Niche edits recently grew in popularity for their convenience and efficacy. Similar to guest posts, they boost your site performance and ranking by transferring link equity. One crucial difference, however, is that niche edits are inserted into old pieces. You no longer have to wait weeks for publications to write and publish an entirely new blog to execute your link-building strategy.
Niche edits, also known as contextual links, are backlinks inserted into an existing article. Do not confuse them with guest posts or editorial placements. Acquiring niche edit backlinks does not require fresh content, although you must convince webmasters to add your backlinks to their web pages.
While earning the best niche edits from reputable, relevant publications dramatically spike the SEO value of your website, poorly placed links have the opposite effect. Google started penalizing sites with low-quality, inauthentic backlinks since its 2011 Panda update. Poor link-building might only hurt your website.
Should you manually earn or buy niche edits? Manually earning niche edits involves reaching out to webmasters one by one, then asking them to link out to your website. This strategy does not require an initial overhead.
Unfortunately, free niche edits are hard to earn nowadays. Major publications typically only link out to reputable thought leaders, so smaller brands and startups might not have a shot. Also, webmasters recognize the value of niche edits. Not many would willingly pass on their website’s hard-earned link equity to strangers for free.
For these reasons, brands looking to scale their websites quickly opt to buy niche edits instead of earning them manually. They would rather invest a few grand than waste several months cold-calling journalists.
Should you invest in niche edits? Before reaching out to the most notable bloggers, publications, and journalists in your industry, weigh the pros and cons first. No two sites have the exact link-building needs.
| Advantages of Niche Edits | Disadvantages of Niche Edits |
| Convenient: As long as you have sufficient web content and ad spend, you can acquire multiple niche edits in just a week or two. | Bad Links: Not all niche edit opportunities are advantageous. The best niche edits pass link equity and are relevant to your website content. |
| Effective: Securing a niche edit on a major, high-ranking publication tells Google that your website is credible and trustworthy. | Quality Limit: You cannot buy all your niche edits. Many publications follow stringent quality assurance guidelines and refuse to link out to low-quality websites — regardless of what they pay. |
| Sales-y Backlinks: You can buy niche edits leading to difficult, sales-centered pages on your website. | Expensive: Steer clear of sketchy SEO specialists that charge exorbitantly high fees for low-quality, ill-acquired niche edits. |
Check out the most commonly asked questions that newbies have about link-building.
Backlinks are not illegal. However, Google follows stringent guidelines to filter out inauthentic links from fake, spammy websites. Crawl bots can detect manipulated backlinks. Websites caught using malicious link-building strategies might get penalized, thus tanking their overall domain authority.
You can buy niche edits and backlinks by either reaching out to your prospective webmasters or hiring SEO strategists to secure placements for you.
The price of a backlink varies depending on your link-building strategy. Traditional strategies like networking with journalists or providing fresh content for webmasters come with a minimal overhead — a few hundred bucks at most. Alternatively, paid backlinks can set you back by several grand.
There are several ways to earn backlinks for your website. You can directly ask webmasters to link to your web pages, connect with journalists in your industry, answer queries on platforms like Help A Reporter Out (HARO), or update old pieces with outdated content.
The number of quality, authentic backlinks your web pages need to rank varies based on your on-page SEO keywords. Websites using competitive keywords with billions of results might require hundreds of backlinks. On the other hand, the pages aiming for less competitive long-tail keywords might yield results after securing a couple of high-quality backlinks.
Niche edits serve as the cornerstone of any link-building strategy. Acquiring multiple niche edit backlinks boosts your website’s overall domain rating, telling Google that it is a credible, trustworthy source of information.
However, don’t lose heart if you can’t land niche edits. Securing quality backlinks takes intensive market research, networking, and content creation. Most entrepreneurs don’t have time to learn these skills. If you want guaranteed niche edits without executing an entire link-building strategy, hire SEO specialists instead. Leave the link-building to the pros, and focus on your business.
Are you having trouble getting publications to give you spots for guest blogs? Automatic Growth has you covered! Check out our piece explaining the quickest, most efficient way to acquire backlinks.
