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Broken Link Building: The Complete Guide

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Broken link building is one of the most popular link-building tactics around. It’s the fifth most widely used tactic according to Aira’s annual state of link building report, which crowdsources opinions from over 250 digital marketing professionals.

But it’s not entirely foolproof, and there’s some nuance to doing it well.

In this guide, you’ll learn how to get backlinks from broken link building.

But first, let’s cover the basics.

Broken link building is where you find a dead page with backlinks, create a similar page, then ask people linking to that page to link to you instead. The idea is that they’ll swap the link because they don’t want to send visitors to a broken resource.

It would be fair to say that SEOs are somewhat divided when it comes to this question.

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In one video, Mark from Authority Hacker said:

I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s an almost pointless tactic, and you shouldn’t waste your time with it.

If you dig through the comments on that video, one stands out:

YouTube commenter blaming Ahrefs for making broken link building sound so easy

Let’s set the record straight:

Broken link building isn’t easy. Sometimes it works well. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Is this because there’s something inherently wrong with the tactic?

No. It’s because link building is hard to execute well—whatever tactic you use. The better you understand the tactic, the more likely you are to have success.

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Broken link building is a four-step process.

  1. Find broken pages with backlinks
  2. Vet the backlinks
  3. Create a replacement page
  4. Do outreach

1. Find broken pages with backlinks

It’s impossible to find highly-linked broken pages without SEO tools. Even if you find dead pages manually, you’ll need a backlink checker to see how many links they have. You can use Ahrefs’ free backlink checker for this, but life is much easier with full access to Ahrefs.

Keep this in mind as we go through the tactics below. You’ll need Ahrefs for ¾ of them.

Here are the tactics:

  1. Look for your competitors’ broken pages with backlinks
  2. Look for broken pages about a topic
  3. Look for broken links on competing websites
  4. Look for broken links on resource pages (doable without paid Ahrefs)

a) Look for your competitors’ broken pages with backlinks

Many of your competitors will have at least some dead pages because everyone moves, deletes, and reorganizes content over time. If they forget to redirect old URLs when doing this, their backlinks will point to broken pages.

Here’s how to find dead pages on your competitors’ websites:

  1. Go to Site Explorer
  2. Enter a competing domain
  3. Go to the Best by Links report
  4. Filter for “404 not found” pages
  5. Sort the report by Referring domains from highest to lowest

For example, there are 134 dead pages on Content Marketing Institute’s website, and some have backlinks from over 50 referring domains.

The Best by Links report in Ahrefs' Site ExplorerThe Best by Links report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer

Your job is to sift through these pages for topics that make sense to create content about.

For example, the first page about “what is content marketing” makes sense for us because we have an entire blog category about content marketing. It’s the kind of topic we want to build links to.

If you don’t find a relevant broken page on one competitor’s website, repeat the process for others.

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TIP

If you’re unsure who your competitors are, enter your domain into Site Explorer and go to the Competing Domains report. This shows other websites ranking in Google for the same keywords as you.

Competing Domains report in Ahrefs' Site ExplorerCompeting Domains report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer

b) Look for broken pages about a topic

Broken link building has traditionally always been about the method above. The disadvantage of this method is that you limit yourself to finding opportunities on a handful of sites.

The ideal solution to this problem would be searching the web for broken pages with backlinks about a particular topic. The only tool we’re aware of that allows you to do this is Ahrefs’ Content Explorer, a searchable database of billions of web pages.

Here’s how to use it to find broken pages about a topic:

  1. Enter a broad topic
  2. Switch the search mode to “In title”
  3. Hit search
  4. Filter for broken pages only
  5. Filter for pages with at least 20 referring domains

In the example below, there are 188 broken pages with at least 20 backlinks about content marketing:

Broken pages with 20+ referring domains in Ahrefs' Content ExplorerBroken pages with 20+ referring domains in Ahrefs' Content Explorer

To confirm a broken page, click the title to open it in a new tab.

Example of a broken pageExample of a broken page

TIP

Eyeball the “Page traffic” column to find pages that are more likely to have high-quality backlinks. If the page used to have traffic, its backlinks might have been helping it to rank.

Broken page that had organic traffic in the pastBroken page that had organic traffic in the past

If the page never had traffic, the backlinks might not be great.

Broken page that didn't have organic traffic in the pastBroken page that didn't have organic traffic in the past

c) Look for broken links on competing websites

Most websites frequently link to pages on other sites, and some of these will break over time. That means your competitors are likely to link to broken pages.

Here’s how to see broken pages your competitor is linking to:

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  1. Go to Site Explorer
  2. Enter a competing domain
  3. Go to the Broken Links report

For example, robbierichards.com is linking to 32 dead pages:

Broken outgoing links in Ahrefs' Site ExplorerBroken outgoing links in Ahrefs' Site Explorer

To see which have the most referring domains, export the report, paste the broken URLs into Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool, and sort by total referring domains.

Using Ahrefs' Batch Analysis tool to see how many links point to broken outgoing linksUsing Ahrefs' Batch Analysis tool to see how many links point to broken outgoing links

Here are a few potential broken link building opportunities in the screenshot above:

  • Google’s discontinued mobile-friendly test tool: 2,654 RDs
  • SEJ’s guide to the Google Hummingbird algorithm: 462 RDs
  • Chatmeter’s list of local SEO stats: 276 RDs

d) Look for broken links on resource pages

Resource pages curate and link to resources on a particular topic. They’re a good source of broken pages with backlinks for two reasons:

  1. People rarely update them, so they often link to dead resources.
  2. They list helpful resources which often have links from many other sites.

To find resource pages in your industry, use one of these Google search operators:

  • KEYWORD intitle:resources inurl:links.html
  • KEYWORD intitle:links inurl: resources.html
  • KEYWORD inurl:resources intitle:resources

For example, here’s how we might search for resource pages about link building:

Searching for resource pages in GoogleSearching for resource pages in Google

Then you need to check for broken links on these pages, which you can do for free with Ahrefs’ SEO toolbar.

  1. Visit the page
  2. Click the toolbar icon
  3. Go to the “Links” tab
  4. Click “Check status”
  5. Filter for broken links only
Finding broken links on a page with Ahrefs' SEO ToolbarFinding broken links on a page with Ahrefs' SEO Toolbar

To see the total backlinks to these pages, export the list of URLs and paste them into Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis Tool.

Using Ahrefs' Batch Analysis tool to see how many backlinks point to broken pagesUsing Ahrefs' Batch Analysis tool to see how many backlinks point to broken pages

2. Vet the link prospects

Many people jump straight to creating a “similar” replacement page after finding a dead page with backlinks. This is a mistake for two reasons:

  1. Your broken page may not have any good backlinks. In which case, there’s no point pursuing the opportunity or creating a replacement page.
  2. You need to understand why people linked to the dead page to create a replacement page. This is how you keep your content and outreach in sync, which leads to higher success rates.

You can figure out both things by vetting the page’s link prospects.

Here’s the process in a nutshell:

1653319967 652 Broken Link Building The Complete Guide1653319967 652 Broken Link Building The Complete Guide

a) Check link quality

If a broken link-building opportunity is unlikely to lead to high-quality links, it’s pointless pursuing it. So the first step is a quick spot check to see whether the dead page has desirable backlinks.

Here’s how to see a page’s live backlinks:

  1. Go to Site Explorer
  2. Enter the dead page’s URL
  3. Go to the Backlinks report
  4. Set the grouping mode to “One link per domain”
  5. Set “Show history” to “Don’t show”
Using the Backlinks report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer to check link qualityUsing the Backlinks report in Ahrefs' Site Explorer to check link quality

Then you can eyeball the report to get a sense of backlink quality.

You can do this by reviewing each link manually, but that’s inefficient for a spot check. It’s quicker to filter the report for links with attributes that tend to align with quality.

Everyone’s criteria will differ slightly here, but these four filters are a helpful place to start:

  • Dofollow’ links only. This excludes most low-value links such as those from directories, forums, and blog comments.
  • Exclude subdomains. This excludes links from places like blogspot, which are often low-quality and spammy.
  • DR 5+. This excludes links from very low-authority websites.
  • Domain traffic: 20+. This excludes links from websites with little to no traffic.

For example, if we add these filters to the backlink report for the page above, the number of backlinks drops from 100 to 29:

Filtering for good backlinks in Ahrefs' Site ExplorerFiltering for good backlinks in Ahrefs' Site Explorer

That’s because the dead page has many desirable links, such as this one from celebanswers.com:

Example of a good backlinkExample of a good backlink

But it also has many low-quality and spammy links like this one:

Example of a bad backlinkExample of a bad backlink

It’s up to you to decide whether a broken page has enough desirable links to make creating a page and doing outreach worthwhile.

b) Check link reasons

Understanding why your broken page got links helps you add points that allow you to create compelling outreach angles. This is crucial for improving the link success rate for your campaign, so the next step is to eyeball the filtered report for link reasons.

Here are the two broad types of link reasons you’ll see:

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  • General links are where people recommend the resource as a whole. You can’t see why they linked to that specific resource from the link’s context.
  • Deep links are where people recommend a resource for a specific reason. You can see what that reason is from the link’s context.

Here’s an example of a general link to a broken page about calculating your net worth:

Example of a 'general link' where the reason for linking isn't clearExample of a 'general link' where the reason for linking isn't clear

You can see that although they recommend the resource, it’s impossible to tell why from the link’s context. The anchor is “here’s an amazing post.”

There’s not much you can learn about creating a “better” page from these kinds of links.

You can learn more from deep links like this:

Example of a 'deep link' where the reason for linking is clearExample of a 'deep link' where the reason for linking is clear

This time it’s obvious why they recommended the resource: it explains how to grow your net worth.

We can confirm this by looking at how the page used to look in the Wayback Machine:

Checking how a dead page used to look in the Wayback MachineChecking how a dead page used to look in the Wayback Machine

Identifying deep links helps you create a compelling replacement page, so note them down alongside how many people link for the same reasons. Search the Backlinks report for relevant ‘footprints’ in the anchor or surrounding text to find this.

For example, we can search this page’s backlinks for words like “increase,” “grow,” or “improve” to see if this advice led to other links.

It looks like it did:

Looking for others linking for similar reasonsLooking for others linking for similar reasons

Here’s what our final notes might look like for this page:

Example link reasons for a broken pageExample link reasons for a broken page

3. Create a replacement page

Now you know why people linked to the dead page, it’s time to create a suitable replacement.

Let’s go through how to do that in three steps.

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a) Create a rough outline

Although you don’t want to copy the dead page word for word, you do want to create something similar. This means crafting a piece that fulfills the same purpose and talks about similar things.

You can get a better sense of what the dead page discussed using the Wayback Machine.

For example, this page explains how to calculate your net worth in three steps, gives a few example calculations, and has tips on how to improve your net worth over time:

Looking at what the broken page is about via the Wayback MachineLooking at what the broken page is about via the Wayback Machine

If you were pursuing this broken link opportunity, you’d want to use a similar outline.

Here’s what that might look like:

  • H1: Net Worth Explained: How to Calculate and Improve It Over Time
    • H2: What is Net Worth?
    • H2: How to Calculate Your Net Worth
      • H3: Step 1. Do x
      • H3: Step 2. Do y
      • H3: Step 3. Do z
    • H2: Example Net Worth Calculations
      • H3: Example 1: x
      • H3: Example 2: y
      • H3: Example 3: z
    • H2: How to Track and Improve Your Net Worth
      • H3: Tip 1: Do x
      • H3: Tip 2: Do y
      • H3: Tip 3: Do z

b) Bake in linkable points

Remember the work you put into vetting link prospects for deep recommendations? Now’s the time to add them to your content so that your outreach angles make sense.

In this case, we covered most of these in the basic outline.

TIP

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Make sure everything you include is accurate. For example, if a deep link references an out-of-date statistic, include a more recent statistic.

c) Find other ways to improve it

Most of the links to your dead page are likely to be general links. In other words, they’re people referencing the content for no clear reason.

You can’t do much to tailor your content for these people because you don’t know what they liked about the original piece. But you can make overall improvements.

For example, adding a template would probably improve our piece on calculating net worth.

Improving the content allows you to strengthen your value proposition to general linkers by adding a “why”:

  • Without improvement: you have a dead link > here’s a replacement
  • With improvement: you have a dead link > here’s a replacement > here’s why it’s a good replacement

Here are a few simple ways to improve content:

  • Simplify: Make it more accessible and easier to understand.
  • Visualize: Demonstrate concepts with graphics.
  • Templatize: Add a plug-and-play template.
  • Rectify: Fix issues with accuracy.

4. Do outreach

Outreach is where you pitch your replacement resource to those linking to the dead page.

This is usually done in one of two ways:

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  • Shotgun outreach. You send the same email to everyone with no personalization.
  • Sniper outreach. You send unique, personalized emails to everyone.

Both of these approaches have their pros and cons.

Shotgun outreach is a pure numbers game. Conversion rates will be low, but you’ll get some links with enough prospects. It’s also risky. You can quickly burn bridges and get your domain blocked.

Sniper outreach converts better but takes more time and effort. You can easily spend a whole day sending a dozen emails.

Given the steps we’ve gone through so far, we recommend a hybrid approach.

Here’s how this works:

Instead of sending a unique or identical email to everyone, you segment prospects and create a personalized template for each group. This is why we spent some time identifying general and deep links. The way you target them should be different.

Pitching deep linkers

Each segment of deep linkers deserves a unique template.

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For example, we have three segments for the net worth page:

  1. People referencing advice on growing your net worth
  2. People referencing the definition of net worth
  3. People referencing how to calculate net worth

Here’s a simple template for the first segment:

Hey [Name],

Just came across your post on [Topic] and saw that you recommended advice on growing net worth from [Dead page author].

Looks like that page no longer works.

Not sure if you’re still updating older posts, but if you are, my guide expands on that advice and gives a few extra tips.

Here’s where I found the link on your page:

[Screenshot]

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No pressure. Just thought it might be useful 🙂

Josh

Here’s one for the second segment:

Hey [Name],

Just came across your post on [Topic] and saw that you recommended this process for calculating net worth from [Dead page author].

Looks like that page no longer works.

Not sure if you’re still updating older posts, but if you are, my guide has a similar process but includes more detail on how to estimate the value of your assets and debts (super important for an accurate calculation!).

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Here’s where I found the link on your page:

[Screenshot]

No pressure. Just thought it might be useful 🙂

Josh

Both of these are pretty typical and could use a bit more creativity. But hopefully, you can see how creating personalized templates like this can potentially improve the results of your broken link-building campaign.

Pitching general linkers

As there’s no clear reason why these people linked to the dead page, you can only send them a generic pitch. This should follow the same formula as with deep linkers. The difference is that the value proposition will be a generic one.

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You can use the improvements you made to the dead page for this.

Here’s an example template for our page:

Hey [Name],

Just came across your post on [Topic] and saw you recommended this guide to calculating net worth from [Dead page author].

Looks like that page no longer works.

Not sure if you’re still updating older posts, but if you are, my guide explains a similar process and includes a free template to make life easier.

Here’s where I found the link on your page:

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[Screenshot]

A few other reasons why I think my guide is better (completely biased, of course):

  • More details on estimating the value of assets and debts
  • Extra tips for growing net worth
  • Flowchart to create a custom growth plan

No pressure. Just thought it might be useful 🙂

Josh

This template is the best we can do for general linkers because we don’t know why they linked to the original page.

Final thoughts

Link building tactics are just streamlined ways of finding link prospects with a reason for contact. In broken link building, the reason is that they have a dead link on their site. In the skyscraper technique, the reason is that you have a “better” page. In other techniques, it’s something else.

No technique will work well without a strong value proposition. That’s why we recommend using custom outreach templates for different segments of prospects linking to the dead page.

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Got questions? Ping me on Twitter.

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Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

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Content Pruning: Why It Works, and How to Do It

Content pruning sounds pretty appealing: delete a ton of content and see your organic traffic improve. But pruning has risks (like deleting useful pages and useful backlinks), and benefits are not guaranteed: So how does pruning actually work? And when

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8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

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8 Free SEO Reporting Tools

There’s no shortage of SEO reporting tools to choose from—but what are the core tools you need to put together an SEO report?

In this article, I’ll share eight of my favorite SEO reporting tools to help you create a comprehensive SEO report for free.

Price: Free

Google Search Console, often called GSC, is one of the most widely used tools to track important SEO metrics from Google Search.

Most common reporting use case

GSC has a ton of data to dive into, but the main performance indicator SEOs look at first in GSC is Clicks on the main Overview dashboard.

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As the data is from Google, SEOs consider it to be a good barometer for tracking organic search performance. As well as clicks data, you can also track the following from the Performance report:

  • Total Impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average Position
gsc-performance-overviewgsc-performance-overview

Tip

If you’ve signed up for AWT using Google Search Console, you can view your GSC performance data in Ahrefs by clicking “GSC Performance” from the main dashboard.

But for most SEO reporting, GSC clicks data is exported into a spreadsheet and turned into a chart to visualize year-over-year performance.

organic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-yearorganic-traffic-graph-showing-clicks-year-over-year

Favorite feature

One of my favorite reports in GSC is the Indexing report. It’s useful for SEO reporting because you can share the indexed to non-indexed pages ratio in your SEO report.

google-search-console-indexed-pages-reportgoogle-search-console-indexed-pages-report

If the website has a lot of non-indexed pages, then it’s worth reviewing the pages to understand why they haven’t been indexed.

Price: Free

Google Looker Studio (GLS), previously known as Google Data Studio (GDS), is a free tool that helps visualize data in shareable dashboards.

Most common reporting use case

Dashboards are an important part of SEO reporting, and GLS allows you to get a total view of search performance from multiple sources through its integrations.

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Out of the box, GLS allows you to connect to many different data sources.

Such as:

  • Marketing products – Google Ads, Google Analytics, Display & Video 360, Search Ads 360
  • Consumer products – Google Sheets, YouTube, and Google Search Console
  • Databases – BigQuery, MySQL, and PostgreSQL
  • Social media platformsFacebook, Reddit, and Twitter
  • Files – CSV file upload and Google Cloud Storage

Sidenote.

If you don’t have the time to create your own report manually, Ahrefs has three Google Looker Studio connectors that can help you create automated SEO reporting for any website in a few clicks

google-looker-studio-partner-connectorsgoogle-looker-studio-partner-connectors

Here’s what a dashboard in GLS looks like:

ahrefs-seo-audit-dashboardahrefs-seo-audit-dashboard
Ahrefs Google Looker Studio integration

With this type of dashboard, you share reports that are easy to understand with clients or other stakeholders.

Favorite feature

The ability to blend and filter data from different sources, like GA and GSC, means you can get a customized overview of your total search performance, tailored to your website.

Price: Free for 500 URLs

Screaming Frog is a website crawler that helps you audit your website.

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Screaming Frog’s free version of its crawler is perfect if you want to run a quick audit on a bunch of URLs. The free version is limited to 500 URLs—making it ideal for crawling smaller websites.

screaming-frog-user-interface-screenshotscreaming-frog-user-interface-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

When it comes to reporting, the Reports menu in Screaming Frog SEO Spider has a wealth of information you can look over that covers all the technical aspects of your website, such as analyzing, redirects, canonicals, pagination, hreflang, structured data, and more.

Once you’ve crawled your site, it’s just a matter of downloading the reports you need and working out the main issues to summarize in your SEO report.

Favorite feature

Screaming Frog can pull in data from other tools, including Ahrefs, using APIs. 

If you already had access to a few SEO tools’ APIs, you could pull data from all of them directly into Screaming Frog. This is useful if you want to combine crawl data with performance data or other 3rd party tools.

screaming-frog-api-accessscreaming-frog-api-access

Even if you’ve never configured an API, connecting other tools to Screaming Frog is straightforward.

Price: Free

Ahrefs has a large selection of free SEO tools to help you at every stage of your SEO campaign, and many of these can be used to provide insights for your SEO reporting.

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when-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustrationwhen-to-use-ahrefs-free-tools-across-the-seo-process-illustration

For example, you could use our:

Most common reporting use case

One of our most popular free SEO tools is Ahrefs Webmaster Tools (AWT), which you can use for your SEO reporting.

With AWT, you can:

  • Monitor your SEO health over time by setting up scheduled SEO audits
  • See the performance of your website
  • Check all known backlinks for your website
ahrefs-overviewahrefs-overview

Favorite feature

Of all the Ahrefs free tools, my favorite is AWT. Within it, site auditing is my favorite feature—once you’ve set it up, it’s a completely hands-free way to keep track of your website’s technical performance and monitor its health.

If you already have access to Google Search Console, it’s a no-brainer to set up a free AWT account and schedule a technical crawl of your website(s).

Price: Free

Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar is a free Chrome and Firefox extension useful for diagnosing on-page technical issues and performing quick spot checks on your website’s pages.

Most common reporting use case

For SEO reporting, it’s useful to run an on-page check on your website’s top pages to ensure there aren’t any serious on-page issues.

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ahrefs-seo-toolbar-overviewahrefs-seo-toolbar-overview

With the free version, you get the following features:

  • On-page SEO report
  • Redirect tracer with HTTP Headers
  • Outgoing links report with link highlighter and broken link checker
  • SERP positions
  • Country changer for SERP

The SEO toolbar is excellent for spot-checking issues with pages on your website. If you are not confident with inspecting the code, it can also give you valuable pointers on what elements you need to include on your pages to make them search-friendly.

If anything is wrong with the page, the toolbar highlights it, with red indicating a critical issue.

severity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbarseverity-highlight-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Favorite feature

The section I use the most frequently in the SEO toolbar is the Indexability tab. In this section, you can see whether the page can be crawled and indexed by Google.

indexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbarindexability-tab-ahrefs-seo-toolbar

Although you can do this by inspecting the code manually, using the toolbar is much faster.

Price: Free

Like GSC, Google Analytics is another tool you can use to track the performance of your website, tracking sessions and conversions and much more on your website.

google-analytics-screenshotgoogle-analytics-screenshot

Most common reporting use case

GA gives you a total view of website traffic from several different sources, such as direct, social, organic, paid traffic, and more.

Favorite feature

You can create and track up to 300 events and 30 conversions with GA4. Previously, with universal analytics, you could only track 20 conversions. This makes conversion and event tracking easier within GA4.

Price: Free

Google Slides is Google’s version of Microsoft PowerPoint. If you don’t have a dashboard set up to report on your SEO performance, the next best thing is to assemble a slide deck.

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Many SEO agencies present their report through dashboard insights and PowerPoint presentations. However, if you don’t have access to PowerPoint, then Google Slides is an excellent (free) alternative.

google-slides-screenshotgoogle-slides-screenshot

Most common reporting use cases

The most common use of Google Slides is to create a monthly SEO report. If you don’t know what to include in a monthly report, use our SEO report template.

Favorite feature

One of my favorite features is the ability to share your presentation on a video chat directly from Google Slides. You can do this by clicking the camera icon in the top right.

share-video-chat-google-slidesshare-video-chat-google-slides

This is useful if you are working with remote clients and makes sharing your reports easy.

Price: Free

Google Trends allows you to view a keyword’s popularity over time in any country. The data shown is the relative popularity ratio scaled from 0-100, not the direct volume of search queries.

Most common reporting use cases

Google Trends is useful for showing how the popularity of certain searches can increase or decrease over time. If you work with a website that often has trending products, services, or news, it can be useful to illustrate this visually in your SEO report.

Google Trends makes it easy to spot seasonal trends for product categories. For example, people want to buy BBQs when the weather is sunny.

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Using Google Trends, we can see that peak demand for BBQs usually happens in June-July every year.

bbq-google-trends-graphbbq-google-trends-graph

Using this data across the last five years, we could be fairly sure when the BBQ season would start and end.

Favorite feature

Comparing two or more search terms against each other over time is one of my favorite uses of Google Trends, as it can be used to tell its own story.

google-trends-comparison-examplegoogle-trends-comparison-example

Embellishing your report with trends data allows you to gain further insights into market trends.

You can even dig into trends at a regional level if you need to.

regional-trends-via-google-trendsregional-trends-via-google-trends

Final thoughts

These free tools will help you put together the foundations for a well-rounded SEO report.

The tools you use for SEO reporting don’t always have to be expensive—even large companies use many of the free tools mentioned to create insights for their client’s SEO reports.

Got more questions? Ping me on X 🙂

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Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

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Study Reveals Potential Disruption For Brands & SEO

A new study by Authoritas suggests that Google’s AI-powered Search Generative Experience (SGE), currently being tested with a limited group of users, could adversely impact brand visibility and organic search traffic.

These findings include:

  • When an SGE box is expanded, the top organic result drops by over 1,200 pixels on average, significantly reducing visibility.
  • 62% of SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results.
  • Ecommerce, electronics, and fashion-related searches saw the greatest disruption, though all verticals were somewhat impacted.

Adapting to generative search may require a shift in SEO strategies, focusing more on long-form content, expert insights, and multimedia formats.

As Google continues to invest in AI-powered search, the Authoritas study provides an early look at the potential challenges and opportunities ahead.

High Penetration Rate & Industry-Wide Effects

The study analyzed 2,900 brand and product-related keywords across 15 industry verticals and found that Google displays SGE results for 91.4% of all search queries.

The prevalence of SGE results indicates they impact a majority of websites across various industries.

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The research analyzed the typical composition of SGE results. On average, each SGE element contained between 10-11 links sourced from an average of four different domains.

This indicates brands may need to earn multiple links and listings within these AI-curated results to maintain visibility and traffic.

The research also suggests that larger, well-established websites like Quora and Reddit will likely perform better in SGE results than smaller websites and lesser-known brands.

Shifting Dynamics In Organic Search Results

With SGE results occupying the entire first page, websites that currently hold the top positions may experience a significant decrease in traffic and click-through rates.

When a user clicks to expand the SGE element, the study found that, on average, the #1 ranked organic result drops a sizeable 1,255 pixels down the page.

Even if a website ranks number one in organic search, it may effectively be pushed down to the second page due to the prominence of SGE results.

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New Competition From Unexpected Sources

The study revealed that SGE frequently surfaces links and content from websites that didn’t appear in the top organic rankings.

On average, only 20.1% of SGE links exactly matched a URL from the first page of Google search results.

An additional 17.9% of SGE links were from the same domains as page one results but linked to different pages. The remaining 62% of SGE links came from sources outside the top organic results.

Challenges For Brand Term Optimization & Local Search

The study reveals that SGE results for branded terms may include competitors’ websites alongside the brand’s own site, potentially leading to increased competition for brand visibility.

Laurence O’Toole, CEO and founder of Authoritas, states:

“Brands are not immune. These new types of generative results introduce more opportunities for third-party sites and even competitors to rank for your brand terms and related brand and product terms that you care about.”

Additionally, local businesses may face similar challenges, as SGE results could feature competing local brands even when users search for a specific brand in a regional context.

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Methodology & Limitations

To arrive at these insights, Authoritas analyzed a robust dataset of 2,900 search keywords across a spectrum of query types, including specific brand names, brand + generic terms, brand + product names, generic terms, and specific product names. The keywords were distributed across 15 industry verticals.

The study utilized a consistent desktop browser viewport to quantify pixel-based changes in the search results. Authoritas also developed proprietary “alignment scores” to measure the degree of overlap between traditional organic search results and the new SGE links.

While acknowledging some limitations, such as the keyword set needing to be fully representative of each vertical and the still-evolving nature of SGE, Authoritas maintains that the insights hold value in preparing brands for the new realities of an AI-powered search ecosystem.

Why We Care

The findings of the Authoritas study have implications for businesses, marketers, and SEO professionals. As Google’s SGE becomes more prevalent, it could disrupt traditional organic search rankings and traffic patterns.

Brands that have invested heavily in SEO and have achieved top rankings for key terms may find their visibility and click-through rates diminished by the prominence of SGE results.

SGE introduces new competition from unexpected sources, as most SGE links come from domains outside the top 10 organic results. This means businesses may need to compete not only with their traditional rivals but also with a broader range of websites that gain visibility through SGE.

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As Google is a primary source of traffic and leads for many businesses, any changes to its search results can impact visibility, brand awareness, and revenue.

How This Could Help You

While the rise of SGE presents challenges, it also offers opportunities.

Taking into account what we’ve learned from the Authoritas study, here are some actionable takeaways:

  • As SGE favors in-depth, informative content, businesses may benefit from investing in comprehensive, well-researched articles and guides that provide value to users.
  • Incorporating expert quotes, interviews, and authoritative sources within your content could increase the likelihood of being featured in SGE results.
  • Enriching your content with images, videos, and other multimedia elements may help capture the attention of both users and the SGE algorithm.
  • Building a strong brand presence across multiple channels, including social media, industry forums, and relevant websites, can increase your chances of appearing in SGE.
  • Creating a trustworthy brand and managing your online reputation will be crucial, as SGE may feature competitors alongside your website.

Looking Ahead

While the long-term impact of SGE will depend on user adoption and the perceived usefulness of results, this study’s findings serve as a valuable starting point for businesses and SEO professionals.

By proactively addressing the challenges and opportunities SGE presents, you can increase your chances of success in the new search environment.


Featured Image: BestForBest/Shutterstock

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