reddit seo

Reddit SEO: How to Rank in SERPs Using Reddit Content?

Reddit is at its all-time high in the ranking for variants of keywords across different industries. We don’t know for sure when it will last, but jumping on this bandwagon is a slightly minimal effort you can make to get some of Google’s real estate for your target keywords. 

According to a Wix article, Reddit has officially opened its doors for brands to do business. Being at “the front page of the internet”, Reddit is a hub for in-depth discussions, trusted reviews (assumingly), and niche insights. It becomes an invaluable resource for businesses looking to improve their search rankings. 

In this guide, I’ll share actionable tips on leveraging Reddit SEO, whether you’re trying to rank a niche hobby site or a B2B SaaS client. 

Use Reddit for Keyword and Topical Research

Reddits’ subreddits are among the best sources for reverse engineering potential keywords in your industry. Given that the intent of users is to look for solutions to their problems or ask for experiential insights into what product/service to choose, the keywords subreddits may be ranking are strong indicators of what actual users search for. 

Start by finding subreddits relevant to your niche. You can use Reddit’s search bar, a quick Google search for site:reddit.com [topic], or third-party tools like Keyworddit to uncover active communities.

google search reddit finds

Whichever method you use, the key is to find communities with high user engagement. For instance, if you’re in the finance sector, subreddits like r/PersonalFinance or r/Investing are excellent starting points.

The next step is to dive into threads with high upvotes and engagement to identify trending topics. Focus on the language your target audience uses to frame their questions or problems. For example, a thread titled “What’s the best alternative to Notion for project management?” signals intent and potential long-tail keywords like “Notion alternative”

Another best way to generate keyword insights from Reddit is to use tools like Ahrefs or SEMRush to analyze the organic keywords driving traffic to Reddit pages. 

Here’s a simple process:

  1. Enter "Reddit.com" into Ahrefs’ site explorer.
  2. Navigate to the “Organic Keywords” section.
  3. Filter results using seed keywords from your niche (e.g., “pet food” or “cloud storage” or “coffee franchise”).

 

ahrefs organic results cloud storage

 

This is useful in uncovering keywords with significant search traffic but with higher conversion potential.

Answer Questions to Solve Problems

The last thing you’ll do on Reddit is self-promote your products/services whenever you want to. This is one of the pitfalls of using Reddit, as Redditors (users and moderators) are quick to downvote or flag overt self-promotion. 

The key to succeeding in Reddit content engagement is to focus on providing value without pushing your agenda quickly. When done right, subtle mentions of your brand or product can generate curiosity and brand search volume and can lead to actual organic traffic. 

 

reddit best coffee shop franchise question

reddit best coffee shop franchise answer

 

Remember, the context in Reddit is that users visit it to find answers they trust, whether it’s for product recommendations or technical advice. So, having this mindset as the start can become a game-changer in engaging in Reddit.

Here’s how to make the most of this value-adding contribution:  

Start with your brand. Your customers (or potential customers) may be asking about anything about your products/services (features, benefits, results, comparison, etc.). Answering specific questions from your potential customers can help you overcome their objections and let them make a purchasing decision. 

reddit seo

 

Do it with finesse, as you don’t want to overhype your answers. Answer truthfully by tackling the angles of your product offering at which you’re best. This can also help you strategize positioning your product’s POV in your link building campaigns.

Focus on intent: Engage with questions directly tied to your industry or expertise. For example, in SaaS, a question about the best task management software could lead to an opportunity to discuss the features and benefits of a product your brand offers. You may expand your content theme as long as it is within your industry. 

By thinking of the ‘why’ users are asking these questions, you’ll deliver the answer in a way that addresses their pain points. 

Comprehensive answers: Posts that provide detailed, helpful answers are more likely to be upvoted and indexed by search engines. For example, a well-written response on r/PhInvest addressing the pros and cons of coffee franchise investments could rank highly on Google.

The comprehensiveness of answers doesn’t mean lengthy ones. It could be concise as long as you answer the question right. Similar to how you create and publish helpful content for search, it’s the same mentality you have with Reddit insights. 

Increase Brand Search. It’s one of the upsides of answering questions on Reddit, as it helps increase curiosity and naturally encourages users to search for your brand on Google. As you know, getting more brand visibility helps your website's overall rankings, given that they favor more brands today than ever (and in 2025, as one of the SEO predictions by top SEO experts). 

hills and valleys coffee branded search volume

Bring Expertise to Reddit

EEAT isn’t just a myth. It can help you climb your pages in Google’s SERPs and establish authority and thought leadership in your space. 

Imagine seeing your brand as a source of consistent, value-driven answers. You’re increasing your chances for more brand visibility (search volume, as mentioned earlier) and assisting in future collaboration with other publishers and content creators in your industry. 

Here’s how to bring EEAT to Reddit: 

Make in-house experts involved in content promotion. You don’t have to hire outside collaborators (you may do so if it’s possible with resources), but you can start with tenured people in your organization.

Given that SEO today requires collaboration between many departments (and not just marketing), partnerships with product management, research and development, and the management team help you acquire first-hand knowledge and experience you can leverage to answer Reddit questions. 

Email your in-house experts with industry-related questions and answer Reddit threads with your account. Explain why they need to do so to get more buy-in for your initiatives. This could also helpful you in other link building strategies such as niche edits and digital PR campaigns

Another way to bring expertise to Reddit is to back up your claims with statistics, studies, or personal experience. If you have internal data, surveys, or industry reports that are helpful to the community, link to any of those pages in your Reddit answer. It’s a good way to promote your brand without overtly self-promoting it. 

Track Competitors and Market Sentiment

As a multi-industry entrepreneur, tracking competitors' and customers' feelings about their offerings is a silver-lining strategy. You get to observe discussions about your competitors, gauge the market sentiment, and uncover pain points or needs unmet by their brands.

Threads like “[Competitor] Is it worth it?” can give you insights into customer opinions and concerns. You can incorporate these points into the customer-centric copy on your blog content and landing pages, increasing conversion rates. 

reddit thread is it worth keyword

 

It’s also a good way to publish blog content for questions that may not have significant search volume (or zero search) but are likely getting interest from your target audience. I got this from Koray Tugberk, who said publishing zero search volume with high interest in the offline world can increase your domain's topical authority. 

Include Reddit in Your Blog Ideation Strategy

In the SEO world, we’ve got dynamic keyword research strategies from reverse engineering competitors or topical map creation using Ahrefs or SEMRush. 

On one side, you can actually utilize Reddit to flesh out new blog ideas straight from ranking subreddits. 

Begin by plugging Reddit (or a specific subreddit) into Ahrefs or SEMRush. Then, analyze the organic keywords for which these pages rank. 

You can filter to match significant search volume (say 100<) and tie it to your current site authority to choose keywords for keyword difficulty. For instance, if you have a DR50+ site, you can select keywords with medium competition, as you’ll have chances of competing, given your domain authority. 

Whenever you run out of techniques, it could be a good practice to use Reddit’s keyword research strategy. 

Another upside of incorporating Reddit into your blog strategy is thinking of upgrading content formats with questions from Reddit. This helps improve the page’s EEAT quality and its ability to attract passive backlinks, as you provide more first-hand experience and original expertise to the subject discourse - assuming you provide the best answers possible to those questions.

Real Estate Domination on Google

Given that Reddit ranks for many keyword variants in different industries, you’ll have an opportunity to appear in several threads, apart from your ability to rank for your target head terms with your web pages.

Today, ranking on multiple list pages and community pages (including subreddits) is more important than ever for increasing brand visibility. 


Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

As search evolves, the rise of AI overviews in Google results brings fresh opportunities for visibility, but the fundamentals remain the same. While it’s not about optimizing content solely for AI, a strong SEO foundation enhances your brand’s presence across all search experiences, including AI-driven results. 

The essentials of SEO—well-structured, unique, and genuinely helpful content—continue to be the bedrock of visibility. However, as digital marketers aiming to build authority and relevance, we can consider AI Overviews as an additional layer that increases brand exposure. 

AI overviews offer the chance for brands to surface in a different light, adding an opportunity for expanded visibility in high-quality content spaces.

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

Developing a solid link building and content strategy is pivotal to achieving the right positioning in AI overviews. The key to success is consistently updating content to match user intent, answering complex queries, and designing content that fulfills user needs.

1. Monitor SERP Features for Target Keywords

Monitoring SERP features helps you stay competitive. Some queries now feature AI-generated summaries, videos, images, and other multimedia elements. For example, Google may display a “People Also Ask” section, AI-generated overviews, and even knowledge panels for specific keywords.

Tools like Ahrefs, and SEMRush can identify which keywords yield SERP features, like AI overviews, that may benefit from multimedia content additions. This data enables you to adjust your content by incorporating structured data, images, or videos.

Content Strategy and Link Building for Google AI Overviews

2. Creating High-Quality, User-Focused Content with EEAT

High-quality content, especially when structured for user engagement, enhances your visibility potential across search types. Google’s EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness) are critical for ranking in AI-driven search.

Focus on creating original perspectives that add value (information gain), grounded in genuine expertise and real-life experience. Google’s AI algorithms identify rehashed content and can now better recognize authentic, informative resources.

Showcase your expertise by weaving in firsthand examples, studies, and insights that differentiate your content from competitors. Content that draws from expertise is more likely to rank and appear in AI-driven summaries.

3. Deep Dive into Audience Research and Core Topics

In-depth audience research is non-negotiable in aligning content with user intent and needs. Google’s ranking systems now prioritize content relevant to a website’s primary purpose. Publishing content that strays from core topics risks diminishing your authority in Google’s view.

Create audience personas to understand what your audience values. Develop content around these insights to ensure they resonate and fulfill their needs.

Ensure each piece of content addresses your audience’s pain points and challenges. If your site focuses on digital marketing, avoid publishing unrelated topics, as Google now distinguishes unrelated content sections within a site.

Google recently noted a shift in visibility for sections of sites like “Fortune Recommends” and “Forbes Advisor” due to disjointed content that wasn’t fully aligned with each site’s primary theme.

4. Link Building That Complements Core SEO

Backlinks remain crucial for reinforcing authority, yet placement has become more strategic in AI. Here’s how to build links that serve both organic search and AI-driven summaries:

  • Be strategic in placing links on entities and sites you want to be topically associated with your brand
  • Consider sentiments in the context of the page's/content's overall message. Ensure they promote a more positive perception of your product/service and do not work against your offerings. 
  • Be on the lookout for links/resources/where-to-buy pages that can demonstrate your products' POV as they get included in the lists pages.
  • Make quality control part of your process when checking the entire context of the page/content from which you aim to get links. Not only is it relevant to your site, but it must also help improve the association toward solving problems your prospective customers are experiencing. 

5. Optimize Content for Complex Queries

With generative AI allowing users to ask intricate questions in one search, optimizing for query chains—consecutive follow-up questions—is more effective than targeting isolated keywords. By addressing connected topics, your content appears more thorough and relevant.

Write comprehensive guides that anticipate follow-up questions. For instance, if you write about “digital communication skills for HR,” also consider covering “how digital skills benefit talent development” or “common challenges HR faces in digital communication.”

By structuring content with linked topics, you increase the chances of AI identifying it as useful for multi-layered searches.

6. Publish Short-Form Videos Directly on Your Site with Structured Data

While platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are popular for short-form video content, don’t overlook the value of hosting these videos on your website. Tools like Wistia can enhance video quality and user experience on your site. 

By embedding videos directly, you keep traffic on your domain and have better control over the content’s SEO impact. Additionally, mark up your videos with structured data to make them more discoverable in Google Search and eligible for inclusion in AI overviews.

how to tie a tie short form videos

Embed product demos, explainer videos, or testimonials directly on relevant landing pages and use structured data to signal their relevance to Google. This can improve visibility in both standard search results and AI-driven summaries.

7. Enhance Sales Pages with FAQs and FUQs (Frequently Unanswered Questions)

Adding FAQs to your sales pages immediately answers common customer questions, enhancing user experience and optimizing for AI overviews. FUQs, or frequently unanswered questions, address nuanced or lesser-known queries, showcasing your in-depth expertise and understanding of the customer journey.

Identify customer pain points and unique questions that arise during the sales process. Incorporate FAQs and FUQs into your content strategy to address these needs proactively. This thoughtful design positions your content as a comprehensive, reliable source in current search results and evolving AI landscapes.

Positioning Content for Future Search Landscapes

Incorporating these practices prepares your content for success in an evolving SEO landscape, where AI-driven summaries may soon become more prominent. By blending traditional SEO with AI-conscious content practices, you build an adaptable content strategy that remains resilient in a changing environment.

The essentials—quality content, strategic link building, and user-focused design—create a content approach that thrives in AI and traditional search results, establishing your brand as a trusted source.


content marketing for startups

SEO-Driven Content Marketing For Startups

Create content that ranks and converts. 

SEO-driven content marketing aims to rank pages and engage users so that they will convert. 

While most SEOs vouch for just rankings, I do believe that content marketing activities should impact the business goals and objectives ─ and any marketing activity, for that matter.

In this guide, we’ll explore tips on utilizing content marketing for startups to drive SEO impact to your website. 

1. Turn Audience Research to Content Clusters

Start by understanding the needs, interests, and challenges. This can involve creating a buyer persona that speaks to the demographic and psychographics of your target audience. Getting fresh data from your management team can also help pinpoint who your customers really are.

Create your ICP (Ideal Customer Profile), which describes your business' ideal customer based on common attributes like demographics, behavior patterns, needs, and pain points.

Then, use tools like Sparktoro or Ahrefs to discover topics and questions your ideal customers might be searching for to find solutions.

When looking for topics, ensure you tap into each stage of the marketing funnel (Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action), or in the digital marketing realm, we have BOFU (bottom of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), and TOFU (top of the funnel)

ahrefs marketing funnel

Even if it’s not a product/service page you’re publishing, you can still convert customers on your pages in the TOFU funnel (informational pages) as long as you deliver solutions to their needs and contextually place a solid call to action on your landing pages.  

Here are a few steps to building effective topic clusters:

  1. Identify Core Topics: Identify 3-5 broad topics that align with your startup’s services, products, or expertise. These will become your pillar pages.
  2. Conduct Keyword Research: Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google’s Keyword Planner to find relevant keywords related to your core topics with significant search volume. Pro Tip: Do not skip zero-volume keywords that must be part of your content marketing base. 
  3. Create Subtopics: Based on the keyword research, identify subtopics that address various facets of the core topic. 
  4. Link Your Content: Interlink your pillar page with cluster pages. Internal linking helps search engines better understand your priority pages and improves the crawling and indexation of your new pages. 

For instance, If your startup offers project management software, your pillar topic could be "Project Management Techniques". Cluster pages could cover subtopics like "Agile Methodology”, "Kanban vs. Scrum”, and "Project Management Tools for Startups”.

Publishing these product-led linkable assets can also lead to more link building opportunities while driving new users to your product or service. 

2. Enlarge Your Publishing Base Through People-First Content 

People-first content is about creating valuable, relevant, and high-utility content that meets the needs and expectations of your intended audience. 

We’ll examine these four critical components of people-first content (Jason Acidre’s framework). 

Needs Met

“Needs Met” is about how well your content matches the searcher’s intent and fulfills their expectations. Here’s how to ensure that your content meets this criterion: 

  • Intent Matching: Ensure your helpful content answers the exact queries your audience is searching for. Use tools like Search Console to identify common keywords and adjust your content to fulfill informational or commercial intent. Avoid misleading click-bait titles that don’t deliver on their promises.
  • Target a Single Topic & Intent: Focus on a single topic, providing clear and concise answers without overwhelming the reader. Avoid burying essential information in long, multi-topic content. Consider using separate pages for subtopics with significant search volume.
  • Direct Answers to Main Queries: Present direct answers prominently above the fold using formats like Quick Answer Boxes, Key Takeaways, or Summaries. This approach caters to users seeking quick information, especially on mobile devices.
  • Remove Fluff Content: Keep your writing concise and relevant, eliminating off-topic, redundant, or overly wordy sections to maintain clarity and improve user experience.

For instance, in every blog post I write for our corporate training blog at Rainmakers, I determine the user intent of each search query. Asking the question, “What do they want to know first?” helped me prioritize points (and put them above the fold) so it would immediately satisfy the user's needs. 

Here’s a recent post on “What is leadership to you?” The searchers would likely be students and learning and development practitioners who are looking for different schools of thought on the subject.

I delivered what they needed, based on my expertise on the subject:

quick answer what is leadership to you

 

Another example is my coffee shop blog. We meet users’ needs by providing direct answers to certain questions (e.g., how much does it cost to start a coffee shop?). 

featured snippet coffee shop franchise

Now, this brings us to the next component of creating people-first content: 

EEAT (Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

By now, we should have known this populating all over SEO blogs. The ability to integrate EEAT into your content matters ─ here are few tips to leverage this: 

  • Comprehensive Author Details: Showcase the author's experience, expertise, education, achievements, and social media links to showcase their credibility (authorship SEO). A detailed bio builds trust and authority.
  • Proper Sourcing & Citations: Cite reputable sources to demonstrate that your content is research-based and factual, enhancing trustworthiness and depth.
  • Including Credible Stats or Expert Quotes: Incorporating statistics or expert quotes can boost content visibility and authority by 30-40%, providing evidence-based information that supports your claims.
  • Accuracy of Information: Ensure your content is accurate, especially for industries like YMYL (Your Money, Your Life). Update facts and data regularly to maintain integrity and ethical standards.
  • Editorial Process, Disclaimer, and/or Disclosure Statements: Include disclaimers, disclosures, or editorial policies to add transparency, authenticity, and clarity about the content’s intentions or potential biases.

Ahrefs has solidified its brand marketing by incorporating credible authors and experts to contribute insights and quotes to its blog posts, boosting the pages’ credibility and search performance. 

expertise driven ahrefs share link building strategies

 

Originality & Information Gain

Google emphasizes originality and information gain to combat the issue of copycat content. The goal is to provide unique insights that add value beyond existing content. Here’s how to enhance originality:

  1. First-Hand Knowledge: Share personal experiences, unique insights, or innovative ideas that address unmet needs. This will set your content apart and position your brand as an expert, potentially earning hard-to-replicate DR 90 backlinks.
  2. Original Research & Data: Conduct your research or gather data through surveys, experiments, or analysis. If you can't collect data, source it from public databases and present it from a unique angle to offer fresh insights.
  3. Provide Self-Sourced Images: Use original visuals like screenshots, branded infographics, product photos, or personal experience images to add authenticity and relatability. This makes your content more trustworthy and distinctive.

When incorporating experiences into your content, include what made you feel, see, touch, and taste ─ these are five senses only a person with actual experience on the topic can share in the content.

content marketing for startups

Give Depth To Your Content Assets

One of the WOSCON 2024 speakers, Kasra Dash, mentioned during the panel Q&A that building topical authority on a website requires publishing more pages within a relevant subject and achieving depth through topics that haven’t been published elsewhere. 

Identify subtopics that could be expounded into single blog posts. Based on your expertise and experience, think of topics you can add more depth by giving more information on the “how-to” or new insights from real-world practice. 

You can also publish internal data studies that align with topics to validate and support points. This is also an additional content asset that attracts new links to your page.

3. Build a Link-Earning Flywheel

Link building through manual outreach is becoming more difficult these days. Asking for inclusion or requesting a link requires newly contributed content and a solid reason for linking.

This is one primary reason why building a link-earning flywheel on your site gives you leverage to earn passive links without the constant need to do email outreach

Here are a couple of ways to build a link-earning flywheel:

  • Invest in ranking content assets for informational queries other publishers are searching for when looking for additional resources to reference in their content work (e.g., how-to, statistics, data, etc.).
  • Provide direct answers to posts’ FAQs and industry questions to get featured snippets. 
  • Create high-utility content like tools, calculators, or quizzes that intently help solve your target customers' problems. 
  • Engage in thought leadership. Participate in webinars, podcasts, or industry forums to establish authority in your space and attract publications that will link to your insights or expertise. 

4. Brand Positioning via Content Promotion

Contributing content to other sites in your industry positions your brand from a place of authority, as you provide new insights that can add to the body of knowledge in your industry.

Here are ways to position your brand through content promotion:

  • Promote your content assets by linking to them from content you distribute on other blogs (i.e. guest posts).
  • Create media lists for your digital PR campaign and build relationships with journalists and publishers. If you receive requests and notifications for expert quotes, have your client respond to them (as they’re likely to get a positive response). 
  • Use Ahrefs to find pages with many links (>100). Create something better and pitch as a replacement. 

This link-earning flywheel generates momentum over time, as quality content attracts new backlinks, and these linking pages also attract links on their own.

5. Maximize Rankings for Low-Hanging Fruits

Low-hanging fruit are keywords that are easier to rank for and can quickly increase traffic to your site. Optimizing content for these keywords can help your startup gain quick wins and establish your brand authority to tackle more competitive search terms. 

Here’s how to identify and leverage low-hanging keywords: 

  • Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMRush, and Google Search Console to find keywords you’re already ranking for but aren’t in the top positions (e.g. position 5 to 20). These are opportunities where a little optimization efforts can significantly improve rankings. 
  • Target low-competitive long-tail keywords. For instance, you can write more specific topics like “best solo travel destinations in Southeast Asia” or “affordable family vacation spots in Europe” instead of targeting “travel destinations.”
  • Optimize and upgrade existing content to include low-hanging keywords (discovered through Search Console or Ahrefs). Update headings, meta descriptions, image alt text, and internal links to reflect the targeted terms. 

This strategy works because it allows your startup to achieve quicker SEO results. As you gain more authority and organic visibility, it helps you dominate other terms, mainly commercial queries, which brings additional revenue. 


organic traffic coffee shop after march core updates

Google Helpful Content: How to Build “HCU-Compliant” Backlinks

It’s been a crazy month since the March Core Updates. We’ve seen significant search ranking volatility as they covered major changes to ranking systems and integrated new spam policies. 

As of this writing, the rollout for spam updates is now complete (for Core Updates, we still have to wait for the complete rollout) and there will be no helpful content updates. 

We’ve seen our clients’ sites winning from a holistic SEO approach, including building backlinks for Google Helpful Content, and have observed significant things worth sharing today. 

How are backlinks going to be affected?

Backlinks are a part of the content, and their value and impact are determined by different factors, listed as:

  • Content where the link is hosted (referring page)
  • Location within the page (link placement)
  • Anchor text and context of the link (reason why it is placed)
  • Relevance of the link to the entire topic of the page
  • Relevance of the link to the entire domain
  • Page/content trying to get the link (destination page)

Content plays a significant role in acquiring HCU-compliant backlinks. Whether it is judged to be helpful will impact the links' value. 

 

How To Create Content For HCU-Optimized Backlinks? 

Target Content For Well-Defined Audience 

Site creators who create content relevant to their services and vice versa, offering services related to their content, are currently winning. 

So, it is important to develop content assets that tap into a specific audience segment that correlates well with your brand’s offerings. 

Produce well-thought-out informative pages that provide answers to the queries your target audience is looking for. As you bank on these guides with more EEAT signals (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), you satisfy searchers’ needs and establish trust with them for more site visits. 

For instance, we’ve been publishing comprehensive guides for potential franchise owners and food and beverage entrepreneurs in the local space.

google helpful content - list of raw materials

We’ve covered major topics related to starting and running a coffee shop, which has helped us rank for primary keywords and bring in thousands of search traffic every month. 

Our content assets are tied directly to our core service—coffee franchising packages, and focus on serving our audience with this well-defined content theme. 

organic traffic coffee shop after march core updates

 

How will this content strategy attract links?

Reasons why it works:

  • It helps you rank for keyphrases other content creators are searching for to find references to their content, which increases the chance of getting links from these publishers’ new content.
  • It establishes unique differentiation among many others, making you a go-to source for niche topics you’re an expert in. 
  • It assists in acquiring multiple resource links from new (and even established) publishers who don’t have high-level expertise on the subject but want to enhance content credibility by referencing others.

 

Demonstrate First-Hand Knowledge 

Cyrus Shepard from Zippy published a case study on some of the winning and losing sites after Google updates. It reveals some on-page elements strongly associated with improved search traffic.

First-hand knowledge and first-person pronouns are at the top of the list. 

So, it is worth paying attention to these two elements when developing helpful content. It helps emphasize claims and points that other ranking pages haven’t covered yet, which sets your content apart.

Demonstrating firsthand knowledge and experience brings a new wealth of information to your target audience, a great way to position your brand as an expert in the industry. 

Read sections of your content and assess where you can add first-hand experience as an industry practitioner. You may even ask colleagues and other experts in your organization for input to solidify information in your content.

Include “pro-tip” sections to share unique applications on the topic area/s, adding more key takeaways for your audience.

pro tip expertise for helpful content

How will this content strategy get links?

Reasons why it works:

  • It attracts hard-to-replicate links from reputable authors looking for more intermediate or advanced guides on the topics they write about.
  • It gets links from the community audience of forums and user-generated sites referencing your content to support their claims. 
  • It appeals to curators, podcasters, and other creators looking for guests for interviews, podcasts, etc. You’ll likely be asked to appear and get links from published episodes on their sites.

Distribute Content Assets That Target Keyword Variations

Many SEOs have tried banking on authoritative sites' ability to rank pages quickly by distributing content regardless of the domain’s thematical relevance to their brands. Given the domain ranking capabilities of these high DR sites and established trust in search results, it quickly helps rank their pages. 

Google recently demonstrated its stance on “quality trumps quantity” with new spam policies that try to counteract these manipulative actions. 

Here’s a quick run-through of the new spam policies:

  • Expired domain abuse - repurposing expired domains to piggyback on the domain’s age and authority.
  • Scaled content abuse - mass-generating content resulting in tons of unoriginal, low-quality, and unhelpful content. 
  • Site reputation abuse - publishing third-party pages to take advantage of domain ranking signals and quickly rank these pages on search results. 

It’s important to consider the thematic relevance of the distributed content assets.

Consider the types of sites you want your brand to associate with, assessing their targeted audience and weighing their ability to drive referral traffic (when these referred visitors find relevant links to your site to click on). 

Start the content distribution process by Identifying keyword variations related to the primary keywords where your pages on your own site are currently ranking. 

Use them as subtopics when distributing content assets on other sites. 

How will this content strategy get links?

Reasons why it works:

  • The strategy itself helps acquire contextual links from the site’s referring page. 
  • It boosts the ranking power of your destination page (if it’s an informational page, it increases its chance to rank for its keyword variations, which would passively attract new links from other publishers).
  • It helps build your site’s topical authority (through off-page signals), improving its ranking capability to help climb other content in Google’s SERPs.  

 

How do you qualify sites to get HCU-compliant backlinks? 

The typical, old-school process for qualifying backlink prospects still works effectively: relevance, trust, and authority.

With link intelligence tools like Ahrefs, Open Site Explorer, and Moz, we could assess metric numbers at a glance. Some of these primary data points include:

  • Backlink quality
  • Traffic relative to the other sites in the space 
  • Keyword visibility and current organic traffic
  • Quality of content

Remember, with so many core updates these days looking into site link quality, one metric isn’t enough to conclude a site's viability to provide ranking power to your target pages. 

As such, we even have different link metrics for various clients we service with our link building services. We customize the link building campaign depending on their in-house link building requirements and target audience segments (when assessing how relevant backlink prospects are to the site).

In addition to the standard link qualification process, we acquire links from business sites that genuinely provide products/services. We limit getting links from affiliate sites (as HCU and product review affiliate updates hit most of these sites).

If you need help getting HCU-compliant backlinks, hop on to our strategy call today