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myyeslifeofficial · 4 years

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Imposter Syndrome [Podcast Episode 8]

Episode 8: Imposter Syndrome

If you’ve ever felt like a fraud, like you don’t belong, or aren’t enough…This episode is for you.

I know this pattern well, and I’m sharing what helped me finally kick this awful feeling.

Learn the 4 main reasons it happens and how to ditch it in 3 quick steps.

Full Episode Transcript

Hello, friends, how are you today?

I have missed you, I’ve had some craziness happening for me.

My grandma passed away about a month ago, it’s birthday season around here, my birthday, my husband’s birthday.

So lots of highs and lots of lows.

And I just needed some time to do what I teach my clients to do, to allow and accept all of the big feelings that I was experiencing and to hold space for them and just allow myself to process those.

And I just needed to take some time for myself and, you know, walk in my talk. That how we treat ourselves should be our number one priority.

And emotional wellness, emotional health, feeling our feelings is really the secret to creating massive results and a joyful life. And so I took some time to do that. And I feel all the stronger, more ready, more capable and getting back to it.

So I’m glad to be here to hang out with you today and talk about imposter syndrome.

Maybe you’ve heard of it.

Maybe this is a new concept, a new term… And you’re like “Dee! What the crap is that?!?”

We’re going to get into it.

I think that this is something that most high achievers have experienced.

At least that’s what the research and the data shows.

This is a very common experience that high achieving, successful people have.

And before I found out that it was a thing, I really thought I was broken, that there was something wrong with me, that I was the only one who felt like this.

And so when I learned about imposter syndrome and that it had a name, I actually experienced some relief.

I mean, it didn’t get rid of it, just learning that it was a thing.

But just knowing that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way was so comforting for me. I felt just a little less neurotic in that moment and that I wasn’t broken, you know, as broken as my big, beautiful brain was trying to convince me otherwise.

So what is it? What is imposter syndrome?

The definition is “a collection of feelings of inadequacy that persist despite evident success, impostors suffer from chronic self-doubt and a sense of intellectual fraudulence that override any feelings of success or external proof of their competence.”

I don’t know about you, but does that sound familiar at all?

So it really is this space where our external circumstances do not match our internal space.

I think that we’re pretty aware that there is a disconnect there, but it’s really hard to to get out of that pattern.

And the thoughts are so loud. The inner critic, the itty bitty shitty committee in our brain offers up all these crappy thoughts. For me, they were very, very loud.

So some of the thoughts that you experience with imposter syndrome are:

“I don’t belong here.”

“I’m not blank enough.” So maybe smart enough, talented enough, experienced enough, whatever that blank is for you.

“They’ll realize I’m in over my head.”

“It’s all going to fall apart or be taken away from me.”

“I don’t deserve this.”

“Who am I to think I deserve this?”

“It’s not enough. I need to do more.” Always chasing more.

“I can’t fail.”

“What if I make a mistake?”

“Oh my God. They’re going to find out I made a mistake.”

“What about those mistakes that I made all the way back in third grade? What if they find out?”

“I feel like a fake.”

“I was just lucky right place at the right time.”

“Anyone can do this. It’s not special.”

Have you ever heard that big, beautiful brain of yours offer up any of those garbage thoughts?

Those thoughts create a big mess for us.

They create so much mental chaos, it becomes loud and deafening. And this creates a lot of discomfort and pain.

Some of the effects of imposter syndrome include:

A lack of belief in ourselves or our abilities.

We start to distrust our own knowledge, expertise or authority.

We’ll downplay ourself in current roles and what we put ourselves out there for. You know, we play it safe and try to hide under the radar.

Maybe we don’t ask for more or seek new or bigger challenges.

Often, we spend a lot of time and excessive focus ruminating on our quote unquote failures in the past. As if running those through our heads over and over and over again is going to allow us to change that.

And man, our inner critic, is so very loud and highly judgmental when we are in the throes of impostor syndrome.

It feels a lot like and includes, you know, perfectionistic tendencies.

We fall into perfectionism often when we feel like we’re not good enough or we don’t belong, when we think that we’re going to make a mistake and that everything’s going to fall down around us.

And most people also are experiencing high levels of anxiety, monkey mind, and obsessiveness when this pattern is in effect.

And this is something that I spent, I don’t know, probably all of my 20s experiencing a better part of my early 30s until I really figured it out.

Like I said in the beginning, I didn’t know that it was a thing. I didn’t know it was something that other people struggled with. I didn’t know that there was a name or a label for it. I just thought that there was something wrong with me.

The underlying root of the problem that causes imposter syndrome is a feeling of unworthiness, and it’s really deeply rooted in feelings of inadequacy.

That we’re not good enough, that there’s something wrong with us, that there’s something that needs to be corrected, something that needs to be improved.

And heaven forbid, people find out that we’re not perfect. And that hey might find out just how crazy we are on the inside. Right.

And this is it’s like such a huge, massive craziness because this syndrome – imposter syndrome – is primarily experienced among very high achieving individuals who have created massive amounts of success.

The worst part of imposter syndrome is the cognitive dissonance that we experience between the knowing intellectually that on paper we’re more than qualified, that we’re accomplished, that we’re successful.

But yet we feel completely to the contrary, that it’s never good enough, that it was an accident, it was a fluke, that we just have to do more.

So the problem is not who you are, what you’ve accomplished or what you’re capable of.

The real problem here is how you see yourself. It’s an ownership problem.

It’s an identity and a self concept problem.

Who we think we are – how we see ourselves – has not caught up to the massive results and success and achievement that we have created.

And like I said, every time I started a new degree, I didn’t feel like I was smart enough to be there.

Every time I earned a new degree, even my doctorate, I thought that they’ll find out that I’m not that smart or that I don’t know what I’m talking about, that I’m not really an expert.

You know, when I was hired as a COO of my organization, sitting in the boardroom in my late 20s, I looked around and thought like I didn’t belong. They all think I’m too young, that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I wasn’t going to last.

Even when I started my coaching practice, even though I had worked as a coach, for an organization for five and a half years and had nearly 10000 hours of one on one coaching experience under my belt, I still felt like an imposter going out there and selling my services.

It’s crazy, right? Like it doesn’t make sense.

The internal experience doesn’t match the external achievements and skills and abilities and capabilities that you bring to the table.

So here are the four main reasons that imposter syndrome happens.

Number one is seeing success as ordinary, that it’s not a big deal. Everyone does this.

A really good example is earning a college degree. For an undergraduate degree. Only about 30 percent of Americans have one. But the belief that everyone has one makes it so that we feel like it’s not a big deal and it takes away from the significance of the achievement. But really, only a third of Americans, eligible Americans, hold an undergraduate degree and even less when you’ve got a master’s and a doctorate.

What success have you created in your life that you’re seeing as not a big deal, that you’re not celebrating, that you’re thinking is ordinary? That’s something that everyone does.

This second reason this happens is because of lack of celebration.

You haven’t slowed down long enough to celebrate each achievement that you have created, each success that you’ve had.

Often, you know, we’re working on these long term goals for so long that by the time it happens, we’re already on to the next conquest.

Our brain is already thinking about the next thing that we want to achieve. And we haven’t taken ownership of the success that we created right there in that moment.

The third reason is because we see success as an event. It’s something that happens rather than evidence of who you have become in the process to achieve that thing.

It’s this belief that “success happened to me” rather than “I am a successful person.”

And the fourth reason it happens is because we see our identity as static or fixed. That our personality, who we are, what we’re capable of, is unchanging.

Rather than it being something that is dynamic and that evolves with us as we grow, as we do new things, as we stretch ourselves to become a stronger, more capable version of ourselves.

So real quick, again, the four reasons that we experience imposter syndrome the most is: (1) seeing our success as ordinary or not a big deal; (2) not celebrating our success; (3) seeing success as an event rather than evidence of who we are; (4) and believing that our identity is fixed, not updating our self concept as we have created more success in our life, in our career.

So you’re probably wondering how to stop feeling like a fraud.

How do we ditch this imposter syndrome?

The first thing is to update your identity or your self concept.

You probably still see yourself as the person you were before you achieved all of the great things that you have achieved.

Do this exercise my coach had me do this, and it blew me away. And it was really uncomfortable when I did it. I’m not going to lie – like I felt actually pretty sick to my stomach putting all of this on paper.

But it really helped me to see myself differently and to stop feeling like such an imposter, such a fraud.

And so the exercise is: “I am the woman who…”

Put that on the top of a paper.

And then under that, I want you to list all of your previous accomplishments and successes and own them.

I am the woman who created this result. And celebrate each one.

List, all of your strengths that you’ve gained from the journey. It’s not just the achievement, but it’s who you have become along the way.

Is it your perseverance? Is it your tenacity? Is it your grit? Is it your intelligence?

All of these things we develop as we are on the journey to the accomplishment.

List, who you’ve become from your successes and to reflect on who you’ve become and take ownership of this new identity.

You are this person.

You have created all of this good. It didn’t happen to you.

It happened because you showed up and created that result.

So own it, my friend. Own it, celebrate it.

Give yourself a big, huge high five, pat on the back. Do a happy dance.

Own that shit.

All right.

The next thing that you can do to stop feeling like a fraud, moving forward – to make sure that this isn’t a pattern that continues to repeat itself – is to slow down and celebrate each new success that you have, to wire it into being, before moving on to the next thing.

Each time something good happens to you, no matter how small it is, celebrate it, own it, own how you’ve grown into a stronger, more capable version of yourself.

Own how you created that result that it didn’t just happen to you.

And then the third step to stop feeling like such a fraud is to change your story about failure.

I’ve talked about failure here before and it’s something I want to talk about a lot, because when we’re aiming for big, huge results and massive success, we’re going to fail a lot.

Failure is the currency for success.

We just need to tell different stories about quote unquote failure.

You are not a failure and you can never be a failure.

Failure is not a personal characteristic.

Failure. It’s failed attempts.

And so your success is built upon the failed attempts that you experience along the way.

Failed attempts are how we learn and grow. So you could never be a failure.

And the things that happened in the past, the lack of the result, the mistakes that you’ve made, the things that you ruminate over and lose sleep about, and that big, beautiful brain wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning to remind you the thing that you did in third grade.

Been there, done that. I see you.

Like that shit doesn’t matter.

It’s not a failure. It’s part of who you are.

It helped you become who you are now and it’s helped shape you into the person that you’ve become.

And that’s the same thing with failed attempt.

Like they’re opportunities to learn, to grow, to become stronger versions of ourself.

You know, just make sure that you are taking the failed attempt as an opportunity to learn the lesson.

And that’s how it has value and how we move forward from that.

Don’t have a failed attempt and just quit or throw in the towel, then it really is holding you back and keeping you stuck.

Imposter syndrome is just a collection of thought errors.

It’s not who you are.

You are not broken. You are not inadequate. You are not unworthy.

Your worthiness is inherent.

You are one hundred percent worthy exactly as you are right now in this moment without changing anything.

And you never have to change anything about yourself to be worthy. Because you just are.

Because you are a child of God, you are here on this planet, you are of maximum worth.

Start owning how damn fabulous you are, start owning the greatness that you have created, your list of achievements.

All of the amazing things that you have created.

All of the personality characteristics, the strengths that you have developed along the way.

And celebrate it.

You deserve to be celebrated.

Doesn’t matter how big or small.

Everything that you create, everything that you’re able to live through, everything you’re able to survive deserves a celebration.

So that, my friends, is a little bit about imposter syndrome and how to change those thoughts in your big, beautiful brain so that the achievements that you have on the outside start to match how you think and feel about yourself on the inside.

You do not need to go achieve more on the outside to fix this problem.

You never do.

You never had to.

I know I kept chasing achievements, trying to fix the inside problem, but it was once I finally slowed down and did this work to change my self concept, to see myself differently, to think different thoughts about who I am and what I’ve accomplished, then I stopped feeling like a fraud.

So you’ll never solve an internal problem with an external solution.

And this one is worth slowing down and doing the work over.

Because I know how crappy it feels to show up in life, feeling like you don’t belong, that you’re not good enough and someone’s going to figure that out.

It’s a really crappy way to exist.

And so please, please, please, like sit down with a journal and do that work.

Own your accomplishments and how amazing you are.

I hope that this helps.

Leave me a comment, a review.

If you want some more help with this, join me in my Facebook group.

We are diving deep next week and there will be a free live coaching session on Thursday.

So if you would like some more help with imposter syndrome, I would love to help you with that and give you a little bit of free coaching on it.

If you are listening to this episode much in the future after this has already happened, these live coaching sessions will be in the archives.

So you can get those to go to www.myyeslife.com/live for information on the live coaching session, and the archive, and how to join the group.

That is it.

That’s all I got for you, my friends.

Have a beautiful day.

Ciao ciao.

The post Imposter Syndrome [Podcast Episode 8] appeared first on results based life coaching for mindset, accountability, habit upgrades.

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philipfloyd · 6 years

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12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails

One of the first things that beginner SEOs get in contact with is link building, often far before they even hear about content quality or even basic things like proper keyword research or title optimization.

Link building is the most controversial topic in SEO and I believe that we should encourage people on not focusing too much on links alone . And in years of doing link building campaigns, I’ve learned a thing or two. So here they are: 12 lessons I’ve learned from dozens of link building campaign I’ve been working on.

BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Guest Posts are Useful… But…

Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

1. BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

If you’re an experienced SEO, you’re probably not very impressed about this first point. But there’s a big reason why it’s first in this list. I’ll ask you a question:

When you first started building links, what was the very first thing you tried?

If you’re an honest man, you’ll probably say that some sort of blackhat link building.

As I said, new SEOs often learn about link building first, far before they hear about anything else. Don’t believe me? Well, with all the (often contradicting) information overload on the internet, people turn to forums to get answers cleared out, because they can read the opinions of a dozen different people at once, or even ask questions directly themselves. Just take a look at one example from a forum:

Now you might be saying “Yes, but that’s a BlackHat SEO forum. I know it.” Well, that’s true, but take a look at how he says he’s new to SEO and has $600 to spend, yet he already knows about tools and link buying.

So it’s pretty clear that this beginner already knows something about SEO, just not the right stuff. Why? Because BlackHat SEO looks appealing. You apparently get quick results for very little work. Coming up with cool content ideas is hard and time consuming. Writing them even harder.

In reality, BlackHat SEO tools are expensive and have a huge learning curve. You’re better off building something solid and safe from the start.

How am I so sure? Well, because I’ve been there. I wanted to make my life easy. I purchased ScrapeBox, GSA Search Engine Ranker, Captcha Breaker and other software, in an attempt to easy my job.

I spent weeks if not months to learn the software, time in which I had other expenses that I wasn’t aware of at first, such as proxies. In the end, I realized that most links the tools were building were crap ones, because most websites didn’t only had captchas (which Captcha Breaker could occasionally pass) but were also moderator approved.

The results? Not impressive. Low to medium results with pretty much a lot of money, effort and stress put in. By low to medium results I mean not on page 1.

All this happened because I missed one key point. The user. I was so caught in my link building that I completely ignored other things. If I did any OnPage SEO, I constantly thought of ways to include more keywords on a page without looking TOO obvious, but never actually thought about the end user for a bit.

And I haven’t even mentioned penalties yet. I haven’t really experienced penalties personally (yet again I didn’t quite stick with blackhat methods for long) but many of our cognitiveSEO users and clients that I personally consult know very well the dangers of blackhat link building.

The real results started kicking in when I finally thought about how to make my website and content genuinely useful for the users. Sure, there are a lot of advanced tactics, technical optimizations and marketing schemes you can perform, but at the core, user experience is king.

There are also ISP (Internet Service Providers) issues. If you start spamming the web, they will eventually phone you to ask you if everything’s alright. You’ll have to lie, obviously, because it’s against their ToS and probably even illegal in some places.

A Black Hat Link Building Story

I interviewed a guy once and he told me about how he used to make around $1000 – $2000 per month by spamming the web. That sounds good, but he ended up with very little profit.

At first, he was only spamming with one computer and a dozen of proxies, averaging about $75 to $100 per month. So he then thought “Hey, why don’t I scale this up?”. Well… scaling up was a big investment. He ended up buying around 20 computers and also spent a lot of money on the energy bill and the internet service package. The total spending was close to $10000.

In about 3-4 months, Google started catching up with his scheme and penalized his websites. He started everything allover again, trying to stay under the radar, but each time, Google caught him. It took less and less for Google to catch up. At first 2-3 months, then 1-2 months until he abandoned everything.

With only 2-3 moths of full earnings, he ended up banking less than he spend on the whole setup. He could of course profit by selling the setup, which is a lot more time consuming than purchasing it. In the end, he ended up having nothing solid and realized it isn’t worth it.

2. Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

Clients ask about links almost all the time. “They heard that it helps with rankings, so they want as many as possible.” People usually ask for SEO consultancy offers and how many links per month they contain. it seems that in order to have an “SEO package”offer, you need to have some links there.

However, coming back to reality, it just isn’t possible to promise someone a number of links per month, unless you have a predefined set of website you link out from, which makes everything less relevant and more risky.

Not only that but you also put everyone at risk, because similar link patterns attract more attention and can impact the whole network. This means that if Google hits one site for link spam, it might hit every site with a similar link pattern. This is also the case with buying links, not only with building them. BlackHat tactics affect everyone, not only the performer.

I’ve been able to outrank and pull out my middle finger to websites that had dozens of very expensive links purchased and probably PBNs, all with almost no link building at all. I also did manual ‘link building’ here and there, but we’ll talk about it later in the article. I’ll explain why I’ve put link building between brackets, so keep reading.

To be honest, building links manually is just like using a BlackHat link building tool, but 100000 times slower and infinitely more frustrating, because there’s no filter for the failure (like the software), which now goes directly into your soul.

You, doing manual link building.

A friend of mine was recently assigned to build some manual links at his work place. After about one week, he sent me this message: “I feel like I’m doing this for nothing.”

3. Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

After finding out that manual link building literally makes you cry blood, I decided to purchase some links.

Here and there, you could get an occasional $10 per link, on a random worthless blogspot. For the real links, on news websites, for example, we were talking about $400 to $1000 per link. Many would also ask for monthly payments of $50 to $200 to keep a link online.

Of course, these prices apply to the markets I am familiar with; in other niches, links are probably a lot more expensive.

PBNs can probably be more efficient, however the risks are high and you also need to spend a lot of time creating them and making sure Google won’t catch them.

A Private Blog Network’s primary cost is content, which you could be very well creating on your main site.

Here’s a glimpse of how much it would cost you to build a PBN if you want to avoid doing the work yourself. Although these guys probably know what they’re doing, the risks are still there.

As long as you have multiple quality websites that you take care of, I don’t see the problem with interlinking them. However, you have to take into account the fact that Google might see it as a PBN and penalize it. I’d focus on one website first and when it really goes good and competition is already behind, I’d expand with another one.

It’s just that… sometimes, dofollow links ‘for SEO’ are more expensive than a regular advertising post on a high authority, high traffic, well established website. I consider the latter to be more effective. If you find a great advertorial opportunity/deal to get your product or website featured, then by all means go for it. But it’s a better idea if the link has a nofollow tag and if the promotion is clearly specified in the article.

4. Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Wait! Isn’t this a BlackHat Tactic? I know, this might sound counter intuitive. But the answer si no, it isn’t a BlackHat tactic.

Forums are communities in which people share opinions, ideas and they are also a great resource. Blog comments are the way readers and content creators interact with each other.

In order to get links, you need to build connections. If you build connections then you’re doing forum posting and blog commenting the right way. Connections help you get more link opportunities. You get to know one webmaster, then they introduce you to another and so on.

But that’s not the only way to build connections. You can also go to meetings. Meetings and events are probably the most efficient marketing strategy you can spend time on. You can build more connections, land more leads and secure more clients in one single event ore meeting than you can in months of online efforts.

Sometimes, it’s not easy to find an event in your niche, but there definitely are adjacent niches where you can go. You just have to think outside the box. Alcohol brands, for example, promote a lot on music festivals. If you make shoes, you don’t have to find a shoemaker meeting. Just go to a fashion meetup, or maybe sports one, depending on your products.

Me (on the right) networking at an E-commerce Summit 2018

You might often meet bloggers in similar or adjacent niches and you can collaborate with them. You can also connect with them online, on their blogs. Chances of you getting your comments approved now are much higher. Most of the forum and blog comment links are nofollow anyway, but that’s not a problem, because nofollow links actually help you rank better. I have proof, keep reading.

If you have a small/medium website or a blog, don’t dismiss comments and forum posts completely.

5. Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

We all want dofollow links. Not just for SEO, but even for our own sake. A nofollow sounds sort of like mentioning someone, but talking badly of him. In reality, nofollow links aren’t bad. They can still help you rank better. If you want proof, check out this article about nofollow links.

Countless times has it been proven to me that nofollow links help you rank higher.

If you do purchase an advertorial with a link, not only will you theoretically be legal by using a nofollow link, but you’ll tell Google “Hey, I’m following the rules. Are we cool?”.

Try it and you’ll see for yourself. Just don’t bother building useless nofollow links from spam or random posts on random blogs and forums. Use proper advertising on relevant websites with good traffic and adequate audience. That’s the best way to go for.

It’s funny, I’ve even found another “X link building mistakes” article which states that building nofollow links is in fact a mistake. A mistake is having an unnatural link profile and a 100% dofollow link profile is definitely unnatural.

The problem with dofollow links is that Google wants them to come naturally, without any monetary incentives. So Google decided to create the nofollow tag to be added to sponsored links. Obviously, nobody cared about that and Google had to bring in penalties.

So everytime you buy dofollow links, you’re exposing yourself to the risk of penalty. Google penalizes sites both ways, so publishers started avoiding giving dofollow links altogether.

John Mueller confirmed that adding a nofollow tag to any kind of paid or incentivised link will remove the risk of a Google Penalty.

Nofollow links are fine.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) January 15, 2018

Now I’m just making assumptions, but I don’t find it hard for Google to realize a MyBusiness review is fake, if some account with a high activity in local stores from Texas reviews a restaurant from North Dakota, without ever visiting it.

Same goes with buying links. We’re all using Gmail, and even if we don’t, we’re probably logged in a Google account in some way, through our browser. It wouldn’t be hard for Google to figure out connections between webmasters.

I know, it sounds paranoid, but since they have patents on listening to what you say through your microphone to server you personalized ads… I don’t know what isn’t possible.

6. Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

At first, when looking at a very competitive niche and seeing a ton of BlackHat links, you might be thinking that it works and that’s the way to go. That’s not the point. Google doesn’t rank the website with the most links, it ranks the best website.

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What John is saying is that most unnatural links are actually ignored. So if a site does have unnatural links, it doesn’t mean it isn’t still the best result out there. Google tries to satisfy the user, not the other websites. If the user isn’t satisfied, it stops coming on Google.

For example, let’s suppose that Adidas and Nike do a lot of BlackHat SEO, but some Chinese ghost brands like Abibas and Nikae do WhiteHat SEO. Should Google rank those when people search for “best sport shoes brands”?

And if all websites that rank for a keyword were to be penalized… who would be ranking? Nobody?

If your competitors are ranking above you but they have a lot of spammy links, you might want to read this article about how to outrun them.

You have to take into account that Google gives a lot more damns about user experience that it gives about links. If you build 100 links and Google boosts you up, it won’t be long until it drops you back forever if your website sucks.

If your competition is full of spammy links or purchased links, you’re at an advantage. Google is always looking for the perfect candidate to put it on spot #1. Focus on doing something better or just as good as them. Only after that think of ways to promote your website and obtain backlinks.

Also, if you start doing SEO for a new client, unless the client is obviously penalized, focus on earning new links instead of getting rid of old ones.

7. Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Now… Don’t get me wrong. Links are useful. You should try to get them, as much as possible. You should be always looking for new link opportunities.

So if someone tells you “Hey, cool content man, I’ll write about it and link to you.” don’t go and tell them “No thanks, man. I don’t do link building.” That would be… dumb. It’s just that people get it wrong and instead of acquiring links the right way, they sell their souls to the devil for links.

Quality links are a byproduct of good marketing, the one thing you should be chasing instead of links alone.

Even here, at cognitiveSEO we’ve focused more on content creation and promotion over the past 2 years. The results were visibly better than anything we’ve tried in the past, when building links was the cool kid. Our traffic went up and so did the interactions with our content.

By writing quality content we were even able to land a couple of guest posts every year, without even asking for them. People would simply read our content and ask us if we can write for them. That’s a great way to get a link back to one of your articles or even products. Now imagine our success rate if we actually chased guest posts. However…

8. Guest Posts are Useful… But…

You see, when you do guest posts, the best possible outcome for you is to write something really good. If you write low quality guest posts, you get low quality results with them. Nobody will read them and the host will probably never work with you again.

If you write a successful post, that ranks high and actually drives traffic to the hosts website and even gets people to link to it, then you’re prone to write again there soon. Isn’t it awesome to have a writer that can bring traffic to your website? I hope you see where this is going.

Wouldn’t you rather have a good writer that brings targeted traffic… on your own website, instead of someone else’s website?

A couple of guest posts here and there on really authoritative websites in your niche are useful, of course, and you should go for it. But I’d rather spend some money on an advertorial on a website that won’t accept guest posts but could actually bring me real traffic. It’s a lot less work and probably a lot more profitable.

Often times the links you get from guest posts aren’t even dofollow. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but the best outcome would be if those links actually drove targeted traffic to your website, instead of just staying there only for Google. It’s not even guaranteed that Google will take it into consideration.

Spend more time creating quality content on your website instead of creating quality content on other people’s websites.

9. Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

When you analyse a website, you should always perform an SEO competitor analysis as well.

Most of the times, the #1 competitor has a higher percentage of branded anchor texts, averaging at about 60-70%.

Here’s one competitive analysis from the cognitiveSEO Tool:

If we take a look at the anchor text distribution or the top competitor (the one with score 9), we’ll see that it mostly has branded anchor texts. They know it works, so they do it. This is valid regardless of the naturalness of the link profile. Even if the links are natural or unnatural, sites with more branded anchor texts tend to outperform the ones with only commercial anchor texts.

Branded anchor texts are great because they help grow the overall authority of your website. This means that when you’ll have new posts, they will rank better on their own, without needing to get any links to them.

However, it’s always a good idea to also have some commercial keywords there as well. This will let Google better understand what the page is about.

But it’s just so more much natural for people to link to a website using it’s brand rather than a very specific keyword. Just think about it. If you were to link to a new product, how would you rather do it?

Example:

Go to shoes.com if you want to purchase these awesome running shoes.

You can find these awesome running shoes on shoes.com.

Using commercial anchor texts just feels so… forced. It’s so obvious even for a common reader to realize that the keyword is put there on purpose.

Many times, editors and webmasters even naturally use miscellaneous anchor texts like ‘official website’ or ‘click here’.

Example:

To get these awesome shoes from Nike you can click here.

However, you don’t even need to build commercial anchor texts externally, because you can do it on your own website, which takes us to our next lesson…

10. Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

If you can’t get any commercial anchor text backlinks without emptying your wallet, then you can use your own website to create keyword right anchor texts through internal linking.

The only issue here is content. If you don’t have any, you won’t be able to interlink. If you have a very popular article about a very common question in your niche that you’ve answered, you can use that article to pass its authority to a page you want to rank, such as a product category one.

Lacking internal structure is a massive waste of opportunity, because it’s something you have complete control over. It’s easy to do, but as anything else in SEO, overdoing it is risky. Read our guide about internal linking if you want to learn how to do it the right way.

11. Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

If you want to get some relatively easy links, then look for people that have mentioned you, but haven’t linked to you.

A great and easy way to find these unlinked brand mentions is to use … BrandMentions. Pretty straight forward, isn’t it? The tool does a great job at identifying these and also at filtering them.

Before you reach out to the webmasters asking them to quickly link to your website, remember that building a connection is more important. It’s a good idea to thank them first and then suggest or ask for a link.

This only really works well if you’re an already established brand, but also for local businesses and events. You can also use the tool to monitor when any other keywords (such as your product category) shows up on the web.

12. You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

I’ve ranked plenty of websites without any link building, just by creating great content consistently and promoting it properly.

I’m not saying that these websites didn’t have links at all, I’m just saying I wasn’t building or buying them. The came naturally from genuine connections and proposals and quality content.

Instead of link building, you can take the link earning approach. The concept is simple. Do stuff that deserves and attracts natural links

Easy to say, right?

Well, it’s not that hard to do either, actually. Here are just some ideas, besides the general rule of thumb of creating high quality content.

debating a long time controversial topic

engaging audiences in real time through live blogging/vlogging

interview interesting people in your industry

However, for this to work, you have to remember that building connections is the best thing you can do. Although network marketing can be annoying, the truth is that we all are network marketers, one way or another.

Conclusion

These 5 years of experience taught me enough to know that I can spend my time better somewhere else. I’ve learned a lot more things, but I’ve tried to cover the most important ones. Maybe I’ll expand the list some day.

As a closing note, content creation and link earning > spam & link building. You can try both paths to figure it out yourself, or you can just avoid the pain by taking my advice. In the end, you’re the one to decide.

Building content isn’t only helpful for SEO, but also from a marketing perspective. If you don’t become a publisher, you’ll keep paying publishers to feature your products.

Most of the publishers out there are usually review and affiliate websites, because that’s what people look for before they buy. Of course, if you’re a maker, you can’t review yourself or your competitors. But you can win their trust by answering questions. And trust, in business, is priceless. It cannot be bought. Only earned.

What have you learned about link building in your SEO adventures? Share it with us in the comments and let’s chat about it!

The post 12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19318/ling-building-lessons/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

krisggordon · 6 years

Text

12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails

BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Guest Posts are Useful… But…

Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

1. BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

If you’re an experienced SEO, you’re probably not very impressed about this first point. But there’s a big reason why it’s first in this list. I’ll ask you a question:

When you first started building links, what was the very first thing you tried?

If you’re an honest man, you’ll probably say that some sort of blackhat link building.

In reality, BlackHat SEO tools are expensive and have a huge learning curve. You’re better off building something solid and safe from the start.

How am I so sure? Well, because I’ve been there. I wanted to make my life easy. I purchased ScrapeBox, GSA Search Engine Ranker, Captcha Breaker and other software, in an attempt to easy my job.

The results? Not impressive. Low to medium results with pretty much a lot of money, effort and stress put in. By low to medium results I mean not on page 1.

A Black Hat Link Building Story

I interviewed a guy once and he told me about how he used to make around $1000 – $2000 per month by spamming the web. That sounds good, but he ended up with very little profit.

2. Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

You, doing manual link building.

A friend of mine was recently assigned to build some manual links at his work place. After about one week, he sent me this message: “I feel like I’m doing this for nothing.”

3. Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

After finding out that manual link building literally makes you cry blood, I decided to purchase some links.

Of course, these prices apply to the markets I am familiar with; in other niches, links are probably a lot more expensive.

PBNs can probably be more efficient, however the risks are high and you also need to spend a lot of time creating them and making sure Google won’t catch them.

A Private Blog Network’s primary cost is content, which you could be very well creating on your main site.

Here’s a glimpse of how much it would cost you to build a PBN if you want to avoid doing the work yourself. Although these guys probably know what they’re doing, the risks are still there.

4. Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Wait! Isn’t this a BlackHat Tactic? I know, this might sound counter intuitive. But the answer si no, it isn’t a BlackHat tactic.

Forums are communities in which people share opinions, ideas and they are also a great resource. Blog comments are the way readers and content creators interact with each other.

Me (on the right) networking at an E-commerce Summit 2018

If you have a small/medium website or a blog, don’t dismiss comments and forum posts completely.

5. Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

Countless times has it been proven to me that nofollow links help you rank higher.

If you do purchase an advertorial with a link, not only will you theoretically be legal by using a nofollow link, but you’ll tell Google “Hey, I’m following the rules. Are we cool?”.

So everytime you buy dofollow links, you’re exposing yourself to the risk of penalty. Google penalizes sites both ways, so publishers started avoiding giving dofollow links altogether.

John Mueller confirmed that adding a nofollow tag to any kind of paid or incentivised link will remove the risk of a Google Penalty.

Nofollow links are fine.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) January 15, 2018

I know, it sounds paranoid, but since they have patents on listening to what you say through your microphone to server you personalized ads… I don’t know what isn’t possible.

6. Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

youtube

And if all websites that rank for a keyword were to be penalized… who would be ranking? Nobody?

If your competitors are ranking above you but they have a lot of spammy links, you might want to read this article about how to outrun them.

Also, if you start doing SEO for a new client, unless the client is obviously penalized, focus on earning new links instead of getting rid of old ones.

7. Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Now… Don’t get me wrong. Links are useful. You should try to get them, as much as possible. You should be always looking for new link opportunities.

Quality links are a byproduct of good marketing, the one thing you should be chasing instead of links alone.

8. Guest Posts are Useful… But…

Wouldn’t you rather have a good writer that brings targeted traffic… on your own website, instead of someone else’s website?

Spend more time creating quality content on your website instead of creating quality content on other people’s websites.

9. Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

When you analyse a website, you should always perform an SEO competitor analysis as well.

Most of the times, the #1 competitor has a higher percentage of branded anchor texts, averaging at about 60-70%.

Here’s one competitive analysis from the cognitiveSEO Tool:

However, it’s always a good idea to also have some commercial keywords there as well. This will let Google better understand what the page is about.

Example:

Go to shoes.com if you want to purchase these awesome running shoes.

You can find these awesome running shoes on shoes.com.

Using commercial anchor texts just feels so… forced. It’s so obvious even for a common reader to realize that the keyword is put there on purpose.

Many times, editors and webmasters even naturally use miscellaneous anchor texts like ‘official website’ or ‘click here’.

Example:

To get these awesome shoes from Nike you can click here.

However, you don’t even need to build commercial anchor texts externally, because you can do it on your own website, which takes us to our next lesson…

10. Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

If you can’t get any commercial anchor text backlinks without emptying your wallet, then you can use your own website to create keyword right anchor texts through internal linking.

11. Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

If you want to get some relatively easy links, then look for people that have mentioned you, but haven’t linked to you.

A great and easy way to find these unlinked brand mentions is to use … BrandMentions. Pretty straight forward, isn’t it? The tool does a great job at identifying these and also at filtering them.

12. You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

I’ve ranked plenty of websites without any link building, just by creating great content consistently and promoting it properly.

I’m not saying that these websites didn’t have links at all, I’m just saying I wasn’t building or buying them. The came naturally from genuine connections and proposals and quality content.

Instead of link building, you can take the link earning approach. The concept is simple. Do stuff that deserves and attracts natural links

Easy to say, right?

Well, it’s not that hard to do either, actually. Here are just some ideas, besides the general rule of thumb of creating high quality content.

debating a long time controversial topic

engaging audiences in real time through live blogging/vlogging

interview interesting people in your industry

Conclusion

Building content isn’t only helpful for SEO, but also from a marketing perspective. If you don’t become a publisher, you’ll keep paying publishers to feature your products.

What have you learned about link building in your SEO adventures? Share it with us in the comments and let’s chat about it!

The post 12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

from Marketing https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/19318/ling-building-lessons/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

wjwilliams29 · 6 years

Text

12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails

BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Guest Posts are Useful… But…

Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

1. BlackHat Spam Link Building Tools Don’t Work

If you’re an experienced SEO, you’re probably not very impressed about this first point. But there’s a big reason why it’s first in this list. I’ll ask you a question:

When you first started building links, what was the very first thing you tried?

If you’re an honest man, you’ll probably say that some sort of blackhat link building.

In reality, BlackHat SEO tools are expensive and have a huge learning curve. You’re better off building something solid and safe from the start.

How am I so sure? Well, because I’ve been there. I wanted to make my life easy. I purchased ScrapeBox, GSA Search Engine Ranker, Captcha Breaker and other software, in an attempt to easy my job.

The results? Not impressive. Low to medium results with pretty much a lot of money, effort and stress put in. By low to medium results I mean not on page 1.

A Black Hat Link Building Story

I interviewed a guy once and he told me about how he used to make around $1000 – $2000 per month by spamming the web. That sounds good, but he ended up with very little profit.

2. Building Free Links Manually Takes Ages & Comes With a Lot of Disappointment

You, doing manual link building.

A friend of mine was recently assigned to build some manual links at his work place. After about one week, he sent me this message: “I feel like I’m doing this for nothing.”

3. Bought Links and PBNs are Too Expensive & Too risky

After finding out that manual link building literally makes you cry blood, I decided to purchase some links.

Of course, these prices apply to the markets I am familiar with; in other niches, links are probably a lot more expensive.

PBNs can probably be more efficient, however the risks are high and you also need to spend a lot of time creating them and making sure Google won’t catch them.

A Private Blog Network’s primary cost is content, which you could be very well creating on your main site.

Here’s a glimpse of how much it would cost you to build a PBN if you want to avoid doing the work yourself. Although these guys probably know what they’re doing, the risks are still there.

4. Forum Posts & Blog Commenting ARE Useful for SEO

Wait! Isn’t this a BlackHat Tactic? I know, this might sound counter intuitive. But the answer si no, it isn’t a BlackHat tactic.

Forums are communities in which people share opinions, ideas and they are also a great resource. Blog comments are the way readers and content creators interact with each other.

Me (on the right) networking at an E-commerce Summit 2018

If you have a small/medium website or a blog, don’t dismiss comments and forum posts completely.

5. Nofollow Links DO Help You Rank Better

Countless times has it been proven to me that nofollow links help you rank higher.

If you do purchase an advertorial with a link, not only will you theoretically be legal by using a nofollow link, but you’ll tell Google “Hey, I’m following the rules. Are we cool?”.

So everytime you buy dofollow links, you’re exposing yourself to the risk of penalty. Google penalizes sites both ways, so publishers started avoiding giving dofollow links altogether.

John Mueller confirmed that adding a nofollow tag to any kind of paid or incentivised link will remove the risk of a Google Penalty.

Nofollow links are fine.

— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) January 15, 2018

I know, it sounds paranoid, but since they have patents on listening to what you say through your microphone to server you personalized ads… I don’t know what isn’t possible.

6. Google Can’t Penalize Everyone & Won’t Penalize You for What You Did 5 Years Ago

youtube

And if all websites that rank for a keyword were to be penalized… who would be ranking? Nobody?

If your competitors are ranking above you but they have a lot of spammy links, you might want to read this article about how to outrun them.

Also, if you start doing SEO for a new client, unless the client is obviously penalized, focus on earning new links instead of getting rid of old ones.

7. Focusing on Link Building Alone is Just NOT Worth It Overall

Now… Don’t get me wrong. Links are useful. You should try to get them, as much as possible. You should be always looking for new link opportunities.

Quality links are a byproduct of good marketing, the one thing you should be chasing instead of links alone.

8. Guest Posts are Useful… But…

Wouldn’t you rather have a good writer that brings targeted traffic… on your own website, instead of someone else’s website?

Spend more time creating quality content on your website instead of creating quality content on other people’s websites.

9. Links With Branded Anchors Work Best

When you analyse a website, you should always perform an SEO competitor analysis as well.

Most of the times, the #1 competitor has a higher percentage of branded anchor texts, averaging at about 60-70%.

Here’s one competitive analysis from the cognitiveSEO Tool:

However, it’s always a good idea to also have some commercial keywords there as well. This will let Google better understand what the page is about.

Example:

Go to shoes.com if you want to purchase these awesome running shoes.

You can find these awesome running shoes on shoes.com.

Using commercial anchor texts just feels so… forced. It’s so obvious even for a common reader to realize that the keyword is put there on purpose.

Many times, editors and webmasters even naturally use miscellaneous anchor texts like ‘official website’ or ‘click here’.

Example:

To get these awesome shoes from Nike you can click here.

However, you don’t even need to build commercial anchor texts externally, because you can do it on your own website, which takes us to our next lesson…

10. Internal Linking is An Awesome Way to Include Commercial Anchor Texts

If you can’t get any commercial anchor text backlinks without emptying your wallet, then you can use your own website to create keyword right anchor texts through internal linking.

11. Unlinked Brand Mentions Can Pay Off Really Well

If you want to get some relatively easy links, then look for people that have mentioned you, but haven’t linked to you.

A great and easy way to find these unlinked brand mentions is to use … BrandMentions. Pretty straight forward, isn’t it? The tool does a great job at identifying these and also at filtering them.

12. You CAN Rank a Website High by Earning Links

I’ve ranked plenty of websites without any link building, just by creating great content consistently and promoting it properly.

I’m not saying that these websites didn’t have links at all, I’m just saying I wasn’t building or buying them. The came naturally from genuine connections and proposals and quality content.

Instead of link building, you can take the link earning approach. The concept is simple. Do stuff that deserves and attracts natural links

Easy to say, right?

Well, it’s not that hard to do either, actually. Here are just some ideas, besides the general rule of thumb of creating high quality content.

debating a long time controversial topic

engaging audiences in real time through live blogging/vlogging

interview interesting people in your industry

Conclusion

Building content isn’t only helpful for SEO, but also from a marketing perspective. If you don’t become a publisher, you’ll keep paying publishers to feature your products.

What have you learned about link building in your SEO adventures? Share it with us in the comments and let’s chat about it!

The post 12 Lessons I’ve Learned from 100+ Link Building Campaigns – Wins & Fails appeared first on SEO Blog | cognitiveSEO Blog on SEO Tactics & Strategies.

0 notes