Case Study: How to Build 14 Powerful Backlinks (worth $3k) in 2 Hours
Let’s face it, link building is a huge pain in the ass.
But what if it was possible to build up to 14 white-hat backlinks in just 2 hours?
In this case study, we’ll be showing exactly how one link builder did just that.
First, meet Stuart Goulden. Stuart runs Surges.co which has a lot of great reviews on popular online marketing tools.
Stuart stumbled upon LinkHunter, a DIY link building tool, and wanted to challenge their claim that it “helps you build more backlinks in just 7 days.”
Game on.
After creating his account, Stuart had to decide which link building strategy he was going to use.
For this experiment, he decided to first start with guest posting, which involves publishing an article on a blogger’s website with a backlink to your own website.
So after selecting the guest posting strategy, Stuart inputted a few topics related to his website: startup, SME, marketing tools.
Within a few minutes he had 100’s of relevant websites he could pitch guest posts to. And best of all, 189 of them already had a valid email address (thanks to the Hunter.io API).
Time spent prospecting: ~5 minutes
So what is Stuart going to say to these websites?
He took one of LinkHunter’s built-in email templates and customized it to his liking (always a smart move). Here’s the exact email template Stuart went with.
Time spent customizing email template: ~5 minutes
Prospects? Check. Email template? Check.
Now what?
Time to send some emails!
Stuart connected his email account with LinkHunter so he could do the outreach directly through the interface. All that’s left to do is hit send.
He contacted all the relevant websites that had strong SEO metrics, about 152 in total.
Time spent sending emails: ~25 minutes
All that was left to do is wait for the responses to come in. And boy did they come in quick…
Within 24 hours he already had 24 replies, which led to 9 serious offers. The other bloggers wanted payment on top of writing the articles. No thank you to that.
Stuart sent over the guest post articles and within a few days the bloggers had posted the content. And just like that he had 8 new backlinks.
Here are some examples:
https://www.yrcharisma.com/2020/10/16/best-conversion-marketing-tools-to-increase-sales/
https://www.supermonitoring.com/blog/top-5-resources-for-finding-hot-new-marketing-tools/
https://pitchinformer.com/marketing-skills/
Time spent responding to emails: ~25 minutes
Guest post links gained: 8 backlinks
Total time so far: 1 hour
But Stuart didn’t stop there.
With the success of the guest posting campaign, Stuart turned his attention to the next link building strategy: getting backlinks from resource pages.
But first, what’s a resource page?
It’s a page that lists recommended resources or suggested links. It could be a helpful list of tools, articles, or something else. Example:
The goal here was to find other ‘marketing tools’ resource lists and get them to link to Surges.co. New backlinks without any real work? Yes, please.
Just like before, Stuart added some keywords related to marketing tools to find his link prospects.
And within a few minutes his screen was filled with relevant prospects, 608 prospects to be exact.
After filtering out the sites without an email address he was left with 265 qualified prospects.
These were high quality websites. Content rich, well-designed, and with strong SEO metrics. The perfect link targets.
Time spent prospecting: ~5 minutes
With the prospects found, it was time to send more emails.
But unlike the guest posting outreach, Stuart would need to use a different angle when pitching the resource pages.
Here’s the exact email template he used.
Time spent customizing email template: ~5 minutes
All that was left to do is send some more email pitches.
So Stuart started sending new email pitches to the most relevant sites with the best SEO metrics.
In total, 144 websites were contacted.
Time spent responding to emails: ~25 minutes
Just like before, it didn’t take long for the responses to come in.
Which lead to a lot of great backlinks just like these:
https://www.tacticalma.com/4-very-simple-but-very-helpful-everyday-marketing-tools/
https://www.siteguru.co/startup-directory-list
Isn’t it great getting free backlinks so easily?
Time spent responding to emails: ~25 minutes
Resource links gained: 6
Total time so far: ~2 hours
Total links gained: 14
So there you have it, building white-hat backlinks can be easier than you think.
And with most link services charging between $100 – $300 per link, Stuart saved around $3,000 by doing the work himself.
I know link building is tough, but don’t give up. With the right tools and a little persistence, you too can build more backlinks to your website.
Happy link building!