Niche Edits: A Secret Weapon For Amazon Affiliates
In this post nahid133 from BHW is going to explain what niche edits are and talk about how they compare to other backlink strategies. nahid133 owns a website called Saint Review where he writes honest buying guides for Amazon affiliate items in the tech electronics niche.
The basics first
Just incase anyone has stumbled upon this post with zero SEO knowhow we'll just cover a few basics first.
A backlink is simply when one website links to another. Backlinks are one of the most important ranking factors of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other similar Search Engines.
Many studies have shown a strong correlation between backlinks and a website’s ability to rank. For this reason, webmasters and marketers have explored various tactics for building quality backlinks.
There are a handful of tactics out there, each with its pros and cons. Some methods are a black-hat strategy; others can be either black or white, depending on how it is executed. Black hat strategies have penalties from Google in the form of de-indexation,
with many websites being hit every year. So its important to understand the risks, pros and cons of all backlink building methods Amazon affiliates can use.
This article aims to discuss the most popular, though controversially, backlink building tactic known as Niche Edits. The article highlights what Niche Edits are, their advantages and disadvantages, how to use them, the safest way to use them,
and penalties that may come as a result of poor execution and low quality niche edits.
What exactly is a niche edit backlink?
Niche edits have been a part of Search Engine Optimization for quite some time. It was earlier referred to as ninja edits. The name suggests this practice had been largely a black hat tactic, like sneaking up to web content and inserting a backlink without the owner’s knowledge. Niche edits are also referred to as curated links or link edits.
Niche Edits are one of the easiest tactics of quality link building. You will insert contextual anchor links into quality blog posts and webpages that have already been indexed by Search Engines. Why this works great is because Google loves quality aged content, which means that this quality aged content is currently ranking high on SERP. When people visit this page they will most likely click through the embedded link and land on your site thereby increasing traffic. Apart from driving traffic to your site you will also receive some major link juice.
The fact that Google already ranks these articles is what makes them the strongest backlinks you can buy or get through manual outreach. They offer better link juice as Google likes aged articles with good traffic and naturally built authority.
SEOs have been utilizing niche edits as a backlink tactic for over a decade now, largely due to the fact that it is cheap. They do not have to spend money on quality content written. These tactics work for some people but backfire for others.
This appears to be the preferred future link building strategy as it costs about 25 – 30% of Blog outreach.
What are the advantages of niche edits?
1. They are cheaper than guest posts and safer than PBN. You do not have to pay writers to produce content for a guest post.
2. Less time consuming and more efficient. There is no content fatigue with Niche Edits. Guest blogs will always rely on the writer finishing the job before you can hope to generate any traffic from it. Sometimes writers can disappoint you.
3. The content is already indexed and ranked by search engines. With a guest post, you have to wait for the content to get indexed and to get ranked.
4. Can be used to balance a backlink profile if its mostly expired domains made into private blog networks.
What are the risks of using niche edits?
Niche Edits are a cheap, efficient, and quick way to improve SEO, but they come with some risks. You are advised to exercise maximum caution in dealing with Niche Edits to avoid any penalty by Search Engines.
Google is no fool. They have been onto Niche Edits for nearly as long as the tactics have been in existence. It is quite easy for Google to detect niche edits because, in most cases, these links are not closely relevant to the article or not natural at all. Another way Niche Edits can easily be detected is that the new link may be the only thing changing in an article, especially link edits cloaked by keyword-rich anchor texts.
The reasoning is simple: if one is to add a link naturally to an already existing article, they will mostly do it for one of three reasons: Add the link to a citation, replace a broken link, or update the article with new information.
So you want your niche edits to appear to be for one of these three reasons. If you are going to be doing a niche edit it is strongly recommended that you make an update to the article unless if you are replacing a broken link or adding a citation. Chipping, in a couple of paragraphs, will do the job.
What are the disadvantages of niche edits?
1. You cannot write the content of the article around your link. This makes relevancy a bit too difficult to achieve. The blogs you backlink from had already been published long before you came around. You can circumvent this hurdle if the blogger agrees to update the page with the information you provide.
2. The blogger may not be actively trying to promote that post anymore, simply because those posts are old.
3. You have no control over the content. You may prefer blogs with longer posts but may have to make do with shorter posts.
How to buy or find niche edits
Some articles cite a website or company or person without a link to that citation. As the owner, if you spot any such citations, you can request that the owner update the article with a link on the citation. This will be effective in building links in a natural manner.
Similarly, if you find a competitor’s page that no longer exists, it could be a great opportunity for link building. Just find all the websites that link to that page and request that those websites update their content because it is directing to a broken link, then suggest your page as a good substitute.
If you are hiring an agency for Niche Edits, make sure they are not using a PBN or sites that they own or use from a pre-determined list. Giving them a list of these websites will be a good way to let them do the manual outreach on your behalf.
The challenge with hiring an agency is that its hard to tell if the niche edits are real websites, real owners, real content, and real persons. The publications must also be high quality and closely related to what you offer otherwise the traffic may not be worth the effort in terms of topical link juice thats passed.
Conclusion
In conclusion I hope you can see how niche edits are a great way to source high quality niche relevant backlink to your website. If you use them in moderation as part of a balanced backlink profile they can boost you to any position on Google for your search terms.
Just remember to keep everything high quality and natural looking!