In general, I am not comfortable talking about SEO numbers beside masterminds and private groups with people I trust. This is the first time I am writing a case study about any of my projects.
For the last two years, I have built more than 2000 links, and I wish I could share more about the success stories my partners have. I am trying to get approval from some of them to have more case studies to come shortly.
Since my early days in SEO back in 2010, it came to my mind that without proper planning, SEO was a “mission impossible”. Plan, focus, and consistency are the critical factors for a successful project.
Let’s jump on the results first to keep your attention.
Results
Niche Selection
It’s common sense that niche selection is the most crucial skill an affiliate/lead generation SEO should have. I usually make my niche choices during vacation time and then focus on them for the next 6-12 months.
During the 2019 summer vacation, I spent a couple of days with a former partner, and he proposed targeting a specific niche he recently discovered. He had connections with niche professionals, and he made it clear to me that very few people could have these essential connections. I can’t be happier than when I start competing in a niche with a competitive advantage.
When the vacations ended, I took some time to investigate the critical metrics of the niche, competition analysis, etc. My partner had some meetings with his connections and managed to close a deal for $25 per lead. I was thrilled with the deal as I could imagine we could get more than $20.
Decision made, let’s do it.
Domain Selection
I am a big fan of expired/auctioned domains. They don’t always work, but when they do, they give you a head start. I looked into many services, and I managed to find a perfect match with Kalin’s SEO.domains.
The domain name was brandable, (no keywords in the domain) and already had around 150 links with excellent DR diversification and good dofollow/nofollow ratio. The domain had a DR of 14 on Ahrefs if I recall correctly.
Keyword Research
Keyword Research is a massive part of SEO, and I won’t go in-depth with the process in this article.
In short, I used the Ahrefs keyword planner and did some research on Facebook Groups. I like to cover every aspect of a content topic, even if there is no search volume, especially if I believe that it’s going to be useful for the users.
Google is investing a tremendous amount of money in understanding the content of a website better and accurately tracking users’ behavior. I believe that giving readers valuable content to consume even if they didn’t search for it will give positive signals to your website.
Content Creation
Every niche has it’s own needs. So did this one. It made sense to me that I had to connect the three main content topics on every post. I can’t explain it in more detail without mentioning a specific example.
I also make sure the content was top quality and served the user intent. As I’ve already mentioned in the Keyword Research section, Google is becoming very good in understanding content. Stop writing five thousand words articles with fluffy stuff and focus on high quality and useful content.
The content was created in two batches. The first batch was when I bought the domain and the second one when I had some clear signs that the domain was worth my further investment. That means appropriately crawled, indexed, and some decent rankings.
Interlinking
- I made sure my top commercial pages had the proper amount of internal links pointing to them.
- I made sure all my money pages had a least two internal links pointing to them.
- I never used aggressive internal anchor text since the very beginning. If the website ranks well without them, I don’t touch them. If the site gets stuck, then I tweak the anchors and wait.
Link Building
Same as the Content Creation part, I didn’t build a single link until I saw a decent movement and some positive signs. All I did was basic social media profiles and essential citations. I will consider this as month zero.
When everything looked positive, I started building some links. The link building Campaign began on September of 2019.
What follows is a break down of every kind of link I used on the first four months.
Guest Posts
- Five guest posts with a DR of 20-30
- Five guest posts with a DR of 30-40
- Five guest posts with a DR of 30-40
- Two guest posts with a DR of 50
Editorial Links
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Two high-quality editorial links from a site with a DR of 80
Link Insertions
When you do outreach for a guest post, it’s natural for some negotiations to end up in link insertions. So I didn’t do anything on purpose. I just accepted a few good deals.
- Nothing
- Two link insertions on DR 30-40 with 10+ backlinks on them
- One link insertion on DR 30-40 with 15+ backlinks on them
- Three link insertions on DR 50 with 8+ backlinks on them
PBNs
- Nothing
- Nothing
- Two PBNs for every guest post we built in the first month
- Two PBNs for every guest post we built in the first month and 1 more PBN for every guest post we built in the first month
*For my social signals campaign I used signalboy. They use real accounts and they save me time from using microworkers.