SEO
Five must-haves of a conversion worthy ecommerce website
30-second summary:
- Getting traffic to a website can be difficult, so you need to make sure that visitors are as likely to convert as possible once there
- Quality site search implementation can increase conversion rates by 5-6x, and including elements like CTAs or a system that accounts for spelling mistakes can have a considerable impact
- When working with an online store, think about category pages like aisles and sub-categories like shelves within those aisles
- Breadcrumbs can not only help enhance the user experience but also improve rankings as they help search engines understand how your site structure and relevance
By many estimates, there are over twelve million ecommerce websites on the internet. That’s a lot of online stores, covering a lot of different niches. Getting traffic to these sites is one of the main struggles for businesses, so it’s important that once someone does land on the website, they have the best chance of converting as possible.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of your site is, if the commercial pages are poor then you may be throwing leads away.
By ‘commercial pages’, we mean anything that leads to the generation of revenue, like the product, category, and service pages – even the checkout. What may seem like a minor change can have a huge impact on revenue for these pages.
For example, would you have guessed that simply adding a video to a product page would make users 144 percent more likely to add a product to their cart?
In this article, I take a look at five ways ecommerce websites can take their traffic – but most importantly, conversions – to the next level. We’ll start with the largest, and most underappreciated one, first.
1. Prioritise your site search
According to Econsultancy, up to 30 percent of ecommerce visitors use the internal site search available to them. This level of engagement means there is a higher level of purchasing intent, which needs to be capitalised on. Why?
Due to the increased level of purchasing intent from these searchers, they’re known to be 5–6x more likely to convert than the average visitor that doesn’t use the site search.
If someone invented a tool that reliably increased conversion rates by 5x, they’d be incredibly wealthy – and the tool would be very expensive. Instead, this is available on pretty much all site builds, but lies unutilized in most cases, even if site search optimization has led to conversion rate increases of 43 percent.
So, how can you optimize your search functionality?
First, include a CTA (call to action) in the search bar by default that encourages users to search, or even just explains what the bar is for more basic users. Below are some examples from major online brands:
Source: Boots
Source: Depop
Source: ebay
In the first word of each of these, they are both educating the user on what the bar is for and are also encouraging them to use it. They also give people an insight into what they provide beyond just products, whether that’s services for Boots or styles for Depop. The eBay example is also great copywriting as it supports the brand’s character that you can buy and sell anything you want there; they’re not limited to brands or styles, you can search for anything!
A great site search would also be able to handle misspellings. For example, a website may have items listed as “red t-shirt”, but there are a lot of people that would simply search “red tshirt”. If your site search doesn’t show the same products for either, you’re likely losing out on sales.
You also want to make sure that generating new searches and applying filters don’t create new, indexable URLs. To test this, run a search on your website and then find what the search string URL looks like – basically everything in the URL before your search. Paste this into Google and see if these pages are being indexed/are appearing in the search engine results page.
It may be that every search is being saved as a new page (which we’ve seen many times before), which can lead to a huge crawl bloat. Consider search engines like Google as having a really short attention span. You don’t want to distract them with pointless pages like these, so make sure you no-index them.
Options like Fact Finder, Doo Finger, and SLI Systems are flexible choices that work fairly easily out of the box. These are great for smaller businesses with tighter resources. For larger businesses that need more from this functionality, Elastic Search and Solr are strong open source options but require a lot of work. This means that they can become totally bespoke, but that it may be overwhelming for businesses without the time and resources.
2. Have a Plan B for when a product is out of stock
Most products sold online are finite. Whether you have a lot of stock or a limited amount, almost every product runs the risk of becoming out of stock. This is the nature of an ecommerce business and is often a sign that something is selling well, but you should have a plan for when this happens.
It’s easy for a potential sale to end when they see that ‘out of stock’ message. However, the truly great ecommerce stores will know this isn’t the end of the customer’s journey – just because the product they originally wanted isn’t available doesn’t mean they can’t be sold on another.
After all, if you were doing your online grocery shopping and the usual meat feast pizza you buy isn’t available, that probably doesn’t mean you’re just not eating pizza anymore. Instead, you’d likely look for a similar meaty pizza from a different brand. This mindset works for other products, too.
First, you should consider related products on out of stock pages as absolutely essential. Take this example from John Lewis:
Source: John Lewis and Partners
In this case, the outdoor set is out of stock, but they are straight away suggesting similar products that would scratch the same itch the customer has. They’re also high up the page, which is important. If people see a product they want is out of stock, they may click away very quickly, so having similar products above the fold means you have a good chance of grabbing their attention before they move away.
As well as including related products, there should also be a channel for communication with the customer so you can contact them when the product comes back in stock. You can’t just assume that they’ll remember your website to check again in a few more weeks. It’s much more likely they’ll just find the product on a different website and give them their money instead.
While you can’t stop them from looking elsewhere, a section asking for their email address means that you can now communicate with them directly for marketing purposes but also let them know as soon as the product becomes available. This means that not only can you draw the customer back to the page for a purchase, but you could also sell them on more products over email!
Finally, if a product is out of stock and you don’t ever plan to restock it again, then consider removing it from your sitemap. For example, if you sell a calendar designed for 2018, this may very well be out of stock and very unlikely to come back in stock. With this in mind, deleting it from your sitemap would mean that search engines don’t bother looking at it and can instead focus on pages of yours that you actually want the likes of Google and Bing to be looking at.
3. Build a category structure that makes sense
A considered and effective category/sub-category structure is essential for online stores. Not only does this help search engines understand what it is you sell and what your most important pages are, but it also helps the user.
If there were no aisles in a supermarket, customers would be searching blindly for what they need. There’d be no structure and no space for using initiative. Instead, there are frozen aisles, canned aisles, fresh aisles; if you need some frozen french fries or some fresh peppers, you know where to go. Once you’re in that aisle, there are then shelves which can help you get even more specific. There likely wouldn’t be a tomato aisle, but a tomato shelf in the fresh aisle makes sense.
When working with an online store, think about category pages like aisles and sub-category pages like shelves within those aisles. Shopping online should be as seamless as this.
Consider what your biggest categories are and ‘zoom in’ smaller and smaller so you can find what your sub-categories are. It may be that you don’t have enough products to necessitate a sub-category.
Toby Dean, the Associate Director of SEO at Add People, believes that “As a rule of thumb, if there are more than 25-30 products in a category, you may want to sub-categorise that down to improve relevance, rankings and UX.”
Just like how people rarely click on page nine of Google search results, customers will rarely look at page nine of a category. Sub-category implementation will give them a better guide as to where they can find the products they want. For a clothing store, this might look like this:
Clothing > Men > Jumpers > Roll Neck Jumpers
Not having these is the equivalent of a supermarket having all of their food in one humongous aisle. Good luck trying to find what you need in there!
4. Include breadcrumbs
Breadcrumbs aren’t on every category or product page, but they should be. They essentially show the user’s journey from the root category page to whatever page they’re on at that point. Using the example above, if you were on a product page for a roll neck jumper, you might see the “Clothing > Men > Jumpers > Roll Neck Jumpers” as a breadcrumb near the top of the page.
Each of these should be clickable, giving the user a chance to go as far back as they would like to in their journey. This massively improves navigation on these pages and means that if they end up down the wrong path, they can quickly ‘turn around’ and go back the way they came. This helps increase conversions and lower bounce rates.
Habitat, an online furniture provider, use this to good effect on their pages:
Source: Habitat
From a search engine perspective, it also helps pass link equity throughout all the pages. The more internal links something like Google detects going to a page, the more it will consider that page important. With that in mind, including breadcrumbs means that you will be linking to many pages at once. This means that they will quickly develop an understanding of how your website is structured, which should make ranking for relevant terms even easier.
Everything else
These tips below don’t need a whole section to explain, but could still be key movers for your traffic and conversions.
- Include trust points and reviews on product pages
According to a BrightLocal survey, 91% of 18 to 34-year-old consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations. This means that your product pages should include reviews of the item and the rest of your website should include testimonials from customers alongside your ratings on services like TrustPilot or Google.
- Use photos and videos to sell to the customer
Shoppers expect more than one photo per product now. They want to see it from different angles and in use, in both a photo and video format ideally. One study found that those shoppers who saw videos on product pages were 144% more likely to add a product to their cart.
- Add filters and sorts to pages
While some popular ecommerce platforms have this as a basic feature, plenty still don’t. With that in mind, make sure that you can apply filters that are relevant to your products. If a website sells shoes, it may need a size filter. If a website sells food, it may need a vegetarian-friendly filter. Regardless of the niche, all pages should also have the ability to sort by price and ratings.
After a recent Google update saw some websites crash in rankings, it became even more apparent that optimized copy is crucial for ecommerce-focused pages. By including keywords and matching the intent of the typical customer, you can draw in organic traffic and help them convert while they are there; all while appeasing search engines and assuring them that you’re relevant to the searches your customers are making.
- Consider brand-focused pages
If you’re getting a lot of brand-focused searches and interest, you may want to create a dedicated page for that brand and connect all the relevant products to it. This will help establish your relevance for these searches, while also collecting all of the products people are interested in to one place.
Matthew Rogers is Head of Campaign Management at the top Manchester-based digital market agency Add People and has over 14 years of marketing experience. He is also a long-standing member of the Click Z Collective Advisory board.
Subscribe to the Search Engine Watch newsletter for insights on SEO, the search landscape, search marketing, digital marketing, leadership, podcasts, and more.
SEO
4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples]
Many popular link building tactics produce low-quality links that don’t improve SEO performance.
Even if these techniques make an impact, it’s often for a short time, and Google can easily devalue them down the line.
Here are four tactics for building high-quality links that help you stay ahead of your competition, expose your brand to new audiences, and are less likely to be devalued in future algorithm updates.
Digital PR is the process of creating content that appeals to journalists and promoting it to them.
If they like the content, they’ll write a feature about it or include it in a piece they’re writing. This can land you many high-quality backlinks from big sites and news publications for free.
Examples
In the months following ChatGPT’s release, Fery Kaszoni and his team at Search Intelligence compiled statistics about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT and compared it to other popular platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
The result? 60+ free link placements, including mentions on Yahoo News (DR 92), The Wrap (DR 84), and Time magazine (DR 92).
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] A few examples of backlinks earned by a piece of content about Open AI’s popularity since launching ChatGPT](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
In another campaign, Fery and his team calculated how much money beloved video characters would earn in real life. This campaign earned 20+ free links including a DR89 link from British newspaper, The Daily Express.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a high-DR like from Daily Express](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_586_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a high-DR like from Daily Express](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_586_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
How to do it
Successful Digital PR requires some creativity, but this is the process in a nutshell:
- Find a trending topic
- Create relevant newsworthy content around that topic
- Tell journalists about it
For example, AI has been a major topic of conversation in all industries since it launched. Any new data or insights about it would go well in news cycles while it remains a topic of interest.
Once you have a topic, you need to come up with interesting content ideas that are relevant to your business.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] The best topics for digital PR](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_87_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] The best topics for digital PR](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_87_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
This is the hard part. It’s really a case of brainstorming ideas until you land on something you think could be interesting.
For example, here are a few random content ideas for a company that sells furniture online:
- Have AI refurnish rooms from popular TV shows in new styles.
- Have AI design a new item of furniture, create it, and sell it.
- Ask 100 interior designers if they’re worried about AI taking their jobs, share the data.
After you find your winning idea, create the content, give it an attention-grabbing headline, and write a press release about the most interesting insights.
Then, promote your content to journalists. You can try services like Roxhill or Muck Rack to find journalists who might be interested in your content.
You can also use a tool like Ahrefs’ Content Explorer to find sites that have recently published content about your topic and reach out to them.
Here’s how to do that:
- Enter your topic into Content Explorer
- Filter for pages published in the last 90 days
- Filter for pages on DR70+ websites (big sites that you probably want links from)
For example, if we do this for the topic of “chatgpt,” we see thousands of well-known websites that have recently published about ChatGPT including Business Insider, Tech Republic, and Wired.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding websites that recently published about a topic with Content Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_900_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding websites that recently published about a topic with Content Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204971_900_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Data journalism is a way of enhancing or creating newsworthy content by analyzing unique data sets. It can fall under digital PR, though it typically requires more detailed research.
This technique works because reporters love a good statistic they can either quote or write an opinion piece about. Be the source of such data, and you can earn many high-quality links anytime your data becomes relevant to trending news topics.
Examples
Data journalism can be quite simple. For example, in another case study from Search Intelligence, Fery’s team used Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer as a data source for a cybersecurity PR campaign.
The study reveals the top UK banks where customers seek help with fraud, allowing journalists to report on which banks are more secure than others.
The data fuelling these insights is keyword search volume. That’s it.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Ahrefs' data that fuelled a cybersecurity PR campaign](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_121_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Ahrefs' data that fuelled a cybersecurity PR campaign](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_121_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
This method doesn’t take very long, doesn’t need a data scientist and can very easily be replicated in other industries where search popularity can unearth interesting insights.
In another example (and perhaps one of our all time favorites), marketing firm Yard created a data study comparing the CO2 emissions of various celebrities and ranking the worst offenders.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Data study on the C02 emissions of celebrities](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_951_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Data study on the C02 emissions of celebrities](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_951_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
If you follow celebrity news, there’s no way you missed reports of Taylor Swift’s private jet emissions being among the highest compared to other celebrities.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Just a few of the thousands of posts about Taylor Swift's jet emissions following a successful data journalism campaign](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_692_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Just a few of the thousands of posts about Taylor Swift's jet emissions following a successful data journalism campaign](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_692_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Every single one of these news stories originated from the data study.
When the study was first released, it went viral and earned links from almost 2,000 referring domains within the first month.
But that’s not all.
This topic trended in news cycles again when rumours spread that Taylor Swift attended a Jets game to bury the original negative publicity about her private jet usage, earning Yard a well-deserved second round of links.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Google Trends data for "taylor swift jet"](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_809_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Google Trends data for "taylor swift jet"](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_809_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Today, this post has 1,861 links from 1,155 referring domains, 77% of them are dofollow, and 38.4% are higher than DR 60.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] DR distribution of backlinks to the celebrity C02 emissions content piece](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_950_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] DR distribution of backlinks to the celebrity C02 emissions content piece](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_950_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Talk about drool-worthy results! That’s high-quality link building done right.
How to do it
Successful data journalism is similar to digital PR but relies on the intriguing, data-backed insights you can unearth.
In a nutshell, the process looks like this:
- Find a data-driven content angle that gets links and media attention
- Gather data to provide new or updated insights on the topic
- Tell journalists about your findings
Start by considering “your money or your life” content angles that everyday folk care about. It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking too narrow or pitching ideas only a small demographic may understand.
For instance, cybersecurity is not a sexy topic journalists or their readers will likely care about. There’s also not a high degree of literacy about the topic among the general population.
But everyone cares about whether their bank is secure and how safe their money is.
This concept needs no explanation and that’s exactly why data that helps answer the question “how safe is your bank?” worked exceptionally well as a link building tactic in the example above.
You can also use Content Explorer to gather more ideas like:
- Evergreen yet stale topics that you can update with more recent data
- Data you can visualize better or repurpose into a different content format
- Trending angles in other industries you can apply to your industry
For example, on the topic of ChatGPT, we found Rand Fishkin’s post claiming usage has declined 29% between May and August 2023 and that 30% of its usage is by programmers.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding content ideas in Content Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_373_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding content ideas in Content Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204972_373_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
You don’t need original ideas to succeed. If you’ve got the data to back it up, you can easily take the angles of a “useage patterns” or “most popular audience segments” and apply them to popular tools in your industry.
Some decent data sources you can start with include:
- Search data: Like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer for uncovering interesting search patterns.
- Historical data: Like Google Trends for highlighting growth or decline patterns over time.
- Scientific research: Like on Google Scholar or in specific research journals.
- Public niche data: For instance, Yard’s study used the CelebrityJets Twitter page.
- Proprietary data: From within your (or your client’s) organization.
When you find an interesting insight or pattern worth sharing, write a press release about it and share it with journalists who frequently report on the topic.
Statistics pages are curated lists of facts and figures in a particular industry. These pages attract evergreen links for as long as the statistics remain relevant.
It’s one of our favorite link building tactics. Here’s how we’ve used it quite successfully over the years.
Example
We first launched a detailed list of SEO statistics in 2020 and it has been naturally earning high-quality links ever since.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Backlinks over time to our SEO statistics page](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_615_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Backlinks over time to our SEO statistics page](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_615_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Currently, the page has:
- 5,787 backlinks
- 2,282 referring domains
- 82% “dofollow” links
- 37.7% from DR 60+ websites
While we used some outreach techniques in the early days, most of the success has come from the page’s ability to maintain top position rankings for competitive keywords.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Rankings for our SEO statistics page](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_872_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Rankings for our SEO statistics page](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_872_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Do it right, and this tactic remains wildly effective for earning links naturally for many years.
How to do it
Start by entering a few broad topics related to your website into Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. For example, we might enter the following for Ahrefs:
- SEO
- Content marketing
- Link building
Then navigate to the Matching Terms report and apply the inclusion filter for things like stats, statistics, facts, or figures. Make sure your filter is set to include any of these phrases.
Then it’s just a matter of checking out the results to find a relevant topic you want to write about.
We went for “SEO statistics”:
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding statistics keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_824_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Finding statistics keywords in Ahrefs' Keywords Explorer](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_824_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Once you pick your topic, it’s a just matter of curating linkworthy stats and publishing them on a page.
While you can earn some seed links with early outreach efforts, long term success comes down to keeping your content updated with the latest data. That’s the best way to compound performance year on year, earning many high-quality links with no ongoing outreach needed.
Relationship-based link building prioritizes long-term relationships with journalists, writers, and editors.
It is an effective addition to digital PR campaigns as you can shortcut the time it takes to find the right people to distribute your content.
Better yet, you can be a journalist’s first point of call when they write a story on topics you or your clients are experts in.
Example
Imagine having journalists contact you asking to feature your clients in upcoming stories. That’s exactly what growth marketing firm, EngineRoom, has achieved.
A journalist from Mamamia (DR 78) made a call out on Sourcebottle, the Australian equivalent of HARO, seeking expert advice on immigration law. EngineRoom’s link building expert, Don Milne, responded and won the story along with a high-quality link.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_405_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_405_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
Then, the real magic started.
Instead of ending things there, Don also shared a client list with the journalist in case they ever wanted to collaborate on future stories again.
Sure enough, a few weeks later, the journalist reached out, asking to connect with another client in the drug rehab space to develop a story on heroin addiction. The client is featured in about 30% of the completed article with detailed quotes from the founder and (of course) a link back to their website.
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_499_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
![4 Tactics for High-Quality Backlinks That Move the Needle [+ Examples] Example of a backlink built with relationship-based link building](https://articles.entireweb.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/1701204973_499_4-Tactics-for-High-Quality-Backlinks-That-Move-the-Needle.png)
No pitching. No outreach. Just a genuine partnership and collaboration now earning multiple high-quality links for their clients.
How to do it
This technique is all about the follow-up after you collaborate on your first story with a journalist.
If getting the first foot in the door is where you’re stuck, you can check out our detailed guide on relationship-based link building by Irina Maltseva, the former Head of Marketing at Hunter.
Once you get that first story, make sure you keep the relationship going.
If you have a list of websites or clients you represent, create a professional document with a mini bio about each client. Make sure it’s also easily searchable for writers in a hurry and makes your contact details clear and easy to access.
Then, share it with journalists, writers, and editors you collaborate with so they can refer to it in the future if they need an expert on a specific topic for their content.
Final thoughts
Earning high-quality backlinks can be much easier than many people realize and cheaper too! All the examples shared in this post earned free link placements on high-authority websites and with minimal outreach.
These techniques have more staying power. They are also far less likely to be seen as “link manipulation” or devalued in future Google updates.
And, if you get your content angle just right, they also have the potential to be earning links many months, if not years, down the track!
Got questions? Ping me on LinkedIn.
SEO
Google To Curb Microtargeting In Consumer Finance Ads

Google is updating its policy limiting personalized advertising to include more restrictions on ads related to consumer financial products and services.
Google’s personalized ads policy prohibits targeting users based on sensitive categories like race, religion, or sexual orientation.
Over the years, Google has continued updating the policy to introduce new limitations. The latest update to restrict consumer finance ads is part of Google’s ongoing efforts to refine its ad targeting practices.
What’s Changing?
Google will update its personalized ads policy in February 2024 to prevent advertisers from targeting audiences for credit and banking ads based on sensitive factors like gender, age, parental status, marital status, or zip code.
Google’s current policy prohibiting “Credit in personalized ads” will be renamed “Consumer finance in personalized ads” under the changes.
Google’s new policy will state:
“In the United States and Canada, the following sensitive interest categories cannot be targeted to audiences based on gender, age, parental status, marital status, or ZIP code.
Offers relating to credit or products or services related to credit lending, banking products and services, or certain financial planning and management services.”
Google provided examples, including “credit cards and loans including home loans, car loans, appliance loans, short-term loans,” as well as “banking and checking accounts” and “debt management products.”
When Does The New Policy Take Effect?
The updated limitations on personalized advertising will take effect on February 28, 2024, with full enforcement expected within six weeks.
Google said advertisers in violation will receive a warning at least seven days before any account suspension.
According to Google, the policy change aims to protect users’ privacy better and prevent discrimination in financial services advertising.
However, the company will still allow generalized ads for credit and banking products that do not use sensitive personal data for targeting.
What Do Advertisers Need To Do?
Google will begin enforcing the updated restrictions in late February 2024 but advises advertisers to review their campaigns for compliance issues sooner.
Advertisers should carefully check their ad targeting settings, remove improper personalization based on sensitive categories, and adhere to the revised policy requirements.
Failure to follow the rules could lead to account suspension after an initial warning. Google will work with advertisers to ensure a smooth transition during the ramp-up period over the next six months.
Featured Image: SurfsUp/Shutterstock
SEO
Google Discusses Fixing 404 Errors From Inbound Links

Google’s John Mueller responded to a thread in Reddit about finding and fixing inbound broken links, offering a nuanced insight that some broken links are worth finding and fixing and others are not.
Reddit Question About Inbound Broken Links
Someone asked on Reddit if there’s a way to find broken links for free.
This is the question:
“Is it possible to locate broken links in a similar manner to identifying expired domain names?”
The person asking the question clarified if this was a question about an inbound broken link from an external site.
John Mueller Explains How To Find 404 Errors To Fix
John Mueller responded:
“If you want to see which links to your website are broken & “relevant”, you can look at the analytics of your 404 page and check the referrers there, filtering out your domain.
This brings up those which actually get traffic, which is probably a good proxy.
If you have access to your server logs, you could get it in a bit more detail + see which ones search engine bots crawl.
It’s a bit of technical work, but no external tools needed, and likely a better estimation of what’s useful to fix/redirect.”
In his response, John Mueller answers the question on how to find 404 responses caused by broken inbound links and identify what’s “useful to fix” or to “redirect.”
Mueller Advises On When Not To “Fix” 404 Pages
John Mueller next offered advice on when it doesn’t make sense to not fix a 404 page.
Mueller explained:
“Keep in mind that you don’t have to fix 404 pages, having things go away is normal & fine.
The SEO ‘value’ of bringing a 404 back is probably less than the work you put into it.”
Some 404s Should Be Fixed And Some Don’t Need Fixing
John Mueller said that there are situations where a 404 error generated from an inbound link is easy to fix and suggested ways to find those errors and fix them.
Mueller also said that there are some cases where it’s basically a waste of time.
What wasn’t mentioned was what the difference was between the two and this may have caused some confusion.
Inbound Broken Links To Existing Webpages
There are times when another sites links into your site but uses the wrong URL. Traffic from the broken link on the outside site will generate a 404 response code on your site.
These kinds of links are easy to find and useful to fix.
There are other situations when an outside site will link to the correct webpage but the webpage URL changed and the 301 redirect is missing.
Those kinds of inbound broken links are also easy to find and useful to fix. If in doubt, read our guide on when to redirect URLs.
In both of those cases the inbound broken links to the existing webpages will generate a 404 response and this will show up in server logs, Google Search Console and in plugins like the Redirection WordPress plugin.
If the site is on WordPress and it’s using the Redirection plugin, identifying the problem is easy because the Redirection plugin offers a report of all 404 responses with all the necessary information for diagnosing and fixing the problem.
In the case where the Redirection plugin isn’t used one can also hand code an .htaccess rule for handling the redirect.
Lastly, one can contact the other website that’s generating the broken link and ask them to fix it. There’s always a small chance that the other site might decide to remove the link altogether. So it might be easier and faster to just fix it on your side.
Whichever approach is taken to fix the external inbound broken link, finding and fixing these issues is relatively simple.
Inbound Broken Links To Removed Pages
There are other situations where an old webpage was removed for a legitimate reason, like an event passed or a service is no longer offered.
In that case it makes sense to just show a 404 response code because that’s one of the reasons why a 404 response should be shown. It’s not a bad thing to show a 404 response.
Some people might want to get some value from the inbound link and create a new webpage to stand in for the missing page.
But that might not be useful because the link is for something that is irrelevant and of no use because the reason for the page no longer exists.
Even if you create a new reason, it’s possible that some of that link equity might flow to the page but it’s useless because the topic of that inbound link is totally irrelevant to anyting but the expired reason.
Redirecting the missing page to the home page is a strategy that some people use to benefit from the link to a page that no longer exists. But Google treats those links as Soft 404s, which then passes no benefit.
These are the cases that John Mueller was probably referring to when he said:
“…you don’t have to fix 404 pages, having things go away is normal & fine.
The SEO ‘value’ of bringing a 404 back is probably less than the work you put into it.”
Mueller is right, there are some pages that should be gone and totally removed from a website and the proper server response for those pages should be a 404 error response.
-
FACEBOOK4 days ago
Indian Government Warns Facebook, YouTube About Deepfakes, Misinformation Violations
-
MARKETING3 days ago
Whiteboard Friday Recap 2023: AI Edition
-
MARKETING6 days ago
“Undercover” Case Studies: Why the Future of Marketing Is Proving Yourself in the Field
-
SEARCHENGINES6 days ago
Follower Count Is Not A Google Search Ranking Factor
-
SOCIAL6 days ago
17-Year-Old Claims To Make 6 Figures A Year
-
SOCIAL5 days ago
Meta Stock: Still Room For Upside In A Maturing Market (NASDAQ:META)
-
SOCIAL7 days ago
U.S. Senators Accuse X of Profiting From Terrorist Propaganda in the App
-
SOCIAL6 days ago
X Withdraws From MRC Brand Safety Accreditation
You must be logged in to post a comment Login