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Link Wars: The SEO Awakens

Link Wars: The SEO Awakens

Amanda Jordan

November 20, 2024
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  1. 2023 Local Search Ranking Factors Source: https://whitespark.ca/local-search-ranking-factors Local Pack 12

    of top 50 Local Ranking Factors Organic 5 of top 15 Local Ranking Factors
  2. Hypothesis High-performing websites are more likely to focus on locally

    relevant link building instead of topically relevant link building.
  3. Why? Ideal backlinks provide context and helps establish clear relationships

    between your site, your topic, and your location.
  4. This is the Way These types of backlinks are more

    likely to provide actual referral traffic in addition to providing more connections, more information, and more context for AI and LLMs.
  5. Top 5 Sites and Their Link Profiles 1st-Page Rankings 63

    Average # of Keywords 87% Of 1st-Page Rankings Came from 5 Sites
  6. Top Performing Pages Site # of Backlinks Page 1 Terms

    Site 1 59 133 Site 2 58 191 Site 3 32 121 Site 4 17 146 Site 5 7 118
  7. Identify Competitors Choose competitors who are consistently eating your lunch.

    Tip: BrightLocal’s Local Search Grid is great for identifying these types of competitors.
  8. When Competitors Have Poor Links Choose a larger nearby metro

    and complete the process again. High-ranking local businesses in a more competitive city could turn up more opportunities than your smaller, local competitors.
  9. Categorize Backlinks Create your categorization guidelines and start categorizing. Tip:

    You can do this one-by-one, you can use a tool, you can build a tool. I’m not going to tell you how to live your life, friend.
  10. Analyze Data What does the data tell you about your

    top-performing competitors? Are they favoring a type of backlink you currently ignore?
  11. Acquire Links Once you’ve identified where the gaps are in

    your backlink profile, go after your competitors’ best quality backlinks.
  12. The Client Nationwide house cleaning franchise The Competitors SMBs and

    national franchises The Findings Competitor-based link acquisition WORKS
  13. Capitalizing on Competitor Opps Reverse Engineering Most Linked Content Target

    Links from 301s or 404s Find Unlinked Competitor Mentions
  14. Reverse Engineering Most Linked Content Target Competitor Articles That Are:

    Outdated - Published over a year ago Evergreen - Topic is always relevant
  15. Target Links from 301s or 404s Use This Tactic When:

    A relevant article/post has been removed but still has links pointing to it A relevant page has been redirected to a home or contact page
  16. Find Unlinked Competitor Mentions Target Competitor Mentions When: Content isn’t

    competitor-specific Industry or niche blog with no brand bias
  17. The Power of Round-Up Articles Round-up articles that your competitors

    are listed on can be extremely helpful and could be the difference between an AI search recommendation or not.
  18. Round-Up Articles & AI AI uses round-up articles to create

    many of their recommendations for local businesses. They are often shown as the sources in ChatGPT and AI overviews.
  19. Round-Up Articles are Good for AI It’s easy to understand

    why. These roundup pages are often from topically relevant or local sites and provide a significant amount of context.
  20. Round-Up Articles Testing & AI During testing, I discovered that

    in addition to getting a link, businesses that are highly ranked on roundup pages are more likely to be featured in AI results.
  21. Round-Up Results & AI All three of these sites from

    this one cited source show up in AI results in exactly the same order. This is the only cited source that included all 3.
  22. Round-Up Articles Increase Visibility Your visibility on these round-up pages

    could be the difference between showing up in AI searches.