Podcast With Bibi Raven

The Art of Link Building: Bibi Raven’s Proven Techniques

Show Notes

Unlock the secrets of Bibi the Link Builder in this episode of the Agency Insider Podcast! 🚀 Dive deep into exclusive strategies that can help rank your website number 1.

Discover a step-by-step guide to innovative link building strategies for 2024, as Bibi shares her journey from a university dropout to a leading expert in link-building. Learn how to drive more organic traffic and achieve a #1 ranking with Bibi creative and edgy tactics.

Are you ready to transform your link building approach and boost your search engine rankings? Stay updated with the latest trends and practical insights that cater to both beginners and advanced users. Don't miss out—watch now and empower your SEO journey!

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction

00:38 - Starting in SEO and Link Building

02:20 - Inspiration for Focusing on Link Building

03:19 - Link Building Strategies Overview

04:29 - Workflow for Linkable Assets

11:04 - Challenges in Client Work

12:59 - Ensuring Quality and Relevancy of Links

15:02 - Effective Outreach Campaigns

18:32 - Common Outreach Mistakes

20:36 - Importance of Website Research Before Outreach

23:10 - Understanding 3-Way Links

25:33 - Utilizing Marketplaces for Links

27:29 - Training and Team Building in SEO

32:03 - Keeping Your Team Motivated

35:35 - Next Tools and Techniques in Link Building

37:45 - Enjoyment in Link Building Work

40:44 - Underrated Aspects of Link Building

42:07 - Future Trends in SEO

43:50 - Getting Started in Link Building

48:28 - OUTRO

Transcript

Introduction

0:00 welcome to the agency Insider podcast today we have a special guest BB ravan

0:05 also known as BB the link Builder BB is an expert in SE and Link building known

0:11 for our creative and rather edgy tactics today we will delve into our journey

0:16 explore our Innovative techniques and gain insight into the future of Link building let's get started

0:25 [Applause]

0:30 [Music] hi

0:36 baby hello hi so can you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got

Starting in SEO and Link Building

0:43 started in SEO and specifically link building yeah so I won't go too far back because that's kind of boring but I'll

0:50 I'll make it short so basically I dropped out of University and then I had a lot of odd jobs and eventually I

0:57 realized I wanted to work from home to be with my kids my baby so I became a social media marketer uh a Facebook

1:03 marketer from a company called Cent trucks they're worldwide group in a in uh truck trading and I even wanted to

1:11 have more freedom so then I Googled how to make money online and I got into

1:16 affiliate sites and I got in contact with other affiliate site owners and they asked me to build links for them

1:22 and uh it was good pay you know so I thought like I'll do that while I work on my own sites that that last part

1:29 never really happened because I got so busy that uh yeah only did links okay

1:35 okay and uh so so what were some of the biggest challenges you faced early on um

1:41 yeah so I don't want to complain but I always had clients before I knew I wanted to business right and it was

1:47 always inbound leads which is great but in the beginning I didn't I wasn't really great at organizing stuff not

1:54 great at project management so I got way too many projects and didn't you know how execute them uh efficiently and I

2:02 think that was one of the biggest challenges where I really made a mess of things and got really behind on links

2:07 and all that stuff but then I connected with my now business partner and he's good at the operations side of things

2:14 like the project management stuff so that really saved it a lot so that was one of the biggest

Inspiration for Focusing on Link Building

2:20 challenges okay okay so uh and of course

2:25 besides the money what else inspire you to focus specifically on Builder uh in a

2:31 broader Su feeli um well it was to be honest it

2:36 wasn't really a conscious Choice it was just something specialization right because people asked me for it and I was

2:43 good at it I think it's it's one of the things that a lot of seos avoid to do because you have to deal with editors

2:48 and actual humans instead of doing everything on your computer so it wasn't a conscious Choice it was just something

2:55 uh I was able to do and uh it does sort of help to really specialize into

3:01 something so you're not uh responsible for 10 million things you're just responsible for this one uh set of

3:09 deliverables and people are willing to pay uh maybe a bit more than they would for all round

3:15 stuff right okay that makes sense right yeah so so let's talk about your

Link Building Strategies Overview

3:22 specialty which is of course link building yeah yes so you you discussed a

3:28 lot of Link building techniques like shotgun sniper so can you explain to our listeners what exactly these strategies

3:36 are and how do you use for different clients yeah so I never talked about

3:41 shotgun to be honest so I don't know where you read that I don't know there from the shotgun stuff other strategies

3:48 you follow for link building like not shotgun but otherwise what kind of Link building techniques you follow this just

3:55 simple find a website Outreach them or there is another way also yeah basically it's I specialize in two types of Link

4:02 building one is guest poost Outreach and the other one is creating linkable assets that are easy to build links to

4:09 or get links passively so those are the two main link building strategies so that means you help

4:17 clients with content as well yeah yeah I used to do only the ideas but lately

4:23 we've also gotten into creating more of the assets ourselves okay so uh can you take take

Workflow for Linkable Assets

4:29 us through a workflow how does that go about for our audience you mean the guest po Outreach or the linkable asset

4:36 stuff linkable assets oh yeah um it's always hard to talk about it

4:41 theoretically so I usually like to take a more practical approach so we can take

4:47 you say a niche and I'll I'll try to talk you through what I would do for that Niche okay uh let's take a legal

4:54 Nish okay cool yeah I have legal clients so first we uh help the the target page

5:00 sometimes a client already has Target Pages uh other times we do the analysis and we help determine it and if it's a

5:06 really commercial page it can be harder to build links to it so then we look what are any supporting pages right that

5:13 can help and sometimes it also helps to create new content if there are no supportive pages that we think are easy

5:19 to build links to and what I usually do is that um I use hvs a lot especially

5:26 the content yeah especially the content Explorer but we always do a brainstorm

5:31 session with our team so we do like two to three brainstorm sessions and I use

5:37 HS a lot but they use other methods some of them use Tik Tok or or AI you know or

5:43 just their common sense or they ask their friends and family and then we get a sheet together and just dump ideas and

5:49 it's a very free brainstorm session so there's no judgment usually the ideas

5:54 start really close to the product or service so if it's a legal thing it might be any anything around the the

6:00 legal surface but then when you go further down the brainstorm sheets as your mind start starts working right you

6:07 come to more topics that are more tendentially relevant or satellite

6:13 topics so that's the first session we just jump dump a lot of ideas so that's usually between 60 and 80 ideas then go

6:22 uh through uh the validation phase and there we look for any indication that an

6:27 idea might work so I use content Explorer so I would look uh if the idea

6:33 something similar exists already and if it's getting a lot of links or Twitter

6:39 or tweets or Pinterest shares or something like that and but you can also

6:44 look other look at Tik Tok right to see if it gets a lot of likes there or something like that so that's a

6:49 validation phase it doesn't mean though that everything has to already have proof you know sometimes you really know

6:56 something is a good idea and it hasn't been done before but you just know your gut that it it will work so we put all

7:02 these validation things in the sheet and then we make a short list of the things that we think will work will be easy to

7:08 build links to or get a lot of passively and then we run them by the client and out of these six seven ideas they choose

7:16 one or two and we run with it so that's basically the process of course you can

7:22 do Outreach for the linkable assets to boost them up or to see how what I was coming to so once the linkable asset is

7:29 is like what what is the next step do you do Outreach or you just leave it out there hoping somebody will catch it it

7:36 depends a little bit on the strength of the domain or you know or uh how easy

7:42 you think it will be to get picked up but we usually build a couple of links to it just to get it going right and I

7:49 think also it's a great way to get some proof because when you do Outreach and everybody you know nobody likes the

7:55 linkable asset then it's then you know it's it's it's not going to happen you have to change it or you have to come up

8:01 with something else it's a little bit of an experiment because you know sometimes they fail and sometimes they work so

8:08 when you are doing this Outreach for a linkable assets is this a different way of Outreach when you are outreaching for

8:14 let's say a guest postlink so the pitching and the whole thing is different or it's almost same no it's a

8:21 different because you need uh the value proposition is different so why would

8:26 somebody reach why would somebody link to your uh linkable assets sometimes sometimes

8:33 it's it does sometimes it's there's an overlap because a linkable asset uh they

8:38 don't have content that really would link out to the linkable asset so then you then you pitch to write something

8:44 that could link to the linkable asset so then there sort of like a guest poos linkable asset right normally what

8:49 people do is when they build a linkable asset then they reach out to journalists or other websites to share some Snippets

8:56 of it or to talk about it is that what you also do yeah it depends a little bit

9:01 on what type of linkable asset it is right so you could reach out to journalist but also to Industry leaders

9:08 or to um companies that uh maybe you know if it's around the legal Niche

9:14 there might be something in there that helps Their audience avoid legal costs you know something about liability so

9:21 then you can reach out to companies that cater to the same type of audience so let's say that there's a new regulation

9:27 around Texas or something and you know that if somebody doesn't isn't aware of those regulations they could get into

9:34 legal trouble so you reach out to accounting software to inform their

9:40 clients that this is happening so they don't run the risk of you know all those legal

9:45 problems okay so it's something close to kind of digital peer right not exactly

9:52 work but the asset yeah so I'm not a super expert in digital PR I do want to get into it so

9:59 I'm following Gabriela kov I really like her she's from Bright Valley marketing you should get her on this by the way

10:05 she's great yeah and she she does a PR Outreach and I always was very hesitant about reaching out to a lot of

10:11 journalists but she said she told me it's basically the same right the message should be a little bit shorter

10:17 more to the point but at the same time it's it's really the same so yeah yeah

10:22 that's what I was my next question was thought of going into digital because that's a because honestly that's where

10:29 the money is yeah I think I don't know if if that's if I would make not sure if

10:34 I would make more because my prices are the same I always charge the same price

10:39 but I think I might be able to save on labor cost because the guest post Outreach is quite labor intensive you

10:46 know especially the way I do it because I usually go for unpaid links right if you do paid links it's quite easy but

10:53 because I go mostly for unpaid links you go through a whole editorial process with link Prospect as well they can be a

11:00 total nightmare right right right so so what are the biggest challenges you face

Challenges in Client Work

11:05 when working with clients all linking with clients you mean like uh um challenges

11:14 in working with clients yes okay sorry in terms of they not accepting some kind

11:20 of Link or their expectations and your delivery being mismatch or they are very

11:26 clear yeah unfortunately that does happen um I try to minimize it as much as

11:32 possible so for instance when a lead comes in I send them a list of 25 questions and it's a list so I learn

11:40 more about the leads and they learn more about me and to see if we're match right

11:46 because I don't want to work with somebody who doesn't really understand how I work or what I expect but still

11:51 there can be some problems with that and I think it's to avoid that I think it's really important to talk a lot in the

11:58 beginning to have a a lot of communication and also to feel like it's a very safe environment so if they're

12:04 not happy with the link or or something else is is a problem that they can say it to me and then I can correct course

12:10 right or I can explain things so the biggest challenge I think is the

12:15 communicational differences sometimes sometimes I assume something is completely clear and for instance if if

12:22 I do pay for a link which does sometimes happen it's at my costs so I don't I pay

12:28 for for the link and I'm not going to ask the client to pay for the link so it's not extra cost but uh for some

12:35 reason even though I think I've explained is a lot the client still thinks that they have to pay for the link and I'm like no no no it's all

12:41 included and it's so weird because I I I now feel like it's at 10 different points in the contract in my service

12:48 page on the onboarding call so maybe it's me I sometimes maybe I'm not clear

12:53 or something so yeah communication okay okay and uh so

Ensuring Quality and Relevancy of Links

12:59 normally the link building agencies sell link based on their parameters like

13:05 domain ratings or organic traffic so how do so what exactly the parameters you

13:11 generally have for these links which you are building yeah so I'm not metric focused

13:18 so I focus more on authenticity and relevance I look for insights um but

13:25 some clients do want to follow a minimum and that's usually uh Dr 25 and traffic

13:32 a th that's the that's then the minimum and I also vet the sides you know for outgoing links if they're a link seller

13:39 and all those things but it's not metric focused okay so are there any other um

13:46 methods you use to ensure quality and relevancy of the uh links you buil for the

13:51 clients yeah so I look at the outbound links if they're going if they're selling to gambling and that kind of

13:58 stuff right sensitive niches I look at the traffic flow if it if it goes down or is increasing or other things and but

14:06 we also look at the site itself so if it's um if it's uh if it fits the target

14:12 page if it's relevant and if it's not a random site so you have these sites that

14:18 that you know they talk about businesses and then they talk about dildos and I'm like yeah that's random that's not going

14:24 to fit it's clearly not a really focused side or anything what else do we look

14:30 form we also look for how they reply in the inbox so if a reply comes back from

14:35 a site and they're like and I have 25 other sides then I'm like no maybe not

14:42 and it's not that I I don't mind if somebody's asking for money for a link but I do mind when it's when they don't

14:48 have any criteria for the buyer so if a site is very very very

14:54 easy to get a link on you know even if you're paying then it's usually your red flag for me right right right right

15:01 makes sense now so you are known for your creative Outreach Of course we're GNA go

Effective Outreach Campaigns

15:08 a little bit into it yeah so of course your Outreach emails are known for being highly creative and humorous can you

15:14 share some examples of your most successful Outreach campaign and what made them stand up yeah so I got to give

15:21 props to my team because I don't create the templates anymore most of the time so that's been for a couple of years now

15:29 or the team does and the people I hire they're usually very creative sometimes they're copywriters right and they their

15:36 templates they can be funny but they're not always funny they're always very much focused on the on the prospect you

15:43 know what's going on on there end of of the Inbox and let me think about yeah so

15:50 I think one template that works really well is in the photography Niche and it reaches out to blogs that talk about

15:56 photography or photograph software and all that kind of stuff and it's the it's a little bit flirty so in the subject

16:04 line it starts with um what's it now let's go in a dark room and see what

16:09 develops and when I when I saw that first for the template for the first time I really thought oh no we can't do

16:16 this this is just way this is not good and then the person that created template said yeah but we already sent

16:23 this out and we got a really high response rate and I think I think a template worked well because it was a

16:29 dad joke a little bit it was a little bit cheesy but it was also a little bit flirty but not creepy and also this the

16:37 person that sends it is a woman so that's I think if you send it as a man it's a whole different vibe it's very

16:42 targeted for the photography nich so it had all these references to photos in it

16:48 so I think that that worked really well another one that worked really well was I think it was going to marketing

16:54 websites and this is this is from another team member of mine Sammy what's it Sammy yeah I think so and the whole

17:02 template was based on storytelling which uh back then was a big hype in the

17:07 marketing and what he did was he made the template sequence like chapters in a

17:12 book so the first email was called chapter one and it it had a photo in it

17:19 or an image in it of a typewriter like a really old-fashioned typewriter and a greeting for the person was on the the

17:25 paper in the typewriter and then the second email was chapter two and then you know Final Chapter was the last

17:31 follow-up and he just told this whole story through sequence which I thought

17:36 was really cool and that worked really well so that was a for for a marketing nich yeah that was for the marketing

17:43 Niche okay so those are interesting things yeah and you know what I've

17:48 learned through years is that sometimes I don't think a template will work but then I'm wrong you know and and I also

17:56 teach other agencies how to write email emails and I never show them examples I

18:02 never show them templates because I think everybody should find the way of writing emails that fits them because if

18:08 you're trying to do something else if you're trying to be Seth Goden or whatever um it's not going to work you

18:14 really have to find your own kind of hook right yeah okay that makes sense so

18:22 so do you do agency trainings as well as you said okay we'll come into a training

18:27 part shortly where I'll ask now these yeah it's the next but just for the

Common Outreach Mistakes

18:32 Outreach part so what are some of the common mistakes you see people making in

18:37 their Outreach uh efforts I think one mistake is that they

18:42 think that well two mistakes actually one is they copy a successful template

18:48 and then they keep using it but I think a template does have an expiration date because for some reason it gets out in

18:55 the world it gets used by more and more people and then the people that receive the email they start recognizing it and

19:01 it doesn't matter how good it sounds or whatever thing you're using in it it doesn't work anymore so you you just

19:07 have to keep following the progress of your templates and then change them right the other uh mistake is um wait

19:16 what was it now oh I forgot I had another mistake uh yeah so yeah the other

19:22 mistake is that people are so obsessed with scaling that they forget about conversion rate

19:29 so there's a balance between the two right I understand scaling it's very efficient um I think if you go for paid

19:36 links it's probably okay you know if you send out people it's it's it's MoneyWise financially it's very it makes sense but

19:44 if you do want to have some sort of unpaid links in there don't be so obsessed with scaling but also look at

19:49 your conversion and then might might be that in the beginning when you start your campaign you have to put what four

19:56 hours into a template and it sounds like a lot of work but if it gets your conversion rates up it's really worth it

20:05 and if it gets you the the times that people uh flag you for spam if you get

20:10 that down it actually also saves you money because you don't have to use another email and have that whole system

20:15 you know set up so I think uh people are so focused on scaling and and you know

20:21 in every industry too much focus on scaling is bad I mean look at the climate change this this is all about

20:28 people producing right so we got to go back to a little bit more quality and

20:35 conversion and do you think people sometime I mean a common mistake which I see is not researching the website just

Importance of Website Research Before Outreach

20:42 hitting the info or a contactor email ID that seems to a very common mistake not

20:48 researching the website I and just hitting for the hitting and the mail and asking for backlinks yeah I think you

20:55 have to you have to pay attention to every step uh of the way so sometimes people they're so focused on the

21:01 Outreach that they ask me you know how do I create a perfect Outreach email and then I say well look at why you're doing

21:08 it why are you doing the Outreach because you don't have if you don't have a good reason why you're reaching out to this type of prospect it's going to show

21:15 your value proposition right so start at the beginning of your strategy or sometimes they will think my my email

21:22 doesn't work it doesn't convert but look at the way you're prospecting maybe you're only reaching out the sites that

21:28 will never allow you to guess post or are only obsessed with money right or look at your uh how you manage the inbox

21:36 sometimes a person's campaign can be so great and then in the inbox they change

21:42 the the tone of their voice so they'll reach out with a really heartfelt

21:48 serious warm email and then a person Prospect replies and then they go back

21:54 to thank you for applying to my email or something I don't know you know and and

22:01 the person replying to the email was like this is not the person who I was talking to right right yeah so so we

22:08 don't do any Outreach I mean we don't take any inbound links or links for Pace traffic but I get request on all of our

22:16 channels sometime people are so desate how much just type how much money how

22:21 much for that's it one and they come on my LinkedIn they come on my Facebook

22:27 everywhere it's a headache for every day we receive at least 10 20 of these where people are desperate enough to get the

22:32 links no matter what they don't we have it a lot and and the thing is also that probably works right you

22:41 just have to do it a thousand times with a bot or something and it works but do you really want to do that so you got to

22:46 pick the method that works well for you it's it's kind of like guys pick this is g to be horrible but guys picking up

22:52 women in in a in a bar you know some of them are so desperate they just use the

22:57 same opening and like 200 women maybe at some point

23:03 it works but is that really what you want so I don't know don't be that guy now now I have seen late uh not lately

Understanding 3-Way Links

23:11 but I've seen a trend where people are uh where bigger websites now tends to be mailing you for a three-way link so oh

23:18 yeah what is your take on it and have you been doing something like that yeah

23:23 so first of all those it's not the websites reaching out to you it's a link Builder so using to do it so you're

23:30 never actually talking to the website itself well sometimes it in it's inhouse but often it's not I think it's a really

23:37 good system I haven't been able to work it well because I do I've tried it a

23:42 little bit working with somebody but the thing is is that I'm very transparent and open to my clients so I tell them

23:49 how how how I'm getting the link what the deal is you know I I I want the client's approval for where their link

23:55 is going how it's placed and all that stuff and and the people that do three-way systems not all of them but a

24:01 lot of them they just have a giant list or and they have all these slack communities and Facebook things and

24:06 whatever and I used to very quickly doing like t t t t t they do the three-way exchange and so if you if you

24:13 need your client approval it's gonna you're going to be way too slow right and it's it's a nightmare but I think if

24:19 you have a good system and your client is okay with it and you make sure the placement is correct I think it's good

24:26 unfortunately sometimes you can see an article and it's like uh I don't know there are

24:31 like 50 links in there and you know it's just it's just a Dumping Ground to get

24:37 link quota three-way link tops I think every every strategy or method has its

24:42 merits it's all the exec how you do it right so I I for example I've seen people

24:51 being able to get links from americanexpress.com so imagine that's awesome if you do it well but yeah there

24:58 is method of course it's not straight link building they you will get a quote of your CEO in that with a link okay so

25:06 we spoke with the builder how does she use credit cards for like that I think I

25:11 think it's nice you know if if if it's part of your link mix I don't see any problem with it but if it's your only

25:18 strategy and you're doing it in a way that's that starts to look more like um

25:23 link wheel or I don't know you know back in the days they were called pbn or or whatever it's just uh yeah just be

25:31 careful right and and now we also see a lot of marketplaces coming up which are

Utilizing Marketplaces for Links

25:36 just sing L course for the money and I'm sure but so how how what is your take on

25:43 these I mean Market Place versus you hardcore manually doing link

25:49 links yeah again I think a couple of links from a Marketplace shouldn't be bad if you vet the site real well and if

25:56 you keep an eye on it and make make sure your placement is relevant and looks natural however there are so many people

26:04 that use these marketplaces over and over and over again and you know you can

26:09 see all the competitors basically have the same links from the same Marketplace and I wonder how valuable it is you know

26:16 and and if it if it can be risky at some point for a penalty so I would again I

26:21 would never focus on that as my only link strategy I would just maybe pick a

26:26 couple of them that that look really good and then do additional ones through other methods if if I um if I have one

26:33 tip for companies that are getting into link building is that I would just start it yourself first and fail maybe because

26:39 so you understand how it works and then you might be able then decide that you don't want to do and hire a link Builder

26:45 or at whatever but if you do it yourself first then really look at the links that you easy links that you're not getting

26:53 so I'm um uh I've been Consulting uh Amnesty International at this point and

26:59 you would think that they they get easy links or whatever and and they actually do but there are so

27:05 many links that they're that they could have gotten that they just lie leave on the table so it's their existing Network

27:12 or something or they get a mention somewhere and they don't go and try to get the link or whatever so always look

27:18 at your at your own network first and what links you're you're forgetting about that you could easily get

27:24 yourself right right yeah yeah so I'm going to talk a little bit

Training and Team Building in SEO

27:30 about training and uh team building of cool yeah so you of course how how

27:38 important do you think training teams in link building is and do you train your people do you have Sops or how do you do

27:45 that on boarding process yeah so I think when I when before I hire people I

27:50 usually do a test to see if they can follow instructions but also to see if they have some creative bone in their

27:57 body uh and the test is actually really close to what they would be doing so it's basically writing an email to a

28:03 specific site and then I also tell them don't use um don't use anything you see online don't use any template just write

28:10 email so the people that I think the recruitment is really important because if somebody doesn't have that little spark you know or doesn't know how to

28:18 write good casual English um you're it's going to take you so much time to teach

28:25 them that if if you can even teach them that right so that's really important and then when I train them they can

28:31 choose to do well I train them on all aspects of Link building but then they can choose if they want to focus on the

28:37 creative stuff or just the data stuff or do both of them because you can't be creative all day you know sometimes you

28:43 need some brainless stuff to to do actually actually data stuff isn't Brainless by the way it's really it's

28:50 really hard so what I do then but let's focus on the creative stuff right because that's the that's usually the

28:56 hardest thing is that I start with bespoke emails so bespoke emails are emails you only send to one site and

29:04 your whole email needs to be absolutely bespoke it cannot be sent to another Health site or to another legal site so

29:11 they really have to go into the site and research and then write the email and whatever and it has to sound okay and

29:17 then I give feedback and then they you know we go through revisions um and they write about five to 10 bespoke emails

29:26 and the cool thing is is that when you focus on a specific Niche but you are writing thepoke emails that there's some

29:33 pattern that comes up because you're writing to the same type of sites but it's bespoke for every site but then you

29:39 start seeing oh they all have green smoothies right and then you are ready

29:45 to actually create a template but you've done the research in a niche you know how to write a bespoke email that breaks

29:52 you out of some kind of box where you what you about what you think an email should be and then they write a

29:58 templates uh and then that goes to revisions as well what what we also do in the training usually is that when

30:04 they write the bespoke email when it's okay when it's 80% okay we send it out just to see what happens bespoke emails

30:11 actually have a really high conversion rate but they take too much time and head space it's like yeah so template is

30:19 is a nice in between uh thing yeah so what what skill sets beside creativity

30:26 and you look when you hiring uh person for Ling building yeah so ideally somebody should

30:33 be very communicative they can be interferred right but they need to uh feel okay to ask questions or give a

30:39 heads up when they're having problems and all this stuff I think it's really important because all my all the people I work with are remotes if they don't

30:46 communicate with me I have no idea what's going on and of course of course I understand if you're having a

30:51 difficult time in your life or something happens but please tell me right because we're depending on you so that's

30:58 something I learned the hard way really look for in a person so sometimes when I

31:03 do a test for the recruitment if I hire new people I actually mess up the test

31:08 and they have to ask me you know I can't access this thing or I can't you know

31:14 that's so that's a a way for me to see are they communicating if they're they're stuck so communicative skills

31:20 the other thing is I attention to detail and that's also really important yeah so

31:26 yeah and it's something I also do testing recruitment so I ask for specific so for instance if I post a job

31:33 post it's a really long job post and you have to read all the way through it and

31:39 there's also a video in it that introduces where I introduce myself but the actual test is hidden in a video at

31:47 the end of the video so the person has to watch the whole video and then

31:52 actually notice that the test is there and then they have to take action based on that so that's how test attention

31:58 pretty so okay and uh so how do you keep your

Keeping Your Team Motivated

32:04 team motivated and up toate with latest Su Trends yeah that's a good question so

32:10 we're link Builders mostly so we're not that involved in on page seo seo and we

32:16 we don't follow SEO trends that much we should probably do more but in a day-to-

32:21 day work it does there's not always time to do it so I do post stuff about SEO

32:27 and I have them go through H's training videos and all this stuff I I don't

32:32 think they're like hardcore SEO experts and I I'm not either but uh the team building part that's that's something

32:39 that's that's been really nice so at some point I realized that I can't really promote people they're just kind

32:46 of stuck in their job nobody really you can become a team lead but I actually don't need that many team leads I have I

32:53 have three wait yeah I have two team leads that's enough right so so then I

32:58 read this book called The Dream manager and it was a a book with a story about a

33:03 big cleaning company where they had a huge turnover so they had like I don't know people would people would um how do

33:11 you say quit their jobs a lot so what they did they hired a dream manager and all the dream manager did was coach

33:16 people on realizing their dreams and it could be anything right so it could be personal business whatever so what we

33:23 did was then we organized a group and we invited people it was volunt

33:28 and all they do is that from the first session they write down 100 dreams in

33:34 different categories so it's like physical appearance family Money travel

33:39 all those kind of things education and it never gets a h 100 dreams but they just get to a lot and then with the

33:45 group together we pick out three dreams and then we identify what would be the first step to do this right to get to

33:52 this dream sometimes it's research sometimes it's it's a daily action or whatever and

33:58 every week we have like a half hour to 45 minutes where everybody says what

34:03 they've done in terms of their dreams and what they're doing that week and that's all we do and then we have a

34:09 channel it's sort of like accountability Channel and people post every day what they've done and I think that really

34:16 really helps with team building because you get to know each other but also you get the feeling that you're also a human

34:21 you're not just somebody not just an employee and you can bring your dreams to work right and I think that's one of

34:28 the reasons that I think some people I don't pay enough I I would like to pay

34:33 them more but I don't have that money but they still stay and do the job because they get that feeling that they

34:39 can also achieve other things than just you know money stuff that's a very unique thing I heard in all my podcast

34:47 recently honestly yeah yeah it's it's not yeah I like it oh we also do games

34:52 and all that stuff but it's just so all your people work in work from office or

34:57 they work from home as they all work from home yeah so we've got people

35:03 working in the Philippines tiny dad Spain us uh yeah I mean from the

35:10 Netherlands so how many people team you have now I think we now have 21 we used

35:15 to have 30 but um it became really hard to manage for me well I wasn't managing

35:23 them but I was just I realized this is too big and uh

35:28 yeah so then we we we did have to let people go and we became smaller but I like it

Next Tools and Techniques in Link Building

35:35 okay so let's talk about next tools and techniques I know you've been a fan of

35:42 pitchbox but can you share some other tools which you find indispensable for your link building campaigns and why you

35:49 prefer them except box and Cherry office which of course stands to be your

35:55 favorite yeah so I'm a minim IST with tools especially so I always try to and

36:01 not a lot of tools I know that there are amazing tools out there but I just like not use a lot so we use uh clickup for

36:09 project management and um slack for communication I think that's it oh and

36:14 mid Journey oh mid Journey we also use it for images

36:19 Creations oh yeah an AI tools yeah so we use Gemini clouds um yeah all those so

36:27 are there any Innovative techniques you are currently experimenting in your link building

36:33 efforts yeah so I got inspired by Stacy mcnut she's also a PR link Builder and

36:41 she creates images for for uh clients that um get used in newspapers and stuff

36:47 and I really like that so with her blessing I'm trying that out too of course it's just way harder than I

36:54 thought it would be okay you know every time you talk to a specialist like a PR

37:00 link build they're like oh yeah it's just do this and this easy and there and then you start doing it and then you

37:06 find out like okay this is not yeah so but she she uses AI to

37:11 create those images so I've been doing that too yeah and other novel yeah mainly the

37:18 novel link builder stuff is that I use AI for images image generation so for

37:24 one client I did uh was around dating and and we did odd couples with mid

37:29 Journey regenerated weird couples so for instance the clown from It Dating Winnie

37:36 the pool you know things like that yeah um what

37:42 else no I think that's it yeah okay uh and what do you enjoy most about your

Enjoyment in Link Building Work

37:49 work in Ling building I don't like the pressure I know you ask me what what I enjoy so one of the things that that

37:55 sometimes is really grinding and dragging is just constant pressure to deliver links right and it do it is

38:01 becoming harder and harder so when I started in link building it was easier

38:07 but people back then were already saying it's hard so this was like I don't know like six years ago or something and now

38:15 it's it's it's it's just harder and harder so that's what I don't like what I do like is that that I I email people

38:22 and email is one of the most hated things on the planet but it gives me huge kick when prospects actually me

38:30 thank actually thank me for the email it's like I'm doing cold email I'm basically spamming you and you're

38:37 thanking me for the email that gives me a lot of like a rush you know so I love

38:42 doing that and what I also love is because I don't focus on one Niche I do

38:48 things like adult toys and then I do supplements and then I do accounting software and then I do legal is that you

38:55 get an Insight in all these different different businesses and learn how they make money or what kind of you know

39:01 weird things are going on in that business use these insights for your advantage besides link building no but

39:07 it does make me yeah I do definitely want to do something else next to link building you know to learn more about

39:13 and having income and stuff but uh I should I should because it's it's interesting for sure so you said you

39:20 started with affiliate uh marketing so do you still do that or no time for that

39:25 no so so there some something I really regret because when I I started with affiliate sides I knew how to get a lot

39:32 of traffic but I I never thought about the monetization so then I was like okay I'm

39:37 getting a lot of traffic now what so and and at the time when I I started to

39:44 monetize then then people asked me to build links for them so then I just did that and all my affiliate sites died I

39:52 just neglected them and love bad stuff and whatever so I wanted to get back into it sites so I was talking to Gil

39:59 Bretton you know from Authority hackers and all this stuff but then all these updates happened and now I'm like okay

40:05 now so then I tried sorry I said now is not the right time

40:11 no now I don't know yeah I think I think now it might not be the right time but then then I was like maybe I'll try Tik

40:18 Tok you know because uh and then I thought TI Tok is really it's really toxic it's addictive do I really want to

40:24 do this so I'm at this point I'm 49 where I'm thinking do I really want to

40:30 make people buy stuff that don't need you know so I'm having a little bit of a marketing crisis want to make money but

40:37 at the same time I don't want to get more crap into the

40:42 world okay uh so what do you believe are the most underrated aspects of Link building

Underrated Aspects of Link Building

40:49 that uh more people should focus on I think one is the prospecting so if you're always

40:55 prospecting in the same way and you're getting the same results back it might not be your Outreach it might actually

41:01 be the way you're prospecting so for instance uh people do a lot of topic topical based prospecting where they're

41:09 like I want to find everybody who talks about hair loss so I'm going to prospect on these keywords around hair loss right

41:16 which is fine but everybody else is doing that so maybe instead of doing

41:22 hair loss you should look at the audience which companies have the same audience but they're not competing with you maybe it's people that produce

41:29 massaging oils right because if you have hair loss one of the tips is to massage

41:34 your head with uh oils so if you reach out to companies that that produce these massaging oils yeah they might not be

41:41 ranking on the exact keyword that you want to rank for or they might not have giant amounts of traffic it might just

41:48 be a small massage oral producer somewhere but they still have your audience you know and it's it's it's a

41:54 real authentic and relevant link so I think the prospecting is important to switch that up a little bit and the

41:59 other part is the inbox management because I really think people lose links

42:04 there as well and it's pretty right right now future of su and

Future Trends in SEO

42:11 Link building so what do you uh I mean how do you see the field of Link

42:16 building evolving in next five to 10 years I mean I'm really bad at Futures

42:24 okay let me rephrase if you want how do you see it has evolved after the Google March update so has it your has the has

42:32 your I mean the business gone up or has it gone down people are scared to get

42:38 into backlinks or SEO so if you can throw some light I want to say it's

42:44 volatile so it's I get leads they want to spend a lot of money but then another client passes because they're scared you

42:51 want to focus on other stuff so it's very volatile or person you know so it's

42:56 not necessarily less or something but it's kind of more unpredictable people make really fast decisions and that's

43:03 that's kind of hard for the future of links I don't know you know it it so

43:09 every every couple of months one method is dead and then then they then they hail the other method so for for

43:16 instance for a little short while guest posting was kind of like frowned upon mainly because people were doing a lot

43:22 of paid guest post but then somebody found something in the Google release

43:28 where it said oh guest post might be okay so now everybody wants to do guest post again and I think if you want a

43:34 future proof yourself just don't rely on one strategy yes you have to focus on a strategy to learn how to do it well but

43:41 then start building up your portfolio and do a couple more different things that makes sense and uh so can

43:49 you share some tips for the people who want to get started into link building.

Getting Started in Link Building

43:55 link building for themselves or like as a business or as an agency as an agency

44:01 I would say IDs IDs first so make sure that you invest time

44:09 and have the skills to come up with great ideas and then use different uh

44:15 link methods because I think that that is what speaks to clients if you show that

44:22 you understand where they're coming from and that you have ideas for where to take it next that's something they like

44:28 they like that attention yeah so if you if you start a link building you should maybe start talking about uh specific

44:35 ideas you have for the medical Niche or specific ideas you have for whatever so how do you get of course you

44:43 started six years back what is your how do you get more leads from is it from referrals is it uh from agencies so what

44:50 kind of a breakup if you can yeah most yeah most of my links are inbounds I

44:56 think it's mostly referrals but I also think podcasts work really well so like

45:02 this right yeah so you got you got to put yourself uh out there and uh build

45:08 up a name but start with your own network and uh yeah go from there yeah

45:14 okay and uh any must read book or website recommendations because that's a

45:20 question I love to because sometime I ask and some people say reading I'm not into reading but I I guess you are into

45:25 reading yeah I do read but I I only read zombie books

45:32 really oh yeah I did the forward for the HS book SEO for

45:39 beginners it in yes cool oh I love it um

45:45 but I think for websites I really like exploring topics although lately it's

45:52 there's something weird going on but I would yeah I we just follow those kind

45:58 of Trends uh aggregation sites I don't know do you know any other ones that are good because I only know I think I only

46:05 know exploring topics but no I think that's good enough but but for the book you did mention the dream manager I

46:12 think that's a good book I haven't read oh yeah yeah the dream manager that's a

46:17 I'll put the link right in the comments below the just can find it the book

46:22 sound and find and find industry leaders in other n

46:28 I think so that that that's websit I always follow when I try to come up with link

46:34 building campaigns said I look at oh what's going on in SAS you know or what's going on in this industry that

46:41 really helps don't don't stick in the SEO bubble right that is absolutely true

46:47 so with that we come to the end of this uh interesting session thank you thank

46:54 you so much B for sharing your insights and experience with with us today it's been a pleasure having you on the show

46:59 where can our listeners find you online and learn more about you um yeah just go to bbb.com and Google BB the link

47:07 Builder and you'll probably find some uh weird oh yeah I started a YouTube channel nobody watches it by the way so

47:13 please go watch I watched it made me oh that's so nice I don't know so I wanted

47:19 to learn about video editing and that's why I started the channel it's called spam or jam and I just talk about email

47:26 uh and we also try not to just do Outreach emails but also look at sales emails or things like that and then I

47:32 have a guest it's always really short like eight minutes we go through the email and then my my feedback is mostly

47:39 on the screen so I don't talk but it's all on the screen as comments when you see the email but the guests they give

47:45 their feedback and they give recommendations so I had seen that right it was it was funny and interesting

47:50 right yeah it's cool yeah it's got Mark yes yeah Mark Webster Sam oh was on

47:57 it yes I saw that okay cool you should be on there why not why not yeah be fun

48:04 yeah next time why not whenever you want I'll be yeah awesome okay so thank you

48:11 to our listeners for tuning in to the agency Insider podcast and be sure to check out BB re's work her new her

48:18 YouTube channel and stay tuned for our next episode until next time thank you

48:24 thank you thank you so much good questions