Let’s cut to the chase — Yes, niche edits work.
Niche edits, also known as link inserts, are an effective way to build backlinks to your site. The higher the DR/DA (domain authority) of the website you insert a link, the greater the effect on your ranking power.
In this article, we’ll discuss
- What are niche edits?
- Are niche edits safe, and do they really work
- How it compares to other popular link-building strategies
- Benefits of niche edits and how to do it
What is a Niche Edit?
A niche edit is when you ask a webmaster to add a hyperlink to an existing piece of content published on their website.
The link refers to your website – it could be a product page, an informational page, or an informative article.
Niche edit links require a lot of time for outreach. You’ll need to identify and reach out to a high volume of websites within your niche that might be willing to link to one of your pages.
Although you’re spending a lot of time with the footwork, the benefits of niche edit link building often outweigh the cons of the lengthy process.
All about the juice
Link juice is what every link builder is after.
If we compared websites to big cities, links would be the highways, roads, and railways linking these different places together.
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Municipalities will add these roads to the map or grid, allowing anyone to view this plan and determine the best way to navigate.
New roads don’t get added immediately, and it might take a while for them to appear on the map.
However, main highways are clearly marked so everyone can see the main route to their desired destination.
And that’s what makes niche edits so valuable to link builders and webmasters.
They give you a spot on an open road, a superhighway that has already been marked on the map and is frequently used by vehicles or internet users.
Whenever juice is passed from one site to another with a link, it helps the receiving website get featured and builds the recipient website’s strength. And this helps it higher in Google Searches.
Benefits of using niche edits to build links
1. The article is already indexed
Firstly, as we said in our example, the links fall into a superhighway of link juice. Guest posting might land you a link on a website, but that page would be new to the Google index.
And Google bots first need to ‘crawl’ the target website to check for relevancy and other ranking factors before indexing the page.
With a niche edit, the link builder can choose the target pages according to their standards and metrics, only asking for a niche edit on a page that Google already indexes.
Check out this article to learn why SEO takes so long to affect your SERP rankings.
2. You save resources.
A lot of time and effort goes into creating guest posts, making sure the article will rank well for the keywords you’re after.
It takes time for a writer to produce a quality piece and even more time editing and uploading it. All of this is sidestepped with niche edits, as you don’t need to create any new content.
You simply ask for a link to an existing article on your site, which requires minimal effort.
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3. Niche edits are genuinely effective.
That’s because they’re placed in existing articles relevant to your pages. This means that the organic traffic they pass on is relevant, helping you reach an audience interested in your content.
These are known as contextual links and search engines love them.
Are Niche edits hacked links?
No, a niche edit link is not a hacked link.
Hacked links are when a hacker or fraudulent person places a link on an existing website without the website owner’s knowledge or approval.
The hacked link could direct traffic to a web article or page that has nothing to do with the original website’s content. It could also contain a virus or other means of accessing sensitive information.
Needless to say, this is a black hat link-building strategy that should be avoided at all cost.
With white hat niche edits, the webmaster or website owner is contacted and asked for an edit to their existing article to display a backlink to one of your pages, nothing like what happens with hacked links.
Are niche edits safe?
When done correctly, niche edits are safe. As safe as any other form of link building.
It’s important to look at the anchor text of your niche insert before building a link. It should look natural to you as a human to pass the AI filters of Google and not incur a manual penalty or review.
When link inserts are done from a page that isn’t relevant to your website, Google’s Webspam team will pick up on it and flag your pages, sending your SERP rankings and the organic traffic that goes along with it down the drain.
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Link velocity is a second thing to be on the watch for with link inserts. It’s extremely unlikely that a new page would naturally attract 50 – 100 new links each month, isn’t it?
So start slowly, only building a few niche edit backlinks in the first month or two and then increasing them in increments.
Like any other link payment, paying for a link insert is against Google’s Webmaster guidelines and will penalize you, so tread carefully.
How to do it
Are you thinking of going at it yourself?
Here’s a basic overview of how to build niche insert links on your own.
Step #1 Identify relevant pages within your niche as link prospects
You could use a tool like Ahrefs to see what websites are linking to one another within your own niche and approach them for link inserts.
You could also manually use Google Search to find websites within your own niche. Do this by searching for a topic related to your website content and earmarking them.
Step #2 Filter the weeds from the wheat
Identify only the best websites using tools like Ahref or Moz and apply the filters you find helpful.
Depending on your requirements, you’ll be left with only the websites with a high enough Domain Authority (DA), Organic Traffic, Traffic Value, Search Volume, and Geography.
An important filter to apply with this step is the Keyword filter. You want to receive links from websites ranking for keywords within the same niche as you if you truly want to benefit from the link inserts.
Only contact these webmasters for niche edit links.
Step #3 Reaching out
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Once you have a shortlist of websites, send a personalized email explaining the benefits of linking to your page.
Perhaps your page ads value because it better explains a term quoted on their page. Or you have a larger variety of products that would benefit their audience.
Whatever the advantage of inserting the link to their website is, make sure to state it in the e-mail, as this will improve your chances of landing the link.
When reaching out to website owners for link insertions, you need to be prepared for an almost standard reply:
“Sure, we charge x – amount for link insertions and x amount for guest posts etc.”.
Unfortunately, the very nature of link-building attracts business-minded people. Few link placements are free these days, with editorial fees going along with most link-building agreements.
However, niche edits often help a webmaster and their audience, and it is thus possible to gain a free link if you can point out the benefits of doing so.
Niche edits vs. broken link building
Broken link building is the process of identifying links on websites that no longer direct traffic to active pages.
You would then create an article that would suit the existing link and ask the webmaster or editor to link to your content instead.
In a way, niche edits could be viewed as broken link building as you’re asking a web admin to link from existing content to your page. But the difference is that you wouldn’t be out to actively create a page that suits the broken link.
A niche edit simply means you’re asking for a backlink to an existing piece of information on your site that will add value to an established article on the web.
Here’s a summary of the pros and Cons of Broken Link Building to help you decide which is better for you.
Pros
- The ability to pick up on highly authoritative links.
- The links will come from relevant pages.
- Links are likely to be built from pages already indexed on Google.
Cons
- It takes a lot of time to filter through broken links on a website and identify only the best
- The competition is high and webmasters receive many pitches
- You need to invest in creating a good page that can replace broken links
Niche edits vs. Guest posting
Guest posting is when you write a blog article for another company’s website that links to your own site. A guest blogger usually writes about subjects similar to his website’s niche.
It’s a beneficial relationship between you and the webmaster, as both parties gain from the exchange.
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Guest posting is an awesome way to get a link because you can write an article from scratch and choose what information to add and what to omit, guiding the audience and influencing what information they receive.
You also get to choose exactly where to place the link, carefully picking the anchor text for your website.
With a guest post, there is a lot of effort on your part, the one asking for the link.
Firstly, you need to do all the research, write content according to the editorial standards of the company you’re reaching out to, and spend time writing a detailed article.
And that’s why so many site owners love guest posting services because you do a lot of work for free, which is fair.
Niche edits don’t require you, the link builder, or linked to the website to create any new content.
In summary, here are the main pros and cons of guest posting:
Pros
- You choose what information to add and what to omit, guiding the audience and influencing what information they receive.
- You also choose exactly where to place the link, carefully picking the anchor text for your website.
Cons
- You need to do all the research and spend time writing a detailed article
- Your article needs to meet the editorial standards of the website you’re reaching out to
A final thought
Niche edits work for building links to sites that are already indexed by Google and they can pass link juice to your site in a short amount of time.
Many link builders don’t include this method in their link-building strategy because the footwork takes time. It takes time and effort to set up the outreach campaign and filter through the linking prospects.
Let us do the hard work for you! Check out our niche edit / link insertion service here.
Contact us today to discuss the process and formulate a strategy to bring you the organic traffic you desire.