Link-building is one of the most important aspects of SEO, especially for Google campaigns.
In fact, it’s been discovered that the #1 ranked page on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the other results.
The catch?
Link-building strategies tend to be extremely challenging and time-consuming. It can take months of outreach to acquire just one guest post opportunity, not to mention the time it takes to create the content.
That’s why niche edit links have become so popular recently.
What are niche edits?
A niche edit (also called a link insertion) refers to placing one of your backlinks into an existing article on a relevant website.
It differs from a guest post in that you’re placing the link into an older blog post instead of creating a new one.
The good news is that you don’t have to create any original content to acquire niche edits, and they will provide the same amount of link juice as a guest post (assuming you target an existing page that has relevant content and high authority).
Niche edit backlinks also benefit website owners too, so you won’t be begging for a handout.
Adding new outbound links can help freshen up older content, giving site owners a chance to generate more organic traffic from an existing blog post.
There’s a lot to know about niche edit link building, so stick around to learn more.
What are Niche Edits Used For?
There’s a reason why more than 63% of businesses choose to outsource their link-building to third-party agencies – it’s both time-consuming and extremely challenging.
Link-building services have established networks and infrastructures they use to target guest post opportunities, citations, fix broken links, and more.
They also use niche edits to acquire high-authority backlinks for their clients.
The good news?
Niche edit link building tends to be less time-consuming than other methods, and it doesn’t involve the creation of any new content.
That’s not to say that niche edits should comprise your entire link-building strategy, but they can help startups and small businesses begin to build their link profiles without having to spend too much time or money (especially if their niche doesn’t have much in the way of competition).
Once their efforts start to gain some traction, then they can consider outsourcing to continue to grow their online presence.
You can use niche edits to boost your domain authority, acquire quality link placements, and increase the number of links for your website.
There are also a few types of niche edits, including the following:
- White hat niche edits
- Black hat niche edits
- Gray hat niche edits
Each of these types involves different tactics and will have varying effects on your link profile, so let’s learn more about each one.
How do white hat niche edits work?
What makes a niche edit considered a white hat tactic?
First, it’s essential to understand the difference between white hat and black hat SEO techniques.
The white hat/black hat dichotomy originates from old American Western movies, where the good guy wears a white hat, and the villain wears a black hat.
In terms of SEO/link-building, white hat techniques are considered ‘good’ in that they won’t land you in *** water with Google & other search engines. These techniques don’t violate any guidelines, and they typically provide mutual benefit for the website and search engine users.
White hat niche edits involve reaching out to high-quality websites in your niche to request a link placement in one of their existing pieces.
In return, you need to offer something of value to the website in question.
The preferred white hat method is to point out ways to enhance and update their existing blog post.
How do you do that?
Here are some recommendations:
- Provide current metrics and statistics to update the post to the current year
- Create an infographic that enhances the existing piece
- Find areas where you can add new insights or go into further detail
- Add a supplementary video if you have one (another link opportunity)
You should offer whatever you can do to update & enhance the post to encourage the webmaster to add your backlink.
This is the best way to acquire quality niche edits, and you won’t attract any negative attention from Google.
How do black hat niche edits work?
There’s no shortage of black hat niche edit techniques out there, although we highly recommend that you avoid them at all costs.
Not only will they tank your SEO profile through penalties and manual actions, but black hat practices also tend to negatively affect users and website owners.
One black hat niche edit technique is to place backlinks on hacked websites.
As you can imagine, this tactic violates search engine policies and also violates the privacy of website owners.
This technique is not only ill-advised, but it’s not effective – as your link will be removed in a matter of minutes.
Another black hat strategy is to acquire link placements through SAPE links.
What’s SAPE?
It’s a Russian link network that will inject your backlinks into hacked websites, artificially boosting your link profile in the process.
Black hat SEOs that run ‘burn and churn’ campaigns use SAPE links due to their long shelf life and effectiveness.
However, SAPE links are in strict violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, so you will incur hefty penalties if you get caught using them.
For the sake of your SEO and link profile, we strongly recommend staying away from all black hat niche edit techniques.
How do gray hat niche edits work?
There is a third type of niche edit that’s neither white hat nor black hat – thus the name gray hat.
Gray hat niche edits aren’t explicitly black hat tactics, but they aren’t a pure white hat strategy, either.
A gray hat niche edit is when you bribe a webmaster for a backlink with money or another incentive.
Most of the time, this involves paying a site owner money to include one of your backlinks in an existing piece of content. However, it’s also common to offer discounts or free products as leverage for obtaining a link placement.
While this is also against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (technically, all link-building tactics are frowned upon by Google in one form or another), it’s less abrasive than using hacked sites, and it’s harder to track.
Gray hat niche edits are popular because they’re easier and less time-consuming to acquire than white hat links, and they attract less attention than black hat link insertions.
What are the Benefits of Niche Edits?
Why should you focus on niche edits instead of (or alongside) guest posting & other link-building techniques?
While you should always employ a mix of link-building techniques if possible, niche edits can help you obtain powerful link placements without doing too much outreach or creating new content.
They also provide a myriad of other benefits, so let’s take a look at them all.
They’re easier than guest posts
While guest posting is one of the most popular link-building techniques, it doesn’t always come easy.
For one, you need to find relevant blogs in your niche that accept guest posts in the first place, which can be difficult if you’re in an obscure niche.
After that, you have to conduct rigorous outreach to get in touch with webmasters and persuade them to allow you to write a guest post.
Once you do land an opportunity, you have to produce a high-quality piece of content that gains the webmaster’s approval. If your content is subpar or inaccurate, the webmaster may reject your guest post, and all your hard work was for nothing.
With niche edits, all that you need is a link, some relevant anchor text, and perhaps a line or two to add to the original piece.
Not only that, but you can conduct outreach to any blog or website within your niche, not just ones that accept guest posts.
That opens up many more websites you can target, increasing your chances of landing a quality link placement.
Of course, you need to make sure the website’s content directly relates to yours, but other than that, any piece of content is fair game.
Conducting white hat outreach will take a bit longer and involve more effort, as you’ll need to identify ways to improve the aging piece of content to make it relevant & rankable again. The upside is that you’ll have followed the rules and won’t have to worry about receiving any penalties.
You decide on the anchor text
The anchor text you use for a link has a significant impact on its authority and ranking power.
In particular, Google values highly relevant anchor text that previews the page it links to.
Generic anchor text won’t earn you any favors, as Google is explicit about its dislike for generic phrases like ‘click here’ or ‘buy now.’
Instead, you want to provide a few more words and a bit of context to the page in question.
Additionally, squeezing in your target keyword will also boost the power of your anchor text, so include it whenever possible.
What’s great about a niche edit is you have full control over the anchor text you use for your backlink. When doing so, you need to ensure that the text directly relates to your web page and contains the target keyword.
For example, if you’re using a niche edit to promote a product page selling motorcycle wheels (target keyword) to enthusiasts, your anchor text could look something like this:
Check out our premium-grade motorcycle wheels.
The anchor text previews what the user can expect, and it even includes a CTA (call-to-action), letting the user know that you want them to click on the link.
They’re excellent for building authority
To rank higher on search engines, your content needs to have a high domain authority rating, and acquiring high-authority backlinks is the best way to raise it.
Niche edits are great because they will raise your authority just as much as guest posts and other tactics but are less time-consuming.
For instance, if you find a relevant website in your niche, it’ll be much quicker to just add a backlink to one of their existing posts instead of creating a new one from scratch.
Not only that, but the end result is the same – a backlink pointing to your content that exists on their website.
The amount of link juice it will generate depends entirely on the domain rating of the website in question (and the relevancy/quality of your anchor text).
It wouldn’t matter to Google if that link came from a guest post or a link placement, which is why niche edits are worth your time.
An extra perk is that the website you’re placing a link on already appears in Google’s index, so you won’t have to wait very long for your link to appear in the SERPs.
Targeting Niche Edits
Here are some quick white hat techniques for acquiring niche edits.
We won’t go over any black or gray hat tactics, as we don’t want you to receive any manual actions or penalties.
Broken link-building
The tried-and-true process of broken link-building actually counts as a niche edit.
It’s where you find broken links (pages that no longer appear) on relevant websites and then offer to replace their broken link with a related piece of your own content.
It’s a win-win because they get to fix a broken link (which isn’t good for their SEO or user experience), and you get to acquire a backlink.
You can use Ahrefs’ free broken link checker to discover broken links on related websites.
Unlinked brand mentions
Regardless of how notable your business is, there are likely websites that have mentioned your brand but neglected to link to your content.
These are golden niche edit opportunities, and you can use Google Alerts to find them. Creating an alert for your brand name and URL means you’ll get a ping every time someone mentions your brand online, enabling you to pursue the link opportunity.
Resource pages
Lastly, listing your website on relevant resource pages is a great way to acquire niche edits.
Plenty of websites across all industries have resource pages where they link out to related sites in their niche.
You can target these pages for backlinks by searching for ‘your niche + resources’ on Google or Bing.
This will provide a list of resource pages related to your industry, which you can then reach out to for link opportunities.
Concluding Thoughts: What are Niche Edits?
Niche edits (also called link placements and contextual links) are excellent for building domain authority and ranking higher on search engines.
They involve placing backlinks on existing pieces of content found on related websites.
Do you need help acquiring high-authority backlinks for your company?
Then don’t wait to check out our five-star link-building services at HOTH Link Outreach. Our link-building gurus have a ton of experience and will take your link profile to the next level, so get in touch now.
