for our business! Your feedback (sharing any examples if possible) would be truly appreciated. Thanks Gary
Link Building | | GaryVictory0 -
My homepage is ranking great but my blog posts have dissappeared
It all happened a few weeks after Penguin 2.0 was released so I'm not sure if it is in any way related. My home page robt.info currently ranks really well for relevant key words like kids author. This has lead me to believe that 2.0 didn't negatively effect my site. I'm not in the business of anything remotely black hat related and purely focus on content. But, if you search for individual blog posts (which are extremely unique), they are nowhere to be seen. For example, one post I did was a story titled 'Fairy Floss For Brains'. Up until the second week of June I ranked extremely well for these really weird and unique blog posts. But now, they don't rank very well at all. Not even in top 100. They are indexed and in my sitemap. Can anyone please help me resolve this issue? Is there something I have done wrong that anyone can see? EDIT: I was able to utilise feedback from my question to resolve my issue. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR HELP GUYS!
Link Building | | Insppaint0 -
Guest Posting
Is guest posting to get links a good idea? I have the blogs to post but do not have the time to find, approach and build a relationship with bloggers to get the guest posts. Are guest posting services a good idea and if so can anyone recommend one? Thanks
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Many Blogs or One Blog?
Hi There, Presently I have many blogs across a range of domains, each one targeting the client/type of user interested in that product (or service in this case). I originally set up this strategy to use the content of each blog to create a "link juice farm" (our products are educational courses so have a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT target market depending on the course area), which in turn links to the related page/course on our main site. My question is, is this a viable strategy, or should I be focusing on building content only on my main site blog with subcategories for each product? Link juice farming on product/client specific blogs, or focus on content for each course niche on main site, that is the question?! Thanks in advance for you insights here people. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Link Building | | love-seo-goodness0 -
Is it good to post same content of my web page to different articles and blogs
Hi! Actually, i would like to create links equity. may i post the same content to different blogs and article directories and link back to my web page. is this cleaver/correct idea which give some result? Thank you.
Link Building | | Webworld_Norway0 -
Blog Commenting, how to start?
Greetings Mozzers, I have read that interacting on blogs in a natural way is good for building relationships as well as earning links. This is what I'd like to do, however what is the best way to find blogs to start doing this for different industries? Google [industry blogs]? Go to competitors and look at their link profiles to see if there are blogs they are on? Whats a good way to start this method? All the advice/clarification would be outstanding!
Link Building | | MonsterWeb281 -
Should we imitate our competitor's blog network?
One of our competitors has built a little blog network, and I'm wondering if it's worth it for us to imitate it. Here's how they have it set up: They have domain.com, their e-commerce site, and blog.domain.com. They also have a half-dozen EMD blogs set up that all link to each other and to the e-commerce site, each one supplying content related to one niche of their busines (e.g. kitchenwidgets.com, widgetsforkids.com, etc.). It seems they've been doing this since December 2011. In my opinion, the content on these EMD blogs is pretty low value. Sure enough, they have basically no inbound links from outside the blog network, and it's not getting shared socially. I'm having a hard time imagining a lot of long-tail searches that would bring in qualified shoppers, since they basically just write up 300-word long descriptions of photos. Based on SEMrush data, it doesn't look like this approach is hurting them -- they didn't take a Penguin dive in April, for example. But how likely is it that this approach is helping them enough to justify the time they must spend writing (probably ~30-60m a day)? It would be trivial for the algo to determine that these are not natural links and completely devalue them. Would it not be better to consolidate that time into 2.5-5hrs a week spent researching and writing a valuable, link-worthy, long-tail-rich post for the main blog and then promoting it in hopes of attracting natural links?
Link Building | | CMC-SD0 -
What are the best back links for a review site?
This is specifically for reviews for web hosting or VOIP services. Very technical. Where should I look for sites to get backlinks from?
Link Building | | Aqua0