Category: SEO

Ranking on page one is no longer just about strategy. It is about budget control. Premium SEO platforms, AI writing tools, backlink databases, and scraping infrastructure now cost more than ever. For agencies and independent consultants, ignoring those rising costs is a fast way to shrink profit margins.

This is why discount hunting has evolved into a serious business function. Smart SEO professionals no longer treat coupons as small savings. They treat them as margin protection tools that compound over time.

Why Discount Hunting Is Now a Competitive Advantage

The SEO industry is dealing with subscription fatigue as nearly every essential tool runs on recurring billing. Most major platforms have increased pricing tiers, especially for advanced features and higher usage limits. Even small monthly hikes compound quickly when you rely on multiple tools.

For agencies managing dozens of campaigns, those increases translate into serious annual overhead. Startup founders and ecommerce operators face the same pressure while trying to scale organic growth efficiently. Software expenses can quietly erode profit margins if they are not actively managed.

Securing recurring discounts changes the cost structure without sacrificing capability. The savings can be reinvested into content production, technical improvements, or customer acquisition. Disciplined expense control has become a genuine competitive advantage in modern SEO.

How the SaaS Coupon Ecosystem Actually Works

Most professional coupon platforms operate through affiliate tracking systems. SaaS providers give them unique links or promo codes, and the platform earns a commission when a user subscribes through that link. In return, the customer receives a discounted price. This performance based model keeps both the software company and the coupon platform aligned.

Promotions usually come in several formats, including recurring percentage discounts, annual billing reductions, and limited time sales. Some newer tools also launch lifetime deals to attract early adopters. The most reliable coupon sites actively verify these offers and remove expired codes, which saves users from checkout frustration and wasted time.

Evaluation Framework for Professional Coupon Sites

Not all coupon platforms offer the same level of reliability. Some list outdated promotions and rarely remove expired codes, which wastes time for busy professionals. A structured evaluation process helps separate serious platforms from generic directories.

This ranking prioritizes code accuracy and update frequency. It also considers tool coverage depth, exclusive partnerships, and clarity around billing terms. Clean navigation and transparent conditions are essential for confident subscription decisions.

Top 7 Coupon Sites for SEO Tools

The following platforms stand out for their relevance to digital marketers and SEO professionals. Each one has been evaluated based on accuracy, update consistency, and practical value for recurring SaaS subscriptions. Whether you manage multiple client accounts or operate solo, these sites can help reduce software overhead without compromising performance.

1. SaveMyCent

SaveMyCent focuses heavily on digital marketing and SaaS discounts, which makes it highly relevant for SEO professionals. Instead of mixing random retail offers, it prioritizes software deals that agencies and consultants actually need. That specialization reduces noise and speeds up decision making.

The platform maintains consistent updates around major SaaS promo cycles, which improves code reliability. Discounts are usually presented with clear billing and plan details, helping users avoid surprises at checkout. For professionals managing recurring subscriptions, that clarity adds real value.

2. ProxyCoupons

ProxyCoupons focuses on SEO infrastructure and software driven tools, making it especially useful for technical marketers. It regularly features discounts on proxies, scraping platforms, and data services alongside mainstream SEO suites. For agencies running automation or large scale campaigns, that niche coverage can reduce a significant operational expense.

The platform updates promotions around active sales cycles and limited time campaigns. Percentage based discounts are common, which can create meaningful savings on recurring subscriptions. For professionals monitoring monthly overhead closely, that responsiveness makes it a practical resource.

3. ClipMyDeals

ClipMyDeals provides a broader aggregation model that includes software alongside other categories. Its strength lies in comparison efficiency. Users can quickly scan multiple available promotions for a single tool without visiting separate vendor pages.

The platform works well during research phases when evaluating different SEO tools. Startup founders and freelance consultants can identify percentage discounts, trial extensions, or seasonal offers in one consolidated view. It is best used as part of a layered validation approach rather than a standalone authority.

4. Saver.com

Saver.com maintains a large scale coupon database with consistent refresh cycles. Its SEO and SaaS section is active enough to provide relevant promotions. The platform often surfaces trending deals, which helps users discover new AI driven tools offering introductory pricing.

Community interaction adds another layer of confidence. Users frequently report whether codes are working or expired, keeping listings current. For content creators exploring new workflow tools, this feedback mechanism improves decision speed.

5. DontPayFull

DontPayFull operates with a high volume aggregation strategy. It frequently lists multiple promotional paths for the same SEO tool, including student discounts, seasonal sales, and first time user incentives. That diversity increases the chance of finding a working deal.

Usage data is often displayed alongside codes, showing how frequently they succeed. This transparency helps freelance consultants prioritize which promotions to test first. For recurring subscription tools, that small efficiency gain matters.

6. CreativeBin

CreativeBin takes a more curated approach to digital and marketing software. Its selection tends to align well with SEO professionals who also rely on design, analytics, and productivity tools. This cross category alignment supports building a complete marketing stack.

The platform occasionally highlights bundled discounts across complementary tools. That structure can produce higher aggregate savings compared to single tool promotions. For agencies expanding service offerings, this broader lens is valuable.

7. TenereTeam

TenereTeam combines business focused technology discounts with a clean interface. SEO tools appear within its broader tech ecosystem, making navigation straightforward. The layout avoids clutter, which speeds up the search process.

The platform maintains competitive discounts for major SaaS brands while preserving a simple presentation style. Freelance consultants and small teams who prefer minimal friction often appreciate this streamlined experience. As always, checkout validation remains essential before committing to annual billing.

Which Platform Fits Your Operational Model

Agencies managing multiple clients generally benefit from focused SaaS platforms like SaveMyCent and ProxyCoupons. Their emphasis on infrastructure and marketing tools aligns with high volume subscription needs. Before committing to discounted subscriptions, it also helps to review the broader landscape of available SEO software through a detailed SEO tools comparison to ensure the savings align with long term strategy. Reliability and update frequency become crucial at scale.

Solo consultants and bloggers may find broader discovery platforms such as Saver.com or CreativeBin more flexible. These sites help uncover emerging tools offering early stage discounts. That discovery angle supports experimentation without overspending.

Startups and ecommerce operators should prioritize platforms that clearly outline renewal terms and annual savings. Long term visibility over subscription costs simplifies financial planning. Matching platform strengths to operational needs produces the best results.

Practical Tips for Validation and Stacking

Always test coupon codes at final checkout before completing payment. Some promotions only apply to specific tiers or geographic regions. Reading the fine print prevents costly billing mistakes.

Timing plays a critical role in maximizing savings. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, fiscal year resets, and mid year SaaS promotions often produce the deepest recurring discounts. Planning purchases around these windows improves cost efficiency.

In some cases, stacking is possible. Applying a promotional code on top of an already discounted annual plan can significantly reduce total cost. This layered approach is how experienced SEO agencies maintain lean operational budgets.

Conclusion

Managing SEO software costs is part of staying competitive. Subscription prices will continue rising, but smart operators know how to reduce that pressure without sacrificing performance. The key is combining timing, validation, and consistent research before every purchase. When approached strategically, discount hunting becomes a reliable way to protect margins and scale sustainably.

Millions of new pages are published every day, and search engines now prioritise quality, relevance, and usefulness more than sheer volume. Faster ranking does not mean shortcuts or manipulation. It means aligning content and technical fundamentals correctly from the start. By 2025, data from the search industry showed that over 90% of web pages received no organic traffic from Google, primarily because they failed to meet search intent, content quality, or technical standards. This highlights why thoughtful execution matters more than frequent publishing.

Ranking faster depends on how well a blog post matches what users are searching for, how clearly it delivers value, and how easily search engines can understand and trust the content.

Why Blog Posts Take Time to Rank

Google does not rank new content instantly. It first needs to discover the page, understand its topic, evaluate its quality, and measure early engagement signals.

New websites or blogs with low authority usually take longer because Google has limited historical trust data. Even strong content needs time to compete against established pages. Ranking delays often occur due to these factors. Understanding these factors helps reduce delays rather than waiting passively.

• Search intent is unclear or mismatched
• Content lacks depth or structure
• Technical issues block indexing
• The page has no supporting signals

Core Factors That Help Blog Posts Rank Faster

Ranking faster on Google usually depends on a small group of fundamentals working together. When these elements are handled carefully, new blog posts tend to gain visibility sooner and perform more consistently.

1. Clear Topic Focus

A blog post ranks faster when its topic is clearly defined. Pages that try to cover too many ideas at once often confuse both readers and search engines. Focusing on one primary question or problem helps Google understand what the page is about. It also helps readers find what they are looking for without having to scan unnecessary sections.

2. Search Intent Alignment

Matching search intent is one of the strongest signals for faster ranking, similar to how candidates who apply to jobs using AI improve outcomes by aligning applications with role requirements rather than sending generic submissions. A post should deliver exactly what a user expects based on their query. For example, if users are researching solutions like a White label AI agent, the content should clearly explain use cases, benefits, and practical considerations rather than offering surface-level descriptions. When intent and content align closely, engagement improves, and ranking stabilises more quickly.

3. Content Depth Without Padding

Depth matters, but only when it adds value. Blog posts that clearly explain concepts, address common questions, and provide useful context tend to perform better. Adding extra words without purpose often slows performance rather than improving it. Strong posts answer the topic fully without repetition or filler.

4. Internal Context and Linking

Internal links help search engines place a new post within the broader structure of a site. When a blog post is linked to related content, it becomes more relevant and is discovered sooner. Linking from existing pages that already receive traffic can also help new posts get early attention.

5. Technical Readiness

Even well-written content struggles if the technical basics are weak. Fast loading times, mobile-friendly layouts, and clean URLs help Google crawl and index pages efficiently. Technical readiness supports ranking by removing barriers that delay visibility.

Why Early Engagement Signals Matter

After indexing a new post, Google observes how users interact with it. While engagement is not a direct ranking factor, it influences how Google interprets content quality.

When users spend time reading, scroll through sections, and do not return immediately to search results, it signals that the content met expectations. Clear formatting, logical flow, and useful explanations all contribute to better engagement.

Improving engagement is often less about optimisation and more about writing content that is genuinely easy to read and understand.

How Internal Updates Can Speed Up Performance

Ranking faster does not stop at publishing. Updating content within the first few weeks can improve alignment with search intent and clarify weak sections.

Small improvements such as refining headings, adding missing explanations, or improving clarity can make a noticeable difference. These updates help Google reassess the page and often improve ranking stability.

Why Backlinks Still Influence Ranking Speed

Backlinks remain an important trust signal. A few relevant links from reputable sites can significantly reduce the time it takes for a blog post to gain visibility.

Quality matters more than quantity. Links from related websites or authoritative sources provide stronger signals than mass links from unrelated pages. Helpful, original content is more likely to attract natural backlinks over time.

Content Freshness Affects Ranking Speed

Google prefers content that reflects current information and recent relevance. While evergreen topics can rank for years, freshness still matters, especially for competitive queries.

Freshness does not always mean publishing new posts. Updating existing content with clearer explanations, current examples, or recent data can help search engines reassess the page. Even small updates signal that the content is maintained and still useful.

For new blog posts, reviewing performance within the first 30 to 60 days is helpful. If a post is indexed but not ranking well, refining sections that users spend less time on can improve alignment with search intent and engagement.

How Content Format Supports Faster Understanding

Google evaluates not only what you write, but how information is presented. Content that is easy to scan and understand is indexed and evaluated more efficiently.

Short paragraphs, clear subheadings, and logical section breaks help both users and search engines follow the topic. When readers can quickly locate answers, they are more likely to stay on the page longer.

This does not require complex formatting. Simple structure, consistent headings, and natural language usually perform better than over-optimised layouts.

The Role of Site Authority in Ranking Speed

Site authority influences how quickly new posts gain visibility. Websites that consistently publish helpful content within a specific topic area tend to rank new posts faster over time. Authority is built gradually through-

• Consistent topic coverage
• Internal linking between related posts
• External references and mentions

When a site is recognised for a subject, Google is more confident in indexing and ranking new content within that area. This is why topic clusters often outperform isolated posts.

Why User Experience Matters More Than Content

Even strong content can struggle if the user experience is poor. Pages that are difficult to read, cluttered with ads, or hard to navigate often lose users quickly.

Google observes signals such as bounce rate and session behaviour to understand whether users find a page useful. While these signals are indirect, they influence how Google evaluates content quality. Improving readability, reducing distractions, and ensuring mobile usability all support faster, more stable rankings.

Building Momentum Over Time

Ranking faster is easier when blogging is consistent. Publishing relevant content regularly helps Google understand your site’s scope and relevance.

Consistency does not mean volume. Publishing fewer, well-planned posts that support each other often works better than frequent low-quality updates. Over time, this creates momentum. New posts benefit from existing structure, links, and trust, reducing the time needed to gain visibility.

Common Mistakes That Slow Ranking

Many blogs fail to rank quickly because of avoidable issues. Writing solely for keywords, ignoring search intent, or over-optimising headings often reduces clarity.

Publishing thin or duplicated content also delays visibility. In most cases, ranking improves faster by fixing the basics than by adding complex tactics.

Wrapping It Up

Ranking blog posts faster on Google depends on clarity, relevance, and execution rather than shortcuts. Strong topic selection, clear structure, alignment with search intent, and solid technical foundations reduce the time it takes for content to gain visibility.

Google rewards content that genuinely helps users. When blogs are written with a clear purpose, supported by internal links and good technical health, they are indexed faster and perform more consistently. Faster ranking is not about tricks. It is about making it easy for both users and search engines to understand, trust, and value your content.

Launching a successful content marketing campaign in today’s competitive digital landscape requires innovative strategies to enhance search engine rankings and brand visibility. Contextual backlinks emerge as a powerful tool for achieving these goals effectively.

By integrating contextual backlinks within your content, you enrich your blogs and articles and provide search engines like Google with valuable insights into the relevance of your content to specific topics and themes.

This comprehensive guide aims to delve into contextual linking, elucidate the significance of prioritizing contextual backlink building, and outline various effective link-building techniques.

What Are Contextual Backlinks?

Contextual backlinks are hyperlinks embedded within a webpage or blog post intricately connected to the content’s topic or theme. Unlike conventional backlinks, contextual links seamlessly blend into the narrative, offering readers a natural progression within the text.

These links can be in your page’s body content, the resource box, or the author’s biography. You can also find them on the website in pictures, movies, and other types of material.

Typically, there are three primary categories of contextual links that a company may utilize for its website:

1. Internal links: These links lead people to other pages on the same website. You may link your blog post to one of your product pages so visitors can easily click through and purchase.
2. External links: These are links that take visitors from your website to another pertinent or authoritative website. For instance, you can direct readers to the study’s source by providing a fact or statistic and then linking to it.
3. Reciprocal links: These are links acquired from agreements between two websites, where they link back to one another’s websites so that both websites can gain from each other’s authority and popularity with search engines.

What’s critical in this case is that the link has to point to a relevant webpage; otherwise, it’s not contextual.

Why Are Contextual Backlinks Important?

1. Brand Awareness

Contextual links are an excellent way to increase or expand brand awareness. When you obtain a contextual link or participate in a reciprocal link-building campaign, the website you mention in your content will be able to find it via search or social media. This exposes more people to your content, website, and everything you offer.

2. Higher Credibility

Contextual linking lends credibility to both your content and the website or blog. This is because a backlink from an authoritative website demonstrates that you conducted thorough research and contributed to creating helpful content.

When links come from popular websites in your industry, your credibility as a blogger or website owner is enhanced.

3. Improved Rankings and Organic Traffic

Another critical benefit of contextual backlinks is that they help you rank higher and increase the traffic to your website. Because they are placed on relevant web pages, these links are thought to be more natural. Backlinks boost the quality of your website by providing search engines with relevant information.

Read Also: SEO Tips to Help Your Rank Higher

4. Better SEO Efforts

Contextual backlinks can also enhance your SEO efforts. These links can be helpful to search engines because they are put on relevant web pages. Additionally, increase your chances of appearing higher on their search pages. This implies that more individuals will find your content using Google or other search engines.

5. Enhanced SERP Rankings

Raising brand awareness and acquiring more high-quality backlinks will eventually help your website rank higher on search engine results pages (SERP).

Because Google views contextual links as endorsements, they aid in improving your ranks. When a website with a lot of authority links to your content, Google interprets this as a recommendation that your work is worthy of being ranked.

In essence, Google and other search engines are more likely to rank your pages higher on their search result pages when you acquire contextual links and use them to enhance users’ experiences.

Read Also: Best SEO Practices to Dominate the SERPs

How Do You Get Started With Contextual Link Building?

1. Guest Blogging Contextual Backlinks

Guest blogging, or guest posting, creates content for another website while including a link to your own. It’s one of the most successful link-building techniques for attracting new clients and increasing brand recognition.

Read Also: Why is Content Marketing Important for Your Brand?

Why is it a little more straightforward than other approaches? Well, both the author and the publishing site benefit from them. The webmaster receives top-notch content for their website, while the author gains the ability to add external links to their site, improving their backlink profile.

You want to research your industry to find suitable sites for your guest links. Find out where audiences will find the most delinquent news and the sites they consider the most authoritative.

However, keep in mind that not all backlinks are created equal. If you want to boost your site’s search performance, your guest post should be on a site with a high DA or domain rating (DR).

Once you’ve decided which websites to contact, you can either write content for them to read or suggest themes for future articles. Remember, your main goal should always be to establish relationships. 

2. Broken Link Building

One of the many practical contextual link-building strategies is creating backlinks from broken links. Getting other websites to fix their broken links also entails providing them with more resources. If the content is relevant to your industry, this could be a chance for you.

It is evident that webmasters want to avoid broken links appearing on their pages, but occasionally, unexpected things happen. This implies that if the resource URL changes or the resource itself disappears, a once-useful link could soon stop working.

By pointing broken links at the website owner and providing them with a resource like the one on your website, you can leverage broken link building to your benefit.

3. Create Shareable Content for Contextual Backlinks

Producing high-quality, helpful content is one of the most crucial elements in developing contextual backlinks. Natural links from other websites will occur when your content is helpful, informative, and relevant to your target audience.

Good quality contextual backlinks can be hard to come by, but fortunately, you can either buy backlinks from an agency, outsource your operations, or generate these links manually.

Since it benefits their audience, people will want to link to it, share it, and recommend it. When creating content, consider your intended audience’s questions and issues. Ensure that your information is precise, thoroughly researched, and current.

Read Also: How to Remove Outdated Content from Your Website

Additionally, your writing should be simple to read and comprehend by dividing lengthy text passages into manageable sections and employing headings and subheadings. It would be best to consider producing various content, including blog articles, infographics, videos, and podcasts. Connect with a variety of audiences by using different formats. Besides that, your content needs to be SEO-optimized.

Lastly, spread the word about your content using email marketing and social media. Inform your network about it, and request that they tell their network about it. More opportunities exist to obtain those priceless backlinks as more people read your article.

4. Guestographics for Contextual Backlinks

 A study found that 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual. While blog postings are terrific, infographics often have a more significant emotional impact. Because designing infographics requires few people’s strategic expertise, only some marketers use them to their full potential.

Using infographics, you can obtain contextual links. Find a popular blog post and create an infographic for it. Next, contact the bloggers and inquire about putting the infographic on their sites along with a link to your website.

5. Conduct or Receive Interviews

Another excellent content strategy to obtain a contextual backlink is to secure an interview. When you conduct interviews for your business, you can build additional contextual backlinks for your website. For instance, if you interview an expert in your field and publish the interview on your website, they are most likely to link to the interview from their website, enhancing both their brand and yours.

A great place to start the interview process is to find websites that frequently feature interviews with business owners and are relevant to your industry. Published interviews typically have backlinks. 

Additionally, you may request an interview with industry leaders, particularly from smaller companies and brands. You and them will gain from this relationship because you can both increase your marketing efforts. 

6. Use Manual Outreach to Bloggers or Influencers

One of the best ways to get an excellent contextual link is to conduct a manual outreach to bloggers. Making a list of target websites is the first stage in the manual outreach link-building process. Finding sites important to your company and with a high domain authority will be necessary. 

When you have a list of potential websites, the following step is to contact the website owners and present your idea. For instance, if you’re a florist, you might suggest writing a guest blog post about spring flowers. The site owner will link to your post if your pitch is compelling.

In addition to increasing website traffic, this link will raise your website’s search engine position. Although manual outreach link building takes time, it is a valuable method for obtaining high-quality links from pertinent websites.

7. Participate in Online Communities for Contextual Backlinks

Engaging in online communities related to your specialty and industry is another successful method for creating contextual backlinks. By conversing with other users and sharing insightful knowledge, you can establish yourself as an authority in your niche and draw links from others.

You can accomplish this through forums, social media groups, SEO Slacks, and other social clubs. However, it’s crucial to remember that establishing a reputation and trust within the community takes time. Being a productive member of these platforms can increase your chances of earning trust, which may open up options like backlinks.

Contextual Link Best Practices

When you’re ready to start a contextual link campaign, there are several best practices to adhere to. Some of the top tips we suggest you should follow include: 

1. Select Relevant Websites for Contextual Backlinks

Google appreciates links from comparable websites. Therefore, you must develop contextual links with appropriate websites within your niche.

2. Analyze Website Metrics

We advise double-checking their SEO analytics as you select prospects. Attention to their domain rank (DR) and authority (DA). The more authoritative a website is regarding domains, the more benefit you receive from its links. This is ultimately what raises your ranking and increases traffic.

3. Check Backlink Profiles

Regarding backlink profiles, quantity and quality matter; therefore, you must perform a backlink analysis to determine how many backlinks an external website has. Remember to examine each backlink’s quality.

4. Anchor Text

Pay special attention to the anchor text as you acquire contextual links. This is the text where your link will be inserted. We recommend using highly descriptive keywords or long-tail keywords in each anchor text. This benefits the ranking of your website for such keywords, which is the explanation. 

5. Personalized Outreach

Whether you contact prospects or use a unique SEO tool, you must personalize your messages and incorporate email verification to ensure you’re reaching valid contacts. Again, make each pitch unique to improve your chances of obtaining a relevant backlink.

The Bottom Line

Search engines are moving toward contextual link creation. Context and relevance linking are becoming increasingly crucial factors in their algorithms when determining a link’s worth. It’s, therefore, vital that you acquire contextual links.

Additionally, numerous strategies exist to acquire a contextual connection with vital link metrics. In this manner, you can design a varied strategy for constructing contextual backlinks to produce the best outcomes for your campaign.

We live in the digital age, where brands and companies employ various methods to stay connected with their clients and thrive in business. One highly effective approach is tapping into top-notch blogger outreach services.

These services open doors for collaboration with influential figures, boost brand visibility, and secure mentions from high-authority sources. If you haven’t incorporated blogger outreach into your content strategy, now’s the perfect moment to do so.

This post delves into the finest blogger outreach services to help your business flourish. But before we dive in, let’s take a moment to grasp the essence of blogger outreach.

What is Blogger Outreach?

Blogger outreach is a strategy to foster relationships with bloggers, aiming to fulfill content marketing objectives or meet SEO (KPIs). Essentially, it entails brands or companies reaching out to well-known bloggers, influencers, or publishers to amplify the promotion of their products or services.

The core goal of blogger outreach is to sway individuals with substantial, targeted audiences into discussing your business and outsourcing links to your website. This approach ultimately drives more traffic and enhances sales.

Why are Blogger Outreach Services Necessary?

1. Outreach Services Can Elevate Your Visibility

Every brand must have an online presence to thrive in this fast-paced and technologically driven world. However, creating a website is not enough; you need to promote it. The more visible your brand is online, the more people within your niche will visit your website. 

Therefore, you can reach a large audience quickly by featuring your content on trendy blogs or websites. This way, you can improve your brand’s visibility, leading to an increased conversion rate. 

Plus, niche edits increase visibility, boost your site’s search engine ranking, and draw more organic traffic, strengthening your SEO campaign.

2. Outreach Services Connects You With Your Target Audience

Another important of blogger outreach is that it can connect you to your targeted audiences. You will promote your products or services on sites with well-established online presence and publishing-related niche products. This will allow you to connect with a specific audience, thus helping you to get relevant and targeted traffic to your site, leading to a better return on your investment.

3. Blogger Outreach Services Provides an Incredible Way to Earn Backlinks

Many corporations try to gather as many credible backlinks as possible because they lead more prospective clients to their websites. Plus, the more backlinks you buy and put on your site from trusted and high-authority sites, the better your site’s position dominates the SERPs. So, by engaging influential bloggers, you’ll increase your backlinks and reap the rewards it yields. Discover how many backlinks you need on page 1 and increase your online visibility.

4. Blogger Outreach Services help Increase Trust and Credibility

Earning trust from customers is challenging, particularly for online businesses. Nevertheless, when a high authority or reliable blog promotes your products or services on their site, your potential customers are more likely to trust the brand. Therefore, by hiring an influencer in your niche market, you can establish trust and credibility, which helps build loyal relationships for your brand, resulting in more sales and engagement. To manage influencer partnerships and outreach roles effectively, especially when working with remote teams, platforms like Wisemonk can support compliant hiring, contracts, and payroll, allowing brands to focus on building authentic relationships and growing credibility.

5. Blogger Outreach Services Are Cost-Effective

Marketing is a fundamental part of any business, but you need to be heedful and not invest too many resources into it; you won’t see the returns. Luckily, blogger outreach is a cost-effective promotional strategy that can help you boost your marketing and SEO strategy. You’ll reach your intended audience through the influencer’s work without spending too much. 

Best Blogger Outreach Services You Can Consider in 2026

1. OutreachPete

One of the best blogger outreach services that will make your outreach campaigns easy is the OutreachPete. These providers deliver a reliable, stress-free solution to build links at a competitive price. In addition, every link published from this site is within a niche-relevant post on a relevant site, ensuring that you get the absolute best placement for your money.

Unlike other blogger outreach services, OutreachPete ensures that every site they work on generates organic traffic. It defeats DA, DR, TF, or any other metric as it demonstrates that Google values the site. In addition to adding DA, DR, and organic traffic, they look further into traffic patterns to ensure no big drops.

You will be assigned a dedicated account manager if you take up a monthly subscription. The manager will work with you monthly to understand your needs and ensure they are always met.

The pricing plan starts at $140 per month, but depending on your desired services, you can choose others priced at $200 and $270. 

2. Rhino Rank

Another excellent outreach provider that will bolster your rankings, drive traffic, and improve your revenue is the Rhino Rank. They will help you find relevant content for your project or site at a relatively affordable price. Amazingly, they specialize in SEO results and ensure you have significant experience working with them. 

Rhino Rank provides guest posts and curated links to help increase your site’s rankings on search engine result pages. Most significantly, it offers more curated link services, which is the unique offering they are known for. Additionally, they will provide complete control of their link-building service. You can pick the URLs you want to boost, insert your niche, and add anchor texts.

If you select Rhino Rank services, you will receive the services for as low as $95 as your initial investment. With this investment, you can enjoy the unique and high-quality services that this company has to offer.

3. Outreach Desk

One of the most relationship-focused blogger outreach services you can trust is Outreach Desk. This provider operates on the philosophy “We Define Success Through Connections,” making them stand out from agencies that treat outreach as mere transactions. They position themselves as architects of digital relationships, building authentic partnerships with bloggers and website owners.

Unlike traditional services that rely on mass email blasts, Outreach Desk invests time in cultivating real editorial relationships with influential bloggers in your niche. Every outreach campaign is personalized and manual, ensuring that your brand collaborates with bloggers who genuinely resonate with your target audience.

What sets them apart is their commitment to quality over quantity. They specialize in blogger outreach, guest posting, and strategic link placements on high-authority blogs. Their white-hat SEO practices ensure all efforts comply with search engine guidelines, protecting your site while building sustainable organic growth.

If you take up their services, you will receive transparent reporting with full visibility into campaign progress. They offer flexible packages tailored to your specific business goals and budget.

The pricing structure varies depending on the domain authority and niche relevance of the bloggers you want to connect with, ensuring every investment builds meaningful relationships that deliver lasting value.

4. OutreachMama

OutreachMama offers two link-building services: a pure outreach package and a guest posting one. The most popular option is pure outreach, which works more like a PR service than an SEO agency. 

This link-building service involves strategy design, pitching, prospecting, outreach, high-quality content creation, reply handling, attaining links, and reporting. It is meant to help you grow your link profile and keep your site in line with Google’s evolving algorithm.

The Guest Posting Service gives you access to existing blogger connections from OutreachMama. Establishing these blogger connections is rigid and seeks to ensure they meet certain thresholds. Some necessary metrics include DR, DA, and organic traffic.

5. Ninja Outreach

Ninja Outreach is a web-based influencer outreach site that helps create thriving outreach campaigns. With a database of millions of users, you are guaranteed to find the best influences from different niches worldwide.

This outreach service provider filters through millions of influencers on different social media platforms, particularly on Instagram and YouTube, to find the ones that will capture your audience’s attention.

In addition, they will help manage your outreach or marketing campaigns through a built-in CRM. You can add team members, organize leads, filter results, and track your history. You can hire them to provide influencer marketing services if you have issues increasing your website’s search engine visibility.

6. LinkPitch.io

LinkPitch.io is a service provider that specializes in outreach-oriented link-building campaigns. Amazingly, they customize their services depending on each client’s needs. They mainly focus on building links that will, in the long run, impact your business or brand.  

They pride their services on their integrity and standard of quality. The price plan depends on the domain authority of the site linked to you, but they range from $100 to $350 per link.

7. Forward Linking

Forward Linking provides a customized link-building service that enables you to be featured on relevant and authoritative websites. This way, you can increase Google rankings, improve brand exposure, and boost levels of targeted organic traffic. In addition, they ensure that your site or brand is up-to-date with current trends in the digital marketing space and search engines. 

Forward Linking pledges absolute links and traffic. The best part is that all their outreach strategy can be described as transparent, personalized, relevant, ROI-focused, and long-term.

What to Consider Before Launching a Blogger Outreach Campaign

Before contacting influencers or bloggers, there are some primary considerations you must think about. Below are some of the significant factors you need to follow: 

1. Set a Clear Goal

Before launching your blogger outreach campaign, you must identify what you want to achieve from the campaign. Whatever goals you set will largely depend on the resources you have. 

We recommend choosing a goal that’s measurable and trackable. For instance, you can publish at least three posts every month in the beginning or increase your site’s traffic by ten percent in the next couple of months. 

Under this section, you must decide if you will do all the outreach yourself or contact an agency to help offer courses for beginners. That said, it’s necessary to note that doing it yourself can take much longer, especially if you are just starting. 

2. Have Detailed Success Criteria

This step is similar to setting goals, but it’s more specific. For instance, if you set a goal to increase your audience in the next couple of months, you need to state what you need to do to achieve this goal. For instance, to improve your audience successfully, you need to boost engagement, create relevant and valuable content, and share on social media.

3. Find the Right Bloggers

Identifying the influences or bloggers you will use is also essential. Remember, not every influencer or blogger you will contact will say yes; therefore, you need a long list of prospects you want to work with. Using a social accounts lookup can help you find and verify the influencers’ active social profiles, making your outreach more targeted and effective.

With thousands of blogs in different niches, finding one that can help make a difference in your business is challenging. When researching or selecting bloggers, we recommend picking them based on the following criteria:

1. Find one from your niche
2. Check how long they’ve been in the blogging business
3. Their writing tone
4. Their follower count
5.  Level of engagement they get from their audience.

You can successfully find bloggers using Google, social media, SEO tools, or Content Explorer. The main goal is to find quality bloggers relevant to your niche.

4. Connect With the Blogger on the Social Web

Before contacting the influence or blogger for a collaboration, you should consider following them or connecting with them on social media. This way, you can evaluate how well they perform. 

As you research bloggers, take notes on their content and personality. You can use this information to create prospect descriptions. Prospect descriptions make personalized pitches feel more organic.

5. Email the Prospect 

When you are sure you are okay working with a specific blogger, it’s time to email them. Most influencers or bloggers will have their email addresses on social media platforms. If not, you can use paid email lookup services to help you contact them.

 Now that you have their email addresses, you can contact them to begin the process. Remember to write personalized emails where possible and put extra effort into those VIP bloggers.

Blog Outreach Best Practices to Consider

1. Introducing yourself and your brand is always a good idea when contacting potential bloggers. Then, you can explain why they would be interested in featuring your product or service on their site.
2. Always offer high-quality content. Wherever posts you post on your site, be it a guest post, sponsored post, or simply helpful information, it needs to be relevant and well-written.
3. Be patient. Most bloggers and influencers are busy, so they might take time to respond to your request. So don’t be disheartened if you don’t hear back right away.
4. Follow up. After you have sent the initial email, follow up with emails or reach out to the blogger/influencer on social media.
5. When communicating with the prospect, you should always be professional. Keep in mind you are representing your brand.

Conclusion

With the right blogger outreach service, you can increase backlinks, organic traffic, and sales. However, choosing the right provider isn’t as easy as it seems. It all comes down to your budget, expertise, and the current state of your site.

Hopefully, this blog post will help you reach your final decision. In addition, the above services can help you launch your outreach campaigns and achieve greater success. Best yet, they can help you build relationships with the right influencers in your niche.

Featured Image source: similarweb.com

1. Keyword Optimize your content.

2. High quality content.

3. Structure your content well.

4. Seek the featured snippets.

5. Optimize your Page Titles.

6. Optimize Your Meta descriptions.

7. Keep your URLs short, tidy, and readable (memorable?).

8. Get backlinks and Niche Edits from high-authority sites.

9. Optimize your page speed.

10. Add internal links to your content.

11. Add high-quality – high authority external links to your content.

12. Use high-quality and well-optimized visuals.

13. Do a technical site audit often.

14. Audit your content often.

15. Study the competition to find content gaps.

16. Study the competition to find link gaps.

17. Reduce your bounce rate.

18. Remove dead non-trafficked pages.

19. Use related keywords in your content.

20. Update old content.

21. Leverage SEO tools for unseen wins or optimizations and to track SEO KPIs.

22. Leverage blogger outreach to find guest post opportunities.

23. Improve organic CTR (Found on Google Search Console).

With backlinks being one of the leading Google ranking factors, link building has become very popular with every industry. Most marketers are desperate to grow their brand’s backlink profile and will do anything to gain authoritative links. However, there is a fine line between how you should and shouldn’t build your links, and it can drastically impact your Google rankings. That’s where white-hat link building comes in.

What Is White Hat Link Building?

White hat link building is an SEO approach that uses search engine optimization techniques to drive traffic to a site. Unlike the other link-building strategies, white hat aligns with Google’s webmaster guidelines and is least likely to generate a Google penalty that affects a site’s search engine rankings. 

White hat strategies can be slower than other link-building forms, but they focus on long-term search engine optimization results. 

White Hat vs. Black Hat vs. Grey Hat Link Building

White, gray, and black hat link-building strategies aim to help a site rank. 

• White hat link building is an ethical and honest way to optimize your site. It follows Google’s guidelines, but it might take longer to work. It involves developing original, high-quality content, legitimate link-building through relationships or guest blogging and creating a valuable user experience on your website. This approach will help Google find, index, and rank your site.
• Black hat link building: This strategy works faster than the white hat form but goes against Google guidelines and is more of a short-term plan. With this strategy, you use tactics that can work until they don’t. 

The tactics employed here may bring some wins, but they also come with high risks, as Google can penalize you for using them. Therefore, if you plan to achieve long-term goals for your business, it’s best to avoid these strategies altogether. 

Some Black hat backlink techniques include spamming blog comments with links to your website, purchasing low-quality backlinks, and writing low-quality guest posts.

• Gray hat link building uses techniques that are not strictly against Google’s guidelines but are outside what would be considered best practices.

For instance, if you contact an authoritative site and request them to link your site and ask for a fee, that is considered gray hat link building. Requesting a site to link to your site is a white-hat outreach strategy, but it’s against Google’s guidelines to pay for it. 

5 Benefits of White Hat Link Building

1. For better website ranking

Besides following search engine rules and policies, white hat linking guarantees safer and solid ranking results. Although the results are slower and may take longer on the surface, they will become steady over time.

The best way to get a better ranking is to create insightful content. You can invite guest bloggers to create content for your site to attract traffic and build relationships with people in the industry. 

2. Build Brand and Site Authority

White hat link building will also help you build your brand and site authority. Since Google uses backlinks to signal that your site publishes high-quality content and is relevant, the links tell Google that you are the authority in the space.

The more authority you have, the more likely search engines will rank your website for keywords associated with your niche.

Additionally, a white hat helps you build trust with Google, which then helps build trust with your audiences or potential clients. These links can also help provide third-party credibility. 

3. Drive More Traffic to Your Website

Despite helping you rank higher in SERPs, the White hat will also help you increase traffic to your website. You select a network of sites that direct audiences to your website when you build high-quality links. 

When recognized as reliable sources, these sites transfer their authority and audiences to you. Google notices this, and the SERPs reflect that. Having a higher spot on SERPs means better site exposure, which could boost traffic and expand your customer reach.

4. Save Money

Seeing results with black hat SEO takes a short time, but it uses much more resources than the white hat method. With the White hat method, you will require less Money and more time because search engines do not need to update security parameters regularly. Think of this strategy as a long-term investment. 

5. Improve Your Relationships With Other Websites

In most cases, you are required to reach out to other website owners and content managers to request for ask for links. Outreach is an opportunity to network and contribute to other people’s sites through guest blogs. You can continue to build upon all white-hat linking strategies with your new relationships.

For instance, if you have a great relationship with the manager or owner of a popular website, they will be willing to feature your site on their website or link to your content. This will help increase your website’s reputation, and you will likely rank on SERPs.

10 Techniques for White Hat Link Building In 2026

1. HARO Links

Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a free online service for journalists and bloggers to receive feedback from the public. It enables them to connect with experts on issues relevant to their reporting. With the proper techniques, HARO can help you obtain high-quality backlinks and build brand awareness for your PR efforts, regardless of your niche.

As the source, you must only sign up for daily queries from other bloggers or journalists looking for experts in different fields. Then, you will have the chance to respond to any queries that interest you. This will likely result in high-quality backlinks from seriously high-authority websites.

Acquiring backlinks via HARO is considered a white hat technique since it’s an honest way to get relevant links from high-quality sources. 

How to Use HARO for White-Hat Link Building

1. The first step is to go to www.helpareporter.com and sign up for an account as a source.
2. Look for queries that match your expertise or niche.
3. Reply to queries that are relevant to your niche.
4. Create replies that are original, informative, and on-topic.
5. Have a link to your website in your signature.
6. Observe the responses you submit and respond to any questions from journalists.

2. Niche Edits

Niche edits or curated links are links from other websites in your area of expertise that mention or link to your site. These links point back to your site, improving your overall link-building strategy. Niche editing involves obtaining permission from other site owners and authors to link your site’s content to theirs, achieved via a contextual backlink. 

There are usually three types of niche edits. The most organic type is the white hat approach. In simpler terms, this means manually reaching out to other site owners to exchange content value for a free link. 

Even though this process is time-consuming, there is a high chance of building lasting relationships with fellow bloggers, enabling you to approach them again in the future with much ease. 

How to Use Niche Edits for white hat Link Building

1. The first step involves finding websites or articles relevant to your niche. You can use SEO tools such as Ahrefs to see what sites link to your competitors.
2. Then, analyze and evaluate the relevance, authority, and traffic of the site you have picked. This will help you determine which sites or owners fit your link well.
3.  Reach out to the webmasters for your link placement. It is advisable to send them a personal email pitching your link.

3. Guest Post-White-Hat link building

Guest posting or blogging is another white hat SEO strategy that will help improve its SEO ranking score and visibility in the SERPs and drive targeted traffic to your website.

A guest post is a piece of content you create for a site with a similar niche to yours to be featured there and get your word out. Your post will contain a section about the author, where you can link to your sites.

However, it would be best to link with credible websites with high domain authority. You can use free link-building tools to find the best sites or contact respected publications.

How to Use Guest Posts for White Hat Link Building

1. Find good link-building opportunities from sites in your niche
2. Contact the webmasters and craft a pitch that’s impossible to ignore
3. Write a high-quality guest post
4. Add contextual links to the post and homepage link in your author bio
5. Reply to comments on your post

4. Broken White-Hat link building

Broken link-building is another effective and impactful white hat link-building technique that can help you earn high-quality and relevant backlinks from other sites. It involves finding a dead page and requesting linkers to switch the links to a working page on your site. The idea is that they will do this because they don’t want to send audiences to a dead resource.

How to Use Broken Link Building

1. Find broken pages with backlinks. You can use Ahrefs’ free backlink checker for this.
2. Identifying or creating high-quality content that is worth linking to
3. Conduct outreach to persuade a site owner to replace the dead link on their page with your page link

5. Press Releases

Press Releases or PR Link Building uses public relations approaches such as press releases and media pitching to get valuable editorial links that direct back to your site. This white hat SEO backlink-building approach is a critical component of a Digital PR strategy that will result in measurable and consistent high-quality traffic coming to your site from relevant links.

The goal is to present your site as a thought leader and pitch to influential online publications. This strategy can be used to extend your content marketing strategy, aiming to generate publicity.

How To Get Started with PR Link Building

1. Identifying the target audience for your digital PR strategy 
2. Research the content you will create to leave a mark on the audiences
3. Create relevant and high-quality content 
4. Outreach and promote your content. Here, you can reach out to website owners, publishers, bloggers, influencers, and journalists to help generate enough buzz around your content.  

6. Link Magnets

Link magnets are content assets created to acquire links. Instead of producing high-quality content and waiting for someone to link to you, link magnets incentivize other sites to link to you. This is an excellent strategy for attracting quality links, driving traffic to your site, and ranking higher on the search Engine Results Page (SERP).

Unlike the spam-oriented black hat link-building tactic, this white hat approach helps you acquire more links organically with minimal outreach. This saves time and helps get links from web pages that typically wouldn’t link to you.

Tips for making your site a Link Magnet

1. Write outstanding blog posts and place valuable resources on your webpage.
2. Create a section for news, trends, and tips on your page
3. Run an affiliate program for people in complementary businesses
4. Blog about issues that are controversial and people are passionate about
5. Create a forum on your website for your visitors to exchange ideas.

7. Content Promotion

Most of the white hat link-building strategies we have mentioned are low-volume approaches, but content promotion is quite the opposite. If you follow off-page SEO practices, you can quickly place many links on your site, resulting in a high volume of referral traffic and quick brand growth.

With this approach, you will create and publish unique content on your website. Then, reach out to several online media outlets, such as news stations or magazines. Then, request that they cover your content on their website. This strategy will showcase your brand’s expertise and help to build its authority in your niche.

Content Promotion Tactics and Tips 

1. Know who you’re creating content for
2. Research and create content that is relevant to your audiences
3. Research Your Competitors and tackle their best-performing topics
4. Promote your content

8. Commenting on Authority Blogs

Blog commenting is a simple yet effective strategy that lets others know about your site. It involves publishing blog comments that link to a site or post. You can include the links in the comment or as a link behind your name.

When you leave a relevant and insightful comment on a blog post, you create a noteworthy connection with the site’s owner and the audience. Blog commenting helps you build online relationships with webmasters with authority sites, who then share backlinks to your site.

Tips on How to Write Comments for Your White-Hat link building Strategy

1. Add valuable stuff to the conversation.
2. Comment early
3. Don’t over-promote yourself.
4. Do you disagreeable or agree with the comments
5. Please include links to external references where they will be most helpful.

9. Reciprocal White-Hat link building

Reciprocal linking is another simple white-hat link-building tactic. It occurs when two or more site owners agree to link to each other on their sites. This kind of linking makes up a large portion of earned backlinks because you are trading outbound links for inbound links to your website.

However, you must know that not all sites are willing to engage in this kind of linking, especially if your site lacks authority.

How to Use Reciprocal Linking for White-Hat Link-Building

1. Make sure the link is to relevant content
2. Ensure the linking content adds value
3. Check SEO metrics of the linking site
4. Build authentic relationships

10. Podcasts Features

Lastly, Guest podcast features are a perfect way to get more white-hat links for your website. Since most brands and companies use podcasts, it shouldn’t be hard to find one you can feature.

 The good thing is that you don’t need to feature in podcasts only within your niche. You could also feature in podcasts that concentrate on your job role, demographics, life events, etc. 

When asked to feature in a podcast, request a free backlink in the podcast notes in exchange for your time. You could also use this and mention your brand as you speak.

Ways to Find a Podcast for Your White-Hat Link Building

1. Use Google to search for the “best of” lists.
2. Use a podcast newsletter.
3. Use social media platforms like Twitter to search for a specific topic.
4. Using niche podcast discovery apps

Final Take: White Hat link building Strategy

Gray and black hat link-building strategies are tempting since they are speedier and require less work. However, white hat strategies are the best ethical option for a long-term strategy with no risk. 

Hopefully, this guide has given you a better understanding of white hat SEO and provided insight into some link-building techniques you can use.

If you have been involved in search engine optimization (SEO) for over a few years, you have undoubtedly witnessed a dramatic change in keyword research. Early on, obtaining keywords with a high search volume and little competition on search engines was at the top of the keyword research checklist.

As a result, few websites competed for the exact keywords, making creating a keyword research checklist simple. However, as more businesses entered the fray and the level of competition increased, it became harder to find high-volume, low-competition keywords.

Good SEO relies on getting your site to rank for the appropriate keywords, but how can you choose which ones to target? Or even how to rank for them? Well, we got you.

In this keyword research checklist guide, we’ll show you how to find opportunities to rank for terms your audience searches for that your competitors are ignoring.

So, let’s dive right in.

What is Keyword Research?

Keyword research is locating and analyzing search phrases or words that people are searching for in search engines. The idea is to use this information to determine which keywords will help your SEO and marketing campaigns.

Specifically, effective keyword research aims to identify target audiences’ inquiries and the frequency, difficulty, and intent of these searches. By adequately understanding your audience, you can optimize your content with the right keywords, aiding your content marketing strategy and approach.

The Definitive Keyword Research Checklist You Need to Rank in 2026

The cornerstone of SEO is keywords. No matter how hard you try, Google traffic won’t come to your site if no one is looking for what you’re writing about. Using a keyword research checklist helps guarantee that you are taking all the necessary steps to achieve your desired outcomes.

Additionally, you can use the checklist to ensure you have entered the appropriate keywords to increase website traffic and sales. Furthermore, it might save you time by making it simple to identify and fix any mistakes you made while conducting your research.

Look at the keyword research checklist for success in 2026 without further ado.

1. Study Your Niche

You need to understand your specialty before looking for and researching the ideal keywords for your website and content that you can rank for. It is impossible to sell everything to everyone.

Even big corporations target particular populations or demographic groups despite having thousands of items in their mix. You must identify and target your niche as a new business owner.

How to Understand and Determine Your Niche

1. Determine your hobbies and interests: The first step is to identify your passions and areas of interest. What do you like to do the most in your spare time? If your current job is tedious, you might consider changing careers. A new career might be challenging to establish and sustain, but the more you value your work, the easier it will be to keep motivation.
2. Identify problems you can solve: Any company or service’s principal objective is to address a problem for its clientele. Spend time coming up with ideas and researching the market. You may generate some prospective ideas for free by using Google Trends.
3. Determine the profitability of your niche: Get a sense of how much money you could make in your niche; this is crucial.
4. Gather feedback: If you’re uncertain, talk to people. Family members or coworkers can offer opinions and insights. Ask the people who could become your customers about their unique demands. 
5. Test your ideas: Testing your niche is the most significant approach to determining if it is correct. Create a website, or visit different business fairs to promote your ideas and see if people are interested in the products.

2. Know Your Audience

To succeed with SEO, you must have a solid understanding of your audience and their needs. Regardless of your SEO technique, if you understand your audience, you will know which keywords are pertinent to them.

Ways to Define Your Target Audience for Your Keyword Research Checklist 

1. Understand your current customer demographics: If you want to determine who your SEO strategy should target, it is prudent to begin with your present customers.
2. Use social insights: It is highly likely that the audience you’ve attracted on social media is intrigued by the goods or services you provide. Using the insights provided by your social media platforms can be a terrific approach to finding out more about your audience.
3. Study the SERPs: Although it may seem easy, analyzing the SERPs can help you identify the audience you should be targeting.

Read Also: How to Use SERP Analysis for Keyword Research and Content Creation

3. Define Your SEO Goals

You don’t just start searching for keywords randomly without first deciding your SEO objectives. SEO objectives are essential since they will give your plan a clear direction and enable you to concentrate more on your aim. You won’t be forced to fumble your way through in the dark. With goals, you can track your development objectively and correct courses if necessary.

While conducting keyword research, you aim to rank for specific phrases in your industry, increase traffic, and expand your business. Because your intention is clear and focused, you can figure out how to achieve it.

Read Also: SEO Tips to Help Your Rank Higher

You’re prepared to begin researching your primary keyword lists now that your niche and objectives have been identified.

4. Research Primary Keyword

Whether a page can draw visitors depends on the keyword you use on each page. Since pages with carefully selected keywords are more likely to draw visitors to your site, keyword research is crucial.

You must consider, select, and research the phrase or term that best describes your company. These key phrases can refer to a product or a service. Recognizing and examining the search engine terms that people search for is critical. Again, you need to ensure that they are relevant to the content you create on your website.

As a general guideline, your site’s primary keywords should be spread throughout the text and targeted to a larger audience. Your primary keywords should appear in the main title, headings, subheadings, anchor links, and first and final lines. You should include no less than one or two primary keywords on each page.

Tips on Choosing Keywords for Your Keyword Research Checklist 

1. Consider yourself a customer: When making your initial list of keywords, you must decide who your target market is and imagine yourself as a consumer. Consider what you’d put into Google to find your product or services.
2. Utilize keyword research tools: Use keyword research tools to look up prospective target keywords. With tools like SEMRUSH and Raven, you can obtain information on keyword traffic and trends, keyword competitiveness, related keywords, and more.
3. Examine the outcomes: After selecting your keywords, track them and evaluate the results and unique keywords your competitors might utilize.

Remember to include your primary keywords in blog articles, social media postings, metatags, and content on your website. Your target audience will find you more quickly if you frequently employ keywords.

5. Find Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords are search terms with comparatively little competition and search volume. Additionally, compared to most other keyword classifications, long-tail keywords typically have a length of 3+ words.

These exact keywords align with what a searcher would type in. Search volume is often relatively low for these keywords, but the potential conversion rate is significant. Creating high-quality content focusing on long-tail keywords will boost your website’s long-lasting SEO. 

To perform keyword research, competitor analysis, Pay-per-click research  (PPC ), and backlink research, you can utilize SEO tools like SEMrush or KWFinder. Additionally, you can use Google Suggest to look for long-tail keywords on the web.

How to Identify Long-Tail Keywords

1. Directly examine Google’s autocomplete suggestions: Simply typing a broad phrase into Google or another search engine) Checking the autocomplete options is a smart way to gather a list of long-tail keywords.
2. Google users are increasingly submitting questions instead of statements in their searches. Make sure to include some long-tail questions that start with modifiers like “what,” “how,” “where,” etc. when coming up with long-tail questions that your target audience might ask. When evaluating long-tail keywords in your preferred SEO tools, these words will undoubtedly frequently emerge as they reveal individuals’ unique problems.
3. Add qualifiers to short-tail keywords: Try reinforcing your keywords with qualifying terms relevant to your brand, products, or content. 
4. Analyze the gaps: To determine which subject areas and long-tail keywords to focus on on your pages, you must analyze the content of your website for topics that you are not currently addressing or performing strongly for.

6. Analyze Keyword Intent

The reason a user types a specific query into a search engine is called search intent or keyword intent. The motivation leads the user to use terms or keywords to search for information on the internet. It is essential to SEO because it enables you to understand the keyword’s intent.

Understanding user intent lets you choose the most relevant keywords for your initiatives and content. User intent is typically expressed as a search query entered into a search engine to find concrete answers.

There are three types: navigational, informational, and commercial.

1. Informational intent: The user wishes to learn more about a topic without intent to buy a product. For instance, one could look for how to walk a dog or What Google EAT Is.
2. Navigational intent: This keyword includes the name of a business or brand, and the searcher is looking for the appropriate website or web page. For instance, Facebook login or Netflix signup
3. Commercial intent: These keywords, or transactional intent, are used by people ready to purchase a product. They are also used by searchers looking for more information about a product before buying it, for instance, used vehicles for sale near me or the best laptops for gaming.

Therefore, it is possible that you won’t rank for your keyword if you only consider query volume and neglect search intent. Even if you manage to rank on search engine results pages (SERPs), the fact that your page does not correspond with the searchers’ intent will result in a negative user experience and a higher bounce rate.

Read Also: Top 10 Best SEO Practices to Dominate the SERPs

7. Research Related Search Terms or Competitive Keywords 

Checking out the related search terms at the bottom of a Google search result page is another excellent tactic to aid in understanding your keywords and target market.

If you are having trouble thinking of more keywords that people might be searching for related to your particular issue, you should use this method. These suggestions might provide you with some other keyword ideas to think about, after which you can use the methods described in the earlier sections to conduct keyword research.

8. Understand Your Competition 

Knowing who your competitors are, how they are doing, and why may be quite beneficial when attempting to improve SEO.

Using SEO software like Semrush, you can compare your website directly to your competitors, making it simple to see where you excel and fall short. A wise strategy is to get a list of your top-performing rivals’ keywords and track them frequently.

Knowing how your competitors are doing is helpful since it might help you identify the keywords they aren’t utilizing so you can outrank them. It’s vital to remember that any successful company will probably use these similar strategies; therefore, to compete and rank, you must continue to maintain and analyze your keyword research.

Read Also: Build a B2B Content Marketing Strategy

9. Update and Refresh Content

Consumer preferences change over time. You should update your keyword research and renew your content as often as necessary. Remember that your competitors monitor current changes, trending subjects, and popular issues and adjust as necessary.

Use the terms you’ve researched to naturally reference your products and services in your post. Maintain it as close to the top of the page as you can. Just write for real humans rather than just Google when you do so.

Conclusion

If you desire to succeed online, your keyword research efforts must be prioritized. Knowing which keywords are most relevant to your business can help ensure that your site shows up prominently in search engine results pages, generating traffic and leads.

Effective keyword research can be difficult and time-consuming, though. However, if you adhere to the comprehensive keyword research checklist for 2026 provided above and these SEO tips, your SEO efforts will be successful, and you will be well on your way to more significant positions on SERPs.

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, you cannot overstate the importance of link-building withinsearch engine optimization (SEO) strategies. Yet, executing a successful link-building campaign demands time, expertise, and resources that some businesses do not possess. Outsourcing link-building steps are a valuable solution. It taps into the skills and resources of external professionals, allowing companies to enhance their website’s visibility, authority, and organic traffic. In this blog post, we delve into the intricacies of outsourcing link-building and provide practical tips for achieving success in 2026.

What is Outsourced Link Building?

Outsourced link building refers to enlisting external professionals or agencies to manage and acquire backlinks for a website. It entails entrusting experts with specialized knowledge and resources to identify, prospect, and secure high-quality backlinks.

The advantage is clear: businesses can leverage the expertise of professionals well-versed in SEO strategies with established relationships with relevant websites. The ultimate goal is to enhance the website’s search engine rankings, authority, and organic traffic.

How to Successfully Outsource Link Building: Actionable Steps

1. Define Your Objectives and Budget

Before embarking on outsourcing link building, it’s crucial to articulate your objectives. Determine your aim, whether it’s higher search engine rankings, increased organic traffic, or enhanced brand visibility. Set a budget that aligns with your goals, ensuring a reasonable investment in outsourcing services. Clear objectives and a well-defined budget serve as guiding principles in decision-making.

2. Research Potential Providers

Conduct thorough keyword research to identify potential link-building service providers. Look for companies with a strong reputation, a proven track record, and positive client testimonials. Consider factors such as industry experience, expertise, and the types of clients they have worked with.

Delve into their website, case studies, and client portfolio to gauge their capabilities and the quality of their work. This research phase is critical to identifying reliable outsourcing partners aligned with your requirements and goals.

3. Assess Strategies and Techniques

During the evaluation process, inquire about the link-building strategies and techniques the outsourcing provider employs. Ensure their methods align with ethical practices and comply with search engine guidelines. Steer clear of providers that resort to black-hat tactics, as these can lead to penalties and harm your website’s reputation.

Ask about their approach to prospecting, outreach, content creation, and relationship building. Understanding their strategies helps gauge their effectiveness and alignment with your brand values and goals.

4. Request Sample Work

Request samples or case studies showcasing the outsourcing provider’s previous campaigns. Examine the acquired backlinks, their sources, and their impact on SEO rankings and organic traffic. Look for a diverse range of high-quality backlinks from reputable websites within your industry. These samples offer valuable insights into the provider’s ability to deliver results and generate positive client outcomes.

5. Communication and Transparency

Establish clear and open lines of communication with the outsourcing provider. Effective communication ensures aligned expectations, tracks progress, and prompts addressing concerns or questions. Ensure the provider maintains transparency in reporting and performance metrics.

Regularly provide updates and reports on the progress of the website and link-building campaign. This transparency aids in monitoring the effectiveness of the efforts and making informed decisions.

6. Set Clear Expectations

Communicate your expectations regarding the quality of backlinks, target websites, anchor texts, and any specific requirements you may have. Outline your preferred link-building strategies, the types of websites you want to be associated with, and the relevance of the backlinks to your industry or niche. Clear guidelines ensure the outsourcing provider understands your needs and delivers outcomes aligned with your brand and objectives.

7. Monitor Progress and Results

Monitor the progress and outcomes of the link-building campaign regularly. Request regular reports from the outsourcing provider, including details of acquired backlinks, their sources, and their impact on search engine rankings and traffic.

Utilize analytics SEO audit tools to help you track your website’s performance and assess the effectiveness of link-building efforts. Monitoring progress allows for identifying areas for improvement, making data-driven decisions, and assurance that the campaign stays on track to achieve its objectives.

8. Build Long-term Relationships

Consider cultivating long-term relationships with outsourcing providers, consistently delivering quality results. Link-building is an ongoing process, and maintaining a robust partnership ensures continuity and an improved understanding of your brand and goals over time.

Long-term collaborations foster better communication, enhanced knowledge sharing, and increased efficiency in link-building efforts. Building relations based on trust and mutual understanding can lead to highly effective and sustainable outcomes for your SEO and link-building strategies.

Types of Companies That Commonly Outsource Link Building

1. Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (SMBs)

SMBs often require more resources and expertise than they have in-house. Outsourcing allows them to access specialized services and leverage the knowledge and experience of professionals without needing a dedicated in-house team.

2. Startups

Startups, especially those in highly competitive industries, may outsource link building to establish their online presence and boost visibility quickly. Outsourcing helps startups leverage the expertise of professionals and acquire valuable backlinks from authoritative sources.

3. E-commerce Businesses

E-commerce businesses rely heavily on organic search traffic to drive sales. Outsourcing link building enables them to enhance their website’s search engine rankings, increase brand visibility, and attract more potential clients to their online stores.

4. Digital Marketing Agencies

Digital marketing agencies often outsource link building to streamline their services and expand their capabilities. Outsourcing permits them to focus on their core competencies while partnering with specialized link-building providers to deliver comprehensive SEO solutions to their clients.

5. Professional Service Providers

Outsourcing link-building can benefit companies offering professional services like law firms, marketing firms, accounting firms, consulting agencies, and medical practices. By acquiring high-quality backlinks, they can establish themselves as industry experts and attract clients who value their expertise.

6. Content Publishers and Media Websites

Content publishers, news websites, and media outlets often outsource link building to increase their website’s authority, reach, and visibility. Acquiring backlinks from reputable sources can help them attract more readers and improve their online presence.

7. Marketers

Marketers who rely on website traffic to generate revenue often outsource link building to enhance their website’s visibility and attract a larger audience. They use the best content planner for more visibility, leading to higher conversions and increased earnings.

8. International Companies

Companies operating globally or targeting international markets may outsource link-building to local experts who deeply understand the target market’s preferences, trends, and authoritative websites.

Outsourcing Link Building Mistakes to Avoid

1. Not Conducting Proper Research

One of the biggest mistakes is not conducting thorough research when selecting an outsourcing provider. Failing to research their reputation, track record, and expertise can lead to partnering with an unreliable or inexperienced provider, resulting in ineffective link-building efforts.

2. Ignoring Relevance and Context

To increase your SEO rankings, backlinks should be relevant to your industry or niche. Outsourcing providers must understand your brand and target audience to acquire relevant backlinks. Failing to prioritize relevance and context can lead to backlinks that do not contribute to your website’s authority or generate targeted traffic.

3. Not Monitoring Progress and Results

Outsourcing link-building doesn’t mean relinquishing all responsibility. Failing to monitor the progress and results of the campaign can result in missed opportunities and an inability to make data-driven decisions. Regularly review reports, track key metrics, and assess the impact of the acquired backlinks.

4. Relying Solely on Quantity

Quantity should always be within the quality of link building. Some outsourcing providers may focus on acquiring a high volume of backlinks without considering their quality or relevance. Prioritize acquiring an average number of high-quality backlinks rather than many low-quality ones.

5. Not Establishing Clear Expectations

Clear expectations and guidelines are essential when outsourcing link building. Failing to communicate your objectives, target websites, preferred anchor texts, and other specific requirements can lead to misalignment and subpar results. Ensure that the outsourcing provider understands and adheres to your expectations.

Pros Of Outsourced Link Building

1. Expertise

Outsourcing link-building allows you to tap into the specialized expertise of professionals well-versed in SEO strategies, link-building techniques, and industry best practices.

2. Time and Resource Efficiency

Outsourcing frees up your website’s internal resources, allowing your team to focus on core business activities while external experts handle link-building tasks. It saves you time and effort in keyword researching, prospecting, and outreach.

3. Access to Networks and Relationships

Reputable outsourcing providers have established networks and relationships with authoritative websites, bloggers, and influencers. This provides valuable opportunities for acquiring high-quality backlinks from trusted sources.

4. Scalability and Flexibility

Outsourcing link building offers scalability, allowing you to adjust the level of outsourcing based on your needs. Whether you require more support during peak periods or want to scale down during slower times, outsourcing allows flexibility in managing your link-building efforts.

5. Cost-effectiveness

Outsourcing link-building can be more cost-effective than building and maintaining an in-house team. You save on recruitment, training, salaries, benefits, and overhead costs associated with having dedicated employees.

6. Continuous Adaptation and Learning

Outsourcing to professionals ensures that your link-building efforts stay current with the evolving SEO practices. They adapt to changes in search engine algorithms, industry trends, and best practices, allowing your website to maintain its competitive edge.

7. Reduced Risk and Increased Security

Outsourcing link building to reputable providers reduces the risk of employing unethical or spam links that could harm your website’s reputation. Trustworthy outsourcing partners adhere to ethical practices and prioritize the long-term success of your SEO efforts.

Cons Of Outsourced Link Building

1. Quality Control

Outsourcing link-building means giving up some control over the quality of acquired backlinks. Not all outsourcing providers may adhere to the same quality standards, potentially resulting in low-quality or spammy backlinks that could harm your website’s reputation and search engine rankings.

2. Lack of Brand Understanding

External link-building providers may not fully grasp your brand, industry, or target audience as intimately as an in-house team would. This can impact the relevance and effectiveness of the acquired backlinks, as they may need to align better with your brand’s positioning and goals.

3. Communication Challenges

When working with an external team, communication can sometimes be challenging. Misunderstandings or delays in communication may lead to inefficiencies, missed opportunities, or misalignment of expectations. Establishing clear communication channels and maintaining open lines of communication is crucial to mitigate these challenges.

4. Dependency on External Providers

Businesses depend on external providers when outsourcing link-building efforts. If the relationship with the outsourcing partner becomes strained or the provider’s performance declines, it can disrupt the continuity and effectiveness of the link-building campaign.

5. Limited Control over Strategies

Outsourcing link-building may limit your ability to have direct control over the strategies and approaches used. You must trust the expertise of the outsourced team and hope that their methods align with your expectations and ethical standards.

Conclusion on How to Outsource Link Building

Outsourcing SEO link-building emerges as a valuable strategy for businesses aiming to enhance their online presence and improve search engine rankings. By leveraging the expertise and resources of external professionals, companies can benefit from specialized knowledge, time efficiency, and access to networks. However, it is crucial to carefully select reputable outsourcing partners, communicate effectively, monitor progress, and prioritize quality. With the right approach, outsourcing link-building can contribute positively to the success of an SEO campaign.

It’s always amazing how a good tool can make your life much easier. The same applies to SEO tools. On that same note, there’s nothing like a Google update to leave you gasping and struggling when you think you’ve mastered everything. We have all been there.

And that is when a good SEO tool comes in handy, with many of the entries below being free to use while some are paid for but have free plans.

We have selected our best 7 SEO tools below, which you can use in various cases to help your site rank better. Of course, combine them with our list of SEO tips to achieve massive success. Nevertheless, the tools are easy to use and will eventually lead to more organic search clicks and better conversions if you properly use them.

Additionally, they have plenty of overlapping functionalities. You do not have to use them all. Read on!

1) Google Analytics

Setting up your Google Analytics account will help you better understand your website visitors, the content they want to see from your site, and how they behave when browsing it. It also allows you to monitor your online business traffic. Additionally, with this free SEO tool, you can prove your content marketing return on investment thanks to the well-detailed reports it provides on various SEO KPIs.

This is one of the best free SEO tools that give you access to data like:

• Whether your traffic came from a mobile device or desktop.
• The number of leads converted.
• Information about visitors, e.g., where they live.
• The overall amount of traffic your site gets.
• The websites your traffic comes from.

This tool updates and compiles all the SEO data centrally, making access easier. Therefore, you can use queries to narrow down which areas require improvement. You can also use suggested keywords in your keyword optimization to rank your desired content.

Utilize this tool to understand and improve your SEO by:

a) Determining Engagement Metrics

Using site content reports, you can easily view engagement metrics on your web pages. You can also view factors like page exit metrics, engagement for the directories and pages on your website, acquisition, behavior, and conversion of landing pages.

b) Filtering Referral Traffic

Google Analytics data helps you to filter out the traffic that can ruin your SEO reports. Fake traffic, bots, and unusual bounce traffic are some of the culprits in this case.

c) Reviewing the Multi-Channel Report’s Assistant Conversion Feature

This free tool explains how your channels work together to create conversions and subsequent sales and the value they bring to your business. For example, after searching for your brand on Google, people might order from your website, leading to conversions that Google Analytics can track.

d) Comparing Organic and Non-organic Website Traffic

Organic traffic gives long-lasting results, while non-organic traffic is suitable for driving immediate traffic to specific landing pages through paid sources like pay-per-click ads. Organic traffic is a term used to describe the visitors who visit your page due to unpaid search results.

2) Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a helpful tool that helps you conduct a preliminary SEO analysis from square one. Additionally, it is one of the best free SEO tools for conducting SEO analysis. Updating your existing SEO strategy will be easier since it has free keyword research tools. After all, all the Google search console tools ensure you can rank for search engines in terms of the long tail keywords your audience is looking for.

Image Credit: www.linkedin.com

Google Search Console can be linked to Google Analytics for a better experience, especially if you are a marketer and require a complete guide to small business SEO. You can also easily monitor, debug, and optimize your website.

Google Search Console data can help you to optimize the following website elements:

a) Google Index

You can use this tool to see how many of your pages are on Google’s Index search results. If your pages aren’t on this index, you can use a URL inspection tool to submit the pages you want indexed on your website.

b) Keywords

The tool is perfect for learning about the current ranking keywords. In addition, the Google Keyword Planner will help you search and determine the topics customers are searching for. Using this data, you can tailor your content according to keyword suggestions on Google Trends.

c) Mobile-Friendliness

The best SEO tools allow mobile responsiveness since most people now search for products and information from their phones. Using the data Google Search Console provides you with, you can improve the mobile experience for your users.

d) Crawl Errors

Of course, there’s no perfect software, so debugging is recommended. For example, has a server error ever popped up when searching for something? This means that the server is taking too long to respond.

The search engine bots trying to crawl your site will only wait for the duration of the request and then give up trying to load your site. The Google Search Console will boost your SEO performance by identifying the crawl errors and validating them to be fixed.

3) Bing Webmaster Tools

Microsoft’s Bing search engine allows SEO content creators to see how their web pages perform. Bing has unique SEO tools, such as a backlink analysis tool that helps you analyze referring domains, pages, and anchor texts. You can also use the keyword research tool to find the relevant keywords and their corresponding search volume.

A Site Scan feature is an audit tool that crawls your site and checks for common and technical SEO issues. The issues and errors across your website are compiled in an SEO report. Additionally, the Bing URL submission for the WordPress SEO plugin enables automated submissions from your WordPress site to the Bing index.

With Webmaster tools and guidelines, you can easily cover various topics. Additionally, you can easily get your website indexed and discovered on Bing using on-page SEO.

4) Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Whether you employ this SEO tool for personal use or you have a small business, it is perfect for rank tracking and auditing. Additionally, this crawler gathers critical insight data to help your content rank well on Google’s search results. Screaming Frog is an excellent SERP analysis tool that contains all the details to give you a successful organic SEO experience.

It can also do the following:

a) Analyze Page Titles and Meta Tags

If you have page titles and meta-tag errors, this tool will help you analyze them during a crawl. It can identify too short, too long, duplicated, low-content pages, and missing instances on your site.

Moreover, you can see where broken links and 404 server errors are, which helps your link-building efforts. You can then correct the errors when you export the errors and source URLs to yourself or a web developer.

b) Generate XML Sitemaps

You can quickly generate an XML sitemap by uploading URLs using this DIY SEO software. It should be easy since it has advanced configurations over URLs that can include last, priority, modified, and change frequency.

c) Audit Redirects

You can learn to identify redirect chains and loops with audit redirects or upload a list of your site’s URLs to audit in a site migration. It’s perfect if you migrate sites due to a hosting change or website redesign.

d) Crawl JavaScript Websites

You can render webpages to crawl dynamic JavaScript-rich frameworks and websites using Chromium WRS.

5) SEMrush

Image Source: semrush.com

SEMrush is the best SEO tool and one of the best paid SEO tools. It offers numerous features, and the best one is the SEO toolkit.

Additionally, it provides you with a rank tracker tool, and you can track your web page visibility and improvement with time. Through keyword research, you can also help your content rank for a particular keyword and other related keywords for local SEO.

With SEMrush, you also get the following:

a) Keyword Magic Tool

The magic keyword tool helps with keyword research, SEO metrics, and identifying all the keywords you need to build a solid SEO strategy.

b) Link Building

As you already know, link building is crucial for search engine optimization. SEMrush helps to build internal and external links – niche edits, blogger outreach links, and other types of backlinks – for a higher SEO score. Using this tool, you can also analyze backlinks from multiple other websites to your site.

c) See Competitor’s Strategies

This tool identifies the ad copy or paid keywords used in your competition’s PPC ads. It will guide you in choosing the right SEO tool and strategy.

6) Ahrefs

Ahrefs is an excellent SEO tool with advanced features. Since it’s a search engine optimization analysis tool, it examines your website and provides links, keywords, and a ranking profile. This strategy helps you with your SEO efforts, including rank tracking and ensuring minor details like page speed are done.

Ahref is one of the paid SEO tools. You can try a 7-day trial period for $7 to get a feel of the features you will have access to. After that, depending on your preferred plan, regular users, small businesses, and bloggers can pay between $99 and $999 monthly.

Other Ahref tools include:

a) Content Explorer

The content explorer searches for well-performing pages and sites, depending on the keywords and topics that are most searched.

b) Site Audit

A site audit involves crawling your sites with specific aspects within your domain. This is significant because it reveals all the technical issues your pages might be experiencing.

c) Site Explorer

The site explorer lets you easily monitor each page’s performance. It also helps you monitor performance to rank organically on Google search results. The better you rank, the sooner your site can become a domain authority and the sooner you can decide whether to focus on organic SEO for your business.

7) SEObility

SEObility is a free SEO tool with many features. It allows you to check your website’s SEO conformity to the most recent SEO updates. Using it is easy; you only have to enter your website’s URL to get a complete report with tips on improving your website.

Additionally, after this tool audits your site, you can access other unique features like keyword monitoring, 1000 subpage audits, and email alerts.

Other essential features include:

a) Server Error Fixing

This tool identifies and fixes any errors related to HTTP headers, JavaScript, and CSS files. You won’t have to correct any errors in the link. Additionally, no server errors will be triggered after fixing them.

b) Accurate SEO Scoring

SEO scoring in marketing accounts for how well your content incorporates various SEO strategies, such as link structure, meta information, and page quality. You will receive an accurate SEO score to see which areas you can improve.

c) Optimization

With this software, you will quickly identify areas you can improve, such as your website’s page speed, removing duplicate content, creating a responsive design, and the overall quality of your content.

d) Link Building and Structure Suggestions

As you build backlinks for your website, you will have to perfect how you link to your anchor text, internal links, and headers. If either is wrong, you will receive suggestions for improvement.

e) Solving Technical Errors

You can also solve technical errors, like on-page SEO errors. Delving into this as quickly and efficiently as possible enables you to prevent future traffic sinks and recover any lost traffic.

f) Meta Information and Analysis

You can get valuable information regarding your meta descriptions, tags, and titles. You must fix them if they are too long, short, or repetitive. You will also uncover specific SEO issues with your meta information. This list also includes invalid and incorrect domain names.

The Bottom Line

All the highlighted tools will give you the best insights into your SEO content strategy. Some free tools provide the best analysis if you are on a budget. Follow the suggestions of whichever tool you select for your business. After all, SEO tools make it easier for web admins to find what they need to stay on top.

Featured Image Source: reliablesoft.com

If you’re running a website, whether a blog, an online store, or a web portal, chances are you want to boost your organic traffic and improve your search engine rankings. It’s a big goal, and there are countless strategies out there, but one of the fundamental tactics is link-building. Now, not all backlinks are created equal. Some make a difference in elevating your search rankings and landing a prime spot in search engine results.

To determine which backlinks are the real game-changers, you need to dive into the different types, understand how they benefit your website, and choose the correct quantity to go after. That’s where we come in. This article has compiled a comprehensive list of the various types of backlinks that can supercharge your link-building efforts. It’s all about helping you craft a solid plan to snag those top-notch links for your site.

What Are Backlinks? 

Backlinks, also known as inbound, incoming, or one-way links, emerge when a website links to another. Imagine it as a virtual recommendation – if someone links to your website, you score a backlink, and vice versa. These clickable connections serve as digital pathways, allowing users to seamlessly navigate from one site to another.

Backlinks aren’t just superficial nods; they reflect your website’s popularity. Consequently, integrating, overseeing, and evaluating their performance becomes a pivotal element in search engine optimization (SEO) and overall SEO strategies. The quality and quantity of your backlinks play a crucial role in elevating your ranking on search engines.

In essence, backlinks serve as a digital reputation, determining how widely recognized and respected your website is in the vast online landscape. Managing these connections is the key to boosting your website’s prominence and relevance in the ever-evolving digital sphere.

Besides ranking, backlinks can increase organic traffic and help you get noticed by search engines. For example, if many sites link your webpage or website severally, search engines can conclude that content is worth linking to and surfacing on search engine results pages (SERP).

However, if you are learning to create a link-building campaign, you must know that not all backlinks are valued similarly. Some types of backlinks will help improve your search rankings, while others are low-quality and can negatively impact your website’s organic search performance.

We have listed some backlinks you need to know to help you determine the best types for your site.

Types of Backlinks To Get You Ranking High in SERPs

1. Editorial Backlinks

Editorial or contextual links are acquired from purely having a site that produces high-quality content and applies white hat SEO. Where the acquired link has been paid for or requested, editorial links are earned organically by providing valuable content.

These links don’t come cheap; they only come from highly authoritative sites with higher rankings. Additionally, you can acquire these outbound links from news agency sites or extensive publications like the New York Post, Forbes, or The Guardian. Generally, an editorial link comes from a trustworthy source with high domain authority.

The most effective way to earn editorial links is to focus on writing high-quality, engaging, shareable, original content on prevalent topics that most people find attractive. When your content can sell itself, your content marketing strategy becomes much more manageable.

2. Guest Blogging Backlinks

Guest blogging backlinks are among the highest-valued backlinks that digital marketers should target as part of their link-building strategies. It involves creating content as a guest author on another person’s site with a link to your website.

A guest link can be free or paid, but usually, it’s an arrangement between one website and another. You can write a guest post for another site and get a link within the article to the writer’s site.

Practicing guest blogging outreach to request more valuable sites for these opportunities should be vital to any SEO strategy. Undoubtedly, this backlink can be beneficial and boost your rankings tremendously.

Read Also: SEO Tips to Help Your Rank Higher

A well-planned outreach strategy, supported by a dependable cold email tool, can make it easier to earn high-quality backlinks from authoritative sources.

3. Acknowledgment Backlinks

You can issue this backlink if your label or brand sponsors an industry event, has representatives speaking, or does other similar activities. You can use backlink checkers to get this type of backlink.

The best way to form acknowledgment backlinks to your site is to constantly monitor your competitors regarding the events they participate in and then make a wise move that conveys benefits for your company.

4. Authority Links

Authority backlinks deliver raw ranking power, authority, and relevance to promote your site’s ranking in a SERP. Due to their age, quality, and size, these website links have established significant trust and authority with search engines.

Authority sites are market-leading sites representing established government and educational institutions, large corporations, or leading websites. Authority links can bring massive ranking power to a site if you can obtain one or more.

These backlinks are extremely difficult; the best approach to authority links is to be watchful for opportunities to obtain them.

5. Image / Infographic Backlinks

Infographics are educational or informative images showing data or research. You can attain these links by creating a well-designed image and sharing it with others on their sites.

Infographic links can help people apprehend complex concepts using visual aids such as images, charts, graphs, or diagrams. They can use images and text in a visual format to demonstrate concepts. They are often used for marketing purposes but can be helpful when writing articles or sharing research.

You are credited as the creator each time someone shares the image, whether via social media, blogs, or sites. This attribution correlates to a backlink to your site.

6. Pillow Links

Pillow backlinks are like the supportive backbone of your website’s link strategy, adding diversity to your link profile. While they might not skyrocket your rankings in highly competitive niches, they support your link-building efforts. These links act as a protective layer, offering insulation for your main page.

The beauty of pillow backlinks lies in their flexibility. You can incorporate them before, during, or after your dedicated link-building campaign, signaling to Google and establishing a foundation for further activities. Their ease of attraction sets them apart, requiring minimal cost and effort.

Consistency is critical here; integrate them gradually into the ranking process, using them as the foundational steps for building your website’s authority. These links contribute to initial rankings and play an ongoing role in constructing your site’s credibility and influence.

7. Private Blog Network (PBN) Links

 Private Blog Network or PBN links is a powerful link-building strategy that can help you rank in competitive niches. PBNs are confidential and, ideally, leave no digital footprint, achieved with several manipulative and deceitful measures.

These contextual and authority backlinks are typically on a blog’s homepage to manipulate search engines. That said, it is necessary to note that PBN link building is entirely a black hat practice and goes against Google’s guidelines. Suppose a site is found to indulge in this practice. In that case, Google reserves the right to penalize or remove it from its search results based on the intensity of spam involved.

8. Social Bookmarking Links

Social bookmarking is simple, accessible, and natural to obtain links that allow users to post high-quality content and share links to web pages. These bookmarks are public on bookmarking sites, with groups, networks, or private domains.

Social bookmarking links could be more effective than other recent types of backlinks. However, if you still want to get involved with communities relevant to your industry, you can engage with your audience on forums with relevant content and sharing.

9. Niche Edits or Curated Links

SEO professionals often leverage curated links or niche edits as potent tools in digital marketing to enhance website rankings. Instead of creating new blog posts, contextual backlinks can be seamlessly integrated into existing, relevant blog posts. These targeted posts have already aged, indicating that Google has indexed their content, and their backlink profiles continue to resonate actively.

Acquiring niche edits or curated links involves various approaches. One method is contacting webmasters and authors through payment for link opportunities or securing them for free. Success in this endeavor requires dedicated efforts to identify content that closely aligns with your own.

Search for similar topics and locate content that would benefit from including your outbound link. For example, if your blog focuses on pet care, your content could significantly enhance the value of any site that has previously covered pet-related topics.

 For example, if your blog focuses on dog food, featuring 80 20 dog food could significantly enhance the value of your content to your pet-loving readers.

The second involves hiring a professional agency to help you do the hard work. Most companies that offer SEO services will provide link-building. The best will manage your outreach and build a contacts database for appropriate white hat opportunities.

10. Article Directory Types of Backlinks

Article or blog directories are websites that contain collections of articles written on different subjects. Also referred to as content farms, article directories allow an author to present an article and syndicate it across various websites. Other site owners can then reuse these articles for their websites.

Article directories are links placed in content that are reproduced every time the original article is syndicated. This type of link-building is an outdated tactic that will not advance search engine rankings. Marketers should focus on attaining more qualified and trustworthy website links than those obtained from article directories.

11. Blog Comments Backlinks

Blog commenting is one of the most straightforward ways to get backlinks. Go to the sites that have enabled the comments feature. Then, comment with your website URL; you will get a backlink after the comment is approved.

That said, you should not exploit blog comments to attain links. Once blog comments become spammy, they contribute to a link scheme that violates Google’s guidelines.

If you want to leave an organic and meaningful comment on a post, then do so. If you’re engaging with authoritative websites, blog commenting can bring organic traffic to your site if your comment is particularly insightful or relevant. However, several factors must be considered when commenting to avoid participating in manipulative link schemes.

12. Auto-Generated Types of Backlinks

When you generate links automatically, you’re creating programmatic links. This means these links are generated without a clear indication of intent. Tools like WebEffector and SEO Hammer allow you to automate posting links in comments and online posts, targeting specific website anchor keywords. However, it’s worth noting that these automated links may provide short-term benefits, but they often come with risks.

The practice of auto-generated link-building goes against Google’s guidelines. Authors shouldn’t have to take specific actions to generate links automatically. Moreover, this method is considered aggressive and manipulative in link-building. It contributes to the degradation of the web by introducing spammy and low-quality practices. Knowing that these shortcuts may lead to short-lived gains before Google detects and penalizes such activities on your site is essential.

13. Links From Press Releases (PR Links)

PR Link Building uses public relations techniques such as press releases and media pitching to secure useful editorial links to your site. This SEO backlink-building practice is a critical component of a Digital PR strategy.

You can increase your PR backlinks by increasing social shares with visual content. Gaining more social shares will help you rank higher in Google search results. However, you should note that PR is not a link-building tactic that will advance search engine visibility.

14. Widget Backlinks Types

A widget is a web-based app with a link to your website, which can be taken and added to a web page or article on another website. By giving a widget to another website, they can display your links on their page, providing a backlink to your website.

Most of the time, widget backlinks are in the form of tools, resources, or additions like calculators or weather widgets to a page. The primary goal of widgets is their viral effect in boosting traffic to your site.

15. Testimonial & Review Types of Backlinks

Testimonial and review link building is the process of getting positive comments or reviews about a product or service featured on your website. At its essence, the testimonial link-building strategy is about providing a lot of value to the owner in exchange for a link from their site. 

These types of backlinks work in two ways. The first is when you write a review on someone else site. You can add it as a testimonial and include a link to your website. The second is a review a customer leaves for your service on a platform, including a link to your site.

Unlike other backlink strategies, like the guest post strategy, you will not need to write long articles to build links. Instead, you only need to write a paragraph to get a testimonial link. In some cases, you can record your video testimonial and send it to the brand you’re working with. In addition, testimonial link-building efforts will have a higher success rate than other strategies.

Wrapping Up on Types of Backlinks

Getting websites to appear higher on search engine results is a big deal, and one key factor is backlinks or inbound links. It’s like the online world giving your site a thumbs-up. But here’s the thing – not all thumbs-ups are created equal. Many of these links are out there; some are more valuable than others.

So, to make your website shine, you’ve got to put in some serious effort to create an intelligent strategy for building the best possible collection of these links. It’s all about making your website friends with the right crowd on the internet!

We hope this guide helps you avoid low-quality tactics and focus on the best link-building approaches for high-quality backlinks in your next digital marketing campaign.

The landscape of online search is evolving again. Artificial intelligence in search engine optimization (SEO) is here. In 1950, Archie would index FTP archives to find files.

In 1994, WebCrawler was the first search engine to index entire web pages. The same year Yahoo! Directory debuted human-curated lists of websites.

In 1998, Google Search launched and became quite popular thanks to its clean interface and PageRank method of assigning relevance.

All other changes in online search since then have been directly influenced by Google, and mostly affected the Google search algorithm.

Today, we have Google Search, Google AI Overviews, Perplexity AI, ChatGPT, Gemini, Deepseek, and Anthropic among others, fighting for the share of search.

How Has AI-Powered Search Impacted SEO?

As artificial intelligence (AI) has come into play, we are seeing search evolving into AI providing summaries and answers, while citing sources.

Because users are getting answers immediately, marketers have to plan for this “answer-first” trend.

If people get answers in search engines or AI platforms before they ever visit any website, it means websites are getting fewer clicks than ever before. In most cases, no clicks at all. It is the “Zero-click” phenomenon. (Add stats here – some from latest newsletters)

What began with simple keyword matching has evolved into a sophisticated dance with artificial intelligence (AI), moving beyond mere ranking to prioritize understanding, synthesis, and direct answers. For companies that need digital visibility, “AI Search SEO” is not a trend but something they must do.

In this comprehensive guide, we will clarify AI’s role in search engine optimization (SEO), discuss the core AI technologies driving this new search paradigm, understand the mechanism of LLM citation, come up with a roadmap to not only rank higher but also be cited directly by Large Language Models (LLMs).

In addition, we’ll explore the fundamental concepts of AI in SEO, advanced strategies to optimize your content for Search and LLMs, and essential tools you must have to thrive in the AI-powered search revolution of 2025 and beyond.

By the end of this guide, you will learn:

• How AI search engines and LLMs process and understand information.
• Fundamental and advanced strategies to optimize your content for AI.
• Practical tips for increasing your chances of being cited by LLMs.
• The essential tools that can assist your AI Search SEO efforts.
• Insights into the future of AI in search and how to stay ahead.

Why is it crucial to optimize your website for AI Search Engines?

“AI Search SEO” (basically artificial intelligence search engine optimization or optimization of AI Search Engines) is the practice of optimizing your content and website to be understood, favored, and most importantly, cited by AI-powered search engines and Large Language Models (LLMs).

No traditional ranking. The AI itself will be providing the answer, potentially diminishing direct website traffic.

The real prize in this new era is LLM citation and synthesis.

When an AI overview or conversational AI confidently references your content, you get:

• Increased indirect visibility: Even if users don’t click immediately, seeing your brand or website cited by a reputable AI builds recognition and trust.
• Enhanced brand authority: Being consistently referenced as a primary source positions your brand as a leader and expert in your field.
• Future traffic: Users seeking deeper dives or more context may still click through to your site after seeing you cited.
• Competitive advantage: Early adopters of AI Search SEO will gain a significant edge over competitors still relying on outdated strategies.

How LLMs and AI Search Engines Work

To optimize for AI, you must first understand how AI “thinks” and processes information.

These are the core AI Technologies driving search

a). Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Understanding Context:

Imagine trying to understand a conversation without knowing the nuances of language. That’s what search engines used to do with just keywords. NLP is a branch of AI that enables computers to understand, interpret, and generate human language.

How does NLP empower AI in search?

In search, NLP allows AI to:

• Understand synonyms and related terms: If you search “hiking boots,” NLP helps the AI understand that “trekking footwear” or “trail shoes” are related concepts, even if you don’t use those exact words.
• Discern user intent: AI aims to know why you’re searching. Are you looking to buy, learn, compare, or find a location? NLP helps distinguish between “apple pie recipe” (informational) and “buy apple pie” (transactional).
• Grasp the sentiment and nuance of text: AI can detect whether a review is positive or negative, or if a piece of content is truly helpful and empathetic.

b). Machine Learning and Ranking Algorithms:

Machine learning (ML) is the process by which computers learn from data without being explicitly programmed.

In search, ML algorithms analyze vast amounts of data (user behavior, content quality, links, freshness, etc.) to constantly refine how results are ranked.

They learn from patterns.

For example, if users consistently click on a particular result for a query and spend a lot of time on that page, the ML algorithm learns that this result is likely highly relevant and useful, and may boost its ranking for similar future queries. (There must be a stat that relates to this somewhere, find and add it here)

This continuous learning makes AI search engines incredibly adaptive and increasingly intelligent.

c). Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG):

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google’s Gemini are powerful text generators.

They are trained on immense datasets of text and code, allowing them to understand and generate human-like language.

However, a common challenge with pure LLMs is “hallucination”—making up facts or citing non-existent sources.

This is where Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) comes in.

How does RAG work?

RAG combines the generative power of LLMs with a retrieval component.

When you ask an LLM a question, the RAG system first retrieves relevant information from a vast knowledge base (which can include the entire internet, specifically indexed web pages, or proprietary databases).

Once the relevant information is retrieved, the LLM generates a response based on this retrieved data, often citing the sources it used.

This is crucial for “AI Search SEO” because it means for your content to be cited, it must first be effectively retrieved by the AI.

(A visual can illustrate this concept faster)

Important: RAG basically works on the model of retrieve first (because source must exist) then generate answer.

How Do AI Search Engines (Google, Perplexity, ChatGPT, etc.) Process Content?

AI search engines interact with your content in a more profound way than previous generations:

a). Semantic Understanding vs. Keyword Matching

Forget just repeating your keywords. AI now understands the meaning (semantics) behind your words.

It identifies key concepts, entities (people, places, things), and relationships between them within your content.

This means your content should be rich in semantic relevance, covering a topic comprehensively and naturally, rather than just keyword-stuffing. (Add a rich visual of semantics here)

b). Importance of Structured vs. Unstructured Data

Unstructured data is the vast majority of information on the web: plain text on a blog post, images, and videos. AI is becoming very good at processing this.

Structured data, also known as Schema Markup, is information organized in a standardized, machine-readable format. Think of it as labeling elements on your page for AI: “This is a recipe,” “This is the author,” “This is the rating.” (Add a visual for structured data here)

Structured data helps AI understand your content more precisely and efficiently, making it easier for them to extract and synthesize information for AI Overviews and LLM responses.

c). The Role of Embeddings and Conceptual Relationships

AI models convert words, phrases, and even entire documents into numerical representations called “embeddings.”

These embeddings capture the semantic meaning of the content.

Pieces of content with similar meanings will have similar embeddings, even if they use different words.

This allows AI to understand conceptual relationships between your content and a user’s query, making it easier to identify relevant information even if there isn’t an exact keyword match. (illustrate embeddings using visuals here)

How Does Your Content Get Referenced in LLM Citations?

This is the holy grail of AI Search. How does your content go from being indexed to being explicitly cited by an LLM?

a). LLMs identify and extract key information from your content

LLMs don’t just “read” your article; they scan for specific, factual, and actionable pieces of information.

They look for direct answers to common questions, data points, unique insights, and well-supported arguments. (there should be something like a stat here – is data showing users like llms for its direct answers? find out)

Content that is clearly structured with headings, subheadings, bullet points, and defined facts is easier for an LLM to extract key information from. (What’s the proof? Any study? Stat? Sth?)

b). LLMs prioritize authoritative and unique data

LLMs are designed to provide helpful and accurate information.

Therefore, they prioritize content from sources deemed authoritative and trustworthy.

If your content offers unique research, original insights, or is a definitive guide on a topic, it stands a much higher chance of being selected as a primary source for an LLM’s response. LLMs are less likely to cite generic, rehashed content. (Proof of this? Any study?)

c). LLMs associate your brand with a definitive topic or niche

The more your brand or website is associated with definitive information on a topic, the more likely you are to be implicitly or explicitly referenced.

This means consistently producing high-quality, unique content that becomes synonymous with specific answers or data points within your niche.

For example, if you’re the go-to source for statistics on renewable energy, an LLM might pull a statistic from your site and, in some cases, attribute it, or your site might be included in the “learn more” links.

(Can we find a stat or visual to emphasize this part?)

Foundational Strategies for Optimizing for AI Search: You Can’t Skip This Basics

Before diving into advanced AI-specific tactics, ensure your fundamental SEO house is in order. These practices are more critical than ever.

a). High-Quality, User-Centric Content Remains King

No amount of AI optimization will compensate for poor content.

i). Answering User Intent and Solving Their Problems

Instead of asking “What keywords should I use?”, ask “What problems does my audience have, and how can my content provide the best solution?”

AI rewards content that genuinely addresses user needs, often predicting follow-up questions and covering a topic comprehensively. (Any recent study to prove this?)

ii). Comprehensively Cover Your Topics

AI loves content that leaves no stone unturned on a given subject. (Proof or data to prove this?)

If you’re writing about “how to bake sourdough bread,” cover everything from starter maintenance to troubleshooting common issues. (Example of a comprehensive topic outline about “how to bake sourdough bread” in a visual or coded text?)

Aim to be the most complete and accurate resource available.

This depth signals to AI that your content is highly valuable.

iii). Avoid “AI-Slop” Content

“AI-Slop” is content that has been spun from other sources and presented as new content on a web page without any originality or additional value besides what already existed on other websites.

To stand out, your content must be original, insightful, and offer unique value.

This might involve original research, unique perspectives, or specific real-world examples.

b). Content Must be Both Human and Machine-Readable

AI learns from patterns in human language.

If you write in a clear and natural way, AI can understand and process your content.

i). Conversational Tone and Natural Language

Write as if you’re explaining something to a friend.

Avoid overly formal or academic language unless your audience specifically requires it.

AI-powered search engines are designed to understand natural, conversational queries, and they favor content that mirrors this style.

(Show a visual of conversational content with green checkmark, and academic content with red checkmark)

ii). Concise Paragraphs

Long, dense paragraphs are difficult for both humans and AI to read.

Break up your text into short, digestible paragraphs (2-3 sentences max).

Use clear, direct sentences.

Tools that measure readability scores (like the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Test) can be helpful. (Show the flesh score of this article in a described image)

It is good to note that if you obsess over the score with these tools, you miss the point. Focus on clarity instead.

iii). Flow and Hierarchy

Organize your content with a clear, logical structure.

Use headings (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, etc.) to break up sections and signal the hierarchy of information. (Take a screenshot of our Table of contents as an example and illustrate it)

This helps AI understand the main topics and sub-topics, making it easier to extract specific answers. Think of it as creating an easy-to-follow outline for both your readers and the AI-driven engines.

c). Technical SEO for AI Crawlability and Indexability

Even the most brilliant content won’t be seen if AI search engines can’t access and understand your website. You should make your website both machine-readable and accessible for humans.

Here is how:

i). Clean HTML and Semantic Markup:

Ensure your website’s underlying code (HTML) is clean and error-free. If you are not sure, hire a code auditor from gig sites like Fiverr to audit your content. Better still, use AI vibe coding tools like Replit and Loveable to check your code quality and suggest any fixes that you can do by yourself.

Use semantic HTML tags (like <article>, <nav>, <aside>) that clearly define the purpose of different content blocks. This helps AI understand the structure and meaning of your pages.

ii). Site Speed and Mobile-Friendliness:

Page loading speed and mobile responsiveness are critical user experience factors and Core Web Vitals that AI also considers for ranking.

Slow sites or those that don’t display well on mobile devices usually send the wrong signals to AI search engines. How is that?

• User Experience Affects Perceived Trust and Usefulness – AI systems are optimized to provide helpful, high-quality answers, and the user experience of linked websites affects that. For instance, if users bounce quickly from a slow or clunky site, AI platforms might learn that the link isn’t satisfying users’ intent. This signals low engagement or dissatisfaction, which AI models and ranking systems can factor into future decisions.
• Google’s AI Overviews – Google already uses Core Web Vitals and other UX-related metrics (page speed, interactivity, visual stability) in its search rankings. If a site loads slowly, has intrusive interstitials and a broken mobile user experience, it’s less likely to be featured prominently, both in traditional search and AI Overviews.
• Click Feedback Loops (AI Models Learn from Behavior) – We know that as of today, ChatGPT doesn’t use real-time user feedback loops. However, AI engines that are integrated into search engines ( like Google’s AI Overviews & Gemini or Bing’s Co-Pilot) track which links users click, how long they stay and whether they come back and ask the same thing again.
• Content Visibility and Indexing – Even if your content is great, poor loading speeds can block AI engines from accessing it properly. Slow pages may fail to render or get partially indexed, complex JavaScript user interfaces may not expose full content and broken layouts reduce trustworthiness.

iii). Proper Robots.txt and Sitemap Management:

Robots.txt: This file tells search engine crawlers which parts of your site they are allowed or not allowed to visit. Ensure it’s correctly configured to allow AI crawlers access to all important content.

Sitemaps: An XML sitemap is a list of all important pages on your website. Submitting an up-to-date sitemap to search engines helps them discover and index your content more efficiently.

iv). Server-Side Rendering (SSR) vs. Client-Side Rendering (CSR) for AI:

This is a bit more technical.

Many modern websites use JavaScript to render content on the client’s (user’s) browser (CSR).

While search engines are getting better at rendering JavaScript, server-side rendering (SSR) delivers fully formed HTML pages to the browser, which is often easier and faster for AI crawlers to process.

If your site relies heavily on CSR, ensure it’s optimized for search engine rendering or consider SSR for critical content.

Advanced Tactics for “Artificial Intelligence for SEO” and LLM Visibility

Once your foundations are solid, these advanced tactics will specifically target AI’s preferences for deeper understanding and citation.

a). Structured Data and Schema Markup for Enhanced Understanding

Structured data is your secret weapon for communicating directly with AI.

i). Implementing JSON-LD for Articles, FAQs, How-To’s, Products:

JSON-LD is Google’s preferred format for structured data.

It’s a piece of code (often placed in the <head> of your HTML) that clearly labels specific elements on your page for search engines.

For example:

By implementing relevant schema, you make it incredibly easy for AI to understand the meaning and context of your content, significantly increasing your chances of rich results and LLM citation.

ii). Rich Results and Featured Snippets in the AI Era:

Structured data is a key enabler for “rich results” (enhanced search listings with extra information like star ratings or images) and “featured snippets” (direct answers highlighted at the top of search results).

While AI Overviews are evolving, the underlying mechanism of extracting concise answers from well-structured content remains crucial.

Optimizing for these traditional AI-driven features will naturally align with optimization for generative AI.

Want to check if your website is well optimized for rich results? Do the Rich Results Test.

Google maintains a comprehensive list of structured data markup including how to implement each feature to your website here.

b). Entity Optimization: Building Brand-Topic Associations

AI thinks in terms of “entities” – real-world concepts, people, organizations, products, and ideas.

i). Identifying and Utilizing Key Entities:

Go beyond keywords to identify the core entities your content is about.

For example, if you write about “climate change,” key entities might include “carbon emissions,” “renewable energy,” “Paris Agreement,” and specific scientists or organizations.

Ensure these entities are clearly mentioned and contextualized within your content.

ii). Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone) and Brand Information:

For local businesses or brands, ensuring consistent Name, Address, and Phone (NAP) information across your website, Google Business Profile, and other online directories helps AI confidently identify your business as a unique entity.

This builds trust and authority.

iii). Multi-Channel Entity Optimization (Website, Social, Directories):

Your brand and its associated entities should be consistently represented across all your online properties.

This reinforces your authority in the eyes of AI.

Use consistent branding, messaging, and information wherever your brand appears online.

c). Creating “Quote-Worthy” Content with Proprietary Data and Insights

This is perhaps the most direct path to LLM citation.

Here is how you can get your brand cited more with higher value content:

i). Conducting Original Research, Surveys, and Case Studies:

If you want LLMs to cite you, give them something unique to cite.

Original research, data from surveys you conducted, or in-depth case studies with unique findings are highly valuable.

AI prioritizes novel, verifiable information.

ii). Presenting Data Points and Statistics Clearly for Extraction:

When you present data, do so clearly.

Use tables, charts, and infographics, but also state key statistics explicitly in plain text within your content.

For example, “Our survey found that 70% of businesses…”.

This makes it easy for AI to extract and synthesize.

iii). Expert Commentary and Unique Perspectives:

Don’t just regurgitate existing information.

Offer your unique perspective, analysis, or expert commentary.

Interview industry leaders, share your personal experience, do a research and share the study, or present a contrarian viewpoint supported by evidence.

This unique contribution makes your content more valuable to AI.

Optimizing for Conversational AI and Question-Based Queries

AI overviews and conversational AI are designed to answer questions directly.

a). FAQ Sections and Q&A Formats:

Dedicate sections of your content to frequently asked questions (FAQs) related to your topic.

Structure them clearly with a question followed by a concise answer.

This is gold for AI, as it directly mirrors how users ask questions and how AI provides answers.

b). Long-Tail Keywords and Semantic Variations:

People type full questions into AI search engines.

Optimize for long-tail keywords or better still simulate the prompts that users might ask in AI conversations for them to find your brand and their semantic variations.

Instead of just “sourdough recipe,” think “how to make a sourdough starter from scratch” or “how to fix sticky sourdough dough.”

c). Addressing Common Follow-Up Questions:

Anticipate what users might ask after getting an initial answer.

If your content answers “what is AI search SEO?”, consider also addressing “how long does AI search SEO take?” or “what are the best tools for AI search SEO?”

This comprehensive approach signals greater helpfulness to AI.

Building E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) in the AI Age

Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines are more crucial than ever for AI.

AI prioritizes information from credible sources.

a). Author Bios and Credentials:

Clearly state the author’s name and include a detailed bio that highlights their relevant experience, expertise, and qualifications.

If the author is a recognized expert in the field, showcase their credentials.

This builds the “Experience” and “Expertise” components of E-E-A-T.

b). Citing Reputable Sources and Building Backlinks:

Reference and link to other authoritative sources to support your claims.

This demonstrates thorough research and reinforces your content’s “Trustworthiness.”

Earning high-quality backlinks from other reputable websites still signals “Authoritativeness” to AI.

c). Showcasing Testimonials and Case Studies:

For products or services, include genuine testimonials and detailed case studies. This provides real-world “Experience” and “Trustworthiness.”

d). Digital PR and Brand Mentions:

Actively pursue digital PR opportunities to get your brand mentioned on other authoritative websites, news outlets, or industry publications.

Even mentions without direct links can boost your “Authoritativeness” in the eyes of AI.

Content Modularity and Scannability

AI needs to quickly extract precise information.

a). Using Bullet Points, Numbered Lists, and Tables:

These formats are highly scannable for both humans and AI.

They break down information into digestible chunks, making it easier for AI to identify key facts or steps.

b). Summaries and Key Takeaways:

Include a concise summary at the beginning or end of your article, highlighting the main points.

This gives AI a quick overview of your content’s essence, increasing the likelihood of extraction for AI Overviews.

c). Avoiding “Read More” and Multi-Page Articles:

While sometimes necessary, try to keep core information on a single page if possible. Fragmenting content across multiple pages can make it harder for AI to get a complete picture quickly. Similarly, “read more” links can create unnecessary hurdles for AI’s complete understanding of a topic.

AI Powered Tools for Search Engine Optimization

Leverage AI to fight AI!

Several tools can aid your AI Search SEO efforts.

a). AI-Powered SEO Tools for Content Creation and Optimization

1. Keyword Research Tools: Modern keyword research tools (e.g., Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz Keyword Explorer) are incorporating AI to help you find not just keywords, but also related questions, semantic gaps, and topics. They analyze SERP features (like AI Overviews and People Also Ask) to identify opportunities.
2. Content Optimization Platforms (e.g., Surfer SEO, Clearscope): These tools analyze the top-ranking content for your target keywords and provide recommendations on what topics, entities, and questions to include to be comprehensive and semantically relevant. They act as a checklist for creating AI-optimized content.
3. AI Writing Assistants (e.g., ChatGPT, Jasper, Claude): While you should never rely solely on AI for content generation (remember “AI-slop”), these tools can be invaluable for:
   • Brainstorming ideas and outlines.
   • Generating drafts for specific sections (e.g., FAQs).
   • Rewriting sentences for clarity and conciseness.
   • Summarizing long texts.
   • Generating headlines and meta descriptions.

b). Analytics and Monitoring for AI Search Performance

Measuring your success in the AI era requires a new approach.

1. Tracking AI-Driven Traffic: While direct organic search traffic might decrease for some queries, monitor referral traffic and potentially identify traffic coming from AI answer engines. Create custom segments in Google Analytics to track how users engage with your content from different AI sources.
2. Monitoring LLM Citations and Brand Mentions: Regularly search for your brand, key phrases, and specific data points from your content within AI Overviews and other LLM responses. Set up alerts to notify you of new mentions. This is your direct feedback loop on AI citation. Click Raven is your go to AI visibility tracker that tracks your prompts, notifies you of your brand mentions, and provides you with weekly reports about your visibility rate and share of voice in AI engines like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews, Google AI Mode and Gemini.
3. Identifying Pages Favoured by AI Search Engines: Using an AI visibility app like Click Raven, you can identify which pages are getting cited more often for specific prompts in AI engines. Analyze these pages to understand what attributes (e.g., structured data, clear formatting, comprehensive answers) might be contributing to their success.
   

c). Emerging AI Search Tools and Platforms

Keep an eye on emerging AI-powered search engines. While ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews remain dominant, platforms like Perplexity AI, Andi, Claude and You.com are gaining traction fast.

Understanding how they prioritize and present information will be crucial for diversifying your AI search SEO strategy.

These platforms often emphasize source transparency, which is a great opportunity for content creators.

VI. The Future of “SEO for AI”: Trends and Predictions

The AI search landscape is dynamic. Staying ahead means anticipating future shifts.

At Click Raven we are betting on these trends:

a). Continued Evolution of AI Search Algorithms

AI models will become even more sophisticated at understanding nuance, context, and user intent.

They will get better at filtering out low-quality, unoriginal content, placing an even higher premium on genuine value.

Expect more personalized search results driven by user behavior and preferences.

b). The Blurring Lines Between Traditional Search and AI Answer Engines

The distinction between clicking a link and getting a direct answer will continue to blur.

AI Overviews will become more prevalent and integrated into the core search experience.

This necessitates a strategy that caters to both scenarios: providing comprehensive content for those who click and concise, extractable answers for those who don’t.

c). The Growing Importance of User Experience and Trust Signals

As AI becomes more integral, its reliance on strong user signals (time on page, bounce rate, direct engagement) and trust signals (E-E-A-T, brand reputation) will only increase.

A positive user experience will be directly linked to AI’s perception of your content’s value.

d). Ethical Considerations and AI Content Disclosure

The debate around AI-generated content and its ethical implications will continue.

Search engines may introduce guidelines or requirements for disclosing when content is primarily generated by AI.

Transparency and ensuring human oversight will be paramount to maintaining trust and avoiding any penalties.

e). The Role of Niche Expertise and Community Platforms (e.g., Reddit)

In a world flooded with generic information, niche expertise will shine. AI will increasingly favor content from recognized specialists and communities where genuine, first-hand experiences are shared.

Platforms like Reddit and Quora, often rich in authentic user-generated content, are already gaining more prominence in AI-driven search results.

Optimizing your presence and contributions on such platforms could become a critical part of your overall “AI Search SEO” strategy.

Finally: Recap of Key AI Search SEO Principles:

To thrive in this new era, remember to:

• Prioritize user intent and comprehensive content.
• Focus on originality and unique insights.
• Ensure technical crawlability and site performance.
• Leverage structured data to speak AI’s language.
• Build undisputed E-E-A-T.
• Create quote-worthy, easily extractable information.
• Embrace conversation-based optimization.

There has been a rapid increase in AI-powered search experiences like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google’s evolving Search Generative Experience (SGE).

And businesses and content creators are facing a stark reality: ranking well in traditional search results is no longer the sole path to online discoverability.

Leaders must now rethink their content through two distinct, yet interconnected lenses: SEO and GEO.

What is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the well-established practice of improving a website’s visibility and ranking in traditional SERPs to drive organic traffic and ultimately, conversions.

Here is a visual example of the traditional SEO ranking system of blue links that direct users to your page.

The primary audience for traditional SEO has always been human searchers using platforms like Google, Bing and YouTube.

Its evolution traces back to the early days of the internet, when basic algorithms analyzed keywords to determine relevance.

Over decades, SEO has matured into a complex discipline, built upon these core pillars:

• Technical SEO: Ensuring a website is crawlable, indexable and has a healthy technical foundation (e.g., site speed, mobile-friendliness, structured data implementation).
• On-page SEO: Optimizing individual web pages for specific keywords and user intent (e.g., title tags, meta descriptions, headings, content quality, internal linking).
• Off-page SEO: Building authority and trust through external signals like backlinks from reputable websites, brand mentions, and social signals.
• Content Strategy: Creating authoritative and engaging content that answers user queries and satisfies their needs.

What is GEO?

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) is the newer and more nuanced process of making your content retrievable, referenceable and directly cited by AI engines and large language models (LLMs).

Unlike traditional SEO, which aims to get users to click on your link, GEO aims to have your content become the answer, or at least a highly credible source for an AI-generated answer.

To visualise the current AI search, here’s a screenshot that shows an AI overview summary on the left and the relevant cited pages on the right.

The audience for GEO is fundamentally different: it’s AI models themselves and by extension, the users interacting with AI agents and conversational interfaces.

With GEO, the focus shifts from keywords in isolation to a deeper understanding of structured data, chunked facts, machine-readable formats and pervasive brand mentions.

Key Differences Between SEO and GEO

While both SEO and GEO aim for online visibility; their approaches, targets, and success metrics diverge significantly.

Here’s a breakdown of their core differences:

Element	SEO	GEO
User Intent	Human search queries (e.g., “best running shoes”)	AI prompts, conversational queries, and agent tasks
Ranking Mechanism	Indexing + Algorithmic SERP ranking	Retrieval + LLM reasoning and summarization
Optimization Target	Search engine crawlers (Googlebot, Bingbot)	Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity
Format Focus	Optimized webpages, meta tags, links, comprehensive articles	Data chunks, clean facts, structured formats (schema, tables, FAQs)
Metrics	Rankings, organic traffic, click-through rate (CTR), conversions	Mentions, citations, direct answers, embeddings, brand visibility within AI responses

How GEO Impacts the Modern Marketing Funnel

AI assistants fundamentally alter the traditional marketing funnel by introducing a new, critical discovery layer: zero-click discovery.

A study by Wordstream shows that 58% of Google searches now result in zero clicks as consumers bypass traditional search results entirely.

• An example is when I asked an AI assistant: “What are the best noise-canceling headphones for travel?”

Here is a snippet of the response from a list of 10 items ranked by quality:

This shows that if your brand’s content isn’t visible to AI or detailed in a way that’s digestible by LLMs, you’re missing a massive chunk of the early-stage consumer journey.

How SEO and GEO Work Together

SEO and GEO are not mutually exclusive. Here is how they complement one another:

• SEO Feeds GEO: Well-structured and optimized content that is easy for crawlers to understand and organize is more likely to be pulled into AI-generated summaries.
• Programmatic Content For Dual-Purpose: Content generated programmatically for SEO scale (e.g., thousands of product variations or location pages) can be designed with GEO in mind to serve traditional search intent and AI prompts.
• Brand Consistency and Trust: Both SEO and GEO benefit immensely from a consistent brand message, strong trust signals (E-E-A-T) and factual clarity.

Practical Steps for Marketing Leaders

Marketing leaders must employ sound strategies to prioritize both SEO and GEO initiatives.

For SEO:

Maintain a Strong Foundation

• Invest in technical SEO and monitor your site health.
• Adopt robust backlink strategy for authority,
• Conduct a meticulous keyword mapping to ensure you’re targeting relevant human queries.

Leverage Programmatic SEO for Scale

Programmatic SEO is an efficient way to create content at scale when used strategically.

Otherwise, you run the risk of creating thin content that does not appeal to user intent.

Companies like Zapier have created thousands of landing pages for each product they integrate with using programmatic methods.

Monitor Traditional SERP Shifts

Continuous monitoring of your site is essential. A Semrush study indicates that AI search visitors could surpass traditional search visitors by early 2028 or sooner.

Keep a close eye on how Google’s AI Overviews and other generative features are impacting your organic clicks using tools like Ahrefs and Semrush.

For GEO:

Structure Content Relentlessly

Break down complex information into easily digestible “fact blocks” that AI can readily identify and utilize.

• Implement JSON-LD schema markup meticulously.
• Use HTML tables, bulleted lists, and clear FAQ sections.

Cultivate Brand Mentions Across Trusted Third-Party Sources

AI models value collective intelligence and established authority.

With strategic PR, you can:

• Secure positive reviews on industry-leading platforms.
• Build a strong network of brand citations on high-authority websites.

Test Your Content’s Visibility in AI Platforms

• Don’t just assume.
• Actively search for your brand, products, and key topics in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Google’s AI Overviews.
• Map out when and how your content is cited (or not cited) by these AI models.

Publish Original Research and Definitive Guides

To stand out, create content that offers:

• Unique insights and perspectives
• Proprietary data
• Definitive answers to complex questions

GEO Tools and Metrics to Track

The measurement landscape for GEO is still in its early stages but rapidly evolving.

Here are some tools to consider:

1. Perplexity Pages / Pro Search

This tool enables SEO professionals to research topics, create comprehensive content pages, and reference their own websites for link building.

2. ChatGPT with Browse

It analyzes existing content to identify optimization opportunities and generates SEO-optimized content by browsing current web data.

When Browse is enabled, observe if ChatGPT directly links to or summarizes your content.

3. LLM Retrieval Simulators

These tools test and simulate how LLMs retrieve and process content for AI-powered search results from your site.

4. AI Visibility Tools

Platforms like Writesonic’s GEO, Profound, Peec AI, and Keyword.com are specifically designed to track brand mentions and visibility within AI-generated responses across various LLMs.

They can help you monitor citation frequency, prominence, and even sentiment.

5. Semantic SEO Tools

These tools analyze entities, topics and relationships (beyond just keywords) to improve AI comprehension.

The metrics to track include:

• The frequency of brand/content citations in AI outputs
• The position of your content within AI-generated summaries
• Sentiment of the AI references
• The types of queries that trigger your content as an AI source

The Future: From SEO Teams to Visibility Teams

The traditional “SEO team” must transition into a broader “AI Visibility Team.”

This requires new skill sets and a reimagined workflow:

• Content Engineers

These professionals are essential for structuring content for machine readability and scalability.

• AI Prompt and Retrieval Optimizers

These are specialists who understand how users phrase queries to AI and how AI models retrieve information, enabling them to fine-tune content for optimal AI response.

• Data Structuring Experts

These professionals are skilled in implementing schema, creating robust content models and ensuring data integrity across complex content systems.

Success will depend on how effectively organizations can structure their knowledge base to be consumed and cited by intelligent agents, not just crawled by traditional search bots.

The Brands That Adapt Win

The future of search is no longer just a list of blue links; it’s a combination of AI summarized answers, intelligent agents and interactive AI interfaces.

While traditional SEO is still essential for driving conversions at the final stage of the customer journey, GEO is rapidly becoming critical at the initial, zero-click discovery phase powered by AI.

Marketing leaders must recognize this shift and invest in both SEO’s foundational principles and GEO’s advanced content structuring to double their rewards; visibility and conversions.

To ignore this, is to risk obsolescence.

SEO doesn’t have to break the bank or fry your brain. You don’t need to splash out on fancy software or hire an expert. With the right free tools and some know-how, you can boost your website’s visibility all on your own, and your site will rank higher.

In this blog post, I’ve added some user-friendly SEO software to help you assess your website’s performance and tackle any issues. Keep reading to determine which budget-friendly options can help you climb the rankings ladder.

Can You Do Your SEO?

You can tackle SEO yourself, commonly known as DIY SEO. While it’s true that professional SEO agencies and experts can handle a lot of the heavy lifting, plenty of folks prefer to roll up their sleeves and give it a shot on their own. With a bit of digging and practice, you can become adept at optimizing your business’s online presence and keep a few extra dollars in your pocket.

A great starting point for diving into SEO is to seek out top-notch DIY SEO software, grasp the basic principles of SEO, and understand what factors Google considers when ranking websites. Some critical elements of SEO that you’ll want to get a solid grip on include:

1. On-Page SEO: On-page SEO involves optimizing the elements on your web pages to help bring clients to your site. It means optimizing your keyword strategy for metatags, using high-quality content, and other site components like images to keep clients onsite longer, with a more positive experience.
2. Off-Page SEO: Off-page SEO involves leading traffic from other sites to your site. The main components of this SEO component involve building relevant links from other sites, guest-blogging, and raising social media awareness.
3. Technical SEO: Technical SEO enables search engines to engage with your site to identify keywords and phrases that potential customers have used in their searches. 
4. Page Experience: This mainly deals with improving your customers’ experience on your web pages through faster load times, visual stability, and response times.

Pairing the best DIY software tools with your fundamental SEO knowledge will empower you to do SEO effectively. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that SEO is a continuous process requiring time to see results. 

What Is DIY SEO Software?

DIY SEO Software is any tool that allows you to conduct various search engine optimization tasks from your computer. While many tools are on the market today, some are very complex and designed for SEO experts. Nevertheless, you can find other software that SEO experts love, and it is easy for DIYers to use.

Here are some of the best DIY SEO software and tools to start DYI-in SEO. 

1. SEMRush DIY SEO Software

Semrush is one of my favorite software for keyword research. It’s an award-winning all-in-one SEO tool best suited for local and non-local businesses. This comprehensive software provides everything you need to achieve profitable keywords for targeted traffic and leads.

Some of the Key Features

• Backlink Analytics
• Competitive Analysis
• On-Page SEO checker
• Site Audit
• PPC Keyword Research
• Position Tracking
• Organic Traffic Insights
• Organic Research
• Keyword Overview
• Link Building Tool
• Social Media Management

How to Use SEMRush as a DIY SEO Software

1. Sign up for Semrush’s page. It would be best to have your email and a password to create an account.
2. Then, you can either sign up for a free trial or use Semrush’s free version. The free trial allows you to test the complete tool for seven days, while Semrush’s free version will give you limited searches and access to data. It is the best for beginners.
3. To start the free version, click on skip trial; to try the free trial, click on get a free trial.
4. If you skip the trial, you’ll head straight to your Semrush dashboard. Then, pick one of your seed keywords and go to Keyword Overview from the left menu.
5. Then, insert a keyword or phrase into the search bar and click the “search” button. Once you click Search, you’ll see specific data on your chosen keyword.

Pricing For SEMRush

This software has a seven-day free trial and three pricing plans: 

1. The Pro plan costs $119.95 monthly and is suitable for small teams or beginners. Under this plan, you can add up to 5 tasks and track up to 500 keywords.
2. The guru plan costs $229.95 monthly and suits agencies and mid-size businesses. It can add up to 15 projects and 1500 keywords.
3. The business plan costs $449.95 monthly and is suitable for large agencies and enterprises. It offers up to 40 projects and 5000 keywords to track.

2. Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a DIY SEO software that lets you observe and report your website’s presence in Google SERP for free. Even though you do not require a Search Console account to pop up in Google’s search results, you can manage what gets indexed and how your site represents itself with this account. 

As an SEO checker software, this tool helps you understand how Google works and lets you optimize for better search results performance. It’s useful for new sites or beginners as it allows them to submit their web pages for search indexing. 

Some Key Features

• Keyword Analysis Through Search Queries
• Page Positioning in Search Results
• Assess User Interaction 
• Site Coverage
• Submit Pages for Indexing with The URL Inspection Tool
• Sitemap Submission
• Mobile-first Indexing
• Penalty Reviews

How to use Search Console as a DIY SEO Software

1. To create an account, go to Google Search Console’s official page.
2. Then, pick a property type by adding your website address to the URL prefix or domain.
3. After that, you need to Verify Site Ownership. You can do this by using your Google Analytics tracking ID.
4. Next, you will add a Sitemap to Google Search Console. This is important because it helps Google find and crawl your website’s dominant content. To do this, navigate to “Sitemaps” and paste the URL of your XML sitemap into the box labeled “Enter sitemap URL.” 
5. After that, hit “Submit.” You will now receive an overview of your website’s most important data, which you can use to identify significant issues and check your site’s overall performance.

Pricing 

Free

3. HasData Google SERP API

HasData offers a direct line to Google’s data for the DIY SEO enthusiast, bypassing the overhead of enterprise software. While tools like Semrush provide a dashboard, HasData delivers structured JSON data in real-time. This is the ideal solution if you are building your own custom rank tracker, feeding data into an AI agent, or populating a Google Sheet with live metrics.

It distinguishes itself with speed and reliability. You avoid CAPTCHAs and proxies entirely: make a single request and get structured data from 195+ countries. It’s perfect for hyper-local SEO analysis that standard tools often miss.

Some Key Features

• Real-Time SERP Extraction
• 1.75s Average Latency
• 195+ Countries Geolocation Coverage
• Mobile & Desktop Device Targeting
• AI Overview & Knowledge Panel Parsing
• Zero-Infrastructure Proxy Management
• RAG Pipeline Compatibility
• Shopping, News, and Image Results

How to use HasData as a DIY SEO Software

1. Sign up on the HasData website (no credit card required).
2. Once logged in, navigate to the API Playground in your dashboard. This visual tool lets you configure parameters without writing code.
3. Select “Google SERP API,” type your keyword, and choose your country (e.g., United States) and device type.
4. Run the request. You can copy the JSON results or export them directly into your tools to see exactly what your customers see, including ads, local packs, and AI Overviews.

Pricing

HasData offers a recurring free tier and three paid plans designed to scale:

• The Free plan ($0) gives you 100 requests to test the structured JSON output without a credit card.
• The Startup plan ($49/mo) offers 20,000 requests and 15 concurrent connections, suitable for solopreneurs.
• The Business plan ($99/mo) increases capacity to 100,000 requests and 30 concurrent connections for growing agencies.
• The Enterprise plan ($249/mo) is a rank-tracking powerhouse. With 300,000 requests, you can track 10,000 unique keywords every single day. It supports 50 concurrent requests for real-time monitoring.

4. Ahrefs DIY SEO Software

Ahref is another comprehensive DIY tool for local SEO. It includes keyword research, site explorer, and rank tracking. It is one of the most recommended SEO tools highlighting your site’s ranking performance. Also, from a competitor analysis approach, this tool determines your competitor’s backlinks quality and uses them as a starting point for your brand. 

With this tool, you can find the most linked content within your niche, look over and fix broken links on your site, and get an overview of your best-performing pages.  

Some of the Key Features

• Do keyword research for search engines
• Get total search traffic estimations.
• See ‘clicks’ data.
• See backlink growth or decline over time.
• See keyword click distributions.
• See top subfolders by traffic.
• Analyze SERP history
• See ranking history
• Monitor outbound links
• Get keyword ranking alerts.
• Analyze internal backlinks

How to use Ahref as a DIY SEO Software

1. Create your Ahref account or log in to the Ahref site. 
2. Then, enter your site’s URL into the search bar on the homepage and hit “enter.” After that, Ahref analyzes the site and provides all the data regarding that URL, including its organic traffic, URL backlinks, and much more.
3. Key in a keyword in the search bar to research specific keywords or phrases.
4.  After that, Ahref will provide you with all the data about that keyword, including organic search traffic, related keywords, and more.

Pricing 

Ahref has four pricing options:

1. The Lite pricing plan starts at $99 and is essential for small businesses or starters.
2. The standard pricing plan costs $199 for in-house marketers and SEO experts.
3. The advanced pricing plan is $399 for a mid-sized enterprise or growing business.
4. The enterprise pricing plan is $999 for large businesses and big agencies. 

5. Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider

Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider helps you optimize your website and increase traffic. Unlike most SEO software, this tool lets you search, filter, and customize your crawls. It also informs you of identical content, errors to fix, and improvement areas for link building while directing you on what to do next.

Some Key Features

• Audit Redirects
• Find Broken Links
• Discover Duplicate Content
• Analyse Page Titles & Meta Data
• Review Robots & Directives
• Extract Data with XPath
• Generate XML Sitemaps
• Schedule Audits

How to use Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider

1. Before performing any site crawls via the Screaming Frog SEO spider software, install the software on your PC. 
2. After installing the software, navigate to the configuration menu, then pick the Spider option.
3. After that, select crawl all subdomains. Start crawling and wait until it is completed.
4. Once the software finishes crawling, click on the Internal tab.
5. Filter your results by HTML, then export the data.

Pricing

This DIY SEO software for has two pricing options: free and paid. The paid version is usually $209 annually and has more features than the free version.

6. SpyFu SEO Software

SpyFu is another SEO tool with excellent competitive research features. It provides detailed SEO analysis on keywords to help boost your website’s ranking in search engines.

In addition to keyword information, SpyFu software provides data on your competitor’s ad spending, displaying how much they are willing to spend to be visible for different keywords. It’s valuable software for any business that wants to improve its website ranking and visibility. 

Some Key Features 

• Comprehensive Keyword Research
• Google Ads Spending Data
• PPC Competitor Research
• SEO reports 
• Backlinks builder
• Social Outreach for Backlinks
• SERP Analysis
• Website Ranking Information

How to use SpyFu as a DIY SEO Software

1. Create a SpyFu account. 
2. Enter your URL into Spyfu and navigate to the SEO Overview. 
3. Scroll down and see which keywords you share with your competitors.
4. After that, Spyfu will provide you with a list of your top 5 most valuable keywords. Review content that is already optimized for the top keywords.
5. Then, identify related posts you may have on this particular topic. Link these posts together where it makes sense. This will drive more traffic and build strong organic growth.

Pricing

SpyFu offers three different pricing plans in addition to their free trial option.

1. The basic plan costs $39 per month.
2. The professional plan goes for $79 per month.
3. They also have an enterprise price plan that they price upon request. This price version is mainly for larger businesses and agencies.

7. Keywords Everywhere

Keywords Everywhere is a great SEO Chrome extension that collects data from different SEO tools, like Search Console, Google Analytics, or Google Trends, to help you find the perfect keywords to rank. This tool simplifies discovering the best keywords for your site. So, instead of going through different websites daily, you can save time using this software.

Some Key Feature

• Accurate Search Volume Data
• Competitor Gap Analysis
• On-Page Analysis
• Traffic Metrics
• Trend Charts
• Keyword Research Widgets

How to use Keywords Everywhere as a DIY SEO Software

1. Download and install the Keywords Everywhere extension from either Google Chrome or Firefox
2. Then, decide if you want access to the premium features or not. For the premium features, you require an API key, which includes creating a Keywords Everywhere account (select the get API key option and enter your email address). However, you can easily access the free features after installation.
3. To access the premium features, copy the API key link sent via mail and open Keywords Everywhere. 
4. Select Settings and paste the API Key into the API settings box. Then, you can purchase credits to access the premium features.
5. Now you are set to go. You can search for any of the supported APIs. Your keyword metrics will appear below the search bar or be inserted into the platform you use.

Pricing

This DIY tool has different pricing plans for credits, where one credit equals one keyword.

1. Free version: Here, you can relate keywords and People Also Search For (PASF) keywords in Google and Bing or see YouTube insights and Tags, but no volume data.
2. $10 gets you 100,000 credits, $50 gets you 500,000 credits, $100 gets you 1,000,000 credits, $200 gets you 2,000,000 credits, $500 gets you 5 million credits, and $1000 gets you 10 million credits.

DIY Tips for Better SEO

1. Find the keywords Google attributes to your site
2. Optimize content for relevant, long-tail keywords 
3. Do basic on-page optimization
4. Improve Click-throughs
5. Optimize Title Tags
6. Monitor Analytics
7. Identify Keyword Gaps
8. Set up Google Alerts to trail mentions of your company
9. Make sure your site is mobile-friendly
10. Study your competitors

Final Thoughts

If you own an e-commerce business or have a website, performing DIY SEO is essential. It saves money and puts you in control of organic rankings. You can use the best DIY SEO Software to make it even easier. They provide insights that would otherwise take ages to generate manually.

That said, you need to work to get the best results. This means creating SEO-optimized content, conducting keyword research, and staying current with the latest SEO trends.

Image Credit: matchboxdesigngroup.com