Every few months, the SEO world declares link building dead.

You’ve heard it all before:

And yet, according to Google Trends, interest in link building is at an all-time high and is currently skyrocketing.

Our own  Link Building Trends report found that 56% of SEOs plan to increase their link building budgets in 2025.

Both can’t be true…can they?

In this post, I aim to dispel some misconceptions, shed light on studies you may not have encountered, and help you understand whether links matter and answer once and for all if link building is dead (it’s not).

Links Still Correlate with Better Rankings

Let’s start with the most direct studies.

Ahrefs concluded in their January 2025 analysis of 1,000,000 keywords that, in general, the number of backlinks and referring domains positively correlated with ranking in the top 20 SERP results.

Overall, it looked like this:

Breaking down the factors, you can see that it’s both the number of referring domains and backlinks that positively correlate with rankings:

• Number of refdomains: 0.255
• Number of followed refdomains: 0.250
• Number of backlinks: 0.248
• Number of followed backlinks: 0.242

But that’s not all.

Another study, conducted by Backlinko in April 2025, which analyzed 11.8 Million search results, found similar results.

In general, the top-ranking pages have more backlinks than lower-ranking pages:

The top ranking Google result has almost 4 times as many backlinks as 2-10:

However, causation can be messy.

Are the pages ranking because they have links getting links or because they rank?

It’s a chicken-and-the-egg situation.

So, let’s step back from pure link numbers and start looking at what these links are made to impact, which is more organic traffic, better rankings, and higher site authority.

Traditional Link Building is (Mostly) Dead

We used to be able to brute-force build links to achieve rankings. But that is no more.

I’ve outlined my thoughts on that in this post on link building in 2025, so I won’t get too far into it here.

Basically, Helpful Content Update in March 2024 and subsequent Link Spam Update in June dealt a significant blow to most sites that existed solely to buy and sell links.

In a recent study I conducted on guest post costs, I examined the quality of guest posts and link insertion sites on link vendor sites and found that only about 4.6% were of high quality.

Many other traditional tactics, such as resource page outreach, broken link building, and link insertions, once offered numerous opportunities and had a significant impact.

However, agencies and consultants still employ these tactics; for the most part, they are now used as opportunistic or supportive tactics, rather than as entire service offerings.

This decline in traditional tactics is precisely why digital PR has emerged as one of the most effective strategies.

Instead of chasing low-quality placemats and manufactured opportunities, brands are earning coverage on trusted sites.

But again, if all of this is true, why is link building trending?

Because, as you’ll see, links still have a significant impact on rankings and traffic.

Link Building Matters for How It Impacts Organic Traffic and Rankings (Backed by Empirical Research)

Understanding why we build links helps us comprehend the impact of link building and better answer our target question: whether link building is dead.

If you’re just building links to build links, you are missing the bigger picture.

To understand why SEOs build links, let’s examine our Link Building Trends study, which reveals that the most essential reason organizations invest in link building is to improve search rankings and increase organic traffic (68%).

So here are some studies I’ve found that help support the notion that link building helps enable:

• Higher organic traffic
• Better rankings
• Stronger authority

1. SEMRush – 2025 Ranking Factors Study (16,298 keywords)

Takeaway: High organic traffic still correlates with better ranking

In SEMrush’s most recent Ranking Factors Study, which analyzed 16,298 keywords, they found that a URL’s organic traffic and a domain’s organic traffic correlate highly with ranking position.

In the screenshot below, you can see that organic traffic and rank are the 2nd and 3rd most highly correlated, with correlations of 0.33 and 0.28, respectively.

The pure link-related metrics are located, which are still positively correlated with ranking, but to a lesser extent, at 0.18.

One of the other things SEOs typically look to improve with link building is website authority, so let’s look at that next.

2. Backlinko – We Analyzed 11.8 Million Google Search Results – Here’s What We Learned About SEO

Takeaway: Higher domain rating still correlates with higher rankings

In another study conducted by Backlinko in April 2025, they found that Domain Rating (DR), Ahref’s proprietary authority metric, correlates with higher first page Google rankings:

As you can see below, the trend continues for SERP position:

Digital PR and Links

At this point, it’s becoming clear to me that raw link numbers are not what you should be looking for. Link building should be utilized to enhance rankings and increase traffic.

And looking at it from that lens the impact of link building —especially digital PR— is very much alive,

Campaigns generate exactly the kind of authoritative, editorial links that studies like this show are most likely to improve rankings.

But let’s face it, most people don’t care as much about organic traffic anymore. The hot topic is AI.

So, let’s see if links still matter for AI.

Where Link Building Matters in AI (Backed by Empirical Research)

If you ascribe to the thought process that links help rankings, then you’ll be pretty excited to learn that brand visibility in AI Overviews still maintains high correlations with rankings.

I found three studies that demonstrate the impact of ranking on visibility in AI Overviews.

1. SERanking – The State of AI Overviews in 2024: Research Insights and Future Forecasts

Takeaway: 92% of AI Overview citations include at least one top-10 ranking page.

SERanking published an exhaustive analysis at the end of 2024 on AI Overviews, which found that in over 92% of cases, the sources cited in an AI overview included at least one of the top-10 organic search results for that query.

This was based on an analysis of a mix of 18,767 keywords that triggered AIOs. As you can see, it has generally been increasing over time.

2. Ahrefs – Does Ranking Higher on Google Mean You’ll Get Cited in AI Overviews?

Takeaway: ~50% of the #1 rankings overlap with AI citations.

Furthermore, Ahrefs also published a study in July that found a correlation of 0.347 between ranking in the top 10 and being cited in the top 3 AI Overview results.

When you look at the graph below, you can see that about 50% of the number one ranking pages overlap with AI Overview citations.

After that, they drop down pretty steadily.

You can see this same trend play out in ZipTie’s study as well.

As you can see, ChatGPT is the only one that doesn’t correlate as highly, which we’ll discuss later.

3. Ahrefs – 76% of AI Overview Citations Pull From Top 10 Pages

Takeaway: 76% of AI Overview Citations overlap with Top 10 ranking results

In yet another Ahrefs study of 1.9 million AI Overview citations from July 2025, they found that 76.10% of the citations rank in the top 10 of the Google SERP.

The other minor takeaway is that

4. SurferSEO – AI Search Study: Sources in Google AI Overviews

Takeaway: 65% of AI answers come from positions 1-10.

SurferSEO conducted a study in July 2025, which also found that 65% of the sources used in the answer (or in the fan-out query) originate from positions 1-10.

However, there’s a lot more to the sources than meets the eye.

SurferSEO provided a more detailed breakdown of how AI Overviews has two kinds of sources they show, described in the article like this:

• Core Sources: frequently reused URLs that appear across multiple responses for the same query.
• Non-Core Sources: These appear only once and often don’t recur.

The reasoning behind Google’s doing this is a bit unclear to me (and to SurferSEO), but overall, the core sources have a significantly higher average rank.

They also have a higher Domain Authority.

In both cases, for each type of source, the average authority score of the sources is in the high 80s, and the average rank of the sources is in the top 20, which is consistent with what we’ve seen so far.

At this point, we’ve only looked at AI Overviews, given that’s where most of these studies are happening (it’s also the most used).

Next is one I found regarding ChatGPT.

5. Seer Interactive – STUDY: What Drives Brand Mentions in AI Answers?

Takeaway: Ranking in finance and SaaS industries correlates strongly with ChatGPT mentions, but weakly with backlinks.

Seer Interactive’s study in January 2025, based on over 300,000 keywords in finance and SaaS, found that brands ranking on the first page of Google showed a strong correlation (~0.65) with ChatGPT mentions.

However, the correlation between the number of backlinks and the number of citations is only 0.10, which is very weak.

Nick Haigler, Sr. Manager, SEO with Seer Interactive told me:

“In our study, backlinks didn’t play a big role in visibility within ChatGPT. But staying visible across the search landscape is still critical – whether that’s ranking for your brand on Google or being mentioned by credible, authoritative sources that LLMs commonly pull from.”

Digital PR and AI

Since digital PR often secures links and mentions from high-authority regularly updated sites, particularly news sites, it aligns well with the kinds of sources Google and other AI systems tend to favor.

Even when the direct link benefit is unclear, the brand visibility gained from digital PR placements increases your chances of being cited in AI-generated results.

Where Link Building Matters Less in AI (Backed by Empirical Research)

As I mentioned, most people seem to be concerned about AI and its impact on link building these days.

Currently, there isn’t a significant amount of direct evidence that pure link numbers affect AI.

In some studies, traditional metrics such as rankings and organic traffic aren’t as strongly correlated with AI visibility.

AI Doesn’t Work the Same Way Google Search Does

AI models like Gemini or ChatGPT are large language models (LLMs). They are trained on a massive amount of text from the internet, books, forums, and other sources that aren’t updated in real time.

When you ask it a question, the model doesn’t “search” the web like Google does unless you ask it to. Instead, it predicts the most probable response based on the words you’ve given it.

(This is why you sometimes get hallucinations.)

We still don’t know what makes up the text used to train these LLMs, though some guesses have been made based on older scraped web data.

However, some AI systems, like Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Chat, or ChatGPT with browsing enabled, layer something called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) on top of the LLM.

RAG turns your query into a format it can compare (called embeddings) and then retrieves fresh information to help generate a more accurate answer.

Let’s look at three studies that show that link building may not be as impactful for showing up in AI:

1. Ahrefs – An Analysis of AI Overview Brand Visibility Factors (75K Brands Studied)

Takeaway: Brand Mentions Correlate More Than Links in AI Overviews

Another study from Ahrefs, which analyzed 75,000 brands, found that unlinked brand mentions have the highest correlation with branded web mentions (0.664) vs just 0.326 with DR, 0.295 with referring domains, and just 0.218 with raw backlinks.

This analysis suggests that a brand’s strength has a significant impact on exposure in AI Overviews. The brands in the top 25% of web mentions averaged 10 times more than the other brands in the 50-75% range.

Here, I would like to argue that while traditional link building may not be applicable in this context, digital PR is invaluable.

Although many group the term “digital PR” into link building, I think that digital PR is starting to break off into its own thing.

One of the biggest struggles of digital PR has been getting unlinked brand mentions. Getting journalists to change them is sometimes downright impossible because they have no control.

With AI, getting unlinked mentions may even prove to be a strength.

I would still always aim for a link, but if you don’t get one, it’s not the end of the world.

2. Ahrefs – Only 12% of AI Cited URLs Rank in Google’s Top 10 for the Original Prompt

Takeaways: There is minimal overlap between Google search results and ChatGPT/Gemini/Copilot citations

In yet another Ahrefs study, they found that there is minimal overlap in Google Search results and ChatGPT, Gemini, and Copilot.

You can see by the chart that Perplexity has the most substantial overlap.

3. Authoritas – SERP Organic and AI Overview Volatility Research

Takeaway: AI Overviews Are Much More Volatile Than Organic SERPs

As the SurferSEO study explained, AI Overviews appear to pull “core sources” and “non-core sources”. A study by Authoritas reveals that AI Overviews are significantly more volatile than traditional rankings.

Here’s the key takeaway from their findings, which ranks volatility in two windows of time, with 1 being most volatile and zero the least:

This, for me, is the most concerning aspect of it all because it means you are trying to hit a moving target.

For SEOs tracking pure citations, you might show up one day and not a few weeks later.

4. Pew Research – Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results

Takeaway: Users clicked on links in AI summaries just 1% of the time.

If you are relying on links in AI citations to drive direct traffic to your site, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

We are in the era of zero-click search, meaning many visitors perform a Google search, get their answer, and leave without clicking on a result.

An eye-opening study from Pew Research showed that those who encountered an AI-generated summary clicked on links just 1% of the time.

Google has all but confirmed this in their recent statement, saying that AI Overviews is actually driving more quality links, but fewer overall.

So, even if you show up in citations, it’s not guaranteed that you’re getting clicks.

Digital PR and Brand

There are definitely some parallels that still aren’t as clear, as evidenced with these studies.

However, digital PR earns unlinked brand mentions alongside links.

So, in the AI context, where unlinked mentions can be just as influential as links, brand presence can keep you visible even when link signals play a smaller role.

So…Is Link Building Dead?

No, but link building is different in 2025.

The data is clear: links still correlate with rankings, and rankings still influence AI.

However, the tactics that worked in 2015 won’t cut it anymore.

Digital PR is now becoming the primary link building method for brands, as evidenced by uSERP, Editorial.Link’s State of Link Building, and FatJoe’s Future of Link Building.

The evolution of link building, which can impact both search and AI-driven environments, seems like a solid play for now.

The post Is Link Building Dead? (15 Data Studies Behind the Clickbait) appeared first on BuzzStream.

Just over a year ago, Google’s Helpful Content Update torched most of the guest posting sites I had been tracking. Like many SEOs, I assumed guest posting was finally dead.

But here’s the twist: it’s not only not dead…it’s trending?

The reality is that while most link builders are turning to digital PR, many still rely on guest posting.

uSERP’s State of Backlinks 2025 report found that 12% of SEOs considered it the most effective approach, trailing behind digital PR’s 20%.

The term, however, is a far cry from what it once meant.

Now, for the most part, guest posting has become a paid strategy where a vendor writes and places links within an article on a site with which they have built partnerships. (I wrote a bit about it in my guest blogging post.)

In my original link building pricing research in 2024, I gathered a few thousand price points via shared guest post spreadsheets and found that what was being sold was about 90% low-quality, high-priced junk.

(And by low quality, I mean sites with weak traffic, low DR, or both—but more on that below.)

So today, I decided to conduct extensive research on guest posting on a much larger scale than I had before to see if this was still the case.

The Data Source: A Massive Marketplace of 26,000+ Sites

This time, I decided to take a different approach to gather my data and discovered a massive link marketplace database of 26,632 sites.

After consulting with other well-respected SEOs, the database in question appears to be the source of many other resellers.

I’m not going to reveal who it is, nor do I think it’s essential, as most of the placements that you find carry the telltale signs of buying links: exact match keywords, low-quality content, etc.

So, what does this 26,000-site marketplace tell us about guest posting in 2025?

How Good Are Guest Post Sites, Really?

The first thing I want to understand is the quality of guest posting sites.

We can assess quality in a few different ways, but I always like to start with traffic.

Most Sites Have Low to No Organic Traffic

The traffic breakdown is estimated monthly organic traffic as reported by Ahrefs.

As you can see, just under 41% falls in the 1.1k-10k traffic range.

More surprisingly, about 19% fall within the 0-100 range, with 11.36% of the sites receiving no traffic.

If I dive into the organic traffic patterns, I can gain a deeper understanding of what is going on:

Most of these 0-100 sites were either hit hard by Google’s Helpful Content Update, or weren’t good sites to begin with. (And yet, as we’ll see, they still charge top dollar for these sites.)

But traffic is not the only way to determine quality.

I evaluated the list using Ahref’s Domain Rating (DR) next.

DR Isn’t Enough—Most Sites Sit Below 60

DR is cited as the number one metric used by link builders and digital PRs in our State of Digital PR study and Editorial.link’s State of Link Building study, so I feel safe to report using this metric.

As you can see, most clump between DR 20-59, with the most in the 30-39 range.

At this point, the average guest post site has a DR of 45.4 and 89,544 monthly visitors.

However, I want to drill down the quality a bit more, inspired by Ahrefs’ Best Links filter found in their Site Explorer.

Only 4.6% of Sites Are Truly High Quality

With Ahrefs’ Best Links, you can filter links by both traffic AND DR, which isn’t an exact science by any means, but can get you closer directionally.

The way I originally did my guest posting sites study was that a high-quality site had both DR 65+ and 20K+ monthly organic traffic.

With that breakdown, we see that just 8.2% of sites are high quality.

For this study, I decided to expand on that a bit.

Everyone seems interested in acquiring top-tier links (i.e., news publications) these days, in the hope of gaining entry into AI, so I wanted to break out top-tier links into their quality categories.

I also wanted to give a mid-tier option.

Based on this, I’ve broken this down into quality using these criteria:

With these traffic tiers in place, here is a more detailed breakdown of quality.

Wow.

Just 4.6% of all domains are High-Quality and Top-Tier combined.

More than 85% of linkable domains fall into the Low-quality tier.

Many domains that rank well in DR are still classified as Low-quality due to their low organic reach (and vice versa).

For instance, 53.1% of the DR 71+ sites fall into the Mid- and Low-quality category because they have under 50,000 monthly organic traffic.

Don’t Forget Relevance—It Still Matters More Than Metrics

Is it possible for a site to be below DR 40 and be a quality site? Sure. Perhaps it’s a new site that’s gaining popularity.

Or maybe it’s a highly relevant site.

In an earlier post about quality links, I discussed the importance of overlapping with relevance. I would argue that a highly relevant DR 35 site is better than an irrelevant top-quality site.

Unfortunately there isn’t an industry standard metric for relevancy (yet).

For now, you can gauge relevancy by comparing it to your industry.

Which Industries Dominate Guest Posting? (Spoiler: News & Media)

Most sites have several categories associated with them, but I tried to take the most relevant overall.

Below are the top 10 industries in the guest post database.

Overall, news and media makes up 20% of the inventory, followed by Business & Finance sites, then Tech & Science.

Since we’ve established quality previously, we can now examine the distribution of quality sites across various industries.

As you can see, most industries fall around the average of 85% low-quality sites, with some reaching as high as 90%.

If you’re interested in the numbers, it breaks down like this:

The most Top-Tier and Quality links are in the News & Media section, but you also have the highest number of lower-quality sites to wade through.

Again, keep in mind that these are the top 10 categories, not the entire database.

Now that we have the overall view, let’s dive into the pricing breakdowns.

Let’s Talk Price: How Much Do Guest Posts Actually Cost?

Before we delve into answering the burning question of how much it costs for a guest post, I would like to explain the pricing briefly.

Since this is coming from vendors, there is markup involved, and every vendor is different.

For this study, I’m assuming that the database I pulled from marks up the price by at least 75%.

With that in mind, here are some answers to your burning questions.

The Average Cost of a Guest Post in 2025: $365 (If You’re Lucky)

The average estimated guest post cost is $364.76 (before an assumed 75% markup from vendors). However, buying from a vendor brings the average cost to $1,459.06.

The average estimated cost of a quality guest post ranges from $692 – $957 (before an assumed 75% markup from vendors). Buying directly from a vendor is $1,211–$1,675.

High Quality = High Cost: Pricing by Quality Tier

Breaking down the pricing by quality helps show how pricing accelerates as you climb the quality ladder:

The bar chart illustrates the exponential price growth as quality increases.

There is a modest increase from low to mid. However, the transitions from Mid to High and High to Top are steep jumps.

But anyone who has tried to go this route knows that there are certainly industries that are harder to build links in than others.

In guest posting, it’s no different.

And so, the more complicated the industry, generally, the more expensive it is.

The following section will provide a recap of this industry breakdown.

Guest Post Prices by Industry: What’s Expensive and What’s Not

Based on our data, I wanted to examine the most expensive and the least expensive industries.

Most Expensive Industries for Guest Posting

The most expensive industries are Crypto & Blockchain at ~$516 and Real Estate & Property at ~$492, followed by News & Media at ~$417.

Least Expensive Industries for Guest Posting

When digging into the least expensive options, we find that on average, you can get a Food & Drink or Fashion & Beauty guest post for around $350.

So… is guest posting still worth it?

Key Takeaways: Guest Posting Is Pricey, Risky, and Mostly Low Value

Overall, I have identified a few key takeaways. For those of you familiar with my work, my thoughts aren’t all that different from my original analysis or my thoughts on link buying.

Buying premium links is expensive

The average cost of purchasing a guest post directly from a Top-Tier site is $957.

But most brands rarely have access to these connections, which is why you pay the vendor markup.

That brings me to my next point.

And even more expensive if you do it through a vendor

If you don’t have connections to get guest posts placed yourself, you’d be paying upwards of $2,800-$3,800 per link for a Top Tier site.

Some Top-Tier links in the database cost $10,000 each.

To put that in perspective, our State of Digital PR Report found that Most digital PRs (66.5%) operate with budgets below $10,000 per month.

So, the price of a few risky paid links can be offset by earning premium links from news sites, which also helps build legitimate brand awareness and trust.

Most links available are low quality, and still expensive

As the analysis revealed, more than 85% of the domains were identified as low-quality sites. As a reminder, this means that they are both below DR 40 and have an estimated monthly traffic of less than 10,000.

The average estimated guest post cost is $364.76, but it can be as high as $1,459.06 when buying from a vendor.

The average estimated cost of a quality guest post ranges hits $957.o8 for top-tier links before the markup, $1,675 on average if buying from a vendor.

I asked James Brockbank, Managing Director of Digitaloft what to make of all of this and he told me,

“What really stands out here is the average cost of a ‘top-tier’ link comes out at an average of $957.08.

Whilst I don’t believe that cost-per-link should ever be used as a way to measure the success of any link building activity, as its got nothing at all to do with the impact the links have on real business metrics like revenue, in this instance we can at least compare this to earning links with digital PR.

If you’re buying top-tier links at just under $1k, you’re way overpaying on what you could, in my experience.

Pay for 10 guest post links and you’ve spent just short of $10k. Put that same budget into digital PR and you’ll without a doubt earn more, higher quality, links on sites that your audience is reading and which you’d never be able to buy a guest post on.

Use PR to earn links and you’re not paying ‘per link.’ I’ve seen campaigns earn 2x, 3x or even more links than that on a similar budget.

But it’s the impact that matters the most. If you’re buying guest post links from a link vendor, that in itself is a footprint. If you can see a list of sites that sell links, so can I. And so can anyone at Google. Do we really think these link lists aren’t known to Google?

It’s one main reason why earned links come out top every time. They build your authority and reputation, and PR is a surefire way to protect your brand from the impact of algorithm updates. Obviously bought links? They might work today but there’ll come a time when you wish you’d earned them by doing things that build your brand and drive links as a byproduct of this.”

Guest Posts vs. Digital PR: What’s Worth Your Budget in 2025?

The reality is that most guest posting links are still overpriced, underperforming, and low quality.

Most of these guest post sites exist only to place links.

For instance, the site below costs $1,500 for a guest post and is DR 39.

The other part of this is that Google can easily nullify all of these sites in an instant (like they did with Helpful Content Updates in the past).

The very few sites on these databases that do meet quality standards are costly and often inaccessible to the everyday brand without vendor connections.

Meanwhile, digital PR offers something that purchased guest posts never will: both credibility and long-term value.

When Google shifts the rules again (and it will), links earned through high-end news coverage are far less likely to be devalued because they are typically associated with the most trusted sites that don’t exist to simply place links.

Beth Nunnington, Founding Member & Global VP Digital PR at Journey Further, agreed:

“I’ve said for years now that buying links – even under the guise of guest posting – is risky and drives very little value. At best, Google will ignore those links, at worst it could penalize you and hurt your business. These findings don’t surprise me, but I welcome them as it helps to shine light on bad practice in our industry.

You can’t game the system, especially in an AI-driven search world. Trust and authority isn’t bought, it’s earned – by both people and machines.”

One of the things the Google leak showed us was how much Google valued links from that got engagement.

That’s why we’ve been making significant investments in digital PR (as evident in our newly released AI-enabled media list building tool, ListIQ), and we’ll continue to make those investments moving forward.

The post The Cost of Guest Posts Based on 26k Sites [New Data] appeared first on BuzzStream.

In September 2024, Google took manual action against Forbes Advisor for site reputation abuse, rocking the SEO world.

This drop led to rampant theories and posts about their actions, why, and how.

Unfortunately, around 25 great digital PRs on the Forbes Advisor team who were doing great work were also let go (as were many editors and SEOs).

Fast forward to May 2025, and it looks as though they are beginning to recover.

So, in this post, I want to take a deeper look at what dropped, what came back, and lastly, what digital PR may have to do with its resurgence.

Methodology: Using Ahrefs’ Site Explorer, I compared the Top Pages and Best By Links reports. I also excluded regional subfolders like /it/ in this analysis.

Quick Background

The former Director of PR & Communications, Mark LoCastro, told me that since 2022, the Forbes Advisor section of the site has generated over 70K Referring Domains (RD).

At their peak, his team of 29 digital PRs was churning out a few hundred articles yearly.

Then, in March 2024, Google’s March 2024 core update hit the Forbes Advisor section and lost about 8 million in traffic.

Many sites were hit during this time, but this was only the beginning.

They recovered some of their traffic, but in mid-September 2024, Forbes Advisor was seemingly hit with a manual action by Google for site reputation abuse. (Google never confirmed this 100%.)

Google has defined (and redefined) its site reputation abuse policy as the “practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s ranking signals.”

According to Ahrefs Site Explorer, by February 2025, their traffic dipped to near zero:

Then, out of nowhere, in March 2025, the site traffic started to come back.

Why?

That’s what I’m looking to find out.

To understand their recovery, let’s first turn back time to understand what used to rank.

Part One: What Used to Rank?

Here’s a look at their top content.

Forbes Advisor was crushing with currency converters and investing content at their peak in April 2024.

Like the one below, their currency converter pages brought in over an estimated 6.6 million organic visits:

Here’s a macro look from the category/sub-folder level:

As you can see, the /money-transfer/ section led the way, followed by /business/ and /investing/.

The business and investing content was a mix of informative content on topics like bitcoin halving or what accounting is, as well as affiliate-based review content, like best web hosting services.

Next, let’s look at how digital PR fueled their growth.

How Did Digital PR Fuel Their Growth?

We’ve analyzed digital PR’s impact on SEO growth in the past. I believe Forbes Advisor’s traffic follows those same patterns, as evidenced by the healthy link growth in tandem with the organic traffic growth:

So, I want to understand what Forbes Advisor and their excellent digital PR team had in terms of impact.

I spoke with one source who worked on the digital PR team who gave me a quick summary:

“In terms of Forbes Advisor’s Digital PR strategy, the approach back then was definitely pretty aggressive and heavily aligned with supporting the site’s key monetized categories.

…we invested a lot into proprietary surveys, data-led studies, and the stats pages, those were a massive part of the playbook.

We were always looking for data hooks that could generate media coverage while naturally reinforcing topical authority on high-intent verticals like insurance, loans, credit cards, etc.”

Let’s take a quick look at some of these strategies:

1. Passive Link Magnet Posts

If you look at the anchors for the past year’s backlinks, you can see that data studies seem to drive most of the backlinks to the Forbes Advisor content.

For example, that top anchor links to Forbes Advisor’s Top Remote Work Statistics.

One of my favorite strategies is passive link acquisition.

In this strategy, you write a post around a keyword with high link intent.

The most common application of this is statistics or trends posts, where you compile a list of statistics (proprietary or pulled from around the web) around a keyword with high link intent.

Once this keyword ranks, it will drive links because researchers, bloggers, or journalists will search for it independently and cite it in their articles.

As it gains more links, it increases ranking and helps you gain more links, creating the flywheel.

Let’s look at the example for the aforementioned Top Remote Work Statistics.

Below, you can see they have a mix of externally sourced statistics as well as some of their own:

Sites like Microsoft, NYTimes, and Adobe link to this post:

While this post’s search volume is small, it still has over 3K Referring Domains (RD).

They have 1,800 statistics posts bringing over 17.5k Referring Domains in the past year, according to Ahrefs.

The content itself doesn’t always have to be statistics; for instance, definitional content works well for this when you can get it ranking.

Forbes Advisor’s post on a definitional query like “smart goals” has garnered over 1,800 RD over time.

This passive link content can pass valuable link equity and authority when internally linked.

2. City Indexes

These are the classic city studies I’ve written about. In these, you rank cities (or states) based on a rubric of pre-determined categories.

Then, based on the “winners” (and sometimes losers), you pitch to the local news in those locations.

For example, their Cities with the Worst Drivers post has over 400 RD:

Or their Best Cities for Renters has 380 RD.

These posts can sometimes bring in organic traffic on their own, but more importantly, they can build brand authority in specific areas.

They have about ~40 city studies, accounting for 3.8K RD in the past year.

3. Survey Content

In most of their surveys, Forbes Advisor used Talker to gather responses and compile interesting stories to pitch to journalists.

For instance, here’s a post about digital wallet payment usage:

Here’s a backlink profile for their survey content about AI in Business:

This post has over 3K RD, including citations in many top-tier sites, such as Inc, Financial Times, and Yahoo Finance.

Here is another, more study mapping search engine usage.

This got them 408 RD.

These quality survey studies have created newsworthy stories to yield thousands of top-tier links and coverage.

4. Citable Elements Within Content

This strategy takes a page from Garrett French/Citation Labs’ book.

Here is a roundup post about the Best Travel Insurance, ranking travel insurance online.

However, when you scroll down, you find some proprietary data included in the post:

This makes the post pitchable for links.

They put a full data study within the ranking post and pitch this for links through a jump link:

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/travel-insurance/best-travel-insurance/#the_most_and_least_risky_cities_for_tourists_ranked_section

This gets links and mentions in news outlets like this:

This is one way to get links for typically less linkworthy pages.

Overall, this was a powerhouse digital PR team (with a powerhouse budget) that helped power some serious brand authority.

Using Ahrefs’ new brand authority tool, we can see that the number of mentions skyrocketed in the years that the digital PR team was working.

Then, every SEO’s nightmare: First HCU, and months later, manual action was taken for site reputation abuse.

Part Two: The Google Hits

Let’s focus on the macro look again to understand what categories were hit.

Money Transfer content was hit extremely hard (accounting for 44.6% of the traffic hit).

Their /business/ content also suffered. The informative content lost twice as much traffic (2.4M) as the software review content (1.1M).

For almost five grueling months, Forbes Advisor watched the traffic drain to zero, and multiple rounds of layoffs followed.

But then, early March, their traffic started to creep back up.

Part Three: The Comeback

Forbes is now starting to regain some traffic.

It’s only a fraction of what it once was, but it’s back.

According to Ahrefs, here is a look at the top-ranking posts as of May 5, 2025.​​

As you can see, there’s still some /money-transfer/ content ranking. But I also see mortgage content creeping up in the top 10.

Let’s look at the complete breakdown of categories driving traffic:

You’ll notice that the traffic isn’t nearly as significant as before.

We are talking about a maximum of 1.6M traffic for the /money-transfer/ section, which once had 6.6 million.

But to better understand what Google likes, let’s break it down into the sections again.

What Sections Are Gaining Traffic Now?

Here’s what the gains look like broken down by category.

/Money-transfer/ took the most significant leap forward, followed by /business/ and /credit-cards/.

But why these sections?

What Did They Do Right?

Now that we know what recovered, we might better understand what may have influenced their recovery.

Cutting Ties With Freelance Writers

I must mention this first because this was a hot topic on the web. Forbes Advisor (among many other publishers) cut ties with freelance writers to combat Google’s penalties.

When I spoke with Mark (former Director of PR & Communications), he told me that he believed Forbes’ use of freelance writers for specific content was the main reason they got penalized for site reputation abuse, and removing freelancers was the main reason they returned.

But, to me, this is just a piece of the puzzle, because there is content ranking written by in-house writers that got hit, and vice versa.

So let’s look at a few more reasons.

Formed a Cohesive Brand

Although this may seem simple, bringing the Forbes Advisor content under the Forbes brand helps solidify the user experience.

Here it is before:

Here it is after:

Although minor, I believe matching headers and branding is a subtle trust signal that users pick up on.

More Focus on Helpful Content

When comparing some of the content before and after, I see some changes that make it more Helpful.

Google outlined its guidelines for Helpful content in this great self-assessment document.

We also know they ask their search quality raters to focus more on this for industries and queries that are part of Your Money, Your Life (YMYL).

We can see less of a focus on affiliate clicks and more on helping the user solve the query.

Compare their /money-transfer/ pages before:

There was a much heavier focus on driving affiliate clicks than helping users solve the query.

Here it is now:

When I look at their “best” round-up and review posts, I also see changes that make things more Helpful for the user.

They’ve added Expert Take and Testing Insights to their drop-down modals:

And when you expand them, you’ll find more information that feels a little bit more like they have actually used the software, complete with screenshots:

However, all of these things don’t happen in a vacuum. You still need brand authority. You need relevant links.

So, for the last section, I did some digging, and I believe their excellent digital PR work had a lot to do with their resurgence, but maybe not in the way you might think.

How Did Digital PR Help Forbes Advisor’s Resurgence?

To understand the digital PR team’s impact, I compared total traffic gains for the last three months to the RD for all content on /advisor/.

Here’s what I found:

Page-Level Correlation (individual posts)

At the page level, there’s a mild (weak) positive correlation of 0.14, meaning more links slightly align with higher traffic recovery if at all.

It’s not strong or predictive at the individual URL level.

That said, I wouldn’t expect them to recover as quickly or effectively if they didn’t have any links.

But the next section is what really stood out to me.

Category-Level Correlation (by folder)

At the category level, the correlation of RD to traffic gains is much stronger, at 0.77 on both the Spearman and Pearson correlation scales.

Remember that many factors are at play with this analysis, and correlation does not imply causation.

But Forbes Advisor’s recovery seems to benefit from its topical authority, built through close collaboration between the digital PR team and their Editorial counterparts to produce unique, newsworthy, and timely data-driven content, enabling the digital PR team to secure relevant, high-authority links.

Conclusion

My overall analysis may seem simple to some:

• Make your content more user-friendly and you’ll rank better.

• Get more relevant links to boost your authority, and you’ll be rewarded.

But often, I feel like we, as SEOs, get too caught up in manipulating text or title tags with keyword or AI optimization tools and lose sight of some of the apparent issues with our content.

Google has been targeting affiliate sites, but Forbes Advisor still somewhat survives after making changes. Google has also admitted to favoring larger sites, which may play a part in this.

Will this work for every brand?

The core principles of writing user-friendly content and getting relevant links are a solid foundation for any content marketing strategy for every site.

The post The Rise, Fall, and Recovery of Forbes Advisor (Study) appeared first on BuzzStream.

One year ago, Google and Yahoo announced new email rules to combat spam.

Starting May 5, 2025, Microsoft joins them with a new announcement.

Microsoft will start enforcing new authentication rules and requirements for high-volume senders emailing to recipients using Microsoft consumer services, aka @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, and @live.com addresses.

The changes mirror the recent email requirements from Google and Yahoo.

And like the Google and Yahoo changes, this shift in email deliverability standards impacts digital PRs and link builders.

In this post, I’ll explain what’s changing, what to do next, and how this impacts your campaigns.

Who Do the New Rules Apply To?

If you send over 5,000 emails/day to Microsoft consumer emails (outlook.com, live.com, or hotmail.com), you must meet their new standards.

Even if you’re sending outreach from multiple addresses, you are still considered a bulk sender if they are from the same primary domain.

Agencies are most at risk for this. Let me show you how:

What Microsoft means by “same primary domain”

It’s easy to qualify as bulk senders without even realizing it. Let’s pretend you work at a big agency with a domain like @agency.com.

If these senders all email people in 24 hours, you’d be considered a bulk sender:

• John@agency.com sends 1,500.
• Lucy@agency.com sends 2,000.
• Tim@agency.com sends 500.
• Kareem@agency.com sends 1,100.

You’ve sent 5,100 emails from the same domain, @agency.com, so Microsoft sees this as one sender.

Here it is broken down visually:

It’s essential to add that even if no one answers, the addresses are incorrect and they bounce back, or you get an auto-reply like out of office, it still counts as a “sent” email.

What Microsoft means by “free consumer services”

To clarify one other point, when Microsoft says “free consumer services”, here’s what they mean:

• If you send to: outlook.com, hotmail.com, or live.com addresses, these rules apply.

• If you send to: business emails (even if they use Microsoft 365/Outlook), these rules don’t apply (yet).

This is similar to Google/Yahoo, but business emails may be the next in line for these requirements.

When Do the Rules Go Into Effect?

Here is the timeline as explained by Microsoft:

May 5, 2025 – Microsoft will route any non-compliant emails directly to Junk folders.

Future Date (TBA) – Microsoft will reject non-compliant emails.

Although we don’t know the full date yet when Microsoft will begin to reject emails that fail to comply, Google took about two months to start.

Google launched its new requirements in February 2024, and by April 2024, it was already rejecting a small percentage, with a gradual increase over time.

What Are the New Requirements and How to Comply?

Before you start, use this free tool to check if you already meet requirements using a tool like Redsift.

This will point out most of the core requirements for general email health. If you’re already in compliance, you may even be able to skip some of the requirements below.

Here are the requirements:

1. Authenticate with SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) helps authenticate email addresses and prevent spam.

To pass, you must ensure your domain’s SPF record lists the IP address you are sending from.

How: Your DNS provider has specific instructions for doing this. Here is how to add an SPF record on Microsoft.

Two things they point out:

• If you use a “Microsoft Online Email Routing Address” (MOERA) domain for email (like @agency.onmicrosoft.com), you already have SPF records set up.

• If you use a custom domain, like @agency.com, you must set up SPF records. Microsoft further recommends setting up a subdomain when using bulk email services with your custom domain.

Also, each subdomain requires its own SPF authentication.

2. Authenticate with DKIM

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) helps match up information (like the from: address) to ensure the message wasn’t altered.

The requirement is that your messages are authenticated with DKIM.

How: Microsoft 365 outlines how to set up your DKIM records here, but here are some important things to point out:

• If you use (MOERA) domain for email (like @agency.onmicrosoft.com), again, you already have DKIM set up.

• If you use a custom domain, like @agency.com, you must set up DKIM records. Microsoft also recommends setting up a subdomain if you use bulk email services with your custom domain.

• Each subdomain requires its own DKIM record.

Most of the work can be done through Email authentication settings and selecting the DKIM tab.

3. Publish a DMARC Record

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) is yet another email validation and authentication method.

For example, here is a screenshot of GoDaddy’s DMARC setup screen via DMarcly.

Microsoft requires a basic DMARC record (p=none), but in the post comments, a Microsoft representative said, “over time, we aim to move toward stricter authentication without causing major email disruptions.”

This means that for stronger protection, it’s recommended to use p=quarantine or p=reject.

How: Microsoft outlines how to publish a DMARC record here, but here are some important considerations:

• If using MOERA for email, you must create the DMARC TXT record.
• If using custom domains, you must set up a DMARC TXT record.

The rest are Microsoft’s “recommendations” for maintaining “email hygiene,” meaning that we think they are important but maybe not explicitly required.

The documentation says, “Outlook reserves the right to take negative action, including filtering or blocking against non‐compliant senders, especially for critical breaches of authentication or hygiene.”

4. Align “From” Domain with SPF/DKIM

Email providers want to ensure that the person sending the email is allowed to send it on behalf of the sender address.

• If sending from a subdomain, the SPF/DKIM/DMARC must include the subdomain.

• If you use a custom mail server, ask your dev team to validate that headers are RFC 5322 compliant.

Basically, the “From” address must be tied to an actual mailbox that can receive replies (not an unmonitored address like noreply@).

5. Include an Unsubscribe Link

Microsoft also wants users to include unsubscribe links within the email message.

They also recommend header-level unsubscribe support via the “List-Unsubscribe” and “List-Unsubscribe-Post” to enable the Unsubscribe button in the UI:

To display the unsubscribe link like the above screenshot, you need to use a List-Unsubscribe header with the one-click unsubscribe link (RFC 8058).

6. Clean Your Email List

Invalid email addresses and high bounce rates will hurt your deliverability. So, use a tool like NeverBounce to clean your email lists before sending.

Next, I’ll help answer users’ specific questions on the Microsoft announcement blog post.

FAQ About Microsoft Email Requirements

Here are some questions (and answers) based on the comments section.

Who Do These Rules Apply To? Just Free Outlook Addresses?

These rules only apply when sending to personal, consumer emails (name@hotmail.com, name@live.com, name@outlook.com).

These rules don’t apply to emails sent to Microsoft 365 business accounts (name@company.com) or corporate domains hosted on Exchange Online.

Microsoft said, “We don’t plan to expand this to Enterprise yet… This is focused only on Microsoft’s consumer services.”

Do Subdomains Count Toward the 5,000 Bulk Sender Limit?

Yes, all messages from subdomains count as sent from the primary domain.

For example, it counts as 5,000 emails you’re sending:

• 2,500 emails from @promo.agency.com
• 2,500 emails from @agency.com

Again, the total would also include bounced emails, auto-replies, etc.

Do “No-Reply” or Unmonitored Addresses Hurt Deliverability?

Microsoft requires the From or Reply-To address be able to receive replies.

So, using noreply@yourdomain.com is discouraged.

For this, Microsoft said, “We may start blocking non-RFC-compliant addresses… We encourage all senders to ensure their P2 sender addresses comply with RFC standards.”

Do I Need Both SPF and DKIM to Pass?

Yes, both SPF and DKIM must pass authentication checks.

For DMARC to work correctly, only one of SPF or DKIM needs to align.

Can I Just Tell Recipients to Add Me to the Safe Sender List?

Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as asking recipients to add your bulk emails to a safe sender list.

As Microsoft said, it can “be counterproductive… it increases the risk of spoofing.”

What is Buzzstream Doing to Help Users Send to Microsoft Addresses?

If you use BuzzStream for outreach, there is a range of built-in features to ensure emails comply with Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo’s new guidelines.

One-Click Unsubscribe Support

BuzzStream users can enable one-click unsubscribe:

This is an optional feature for users but is recommended for compliance.

We can also include header-level unsubscribe links for most users.

Email Format Standard Adherence

BuzzStream formats all email messages using the Internet Message Format standard, which is needed to meet many of Microsoft’s requirements.

Prospect Vetting with BuzzMarker

The BuzzMarker and ListIQ (in beta) make it simple to find relevant email targets, reducing the likelihood of spam complaints.

Personalization of Emails

BuzzStream’s template features help customize and personalize emails, reducing the recipient’s risk of marking them as spam.

Custom Tracking Domain Setup

BuzzStream offers a custom tracking domain option.

This helps ensure that tracking URLs align with a user’s domain, aiding sender reputation and deliverability.

Last, let’s compare Microsoft’s requirements with Google/Yahoo’s.

Comparing Microsoft vs Google/Yahoo Bulk Sender Requirements

The two announcements are virtually identical, with a few minor differences. Here’s the quick side-by-side comparison:

Who’s affectedSenders emailing 5k emails/day to Gmail/Yahoo personal inboxesSenders emailing 5k emails/day to @outlook, @hotmail, @live.com addresses

What Does This All Mean for PRs and Link Builders?

Although Google and Yahoo are slightly more strict, the writing is on the wall: email senders need to stop spamming or they risk getting filtered, flagged, or blocked.

Their requirements and recommendations, like SPF/DKIM/DMARC, go beyond the technical side.

Notice how they also recommend sending to real emails from confirmed addresses.

All of the major providers are pushing for transparency.

They recommend personalizing emails and keeping your lists up to date.

Gone are the days of spray and pray. To succeed today in link building and PR, you need highly targeted, highly relevant outreach.

The post Microsoft Joins Google and Yahoo: New Email Rules for Bulk Senders appeared first on BuzzStream.

Brands and PRs have had a more challenging time reaching journalists.

In our State of Digital PR Report, over 60% of respondents reported finding relevant journalists has been more difficult in the past 12 months.

Due to this, PRs are now including podcasts as an alternative outlet to pitch to get clients and brands more coverage.

In 2024, I took time to pitch a few podcasts. I was featured on Market Movers, Search With Candour, Optimize, We Earn Media, Marketing B2B Technology, and the Agency Growth Lab.

Lately, however, I’ve been pitching more, believing it’s a great way to build the BuzzStream brand.

(I’ve also been getting many more pitches from people wanting to be on the BuzzStream podcast.)

So, in this post, I’ll share my experience with you and show you how to craft the perfect podcast pitch.

What to Include In Your Pitch Email

Lately, I’ve received an influx of pitches that feel very much like guest post pitches. They are either weirdly generic or lack the specifics to make me want to take action.

Take this example below that I received a few weeks ago:

They complement me, which is nice, although it’s very generic.

We discuss personalized email outreach at length in our post. But the main takeaway is that it sounds fake if it’s too generic.

But, more importantly, it doesn’t give me enough information to act.

So, let’s break down that email, and I’ll show you what you should include.

Display Your Credibility

You always want to display your expertise or credentials in your pitch.

This will usually be your main value proposition, which will hook your prospective podcast host or producer.

As Britt Klontz of Vada Communications said, “Try to think about how you can best showcase your credibility. Do you have any credentials, such as a degree, certifications, or potentially awards that you can reference?”

In my pitches, I try to just focus on the podcasts I’ve appeared on—but I can also mention that I host a podcast with a line like this:

But not everyone has speaking experience, which is OK.

It’s sometimes not even necessary. But people do want to hear how long you’ve been in the business and what you do.

Pitch Relevant Ideas

The pitch I received (and ultimately ignored) also left it up to me to come up with a speaking topic:

And while that may feel like it’s helpful, it infers two things:

• He’s not passionate enough about a specific topic to really stand out as a guest
• Or he’s not an expert in anything (or both)

Generalists make for boring guests.

Plus, if there are no clear ideas for a pitch, I have to do work myself to come up with an idea.

This makes it less likely that I will respond, let alone ask someone to come on my podcast.

It’s easy to search a podcast’s history for ideas that have yet to be covered. You can even ask ChatGPT to do it for you.

The ideas must be relevant and interesting to the podcast’s audience, which I’ll cover next.

Pitch to the Podcast’s Audience

Much like pitching a journalist, the goal is to make your target look good. Present yourself as a compelling guest to their audience.

So, understand their audience by listening to their podcast episodes.

You can grab transcripts from Apple Podcasts or YouTube if you are short on time. Then, use ChatGPT to summarize key themes or pull out quotes and reference those directly in your pitch.

This will help align your ideas and pitch to the podcast’s target audience.

You also want to ensure your idea isn’t something they’ve already covered. (If it is, you could find a new angle—which I cover in part 2 of this post.)

ChatGPT can quickly help you determine if they have already covered topics you want to pitch.

Here, as part of some of my research for later in the post, I’m asking if a Majestic podcast covers digital PR:

The next and last point here isn’t exactly something to include in your pitch, but rather something to consider when starting to pitch.

Focus on Quality Over Quantity

Before we discuss the pitch email examples and strategies, it’s crucial to discuss your pitch strategy.

Many approach pitching a podcast in the same scaled way they approach guest posting.

Quality trumps quantity in almost every case; pitching podcasts is no different.

The “spray and pray” approach is tempting, but doesn’t yield quality results.

In our podcast episode with Doug Downs, the principal at Stories and Strategies Podcast Productions, he gave me this key advice about the pitch process:

“I know there’s a tendency to want to go at it by volume.

‘Surely, if I pump a thousand of these things out, I’ll land 10.’ 

You probably will. 

The problem is it’s probably the 10 desperately looking for guests, maybe trying to fill a hole, or they’re not well listened to.”

Most podcast platforms have search engines that can unearth relevant pods in your niche. But, I’d recommend checking out this tool, MillionPodcasts, which has a robust search option:

Ok, let’s get into some tactics.

Podcast Email Examples and Tactics

Once you have a good sense of the audience and what would make you look good as a guest, you can use different pitch strategies and email examples to stand out.

1. Direct Pitch

“I am an expert in your industry and here’s my episode idea”

I took this first example from Britt Klontz and her DigitalPR Explained podcast episode about pitching to podcasts.

The example she provided is the most direct and scalable approach to pitching.

Here you are just appealing to the podcast host or producer by:

1. Addressing the host by name
2. Stating who the guest is and why they’re an expert on the topic
3. Giving some context that tells what the guest writes about and how it connects
4. Shares an idea

This approach rarely fails if you target relevant podcasts and your pitch idea doesn’t overlap with something they’ve already covered.

But if you are unsure how to proceed with your idea, the following few tactics and examples might inspire you.

2. Fill a Gap

“You haven’t spoken about X topic.”

This is one of my favorites.

First, get a sense of what they’ve covered by reading their content.

Let me walk you through an example.

Let’s pretend I was interested in pitching an SEO podcast called The Recipe for SEO Success from Kate Toon.

She came up in a search for “digital pr” podcasts on Listen Notes, though, after looking through her episode list and doing a site:search, I found one mention of PR back in 2018.

So, that would be my hook:

I also connected with her on LinkedIn, letting her know I emailed her. This is part of my double-touch outreach tactic.

Instead of pointing out a potential hole in their coverage, we can offer a counterpoint.

Let’s look at that next.

3. Offer a Counterpoint

“Your guest said X, but I disagree and here’s why.”

In this approach, you pose yourself as an alternative view.

This takes some digging and can be somewhat opportunistic. (If the podcast you want to target doesn’t have a point you can counter, you don’t want just to present a counterpoint you don’t believe in.)

In this case, I’m going to show you a real example.

I found another SEO podcast from ListenNotes called SEO in 2025 from Majestic.

I perused the recent podcast episodes to see if anything stood out.

I even asked ChatGPT for some help:

I quickly came across this episode with Ashley Segura, about content quantity vs quality.

And even though the counterpoint is pretty obvious, I felt that I could make a compelling case for an episode idea:

In this template, I’m making a specific call out to an existing episode, showing that I know the content and then connecting to the audience/listeners. I also stress that I’m using this strategy in real time for BuzzStream, which makes it more real and less theoretical.

Like I said, I actually pitched this to David (along with a quick follow-up email a few days later) and here’s the response I got:

Score!

But what happens if you already see a topic you like and don’t want to argue about it?

You can expand on it, which is next.

4. Continuation of a Topic

“Your guest mentioned X but I want to expand on it.”

You must find an underserved topic in your target podcast for this template. This is similar to tip #1 on our list, but you want to expand on the topic instead of filling a total gap.

Another example would be another SEO-based podcast, SEOLeverage, hosted by Gert Mellak.

As I scrolled through the episodes, I saw that they only spoke about link building back in 2021.

So, that’s going to be my hook.

Now, I just need to make my case for continuing that conversation:

As you can see, I’m just pitching to continue the link-building conversation.

I allude to the value I’d bring to his audience with this line: “share with your listeners what’s been working for agencies and link builders across various industries.”

But, there is sometimes more tangible value you can offer to sites…

5. Value Swap

“Would you like to do a podcast swap?”

If you’ve read my post on the C.H.A.M.P. email outreach technique, you know I’m all about helping the email target.

So, in the case of podcasts, what value (besides being an excellent guest) can I provide in return for being a guest?

For most, the value will be some sort of backlink or brand mention. 

This isn’t quite a link exchange, so I think there’s less risk.

In my case, I have the BuzzStream podcast to offer. Finding a host who can be a potential guest is a clear opportunity for both.

That’s actually how I ended up on Doug’s podcast and he on ours:

So, taking this into our post, let’s find a podcast for a swap.

I found one called The SERPs Up Podcast from Wix.com.

I crafted this email presenting the idea for a podcast swap:

Fun side note: I sent this pitch out as well, but Mordy messaged me on LinkedIn telling me that he left Wix the day I pitched it, and the podcast was no longer available.

But, now I’ve built a great connection with Mordy that may lead to other podcast opportunities for myself (and him coming on our podcast).

This business is all about the connections. 

(If you’re in the mood for more podcast pitching templates, check out our other post with email outreach templates.)

Podcasts Aren’t Just a Link Building Play

Don’t just think of podcast pitching as a way to get backlinks.

Think of it as a way to build your brand.

Therefore, make sure you align yourself with podcasts that cross over with your audience so that you can get the most out of your efforts.

The post How to Pitch a Podcast (Tips and Examples from Hundreds of Pitches) appeared first on BuzzStream.

I visited Google Search Central in NYC last week and felt energized about the power of PR.

While most of the conference clarified recent actions, like site reputation abuse, one section discussed the partnerships the search team is making to adapt to the changing search landscape.

Here it is below:

The funny thing is that, as SEOs, we take what Google tells us with a grain of salt. What they say they are doing doesn’t always match what research from SEOs tells us they are doing.

But, in this instance, they are finally addressing the issue head-on.

Traditional methods of targeting top-funnel keywords and using that to drive traffic are no longer working (look at what happened to Hubspot).

Google tells us that “past success on Search may not guarantee future success.”

I’ve transcribed the key points below, indicating the direction Google is heading.

• Google is testing new SERP features more frequently.
• At least 48% of these features favor keeping users on Google (vs. sending them to sites).
• Google is saying that traffic patterns may fluctuate.
• They also say that past success on Search may not guarantee future success.
• Build a brand with digital PR tactics like unique data studies.

Consistent Testing, SERP Will Evolve

In the graphic’s first two points, Google sets the stage for brands getting fewer clicks.

On the one hand, they are making changes that benefit users and giving them quicker access to the knowledge they want.

Either way you look at it, there are a lot of changes going on in the SERP, and many of them are taking away your clicks.

For example, their rental feature may take away clicks from rental sites:

Google has close to 40 distinct SERP features at the time of publication. These include things like:

• Featured Snippets
• People Also Ask (PAA)
• Knowledge Panels
• Local Pack (Map Pack)
• Top Stories
• Image Pack
• Video Results

However, as they said in bullet #1 from their slide, Google continually tests new features.

So, let’s take a deeper look at these changes.

What SERP Features Are Changing?

Search Engine Roundtable reports on most movements of these SERP features in their newsletter.

But to better understand the patterns of change, I looked at Brodie Clark’s timeline of SERP features.

Here is the timeline mapped out based on the frequency of the changes:

As you can see, the changes (as reported by Brodie Clark) are getting more frequent over time.

However, this doesn’t show the full impact on brands because some of these features actually drive clicks to brands.

So, I took Brodie Clark’s list and attempted to categorize them into four categories:

• Keeps Users on Google – these are features that seem to focus on answering queries or satisfying user intent without needing to leave Google (AI Overviews, Knowledge Panels)
• Drives Clicks – These features help users navigate to a product, page, or site. (Sitelinks, Share Link)
• Minimal UX Changes – These layout changes shouldn’t impact whether a user stays or goes. (Bold text)
• Mixed Impact (Hard to say one way or another)

Here’s what I found:

As you can see, only 25% of the changes appear to benefit outbound clicks.

Again, it’s crucial to note that this data is limited to Brodie Clark’s frequency of reporting and my categorization of what these changes do (which I’m happy to share).

However, the more information they give without even needing to do another search, the less potential your brand has to show up and get clicked.

Next, let’s look at bullet three:

Solving for Multiple User Needs, Which Are Always Evolving

Aside from UX changes and SERP features, Google has been fundamentally changing how it thinks about serving content to users through its latest Core Updates.

They do this through SERP features and the content they serve.

Meeting User Needs With SERP Features:

Let’s take a look at a SERP for “digital PR”.

First, we have an AI Overview, which was new last year, that helps answer the query immediately.

Large sponsored ads also take up much space to serve users who want to hire an agency.

A Knowledge Graph on the right also explains “Online public relations,” with a quick snippet from Wikipedia.

Finally, we see an organic result from Digital Marketing Institute:

Then, there is a People Also Ask section, which serves people looking to answer a potentially more detailed question about the search query.

Then we see a few more informational posts.

Then, there is a new SERP feature called “What people are saying,” which helps bring insights from social media platforms.

Then, there is a Things to know dropdown menu, which further answers queries and keeps users on the page.

Last is a video pack to help users who might want a video result for this query.

In all of these cases, they are trying to give users better solutions to the problems they may need to solve.

Solving at the Query Level

As you can see in the slide below, their machine learning technologies are helping them:

•  Get better results for longer tail queries (RankBrain)
• Connect complex concepts in queries (MUM)
• Understand how topics and words all fit together (Bert)

So, instead of matching keywords like “Japan hiking tips,” MUM understands that a user might want to know about preparation, gear, or weather conditions.

Ultimately, with these fluctuations, Google admits that organic traffic to your site may not be as predictable as it once was, which is the last bullet in their slide.

Traffic Patterns May Fluctuate

The last bullet on Google’s slide reads:

“Traffic Patterns May Fluctuate: Long-held traffic patterns are likely to fluctuate, creating new opportunities for all sites. Past success on search may not guarantee future success.”

There are a few reasons for these traffic pattern fluctuations.

Zero-click Searches

We are already seeing “zero-click searches,” which means that when users search, they don’t interact with any of the results at all.

Many of these may be due to users getting what they want from what they see on Google SERPs.

One of Sparktoro’s recent studies, they found that zero-click behavior accounts for about 37% of searches.

But, before you get your pitchforks and head to Google’s office, remember that they are just trying to match users’ needs.

Consider the other factors changing how users search.

Young Searchers Are Moving Off Google

A study from Forbes Advisor saw that 46% of Gen Zers prefer using social media to search over Google.

GWI saw that almost 52% of Gen Z used social media as a primary search engine.

If we broaden the scope to all brands, just 53% of Americans trust search engines like Google, according to a study from PageOnePower.

So, we are seeing this shift in how users get their information and find brands.

As marketers, we need to meet that shift.

How?

Build a Brand with Digital PR

As users change how they search, and Google changes how it delivers information, marketers need to adapt.

As Nathan Gotch said in our podcast, links are still important, but they are becoming a smaller piece of the puzzle.

Now, you need to consider how your brand is mentioned across all avenues of your audience’s journey.

Here are some ways to do that.

1. Get Your Brand Mentioned In AI

You could try to get yourself mentioned in AI results. Many of the main LLMs used high DR publishers to curate their datasets.

So, there is evidence that PR can help you get mentions in these high-DR publishers and show up in the ChatGPTs and Google Geminis of the world.

And many of these AI technologies now have data partnerships with major publishers, as we mapped here:

Do this by creating data-driven content and promoting it (digital PR).

LLMs need new data.

Passive link building is one of the best all-encompassing solutions that can bring in relevant links and get your brand mentioned on some of these high-authority sites that LLMs are using for their data.

With a little push of outreach, this content can create a flywheel that continues to bring in links.

And getting links can still help you rank, which will get you in front of Google search users.

Our link building statistics post and digital PR statistics posts are examples of these.

With these, we can get into LLMs:

And we’ve seen a slow increase in ChatGPT traffic.

It’s still small, but it’s one way to get your brand in front of users.

2. Build Data-Driven Stories

When done well, data—driven stories give you a unique story to tell and can get your brand mentioned in industry news sites.

Why? Because journalists love data-driven stories.

Cision’s State of the Media Report showed that original research reports are the second most sought-after kind of content that journalists want from PRs.

Our State of Digital PR Report is a real-life example of this.

This fresh data exists nowhere else and provides a story journalists can tell.

It can also get repurposed into other content (like the aforementioned statistics posts).

We’ve written extensively about some of these tactics, including creating and pitching city index studies and survey posts.

In some cases, these kinds of studies can get you mentioned in local news, even for seemingly dull industries.

Here’s a survey-driven post that got media coverage for a construction equipment rental company that got talked about on major local news networks:

But, there are ways to get into news outside of just data-driven stories.

3. Put Yourself Out There as an Expert

Another resource that journalists like is expert commentary.

If you’re in the UK, you can respond to #journorequests. Otherwise, you can look to Qwoted, Featured, and Source of Sources.

These platforms are used by journalists to connect with experts.

Here’s a look at Qwoted for instance:

Responding to them can get you featured on top-tier news sites.

However, don’t limit yourself to news sites. Consider how younger users are searching TikTok.

4. Get Your Brand Mentioned in Social Channels

If users don’t find what they seek on a SERP or AI, they may search on social. Others may go directly to a brand that they remember via direct search.

For some great examples of digital PR campaigns that got coverage on social and the web, look no further than Ikea.

Here’s one they did recently to capitalize on the trending Apple TV show, Severance.

After trending on social, it got picked up on multiple news outlets.

Sites like Famous Campaigns or newsletters like The PR Insider provide great examples of these campaigns that expand to wider audiences..

5. Get Your Brand Mentioned in Online Forums

One of Google’s SERP features is the Forums tab:

Forums like Reddit are some of the most popular areas outside of Google to get your content seen.

In 2024, Reddit saw over 39% increase in traffic in 2024 between showing up in the Discussion and Forums feature and in search results more frequently.

A lot of data pieces and visualizations do really well on these kinds of forums.

Lean into ones that can spark conversation.

One post from FinanceBuzz about fast food price inflation found itself trending on Reddit with over 12k upvotes.

If you’re interested in learning more, I spoke extensively about this post with Chris Lewis of Launch Potato about how they did this.

Some agencies, like Neomam, even test content on Reddit to see how it performs before rolling out their full campaigns.

One piece I did for a client over 5 years ago still gets major play on Reddit on various threads.

The original post was posted back in 2017.

It wasn’t an original data post but it’s a highly informative visualization that gets cited multiple times on Reddit.

6. Think Local, Think Traditional

Even small, local brands can benefit from PR to combat potential losses in organic traffic.

The city index study is one way to attract local journalists.

But, you can also think more traditional PR methods like sponsoring events, or pop-up shops.

Here is a mention in Fox11 in Wisconsin about of pop-up shop events from local brands Renard’s Cheese and Uncle Mike’s Bake Shoppe that occurred around the time of the NFL Draft.

Everything from sponsoring little league teams, to 5K races can get you press mentions, backlinks, but more importantly, build brand affinity with local communities.

No, SEO Isn’t Dead

Hopefully, the takeaway from Google isn’t that SEO is dead. It’s alive but there are different areas.

As the SERP diversifies and user’s search preferences change, SEOs need to adapt.

PRs should be ready to work with marketing teams like social media, or brand and vice versa.

Google is telling us not to expect the same gains from search, so it’s time to prepare for the change.

The post Google Says Organic Traffic Won’t Be the Same…Ever appeared first on BuzzStream.

Getting links without needing to pitch anything is the dream.

While it’s not totally hands-off from an outreach perspective, the passive link building approach has spread like wildfire over the past few years.

And there’s a big reason why: it works.

These data-driven posts can bring in relevant, authoritative links over time and supercharge a site’s authority.

In this post, I will show you exactly how to do it and provide some examples of different industries.

• Use keywords that researchers search for when writing—like “[industry] statistics” or “[industry] trends”.
• Trends, market analysis, and even interactive tools or calculators can attract passive links.
• Evaluate SERPs to ensure the top ranking posts get links to determine the keyword’s linkability.
• Use unique data—either uncovered through deep research, proprietary data, or created via surveys to boost linkability.
• Regional data can make outreach even more effective.
• While passive, this strategy greatly benefits from an initial outreach push.
• Refresh statistics and reports yearly to maintain rankings and attracts more backlinks.

What is the Passive Link Building Approach?

Passive link building is when you create an asset or post based on a keyword with high link intent, creating a flywheel that helps the post gain links and rank.

High link-intent keywords are ones that researchers or bloggers search for online when writing their stories when looking for citations.

The most common type of keyword is “statistics” but as you’ll see, this approach is not limited to statistics posts.

You can see trends, tools, and even definitional content getting links over time.

A quick example is our link building statistics post.

The keyword “link building statistics” gets 200 searches per month.

Our post has garnered over 25 highly authoritative, relevant keywords since it was published in June 2024:

As the post gains links, it ranks higher, which helps it gain more links, and the flywheel continues.

Some posts gain hundreds, even thousands of links with this approach, all contributing to the site’s overall authority and helping rank for related keywords.

In the next section of the post, I’ll show you exactly how to do it with your site.

1. Find Your Topic

This is mainly a keyword-driven strategy. (There is one exception and that’s if you are leaning into a new trending topic, which I’ll cover at the end of step 1.)

So, the first step is identifying your keyword.

The keywords that work for this approach are ones that someone would search for when looking for a citation.

The most straightforward approach is to go to Ahrefs Keywords Explorer and type in [Industry] + statistics.

Let’s use something challenging like “trucking statistics.”

The keyword has about 60 visits per month.

(We can somewhat disregard the difficulty because you can still get links even if you aren’t ranking number one in the SERP.)

However, before I get writing, I like to evaluate the SERP to see if the top-ranking posts are actually getting links over time.

Just because search volume exists for a keyword doesn’t always mean writers and researchers cite it in their posts.

For instance, if I search “surfing statistics” I do not see many backlinks generated by the top-ranking posts.

For some, this might not be a deal-breaker. The thinking is that it is better to be the go-to source if someone searches for it, regardless of the search volume.

I typically weigh my options based on the cost to create something like this.

Government agencies or organizations often dominate this kind of SERP, not leaving much room for other brands.

For example, if I search “crime statistics”, I see nothing but authoritative government sources and organizations ranking and getting links:

Back to our trucking example, when I scroll down to the SERP overview in Ahrefs, I see that another brand, truckinfo.net, gets links.

While BLS.gov and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics are ranking, they aren’t dominating the SERP.

So, this feels like a safe post for me to go for.

Alternatives to “Statistics” Posts

Depending on the industry, there are plenty of alternatives to “statistics” keywords.

Remember, you are looking for keywords that a journalist, blogger, or research might search for.

Here is a list to get your creative juices flowing:

• [industry] trends
• [industry] expert insights
• [industry] predictions
• [industry] thought leaders
• [industry] commentary on [current event]
• [industry] expert interview
• [industry] research report
• [industry] survey results
• [industry] market analysis
• [industry] benchmark report
• [industry] whitepaper
• [industry] case study
• [industry] success story
• [industry] best practices
• [industry] examples of innovation
• [industry] real-world applications
• [industry] biggest challenges
• [industry] problems facing [professionals/customers]
• [industry] risks
• [industry] ethical concerns
• [industry] controversies
• [industry] salary
• history of [industry]
• [industry] government regulations
• [industry] customer preferences
• [industry] consumer behavior study
• how people use [industry] products
• [industry] demand trends
• future of [industry]
• [industry] emerging technologies
• next big thing in [industry]
• predictions for [year]
• [industry] in [location]
• [industry] for [specific audience]
• [industry] impact on [group]
• [industry] insights for small businesses

In the examples section below, you’ll see how I built an entire passive link strategy around the “spending habits” keywords.

Tools and Interactive Calculators Work Too

Tools-related keywords make great passive link building assets as well. These provide value and are still typically used by bloggers and even journalists.

For example, here’s a tool to help calculate how much house you can afford:

It helps users calculate their monthly payments based on things like income, debts, and more.

This is cited in high-end news articles all the time:

Calculators and tools usually require more dev work, so they aren’t always a brand’s first choice.

Definitions and Guide Posts

Guide posts and definitional content are in competition with AIO and ChatGPT these days.

That said, there is still an opportunity for in-depth guides that provide information that AI simply doesn’t know.

One thing to consider is by looking at the number of clicks a keyword gets.

If it is higher or close to the search volume, people are interested in clicking through.

The lower the clicks, the more users are getting their answer from things like AIO and featured snippets.

First-Mover Topics

It can sometimes be beneficial to jump a keyword or topic that is trending but doesn’t yet have search volume.

For example, when I spoke with Darren Kingman of Root Digital on our podcast, he told me he helped build this chatGPT statistics post before it even had search volume.

Fast forward a few years, and it has 430 referring domains.

The key to the first mover advantage here is identifying trends before they blow up.

You can do that using a tool like Exploding Topics.

AI Image Enhancer and AI Logo Generator are great tools posts ideas that are “exploding” with interest.

As you can see, there are a lot of posts that can generate passive links.

In this post, I’m going to focus mostly on the statistics post-type passive link building approach.

Now that we’ve identified a keyword let’s discuss finding the data required to build a post.

2. Find Your Data

The best way to ensure your post gets links is by providing data that doesn’t exist anywhere else.

So, when building, I try to find data that:

• hasn’t been listed on posts
• is hard to read
• is hard to find
• all of the above.

I’ll search Google or ChatGPT for relevant studies or data to find this data.

In our trucking industry example, a Google search showed me BLS data about the truck transportation industry.:

When I go to the page, it provides plenty of charts:

Any of these could become data points for my post:

In Jan 2025, the average truck driver earns $31.74 per hour.

I can click through the site to find less obvious information.

Here’s back data on hourly earnings:

Using the above chart, I found that wages have increased 40% in the past 10 years.

That’s an incredible stat that I don’t see anywhere else!

Or Create Your Own Data

The best way to find data that doesn’t exist anywhere else is to create proprietary data via survey.

Using proprietary data dramatically increases the likelihood of getting backlinks.

You can use a low-cost survey tool like Survey Monkey, Pollfish, or YouGov to gather data from the target audience.

Most of those platforms start at around $1 per response.

I like to use Survey Monkey’s Audience Calculator to get estimates.

The more responses you have, and the more targeted the audience demographic, the more expensive.

So, if I wanted to survey 200 people in the transportation industry, my survey would jump from $200 to $4,200.

This may seem steep until you consider the number of links this post will bring in.

If I look at the SERP, I see that the top-ranking posts have hundreds of links. So, even if I only get 10 links, my cost per link for this strategy is $420, which aligns with the price of a digital PR link based on our survey.

Gather Enough Data to Stand Out

I evaluate the SERP to determine how many data points my post needs to rank. Like any listicle post, I try to stay competitive with what is currently ranking.

If every ranking post with links uses 35 stats, I’ll try 40 or 50.

Or, if every ranking post gives 100+, I’ll try to go more direct (like I initially did with my 11 link building statistics post.)

That brings me to my next point.

You may want to “pad” your stats with some external sources to make your post more appealing.

Mix in Data from Various Sources

As I mentioned, I like to use proprietary data for these posts as it helps ensure that my data is the most interesting.

But, I’ll sometimes pad my numbers by pulling in statistics from other trusted sources.

Keeping diverse data sources makes the post more valuable to a researcher because it compiles data from disparate sources into one central post.

So, for the trucking post, I’d want to pull from my survey, BLS, Department of Transportation, and any other sources I might find.

Now that I have data, it’s time to craft the post.

3. Write Your Post

The TL:DR of this section is to list statistics in a blog post. That approach will realistically get you 80% of the way there.

However, there are some best practices for building a post primed for passive link building.

Use Related Keywords as Your Section Header

The post shouldn’t just be one big list.

The idea is to make this valuable for a user who wants to extract a simple statistic.

So, I always like to categorize the data as best I can.

One trick to getting more value from this approach is using semantic or related keywords as section headers.

So, if I went into Ahrefs Keyword Explorer, I could see some related keywords with search volume that I would want to include as section headers:

And the reason we do this isn’t purely SEO (although that’s always a plus).

Search volume tells me what users search for.

So, by leaning on search volume, I am making this more user-friendly and hopefully keeping them from jumping to another site to do more research.

Provide Visuals

The other tip for these data-driven passive link building posts is to use visuals. This has a dual benefit as well.

I am making my posts more appealing and easy for users to understand, and this method allows me to gain links from posts.

For instance, here’s a post from BloggerOutreach.io that uses my data visualization:

I use Canva for most of my graphic design work on BuzzStream and even some data visualizations, though their graphing capabilities are a bit limited.

For our State of Digital PR survey, I used Infogram.

(I mention a few other visualization options in our content marketing tools post.)

Provide Original Sources

Ensuring proper citations is a requirement.

Just because I find a stat somewhere doesn’t mean that’s the original source.

This leads to misinformation and lowers the quality and reliability of your work.

For example, here’s a link we got that is actually a uSERP graphic:

I referenced the graphic in a post of mine so the site errantly linked to us.

This helps no one.

There are some alternative approaches for formatting and writing the passive link building post, which I’ll highlight in the examples section at the end.

Bonus Tip: Provide Regional Data

Although this isn’t always available, adding regional data to a post greatly increases the ability to pitch for links and get the content ranking quickly.

For instance, Bankrate’s Home Ownership Statistics piece includes the states with the highest and lowest homeownership rates.

They also pulled most and least home equity-rich states:

These provide compelling angles for pitching and for the researchers looking for this kind of information.

And it’s not that tough to find, especially with AI helping out.

Say I wanted transportation wage information per state, starting with Kentucky. A quick Google search yields wage data with citations that I can then click on to confirm accuracy.

Then I can visualize a map with a tool like Datawrapper.

So, here’s where stuff gets fun: outreach.

4. Jumpstart Ranking with Outreach

I like to kickoff the passive link building flywheel by pitching the post.

Even if I’m authoritative in the space, this will get the post indexed more quickly and start the flywheel sooner.

I’ve seen a few different link outreach pitch approaches for passive link building assets, but they generally follow the structure outlined in the C.H.A.M.P. Outreach Method.

But before we do that, let’s figure out who we will send this to.

Build an Outreach List

For list building, I typically use a mix of backlinks from similar competitor content and Google Search.

Using the trucking industry statistics post, I’ll walk through an example with Google Search.

For niche industries, I’d start with something generic like “transportation news” to help identify sites that cover transportation-related content:

From here, I’d click through and find authors who may be interested in our list of statistics.

Clicking into Transportation Today, I see Liz Carey listed multiple times, and they seem to be a good fit.

A click on the name brings me to the author page, complete with an email address.

Liz is based in Lexington, Kentucky, which might help me personalize the email a bit if I have unique data for Kentucky.

I’d repeat this process until I have a solid list of journalists or bloggers that I think may be interested in my trucking statistics piece.

Next, I focus on the pitch.

Craft the Pitch

The pitch should focus on a few key stats (and visuals if you’ve got them) and invite the recipient to open the post to see the rest.

Remember, in this example, we also have proprietary data about the transportation industry that we pulled from SurveyMonkey.

Let’s pretend we will craft an email to Liz Carey of Transportation Today News.

The email does a few things:

• Provides value with the new report in the writer’s industry.
• Gives enough data to tell a compelling story.
• Personalizes with a mention of Kentucky

To make this more real, I contacted Emily Campbell-Snida, VP of Content Marketing at Siege Media, to get an example from her and her team.

They created a hybrid piece for Vena Solutions about CAC benchmarks, including fresh data and a calculator.

Here is an example of the pitch that was sent:

She told me, “We pitched this as a comprehensive resource and focused on highlighting the utility of the data analysis, calculator, and templates/visuals.

We also included a variety of image assets that add value that sites could incorporate.”

As I mentioned, this isn’t the only approach to outreach. We have an entire post on email templates.

Can I Still Do Outreach If I Don’t Use Proprietary Data?

In my example above, we used proprietary data as our main hook in the outreach email.

Without proprietary data, it can be difficult but not impossible.

I asked Darren Kingman for some help. He said:

“Actively outreaching an inbound asset requires something to hook into.

The asset itself isn’t designed in a way to generate headlines – it’s a supplement piece.

Therefore, you need to find or create something to supplement into if you are going to send it to journalists.

For us, we’ve done it with pieces like our French Tourism Stats page for a client – where we knew journalists were going to start writing more articles on France/Paris coming up to the Olympics in 2024.

That was also our hook.”

You can see a snapshot of Darren’s email below:

As you can see, it clearly uses the Paris Olympics as the hook.

I’ve also run into this when doing outreach for tools and calculators.

The key is finding either a regional hook, timely hook (like the Paris tourism post), or another newsworthy headline that uses the tool.

Once the outreach is sent, the last step is keeping the content up to date.

5. Keep the Post Up to Date

The last step is to update the post at least yearly. This not only helps with ranking because Google looks at data freshness, but it will also help get more links because researchers want fresh data.

In our digital PR SEO impact analysis, we’ve seen some great data showing the impact of refreshing these kinds of reports.

For instance, Orbit Media’s blogging statistics report shows the bump in links they get every year (and they’ve been doing this report for 11 years).

In that time, they’ve amassed over 2.6K referring domains for a keyword that gets 200 searches per month.

That’s about 20 links per month and 236 links per year over those 11 years.

Do All Passive Link Building Assets Need Outreach?

No. Generally, sites with a high domain authority of ~70+ and high industry relevance won’t need many links to get their passive link asset ranking.

However, outreach speeds up the process.

Speed matters for this passive link-building approach…

How Long Does it Take to See Passive Link Building Impact?

You should expect to really see the link gains hit their cruising point around 8~12 months.

If you can get it ranking sooner, you could start seeing gains in 6 months, sometimes as early as 4.

In the next section, we’ll look at some examples of passive link building.

Passive Link Building Examples

There are so many ways to build passive links beyond just statistics posts. I’d tried to pull a broad spectrum to help understand how different brands utilize this approach.

1. Hubspot’s State of Marketing

Hubspot’s strategy is a master class in how this all ties together. First, they start with the State of Marketing Report.

They can then use this to seed their statistics posts, like their marketing statistics (ranks #1, has over 18K referring domains) or their email marketing stats post (ranks #3, has 8.8K referring domains.):

Despite all of the negative press that Hubspot received with a recent traffic dip, they set the standard for content marketing best practices that I follow today.

2. Backlinko’s Clubhouse Stats

In our podcast, Brian Dean told me about creating this Clubhouse Stats post right after the app was gaining popularity but before it had any kind of search volume.

The next day, he got a link from the Guardian. It can happen that quickly.

When I asked Brian how important it is to identify trends early for this approach, he told me:

“It’s actually necessary really, because if you want to do that, use this the strategy of creating content that is designed to get links.

If you are late to the party, it’s going to be hard to get into that flywheel because someone else is already in it, right?

Or multiple other sites are already in it.

So you, a first, that is where like weeks can make the difference between that succeeding or failing.”

3. Stripo’s Templates

As I called out in my bootstrap link building analysis post, Stripo’s email templates have brought in over 450 referring domains since 2018.

Giving things away for free can drastically increase the amount of passive links you receive.

4. Moz’s Title Tag Tool/Guide Post

I use Moz’s title tag checker daily.

But I wanted to highlight this example because it’s not just a tool; it’s also a definitional guide post.

So, it ranks for more keywords, giving it the chance to get on more researchers’ radars for potential citations.

It’s part of an older set of Moz content published back in 2015 but it’s consistently kept up to date and has accrued over 4.5K referring domains over the years.

5. Buffer’s Social Media Calendar

Although technically another template, these Buffer social media calendars have accrued 186 LRD in just two years.

When the templates are ones that users can use within a SaaS product, the template approach also serves as a lead magnet.

6. Smarter Travel’s Ultimate Packing List

Smarter Travel’s Ultimate Packing List has been around since 2018. Since then it has accrued consistent links (currently at 400 LRDs) with just a simple checklist post:

The post is not overly complex, yet it still consistently brings in links.

7. Lexington Law’s Spending Habits Hub

A long time ago, I helped create an American spending habits hub for Lexington Law, a credit repair company.

These are set up like the traditional “statistics” post, but I wanted to highlight the fact that you don’t always need a literal “statistics” keyword.

It’s a type of high-intent keyword that has search volume.

We started with millennial spending habits:

After we saw how well millennial spending was doing (279 LRD), we decided to roll the strategy out to all spending habits keywords.

• Gen Z spending habits has 58 LRD
• Baby boomer has 75 LRD
• Teen spending habits has 23 LRD

Each was a high link intent keyword with search volume.

(The posts, unfortunately, don’t seem to be kept up to date anymore—severely hindering their long-term growth.)

Diversify Your Approach for the Long Term

This is one of the best link building strategies out there for the money.

However, I don’t think it’s the only approach you should take.

The key to a successful link building strategy is diversification. That way, you’ll never have the rug pulled out from under you when Google decides to roll out an algorithm change.

The post How to Use Passive Link Building to Generate Hundreds of Links appeared first on BuzzStream.

Anyone can do outreach for links in 2025.

There are so many tools and resources available that it’s no wonder that interest is at an all-time high:

However, the game has drastically changed in the past twenty years. Even today, Google constantly updates its algorithm to combat link spammers.

2024 saw some of the most significant algorithm changes since 2012.

All that said, building links is still a significant need for just about every business out there.

In this post, I’ll show you the five simple steps for successful link building outreach in 2025.

What Is Link Building Outreach?

Link building outreach is emailing website owners or writers to get a link back to your site.

In some cases, the outreach is done to promote a piece of content for which you are trying to build links.

For instance, when we published our State of Digital PR report, I did some link building outreach:

In other cases, it is more of an opportunistic approach that requires the site target take some sort of action to include your link.

Here is an example of an email I sent asking someone to update an incorrect link in an article I’ve written about them:

In each case, the goal was to build a link back to our site.

As you can see, great outreach follows a similar format.

Its something I refer to as the C.H.A.M.P. method, which I’ll cover later.

Link Building Strategies You Should Use

As mentioned in the introduction, our recent studies (not to mention a significant Google algorithm leak) have shown us that Google has changed how they think about links.

Instead of getting the most links, I focus all my link-building efforts on building high-quality links relevant to our brand or site.

Today’s strategies and tactics can be employed with and without content. (I won’t cover all of these in this post because we’ve got extensive guides for each.)

Here is a quick breakdown with links to our guide posts:

Content-Driven Link Building

• Guest blogging
• Broken link building
• Digital PR
• Resource page link building

Link Building Without Content

• Link insertion
• Unlinked mentions
• Link exchange

If you’re interested, you can also just check out our full link building strategies post.

Next are my five steps for link building outreach.

1. Build a List

When building a list of sites for outreach, I start by determining who my target audience is.

The goal is to find relevant sites that are open to linking to me.

Let’s pretend I want to build links to my State of Digital PR report.

My target audience is going to be PRs and SEOs.

So, I need to build a list of blogs to pitch that cater to PRs and SEOs.

I’m use a Google Search for “seo blogs” to find blogs that have written about similar content.

To speed up the process, I’ll use BuzzStream.

Then BuzzStream will give me my list:

Google can only get me so far. Once I have my list of potential targets, I want to evaluate it and make sure they are truly relevant.

That’s next.

2. Make Sure The Sites Are Relevant and Quality

Quality and relevance is the name of the game in 2025.

Let’s talk about how to quickly check for each.

Checking for Relevance

The biggest mistake link builders make is reaching out to irrelevant sites.

The easiest way to check relevance is to click through to the site and look through their homepage and current articles to make sure their site matches my target audience.

Here’s Search Engine Journal’s home:

I see lots of content about SEO, so I know I’m in the right place.

This quick relevance check ensures I’m not only reaching the right audience but also that a link from this site will be valuable to Google.

There are some more extensive relevancy checks I can do, which I outline in my relevant links post.

Checking for Quality

Two quick ways to gauge a site’s quality are to look at its traffic and authority metrics.

I use Ahrefs Site Explorer to check my target site’s average monthly organic traffic and Domain Rating (DR).

I can filter by those metrics in BuzzStream to only look at sites with a DR above 65 and site traffic above 10,000 estimated monthly organic visits:

There are other quality metrics that I like to look at, which you can find in my quality links post.

Now that I’ve confirmed the site is relevant to my target audience, I want to find a person to email at each site.

3. Find the Right Person

The second biggest mistake people make in link building outreach is reaching out to the wrong person.

In link building outreach, once I identify a site, I aim to find the author of a relevant article.

So, for my State of Digital PR study, I’ll search the site for “SEO study” to find relevant articles.

I’ll do this by using a site:search on Google:

I clicked on one and found Matt G. Southern.

(This is about AI and journalists, so I know I’m on the right track.)

I want to ensure Matt is the best fit by finding a bio page.

When I click on the name, I find that Matt is the Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal. It says Matt oversees strategy development for SEJ’s news department.

I can also see Matt’s recent articles, which all appear to be SEO-related studies:

So Matt appears to be the right person. Let’s move to the next step: finding the contact details.

4. Find Contact Details

The best way to find contact details is on the author’s page.

Luckily, Matt’s is right here in front of me. But it won’t always be that easy.

If you’re stumped, I post about ways to find people’s email addresses.

Now, we can move on to the fun stuff: crafting the outreach pitch.

5. Craft Your Email Pitch

The pitch has two parts: the subject line and the email body.

Let’s cover the subject line first.

Crafting the Subject Line

Take a look at your inbox. See how crowded it is?

You goal is to make your email stand out above all of the noise.

Here is a snapshot from my inbox:

You can see a link building pitch email gets lost due to a very generic subject line.

To stand out, ensure my subject lines describe what it is and who it is for.

For my State of Digital PR outreach, it will be:

“New data study for Search Engine Journal”

Short and to the point!

Crafting the Email

Over my ~10 years in link building, I’ve developed the C.H.A.M.P. outreach method for crafting email pitches.

In short, the idea is to send them an email that is personalized to them, provides them with something of value, and then gives them all of the information they need to take action.

Here it is broken down:

So, for my State of Digital PR email pitch to Matt from Search Engine Journal, I’m going to follow this structure:

In this case, the real value I’m giving is that I’m providing (what I think is) really great data.

It’s relevant to Matt because he’s shared a lot of other studies.

I’m personalizing a bit calling out a study that he shared, showing him that I know his beat.

If I can take a lot of the work off of Matt’s plate, it may be easier to share.

I’ve built this out in BuzzStream so that I can send and track responses.

That’s basically all there is to it.

6 (Optional): Follow up

In most cases, I like to follow up only once. I call this step optional because you don’t always need a follow up email.

I keep it short and to the point:

I would be wary statistics that you see about follow-ups that recommend following up multiple times like this:

Usually these kinds of follow-up studies are created by cold outreach software which caters to sales teams and email marketers, which are very different from link building.

Remember, the goal with link building outreach is to pitch a specific value and ask for a targeted action—not just spamming inboxes in hopes of a reply.

Why Is Link Building Outreach So Important in 2025?

Outreach is critical if you want your content to be seen by Google and, more importantly, by users.

Some well-known brands with high authority can get links with little to no outreach based on their brand exposure alone.

The rest of us need to do it the old-fashioned way.

You might think that what I mean is that big brands don’t need to do any link-building outreach.

Here are three reasons why I think all brands should:

Gets Content Ranking More Quickly

Links have been shown time and again to help sites rank better on Google. Link building outreach gets the content in front of people more quickly, jumpstarting the ranking process.

So, even large, well-known brands still engage in link building outreach.

Cuts Through the Noise

There is more content than ever! Between email newsletters I’m subscribed to and LinkedIn posts, I probably see hundreds of great “link-worthy” content daily.

By doing email outreach, I am getting the content to the right people at the right time to increase the likelihood they will link to me.

Builds Relationships for Future Wins

My favorite reason for doing any outreach is that it allows me to connect with people.

And developing relationships with bloggers, journalists, and site owners increases the likelihood that they might feature my content again!

Next, let’s briefly look at the link building strategies that require outreach.

Link Building Has Changed But Still Works

Not everything works like it used to. Google has been getting smarter at identifying link building strategies that are used to game the system.

Buying links, link exchanges, and even guest posting are all risky tactics if you are not extremely careful.

We’ve outlined several white hat link building tactics that work today.

Ready to get started? Check out BuzzStream today.

The post Link Building Outreach Anyone Can Do in 5 Simple Steps (2025 Edition) appeared first on BuzzStream.

2024 was one of the most turbulent years in SEO history.

A culmination of six events combined that signaled the growing importance in brand —and weakened the case for many “traditional” link building strategies.

And before you dismiss this post as a sales pitch, we have a lot of customers who use our tool for traditional link building. Nevertheless, the evidence is hard to ignore.

It’s not that all link building is bad. However, a significant shift in how you think about your SEO and link building strategies in 2025 is needed.

The shift is moving away from the traditional, spray and pray, wide-scale approach you knew.

The focus now needs to be building a brand with targeted outreach, high-quality links, and coverage from sites that Google (and consumers) value.

Here are the six major events shaping the shift from link building to PR.

1. Google and Yahoo Email Guidelines (February)

Google announced new email requirements for senders emailing over 5,000 emails within 24 hours to personal Gmail accounts.

Senders must have one-click unsubscribe links, and spam rates must be kept below .3%.

If you fail to comply, your emails will land in spam folders, rendering them useless for outreach.

What did we learn?

Spray and pray, scaled outreach is no longer viable. Personalized email outreach is the key to success.

Learn more about Google’s new email requirements

2. Google Changes the Way They View Links (April)

At SERPCon in April 2024, Google rep Gary Illyes mentioned in a talk that “we need very few links to rank pages…Over the years, we’ve made links less important.”

He immediately backtracked, Tweeting, “I shouldn’t have said that… I definitely shouldn’t have said that.” But the damage was done and SEOs ran with it.

The issue is that I think, in some ways, Gary highlights Google’s big problem: They have no choice but to devalue a lot of links because of all of the spam out there.

Yet, they still desperately need links as a ranking factor because nothing else comes close.

So what they end up doing, as you’ll see, is trying to devalue the manipulative links.

What did we learn?

For one, what Google says and what they do are different things. You can’t really trust it without doing the research yourself. You’ll see that with the Google Leak below.

But, more importantly, there is a LOT of link spam out there. The quality of links is much more important than the quantity.

If you take a backlink profile and remove all of the links from low-quality sites, as I did in my analysis of the number of backlinks you need, you’ll find that you don’t need as many as you think to rank.

So, to me, this was a major blow to the traditional link building methods like guest posting, niche edits, etc.

Learn more about the power of quality links.

3. Helpful Content Update (March)

Google announced a core ranking system update, impacting how their systems rank sites. This update focused on rewarding sites that provided truly “valuable” content in their eyes.

The update subsequently wiped out traffic from affiliate review sites, sites writing scaled content using only AI, and most sites that people relied on for “guest posts” typically found on link marketplaces.

You can see on my link building statistics post that only 6% of the “guest post sites” I analyzed were still considered “high quality” after HCU:

Unfortunately, a lot of independent sites also got hit in the crossfire. Some, like HouseFresh, did have “valuable” content on their site.

Google eventually released another update in August to seemingly soften the March update a bit and even the scales for sites that were unjustly penalized.

What did we learn?

“Guest posting” on sites that only exist to buy and sell links is no longer viable for link builders. As you’ll further see in the Link Spam Update, these links are mostly rendered worthless.

While the guest posts sites and the affiliate sites may seem unrelated, they do have a lot in common. Many of the sites have content on their site solely built to make money, either through ads or affiliate partnerships.

Most didn’t say anything new, thus provided no new value.

So, gone are the days of website arbitrage and building a site just to make money on some get-rich-quick scheme. This model is going extinct.

You need to have a brand and bring genuinely new content to the web to survive.

Learn more about the Helpful Content Update’s impact on link building.

4. AI Overviews Launched (May)

To keep up with ChatGPT’s growing user base, Google launched AI Overviews (AIO) in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). These short answers appear mainly for informational queries above the SERP. After a terrible launch, Google has improved the quality of the results.

What did we learn?

I believe data-driven digital PR campaigns are a great way to get your brand into the LLMs.

Large language models (LLMs) used in AIO and ChatGPT like fresh information.

So, I hypothesize that by feeding new, fresh data into the LLM via proprietary data and getting this data mentioned in press coverage, you position yourself to get mentioned more frequently in AIO.

This also syncs with providing value and something new to the web.

You’ll see in the next section why I believe coverage and links from press outlets hold more weight in Google’s eyes.

5. Google Leak (May)

An ex-Google employee leaked Google API documentation to Rand Fishkin and Mike King. Included in the documentation were seemingly the keys to the SEO kingdom.

There was information about site authority, author profiles, and link relevancy.

We know Google changes its algorithm frequently, so not everything included in the “leak” should be taken at face value, but it did confirm many hypotheses over the years.

What did we learn?

The big things to come out of this leak was that the algorithm seemed to value:

• Quality, authoritative sites
• Highly recognized authors
• Fresh content
• Highly visible content leading to more clicks

All of this points to coverage from high-end, top-tier news or relevant industry news sites—precisely the kind of digital PR content gets.

Learn more about the Google Leak.

6. Link Spam Update (June)

With the help of AI-powered “Spam Brain,” Google announced they were going after sites that showed signs of buying and selling links to manipulate rankings. This again hit many of the sites that appear on link marketplaces, guest post sites, and those engaging in link exchanges.

It didn’t penalize that traffic as much as it just nullified the power of the backlinks.

In my analysis of 50 SaaS sites, the update also seemed to have devalued links from “best”-type queries because those are so rife with link exchange manipulation.

What did we learn?

As I mentioned, I believe Google wants to keep using links as a ranking factor, so they are continuing to do their best to weed out the low quality links.

Quality links that remain are the ones that are highly relevant to your brand.

Learn more about the Link Spam Update.

Does This Mean SEO and Link Building Are Dead?

Not at all.

In fact, it’s becoming much more important.

With fewer authoritative, quality sites to go around, the value of links is at an all-time high.

If you look at the cost per link or CPL for most agencies in the past, you could achieve a typical high-end, top-tier news link for an investment of about $1,000 – $1,500.

Today, I believe that value is something like $2,500.

The kind of link building that has “died” is the spray-and-pray, high-volume, non-personalized emails.

Simply put, these tactics used to work. Now, they don’t.

2025 is when you should focus on quality, not quantity.

Reach the right person at the right site. Get links and coverage from places that matter.

This is what will move the needle in 2025.

The post Why Link Building Will Look Radically Different in 2025 appeared first on BuzzStream.

BuzzStream hired me in November 2023 with a few goals: build organic traffic, increase brand awareness, and help bring in more trials.

But here’s the thing: BuzzStream is in a highly competitive market, with search leaders like SEMRush, Ahrefs, Moz, and Backlinko crushing it.

Not only that, but little did I know we were about to experience seismic shifts in search, such as HCU, link spam, and AI adoption.

So, not only did we need to maintain SEO best practices, but I also needed to ensure we provided unique, valuable content to rise above the noise.

Luckily, I was born into this industry. Molded by it. (Yes, that’s a Bane reference.)

I worked in SEO and content marketing at Siege Media, using BuzzStream as a customer.

So, in a way, I could hit the ground running because I was looking at the ideal customer in the mirror.

In this SEO case study, I’ll explain exactly how we gained almost 300% more organic traffic amidst one of the most tumultuous times in SEO history.

How I Optimized the Site

To gain anything from SEO, you need a solid foundation.

So, I like doing a few housecleaning tasks when working on any site. This comes from my agency days. (I also clean the kitchen before I cook, so maybe it’s just my OCD personality .)

Content Prune

One of my first areas of focus was a content prune.

The idea behind a prune is that BuzzStream had built over 4.4K referring domains, which is a lot of link equity spread across the site.

Cutting pages from the site helps spread more link equity to each of the remaining pages.

I’m a firm believer that every piece of content on the site should have a purpose. For the most, the purpose will be to bring in traffic. Others may be link magnets.

In January, I pruned over 100 blog articles that did not generate organic traffic or backlinks to the blog.

That is just dead weight.

The result, as you can see, was a significant drop in the number of organic pages:

Then there was a slow increase, and then in March, the Helpful Content Update took over, which I’ll get into later.

Actionable Takeaway: Identify the content that gets limited views, no backlinks, and doesn’t rank for anything. Prune it!

Image Optimization

Initially, I was obsessed with our Core Web Vitals scores. Ultimately, it felt like a fool’s errand to chase the perfect score, especially when some of the best sites on the web (including Google) don’t have great CWV scores.

That said, I knew I would be working with many images because most of my content shows many examples (to inspire trust, which I’ll get into later).

So, I used Smush’s plugin to compress images and ensure lazy loading was in place.

Then, I moved to use Wordable to upload all of my content into WordPress, which compresses images automatically.

Actionable Takeaway: Use a plugin to enable lazy loading and compress images before you add them to your site.

Site Navigation Optimization

The main rule I follow for website navigation is this: keep it lean and seen.

Our top navigation was stuck behind a hamburger menu—even on desktop. Most studies, including those from Neilsen Norman Group, have proven this isn’t best for UX.

So, we pulled everything out from behind the hamburger, and I went with a slightly more traditional SaaS layout, with the “Get Started” button instead of “Plans & pricing.”

I also don’t like to overload the navigation. Alex Stein gave a great MozCon talk in 2016 about how he removed internal navigation links to boost overall rankings.

The same premise applies to a content prune and a navigation link prune. Removal of internal links helps pass more link value through the remaining (fewer) links.

As for what links remain, I typically follow something like this:

• Top nav – Links to priority pages or service pages (these may be the same thing)
• Footer – Reiterate top priority pages, contact information, additional pages you want to rank

The navigation looked like this:

For the footer, I removed many pages that weren’t necessary or aligned with my goals.

Ultimately, this amounted to removing half of the links.

I also had our developer set the footer to display my “featured” blog posts, which I’ll enter in the next section.

Actionable Takeaway: Trim your header to include priority pages, the blog, and About. The footer can reiterate a few priority pages and include other important links like contact info. Avoid hamburger menus.

How I Overhauled the Blog

I think you can add a lot with design when discussing providing value.

It improves the user experience, which can help metrics like time on site and indirectly improve rankings.

I also believe it is very much a trust signal.

When I was with Siege Media, I found that the better the blog looked, the easier it was to get links.

So, there were two main places to focus on: the blog homepage and the individual blog posts.

Blog Home Design

The blog home on BuzzStream was a standard blog roll without many bells and whistles.

It was acceptable but not good enough compared to our competitors.

For example, see Ahrefs’ blog:

Or SEMRush’s blog:

So, I worked to create a more inviting blog hero section with a brief description, a search bar, and then categories that users could jump to.

Followed by the featured posts section:

Then, each category received its own section:

This made it much easier for users to navigate and discover the posts they’d like to find.

Ultimately, we saw a lot more users spending time on the blog.

Actionable Takeaway: Treat the blog home as more than just a blogroll. Categorize and design all the blog home so users can easily navigate based on these categories.

Blog Post Design

I believe that blog design is a passive ranking metric. Some well-known thought leaders can get by with a simple blog design (see Seth Godin’s blog), but it’s rare that they also rank for keywords.

So, blog post design is one of the key things I always look to improve upon.

The BuzzStream blog had some key features that I’ve added to all the sites I’ve worked on in the past, like post date, prominent title, author (with bio), and share buttons.

It even had a solid author bio.

But, it also missed much more to make it stand out and compete with the other major players.

So here are all of the features I added. Most are on-page SEO best practices, so here are the usability reasons to do them:

1. Breadcrumbs – Helps users easily navigate back.
2. Author Name – Helps establish trust.
3. Category – Helps users easily navigate to other, similar content.
4. Last Updated Date – Helps users see how fresh the information is.
5. Hero Image – Not necessary all the time, but custom graphics help trust
6. Share Buttons – Helps reach when people share. I removed the ones that were not relevant to our users.
7. Email Signup – Helps reach.
8. Podcast Signup – Helps reach.
9. Table of Contents – Helps users easily navigate.

Here’s what it looks like laid out:

I also moved the bio to the bottom of the post instead of the sidebar to make it less cluttered.

Within the post, I also had our designer help with a few other minor additions to improve readability.

Narrowed Blog Width to 700px:

Based on Baymard Institute (another fantastic UX resource), the ideal line length is 50-75 characters. So, I slimmed down the blog width to 700px, roughly translating to 65-70 characters.

This is even more important when considering the length of a sentence on desktop as it gets translated to a mobile device.

What is only three lines on a desktop becomes a wall of text on mobile.

Increased Mobile Font Size:

Most of our users are on desktops, but that doesn’t mean I should ignore mobile users.

I also increased the readability of our blog on mobile by increasing the font size to display 20px.

Created Repeatable In-post Design Features:

The other thing I focused on was repeatable blog design improvements.

For instance, I include many email examples in my posts (especially my email templates post).

Now, in all of the instances, you can see them in a custom box with a “Copy to Clipboard” feature:

Similarly, I often use “tips” to break up the text and make things stand out for those scanning.

Any time I write about BuzzStream-specific workflows, they appear in blue:

All post images get custom borders so that they stand out:

This attention to detail adds to the user experience and elevates trust.

Shortened Writing Style:

According to NNGroup research, users scan the text, reading in an F-shaped pattern, taking in only the first few words of each line.

My designer didn’t help with this, but I avoid long paragraphs when I write, which also helps with readability.

Actionable Takeaways: Ensure your blog has author names, date stamps, and breadcrumbs. If you write a lot of informational content—especially longer-form content—add a table of contents and make the text scannable.

How I Determined What to Write About

Now we get to the good stuff.

I want to make it clear. Just because I’m talking about providing value doesn’t mean I’m ditching keyword research.

I still wanted to leverage where and how I know users search the web. The main value-add becomes what I write in each post, which I’ll get into in the next section.

But first I need to decide which topics to write about.

Where to begin?

I knew our customers were divided into link builders and digital PRs, which are significantly different keywords.

So, to start, I needed to tackle keywords with lower keyword difficulty and aligned with where Google believed we were an authority.

Where Did We Have Authority?

When I first started, direct traffic outnumbered organic almost 4 to 1.

The first place I looked was our top-ranking keywords. We barely had much going outside of branded terms.

Any non-branded organic seemed to go to our severely outdated tools section:

(These tools still get tons of traffic .)

Next, I dug into our backlink profile—specifically the anchor text—to get a sense of how users link to us, a signal Google takes into account.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot to pull from here since they are mostly going to our homepage with our name:

For reference, compare this to something like Backlinko, which, aside from its homepage, has a much more diverse set of keywords as anchor text and ranks well for those keywords:

So I’d have to look elsewhere.

Another indicator was how quickly I was able to rank for specific keywords. When I started, I published a few posts: one on relevant links and the other on SaaS link-building strategies.

I noticed that both of them ranked fairly easily right away.

So, that seemed to be where we’d have the easiest time ranking, at least to start.

Identifying Competitors

BuzzStream has content competitors and direct business competitors; sometimes, those overlap.

A straightforward way to identify BuzzStream’s competitors was to use Ahrefs’ Organic Competitors, part of Site Explorer.

For instance, Pitchbox and Respona are business competitors since they have similar tools but sometimes lack organic traffic.

Sites like Ahrefs, Backlinko, and SEMRush are all content competitors, but they don’t have a tool similar to ours.

I also like to do some manual searching for content competitors.

With “link building” and “digital PR” being our two focus areas, I started with a Google search and tried to identify the content competitors that appear most frequently.

Once I had my list of competitors, I could dig into some keyword research.

Keyword Research

I like to do keyword research in two ways: using competitor sites as a seed list and more manual research based on head terms and related terms.

Building Competitor Seed List:

To build my competitor seed list, I used Ahrefs’ Site Explorer to grab the Top Pages for each content competitor and exported them.

Then, I re-ran the Top keywords from this list through Ahrefs Keywords Explorer to identify their parent topics.

This ended up with a clean list of unique keyword topics:

Once I have a list of keywords from competitors, I also want to bolster it with manual research.

Manual Keyword List Building

Using Ahrefs’ Keyword Explorer, I typed in head terms like link building and exported all parent topics.

I then compiled these keywords into a large doc (along with the competitor keywords.)

Then, I went through them manually and highlighted any that looked like they were relevant informational keywords.

Tip: To determine whether or not keywords are informational, you can filter them by intent in Ahrefs. This feature wasn’t available initially but came out later .

I marked all relevant informational keywords with an X in column A:

One limitation is that Ahrefs’ parent topic report gives you overlapping keywords.

For instance, “link building” and “SEO link building” are the same SERPs with similar posts ranking each.

Keyword Insights’ SERP Similarity Tool is the better tool for this. If you are doing a massive keyword analysis, I’d recommend their tool.

You get five free searches each day.

I used this to spot-check keywords I thought were similar, but I couldn’t get a good sense of the SERP by evaluating it myself.

What Keywords to Prioritize

As I previously stated, I had two main focuses: link building and digital PR.

So, to determine which to prioritize, I next wanted to see which keywords were most beneficial to me from a traffic value perspective.

Traffic Value is a metric that Ahrefs uses to help determine the value of a keyword based on PPC data.

Using that as my guide, I did a KOB analysis—a Keyword-to-Opposition-Benefit analysis, which I used to do at Siege Media. (Check out this outline from Ross and Drew).

Essentially, I take a list of keywords and pull in the traffic value of the top-ranking post divided by the keyword difficulty.

This helps me determine the most valuable keywords but will take the lowest amount of effort to rank for.

I also have a “Relevance” column, which multiplies based on whether the keyword is top-funnel, mid-funnel, or bottom-funnel (top being 1, mid 2, and bottom being 3 because that’s most valuable for us).

It looked something like this:

Aside from the relevance, I also gauged the effort needed to rank.

For instance, “find someone’s email address” looks like it needed a video to rank, given that the SERP has a video carousel.

This wasn’t reflected on the sheet but rather something I would gauge manually.

However, you could use Ahrefs to filter for this.

They do a great job of showing the kinds of SERP features that appear when you look at many keywords.

For instance, I could filter your list by just SERP features that require videos:

That said, I did this evaluation manually.

Focus on the Bottom Funnel to Start

Ultimately, the bottom line matters most to any business, and my role is no different.

I once did a project for a fantastic B2B Marketer, Gaetano DiNardi, who reminded me: “Executives do not grade SEO performance based on links acquired for top-of-funnel pages.”

So, once I had my KOB score, I started with the keywords most relevant and bottom funnel.

(The traffic value metric from Ahrefs can get you close to this, but this is based on PPC data. The true “value” of a keyword differs for every company.)

After I knocked out the bottom funnel, I began to move up the funnel.

The results?

We went from an average of 8k monthly organic sessions to over 20K.

However, as I began to work through my content plan, several major Google events rocked the boat.

Actionable Takeaways: When starting from scratch, focus on high-traffic, low-difficulty keywords to understand where you can get the most value quickly. Use a mix of competitor research and manual keyword research. Build from the bottom funnel up.

Why I Adjusted Strategy Midway Through the Year

I like a good content schedule as much as the rest of the world. But for me, it’s never set in stone.

So many things come up along the way that change priorities. These might be internal business changes, customer questions, or factors like a Google update.

Here are some things that caused me to change my strategy.

Missing Core Internal Linking Opportunities

As I write content, I always look for ways to add internal linking to help users.

When I began writing for BuzzStream, I realized that I often discussed many concepts we didn’t have posts about.

This meant that every article would need a more detailed topic explanation, which muddy the focus and made posts feel longer than they should.

So, as I noticed these keyword opportunities, I started adding them to my content plan.

Posts like link reclamation and broken link building are great examples of this.

These were competitive terms, but the goal wasn’t for search; it was for customer value. But it also had the added benefit of keeping users on my site.

This helped increase the views per session from 1.5 to over six pages.

Customer Feedback

Every few weeks, I meet with our customer success manager to learn what new problems our customers might face. I also interview users in our podcast and directly ask them in our newsletter.

One of the trends I saw was just more questions around pitching journalists.

This led me to create guides like how to pitch journalists.

It’s not rocket science, but it works.

Furthermore, in talking with customers, we found that agencies using more traditional link building methods (guest posting, blogger outreach, resource page link building, etc.) were starting to see fewer opportunities.

This had me rethinking my focus on link building as a focus.

More on that next.

Google Updates

This past year saw significant updates and changes from Google, including Link Spam and Helpful Content Updates, email requirement changes, AI Overviews, and a Google Leak (just to name a few).

Aside from being able to newsjack these stories and create content around them (linked below), we pivoted away from traditional link building topics and more into PR.

Google’s Leak – This leak revealed a lot of information. The main one was that a brand’s strength and exposure seemed more critical than SEOs thought.

Another was Google’s obvious preference for links from highly clicked, frequently updated site areas, which connects directly to digital PR strategy.

Google Helpful Content Update – This update decimated the post sites that typically buy links from through “guest posting.”

Google (and Yahoo’s) Email Spam Requirements – These new requirements penalize sites that send too many non-personalized emails.

Link Spam Update—This update also hurt many sites that buy and exchange links.

Where did that leave us?

Ultimately, I shifted focus to PR topics instead of traditional link building.

Actionable Takeaways: Don’t just rely on keyword tools; pay attention to customers. Identify topics you might never rank for but may be important to customers. Subscribe to newsletters like Search Engine Roundtable to stay on top of Google Updates. Each update will impact the industry differently. Look at how your traffic changes and adapt.

How I Write Content

The content writing strategy is laser-focused on providing value to the users—not just SEO value. Ultimately, because of this, we’ve benefited from each Helpful Content Update.

Here are some ways that I did this.

Ignoring (Some) SEO Best Practices

First, I’m deviating somewhat from some standard SEO writing “best practices.”

I’m avoiding adding FAQs to my content or using similar H2s as current ranking posts.

Those things seem to be weighing down the post and keeping it from providing value. Overall, this deviation doesn’t seem to be impacting much anyway.

I must remember to differentiate myself from super authoritative sites like Ahrefs or SEMRush, which have already fully covered these topics (and have a much larger budget).

So, now it’s about standing out and providing real value that will keep users on the page.

So, in my outline process, I’ll look at what’s ranking to understand what people are talking about, but instead, I’ll try to zag.

For instance, take the keyword “link building statistics”.

The top-ranking posts have at least 30+ statistics.

Instead, I went with 11.

There are 11 laser-focused stats that I believe provide value.

The result is cutting through the noise, and the post slowly climbs the SERP because of it.

Let me expand a bit on the value added in the next section.

Provide Value

I’m lucky enough to be the writer of this content while also closely embodying our target customer profile.

I’m a digital PR, link builder, and SEO. I’ve also worked at agencies for ~10 years.

So, I can easily imagine myself as a former Siege Media or Grit Group employee and ask, “What would I want to see that would make my job easier?”

I also have a fantastic editor in Stephen Panico, who is constantly pushing me with feedback like:

• This is pretty obvious. Do we need this?
• This section feels like it’s for SEO and doesn’t provide much value.
• What’s the actual value you get out of this tool?

So, when I created a post about guest post sites, I didn’t just gather every site I could find (like other posts on the SERP). I manually reviewed thousands of sites to determine whether they were valuable.

Then, I categorized them.

After the Helpful Content and Link Spam Updates, I re-evaluated my list of guest posting sites to see if any were impacted and had to cut over 50 sites.

My new, smaller list has a lower click-thru rate, which may make some SEOs scoff at my change.

But that’s not always the main driver of success. I’m helping users with a better, more valuable list; I have confidence in my strategy. (Plus, when writing this, it still ranks #1.)

Provide Unique Data

Another way that I provide value is to focus on delivering unique data wherever possible. This will be the future of successfully getting mentioned in LLMs.

I aim to include at least one piece of proprietary data per article—even if it is retroactively added.

For instance, in our digital pr vs traditional post, I have some survey data and paired it with existing data to come up with this comparative graphic:

(To be frank, we sit on a treasure trove of proprietary email data that we barely tap into. Expect that to change in the next year. Thanks in advance to our dev team .)

Providing Expertise and Experience

I’m finding that more and more of my content is written primarily in the first person. This is natural, but I felt validated when I saw this study from Zppy on the Winners and Losers of the Google Updates.

Again, I’m lucky to be in the spot where I was and still am the audience I am writing for. So, not only can I relate to our customers, but I can also speak first-hand about my experience.

Not many content writers get that chance.

This is particularly advantageous when you consider that Google seemingly looks at authors as per the leaked documentation.

If I can speak to this, and then Google can relate my name to other, similar articles on the topic, I think I’m in a much better position.

A quick Google search shows my relevance and experience:

However, besides my experience, I tap into our expert customer pool or podcast guests to gain unique insights on a topic.

For instance, here’s a quote I took from Georgia Gadbsy, March of Unearth PR, for our traditional vs digital PR post:

This helps provide unique insights that no other posts have but also helps distribute the content on the back end (more on that in the next section).

Actionable Takeaways: Write for people, not search engines. Don’t just get content ideas from keywords. Listen to customers, follow SEO trends, and follow the market.

How I Distribute New Content

Great content is nothing if no one sees it. So, you need to get it out there.

I’m not going to lie; distribution is a time-consuming process.

Any of the tactics below could use an entire team dedicated to their success. For now, it’s just me. (Luckily, I’ve got tools like BuzzStream to speed things up.)

So, here is a little insight into how I actively distribute content:

(Re)Started an Email Newsletter

BuzzStream kind of had an email newsletter when I started, but it barely went out, and there was no established cadence or design.

Until I built up my social presence, I realized this would be my primary way of getting people to see my content.

There are already several PR newsletters, so I try to keep mine laser-focused on providing value.

So, outside of highlighting our valuable posts, videos, and podcasts, I also spend a significant amount of time writing an actual tip in each email:

This exists nowhere else online, and users need to subscribe to get it.

It’s a lot of work, but I believe it’s a slow-building process.

The result is a growing number of subscribers and referral traffic from email:

Increased Social Media Presence

Sparktoro is a great tool identifying where and how different audiences engage online.

So, I knew I’d need to upgrade my LinkedIn presence, join some Facebook Groups, and create videos for LinkedIn.

I now post at least three times per week, using my blog as a vehicle for content creation.

Blog posts are turned into videos, images, or even PDF carousels:

These gain valuable exposure and clicks to the posts themselves.

As mentioned, I even repurposed my newsletter into a LinkedIn newsletter:

I’ve accrued over 500 subscribers in just a few weeks in under 2 months.

Note: I rarely post from the BuzzStream account except for company or product updates.

Refine Labs’ excellent study shows how much more engagement and impressions an individual’s posts get compared to a company’s post.

I believe customers want to engage with a person, not a company.

Social traffic has gone from nothing to close to 400 sessions per month.

Started the BuzzStream Podcast

Starting a podcast is a lot of work and a slow build.

But it’s not all about downloads and subscriptions. As I mentioned earlier, I have been able to re-use content from podcast guests within my blog posts to boost the expertise and value.

More importantly, speaking with thought leaders helps me learn what’s going on in the community, make connections, and gain exposure with agencies.

This is also a video podcast, so it helps build my YouTube audience, where I saw many PR audiences based on my Sparktoro research.

I’ll occasionally throw in some more videos tied to specific content as well:

Overall, the podcast video content is more of a brand play, but we have seen a boost in sessions due to these as well:

Email Outreach

I’m going to talk about email outreach and link building, right?

I’ve done a fair amount of email outreach, but for the most part, it has been “mention outreach.”

I’ll contact the brands I mention in an article to let them know they are included. For instance, inclusions in our PR podcasts post or digital PR tools posts get emails like this:

This doesn’t always yield backlinks, but it’s excellent for relationship-building, opening the doors to many opportunities. For instance, I was able to get on Doug’s podcast:

Now that I have a solid foundation of organic traffic and an upward trajectory, I plan to add fuel to the fire with more dedicated link-building efforts and digital PR.

I’ll get to that next.

Actionable takeaways: Find different ways to repurpose and redistribute your content. Try a newsletter, podcasts, video, and social media to get new eyeballs on your content.

Next Steps for 2025

When we started, we had a fairly solid DR/DA, built up over time with brand recognition.

We don’t have a hard time building links naturally because of it, but it’s time to hit the gas for a few reasons.

We Need to Diversify Our Link Portfolio

We didn’t (and still don’t) have a lot of diversity in our link profile.

In my analysis of Ahrefs’ Best  Backlink Building SaaS companies, I found that most sites had backlinks from “best” listicle posts.

These are the same kinds of links we receive naturally.

In digging into the June 2024 Link Spam Update, it appeared links from these posts were devalued (most likely because they are so rife with link spam and link exchanges.)

So, it’s time to start using our data to build backlinks.

Digital PR as Information Gain

As I mentioned earlier, we have a treasure trove of proprietary information that can be used to build links.

New data is not only pitchable for coverage from other marketing publications but also what LLMs want and need, and I believe it will help them stand out in the AI results.

So, look out for our surveys, data studies, and trends analyses in the future.

The post How I TRIPLED Organic Traffic in 12 Months By Focusing on Value, Not Search appeared first on BuzzStream.