Off-Page SEO – Hoth Task

Step 3: Once you know how many credits to use, make your Link Building Plan

• • Pick the pages to target
    • 1st priority is to target any pages the MC has specified
    • If no target pages have been specified, find the right pages to target
      • Which pages have external links pointing to them already & how many? You can find this info in search console under Links >> External links >> Top linked pages >> More
      • Using the above info, make a list of high level/important pages. The homepage should usually have the most links to it, then after that, the most important services or products pages, then any other pages the client is wanting to target. Find pages that may have very few links but are important pages. You usually can’t go wrong including the homepage as one of the pages you want to link to.
      • Build links to the most important pages and specific products or services they offer. You could also build links to blog posts about that product or service and make sure the post has an internal link to the product or service page. Look for the products or services that get the most traffic to the site but aren’t very high on the first page of Google. Build links to these ones first.

Useful places to look in the SEO Master order to determine which pages should get what (if these pages haven’t been updated in over a year you should update them):

• Pages Tab
• Link Anchor %

Places you can check in Ahrefs or Search Console:

• Overview for the page, this helps see number of links and link history
• Anchor text distribution
• Keyword explorer for the target keyword. How are we stacking up with competitors? Do I need more domains (Link Outreach)? Or a high injection of backlinks (Foundations)?
• If it’s a blog post that’s ranking, consider doing a Syndication package. That gives a high quantity of links from news sites and such. Not super high in authority, but it helps the blog post get seen more organically.
• Any keywords in Search Console that are trending up in average position that we could give an extra boost to?

• Choose link building packages in The Hoth. If the MC has specified the type of links they want, follow their instruction. Otherwise, in The Hoth, navigate to Place Order and then select each package you want to explore before placing your orders.
  • Usually you should prioritize Hoth Link Outreach. These are higher quality low quantity links that will give the page a greater link juice boost. For Link Outreach, you can adjust the DA, Quantity, and Word Count, as you do so the price for the package will change.
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  • Unless the MC says otherwise, keep these at 1000 words. Usually DA20 or DA30 Outreach orders are sufficient, we would only really consider higher DA links if the client’s Domain Authority is much higher than DA30
  • If a page doesn’t have a lot of links and looks like it needs more quantity of links over quality at first, you might consider ordering a Hoth Foundations Large which is low quality high quantity. Don’t waste the client’s credits on Medium or Small Foundations packages.
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  • If it’s a blog post you’re targeting, consider doing a Syndication package. That gives a high quantity of links from news sites and such. Not super high in authority, but it helps the blog post get seen more organically
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  • The MC will be aware of any promotions going on, if they want you to take advantage of current promotions they will let you know.
  • You’ll need to calculate the best way to spend the available credits – this part takes some math to figure out how many different packages you can afford to get. Play around with it until you come up with a good way to spend the credits, you can mix and match different packages to spend the allotted credits. There are a lot of combinations and it will require a bit of figuring out.
  • Sometimes you might want to spend less credits this month so you have more to work with the next month. Work with the MC on this if you feel that would be a good idea.
  • MOVE ON TO THE NEXT STEP BEFORE SUBMITTING ANY ORDERS

Notes from Alex:

In general, buy mostly DA 20 and 30 Link Outreach packages. I do sometimes get higher ones to get a stronger push behind them. You can buy multiple posts of the same DA and check the box to make it a “multipack” order. I always do this when purchasing multiple posts so I don’t have to submit them all at the same time if I don’t want to.

If you think a page needs a good boost of Quantity links and you want to get a Hoth Foundations package. Just get the Large ones. I don’t think the Small or Mediums are good enough for much. Generally, if you see that there is a relatively new page or one that has almost no links, starting with a Large Foundations is a good thing.

• Choose the anchor text. Again, follow the MC’s instructions, if they’ve given no direction, do the following
  • Check Link Anchor % – this is a sheet on the SEO Master that can help you see what types of link’s the client is missing. If it hasn’t been updated in a while, go through the process of updating this sheet so you have accurate data to work off of – the instructions can be found in the sheet on the left hand side around Row 23.
  • Follow the indicated “Ideal Percentage” for Homepage vs. non homepage urls. If a page has too many “Exact” anchor text links and not enough “Natural” be sure to focus on “Natural” anchor text. If you’re not sure what to do, “Natural” anchor text will be your best bet.
  • A definition of “Blended”, “Natural”, and “Exact” anchor text can be seen if you hover over the the cells with the attached notes, the image below shows the note when you hover over “Blended”:
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• Once you’ve picked your pages, Link Hoth packages, and anchor text, fill out your plan in the Link Building sheet of the client’s SEO Master. Be sure to fill it out thoroughly and be aware of cells with equations in them so you don’t mess those cells up.

If you’re newer to Link building tasks, send your plan to the Fulfillment Director and or the MC for review.

In general, buy mostly DA 20 and 30 Link Outreach packages. I do sometimes get higher ones to get a stronger push behind them. You can buy multiple posts of the same DA and check the box to make it a “multipack” order. I always do this when purchasing multiple posts so I don’t have to submit them all at the same time if I don’t want to.

If you think a page needs a good boost of Quantity links and you want to get a Hoth Foundations package. Just get the Large ones. I don’t think the Small or Mediums are good enough for much. Generally, if you see that there is a relatively new page or one that has almost no links, starting with a Large Foundations is a good thing.

 

Step 4: Implement the Plan

Once approved, follow through with building the links in the Hoth.

• When submitting an order, make sure the order is set to One Time Only, the default setting is Recurring Monthly and we DO NOT want to set up monthly orders.
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• With some packages, there is a dropdown asking if The Hoth can have permission to change the anchor text, make sure this is set to no. The Hoth also often tries to upsell things, I normally default to not adding anything on.