Ryan Nead

Blogging has democratized the internet. It’s made it possible for anyone – whether you’re a CEO in Manhattan or a kid in the streets of Delhi – to share thoughts, ideas, and content with the world. Anyone anywhere can launch a new blog, write words, and publish them in a highly-accessible manner. Want to know the best part? Anyone can monetize their blog and make money from wherever they are. It isn’t easy, but it’s certainly a realistic possibility for those who put in the hard work to learn the proper techniques and strategies into a new blog. But some new blogs (or new blog post topics) are much more successful than others. And further still, most businesses don’t realize that they should already be in the content business. In the following guide we’ll cover not only how to start a blog, but how to outrank competing websites in your niche when you blog online. Let’s dive in! Who Should Start a Blog? Not everyone wants to start a new blog, but most people can start a blog and experience moderate levels of success. You don’t need to be a foodie, interior designer, Pinterest Queen, wedding planner, or stay at home mom to launch a blog. There are topics, niches, strategies, and audiences for any individual, business, or brand. With that being said, why should you start a blog? The answer is different for every person, but here are a few reasons: 1. Start a Blog To Establish Authority Nothing gives you preeminence and authority quite like having content attached to your name. While authoring a book has always been seen as the ultimate authority play, blogging has quickly emerged as a contender in the thought leadership space. When you have a blog post to your name – one that consistently produces high-quality content – it gives you something to share with others. It adds a layer of credibility to your blog name and positions you as someone others want to know more. 2. Start a Blog To Grow an Existing Business Do you have an existing online business that you want to grow or scale? A blog provides an excellent avenue for enhancing the credibility of your business, generating a search presence, and nurturing website visitors into paying customers. It’s one of the top marketing investments you can make. 3. Start a Blog To Start a New Business Don’t have a business, but want to start one? Many of the best online businesses start as blogs. Then once they’ve generated an online presence in their niche, they begin monetizing their authority to sell products and services. (This can be a slow process, but it’s one of the most sustainable methods for growth.) 4. Start a Blog To Learn New Skills Starting a blog is one of the fastest ways to acquire key digital marketing skills that are transferable in your career and useful for all future business ventures. Blogging has helped many of today’s leading entrepreneurs first learn how to design a WordPress blog, write compelling copy, design basic graphics, understand SEO principles, embrace analytics, hire/manage freelancers, and dip their toes into the social media marketing waters. Regardless of whether your blog works out or not, you’ll walk away with an entirely new skillset. 5. Start a Blog To Generate a Side Income Already have a full-time job, but want a way to generate some side income? By starting a blog where you share your expertise, you could potentially monetize what you’re already doing and generate several hundred to several thousand dollars of recurring monthly income. 6. Start a Blog To Build Your Network There are certainly networking benefits to starting a blog. And as your blog grows, you’ll begin to develop relationships with other bloggers, readers, and entrepreneurs in and around your space. If your blog becomes successful enough and you build a large enough presence, you could even get invited to speak at conferences and summits – something that can exponentially increase your audience overnight. How to Start a Blog The first issue – and the reason you’re reading this blog – revolves around starting a blog. In other words, how do you create a blog from scratch so that you can enjoy all of the advantages and perks highlighted above? Truth be told, the process itself is rather simple. (The hard part is rolling up your sleeves and actually having the discipline and mental fortitude to follow through.) Your first blog post will be easy. It’s the next 1,000+ consistently blogging that will be more difficult. Here are the six basic steps to starting a blog: 1. Choose a Blog Platform The first step is to choose your blog platform or content management system (CMS). This is the backbone of your blog and is what you’ll use to actually create the blog that people end up seeing when they visit your website in their web browser. There are a variety of blog platforms to choose from, but as a new blogger, there are a few that stand out as being affordable and user-friendly. They include: WordPress. This is the largest blogging platform in the world – and for good reason. Building a WordPress blog gives you complete control over your website, has thousands of WordPress plugins and add-ons available, features tons of free themes (as well as paid WordPress theme options), and has a massive support forum that’s there to help with anything you need when designing or tweaking your WordPress blog with a custom design or simply building your blog using an existing, quality WordPress theme. Our website is, in fact, a WordPress site. Blogger. Looking for a platform that’s free and simple to use? Blogger checks both of these boxes. It’s one of several free blogging sites. It includes hosting, maintenance, and a variety of web templates to choose from. It also integrates with all of Google’s products (including Google Drive) for added ease of use. Having said that, it has limited tools

Long tail keywords play a critical role in both paid and organic online search. For organic search, long tail keywords can help you target specific search intent. For website content, like interior pages and blog posts, long tail keywords offer the opportunity to give users more specific content based on what they are searching for. In other words, long tail keywords are usually relevant keywords for users. For a service or product, many have gone from searching for just the word “pizza” and are now implementing specific requests, such as “gluten-free pizza in Portland”. These longer search terms are considered long tail keywords. Where voice search is concerned, long tail terms are better phrased as questions, like “where can I find gluten-free pizza in Portland?” Long-tail keywords arose as a strategy in partial response to this outlook, serving as keywords that were easy to rank for. Long tail keywords have a relatively low search volume compared to shorter, competitive keywords. However, as we enter a new era of search marketing, researching and optimizing for long-tail keywords has become somewhat obsolete. Although latent semantic indexing is not a direct replacement for long tail keywords, Google search returns results taking LSI into account to a large degree. First page search engine results often contain relevant keywords to the main keyword searched even when those words weren’t typed into the search bar. What Are Long-Tail Keywords? There are different definitions for what constitutes a “long-tail” keyword, but the simplest is this: long-tail keywords are keyword phrases more than a few words long. Compared to head keywords that are usually short and direct, long tail keywords are more niche and specific. There’s no strict definition for the minimum or maximum length, nor is there a definition for how they appear in context. Generally, these long-tail keywords take the form of sentences, such as “the best steak house in southern California” rather than the simpler keyword phrase “steak house California.” Long-tail keywords are advantageous over shorter keyword phrases because there’s much less competition clamoring for them. Since users tend to type in long tail queries, this makes it easier for your site to show up in search results in Google and other search engines. While a phrase like “steak house California” might get thousands of regular searches, it’s also being sought after by thousands of businesses. On the other hand, “the best steak house in southern California” might only get a few dozen regular searches, but it would be a much easier long tail keyword to rank for. Under these circumstances, most businesses would rather have a sure shot at visibility for a few dozen searchers than a small possibility after months of hard work for a few thousand searchers. How do businesses find long tail keywords? To use long-tail keyword phrases properly, most businesses conduct research through keyword research tools, brainstorming about the potential long-tail phrases their customers might search for and comparing them against each other in terms of search volume and competition. Then, these keyword phrases would be carefully and precisely implanted into recurring content, usually somewhere in the title. Within a short span of time, the business would rank for the keyword phrase in question, and new long-tail phrases would be supplemented in its place. Focusing on long tail keywords has been a sound strategy for years, but the changing landscape of keywords – especially with Google search – has put a wrinkle in this otherwise valuable opportunity. Identifying Long Tail Keywords To identify the best long tail keywords for your industry – the most relevant ones with the highest search volume – start by perusing the data in your Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools. Next, use Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool (for a walk-through on how to use it, read “How to Perform Keyword Research with Google Adwords Keyword Tool”). You can also use Google Keyword Planner. Of all keyword research tools, you’ll probably be using Google’s the most. In addition, Moz recommends regular monitoring of forum content, customer service correspondence, and social media to find more long tail keyword ideas. I personally love Ahrefs’ Keyword explorer tool which allows you to search by specific short and long tail phrases to find search volumes, difficulty for ranking and overall commercial value: The Short and Long Tail Keyword Problem Keywords are waning in importance and keyword research is changing. While keyword research used to be one of the most important aspects of an SEO strategy, it’s taking a backseat to semantics. Are long tail keywords important? Yes, but they’re just not being used the way they once were. Specific long tail keywords are being used to match search intent rather than to match search queries. In the past, a seed keyword was the foundation for long tail keywords. The seed keyword could be a broad keyword or more specific, but businesses would derive specific long tail keywords from the main keyword and then shape them to match organic search queries. Users are still relying on specific phrases and their related keywords in order to accomplish their searches, but the way Google views and analyzes keywords has been rebuilt from the ground up, and that change has compromised the traditional methods of long-tail keyword research and implementation. In the past, you could perform keyword research using a seed keyword to find long tail keywords with the highest search volume and use those on your site. Businesses would find main keywords and use them to define long tail keywords that match search terms typed into Google search. However, Google no longer provides access to real search data and as such, even Google Keyword Planner data is just an approximation. Keyword suggestions from tools like this used to hold more power. Starting with the Hummingbird update in 2013, Google has been making steady changes to its algorithm to incorporate a function known as “semantic search.” In the old way of searching, Google would break down user queries into shorter segments known as keywords and

What is the overall market size of SEO? What is the expected growth of digital marketing this year and beyond? This high-level SEO industry growth report will give you a sense of the overall size, scope and expected growth of the digital marketing industry. Disclaimer & Executive Summary Please consider the following key points relative to this market report. This report on the SEO & digital marketing industry provides detailed expert market size and market growth estimates for digital marketing/SEO consultants, search engine optimization (SEO) agencies, SEM firms and other companies who provide expert consulting for internet advertising. The report includes detailed discussion of the United States as well as global statistics. This market report is not comprehensive, but represents a collation of various market reports and research reports performed by reputable third parties. The research included herein should not be wholly relied upon to make complete, accurate or timely business decisions, including investment decisions. Related, ancillary services and firms provide various overlapping services, including–but not limited to–website design, public relations, management consulting, advertising & market research/analysis and IT consulting. The numbers discussed below do not take into account obscured data, including services provided by white label SEO companies. We encourage those interested in further detail based on the findings presented to further consult the original research sources referenced herein. IBIS World Statistics Total SEO industry revenue was $52 billion USD in 2021 Overall industry profit for 2021 was $3.1 billion USD The expected annual growth between 2020 and 2025 is 3.5% There are over 125,000 total companies servicing the SEO and digital marketing industry The expected growth in internet traffic from 2020 to 2025 is 26.4% Market Report World The expected growth in industry revenue from 2020 to 2024 is $740 million USD The expected compounded annual growth rate from 2020 to 2024 is 15% Borrell The expected market size of the industry in 2020 was $79.3 billion USD As one might expect, significant variation exists between assumptions on market size and growth. However, some reports take a look at industry specifics like SEO and digital marketing SaaS, including MarTech, while others focus specifically on direct digital marketing and SEO services. Despite the variation, key indicators, including the SWOT and industry analysis below reveal additional details on whether or not it makes sense to enter the SEO business. SEO Industry Performance Historical performance for SEO & digital marketing industry. SEO Industry Lifecycle Demand lifecycle for digital marketing and SEO relative to market maturation. SWOT Analysis The following provides a Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis of the SEO market. SEO Industry Products & Services Products and services provided by agencies, service providers, SaaS/MarTech companies in SEO & digital marketing. Source: Borrell. Spending by category 53% of industry budget and spend was for “web presence” 17% of industry budget and spend was on “online ad production” 12% of industry budget and spend was for “online marketing support” 9% of industry budget and spend was for “online public relations” 9% of industry budget and spend was for “consulting and research” Major Market Segments in SEO Major markets that typically engage SEO and digital marketing service providers. Source: IBIS World. Major Market Segments by Sector 30% of the industry is from retail trade and consumer goods 21% of the industry revenue is from travel, entertainment and media  18% of the industry revenue is from internet and telecom 11% of industry revenue is from other business  10% of industry revenue is from financial services  10% of industry revenue is derived from healthcare and pharmaceuticals  Major Competitors As a highly-fragmented industry, industry researchers do not believe that any single SEO agency or digital marketing company represents more than 1% of the overall industry pie. Conclusion Strong opportunities remain in the SEO & digital marketing industry. Continuous innovation makes the advertising industry a dynamic sector. Prior to recent memory, advertising was primarily concentrated in print and broadcast media. Significant shifts to internet marketing continue to occur, especially as more brands push toward direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising options through online search, social media and other digital channels. Furthermore, the proliferation of mobile phones, tablet and desktop computers is expected to continue to see the rise in the digital marketing industry. These shifts are also creating shifts in consumer media consumption behavior. As a result, advertisers are expected to follow consumer demand of digital media. In fact, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) internet advertising revenues increased nearly 54% from the years 2013 to 2018. Increased demand for industry services is expected to expand the industry further in 2020, created anticipated earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of nearly 7% of overall industry revenues. Even in spite of pandemic pressures, the industry is expected to continue to grow over the coming four years (through 2025), albeit less rapidly than in years past. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) What are the major profit stats and drivers? Industry EBITDA accounted for roughly 6.7% of revenue in 2020. This represents a slight decrease from 2015 when EBITDA margins were 8% of revenue. Profit remains higher among larger industry players. What are expected industry COGS (cost of goods sold)? COGS (cost of goods sold) in the SEO and digital marketing industry are low, representing only about 1.4% of revenues. Most of these expenses are related to software and office-related products. What are Industry Depreciation Expenses? Industry depreciation expenses relative to revenue were <1% in 2020. What are typical wages in the SEO industry? Wages in digital marketing accounted for some 38.8% of revenue in 2020, up from 37.6% in 2015. The industry remains reliant on heavy labor inputs, particularly on the consulting side.

There is a big difference between startup SEO and enterprise SEO. Not only do enterprise websites have much larger budgets for reaching massive scale on their outreach link building campaigns, they, in many cases, already have decades of links and content that have stood the test of hundreds of search engine updates and user scrutiny. In other words: they’ve earned authority over years of search engine vetting and likely hundreds of content iterations. So Why Is Your Startup Special? Whenever a new site is launched, something the BERT-powered, AI is asking itself when it crawls a new site is: Why is this new site special? or What makes this site better than [Any XYZ Fortune 500 brand] that already ranks for similar keywords? or Why should I rank this page above those that already exist on the same topic that I know users already love? While every new page would love to immediately rank, a big component of whether or not it does is dependent on the authority and links of the underlying URL. And, brand new sites simply don’t have the history to compete, especially in a world where the game of SEO requires massive input just to stay relevant. Startup SEO Backlink Catch-up Unless a startup has acquired an existing site with an existing, aged backlink profile, established brands will have thousands more earned and promoted backlinks with an established profile over decades of work. While we were able to acquire an existing domain in the digital marketing space, we still have competitors who are digital marketers themselves. Imagine how we feel: we’re marketing ourselves as marketers and attempting to compete against other digital marketers! Playing catch up is possible, but doing it at scale may require outside help, including link building, public relations and perhaps even a potential domain acquisition with existing links. It’s nice to have clients like this (which we do), but it’s not nice if you’re a startup in the same space, competing for overlapping keywords. This profile represents a site with millions invested in promotion with over decades in business. If a startup wants to get there, they will not only need to play catch-up, but also consider the speed with which they incrementally build those links (a.k.a. link velocity). If a new site that hasn’t been building links builds them too quickly, it could cause more harm than good. Startup SEO Content Catch-up The most trafficked sites on the internet are, at least in part, that way due to the massive quantity of their indexed content. I always like to use Amazon as the perfect example of targeting the long tail. When they were founded in the mid-90s, they went after a niche that had the largest number of SKUs possibly available to any online retail company: books. They’re initial launch included listings for some 2M+ titles, searchable by title, description and ISBN. Not only were they searchable on the site itself, but they were readily indexed by the search engines who drove the largest amount of traffic, especially in the earlier days. Even if your startup has the pleasure of operating in a blue ocean industry and has a product or service that is truly unique, you will still be behind on meaningful content for servicing the customer “problem + solution” via online search, forcing you to play catch up via lots of written content directed at your ideal customer. If you’re one of the many startups in a competitive space where everyone is jockeying for the same keywords, you’ll want to see what you are up against, but performing a site search on your competition to see the total number of indexed pages: A site search will help reveal how much content your competition already has (and likely what you may need to create in the coming months and years), but a thorough content audit of the best competitors may help reveal more data (e.g. internal linking, backlinks, etc.) that may be helping to drive the organic traffic to more established brands who may be considered your competitors. We recommend catching-up to competitors by outsourcing some of the work using a white label SEO agency or white label link building company. Vesting & Aging SEO ranking takes longer than ever, for many of the reasons we have already discussed above. Anyone who’s seen the smooth-talking SEO sales pitch, has seen a chart that looks like this: The problem with this chart is that: 1. This isn’t startup SEO reality for MOST new websites. Most new sites don’t reach truly impressive organic traffic numbers until they reach the proper vesting and aging of their content and backlinks. That generally tends to happen in phases as Google’s algorithm has updates to reflect your work over several years. Most of the startup websites we advise and work on don’t hit absolute massive scale until late year 3, early year 4. 2. There’s a high likelihood vanity metrics are at play. Whenever I see stats for a startup’s brand new website that starts to see big traffic spikes, the question I always ask is, “what organic keywords are driving that traffic?” and “what is the user intent of those traffic-driving keywords?” Commercially-relevant keywords are VERY difficult to rank for. Yes, you can rank for terms that have decent volume that may still match user intent, but in most cases, those terms can still take years to acquire coveted, conversion-driving rankings. 3. In Startup SEO Things can (and will) change quickly. If you’re new, a spike on Google Search Console or Google Analytics is more likely to be retraced in the next update, which these days is right around the corner. So, when I see a spike on a new site in GSC like this, I absolutely expect a dip on the next update. For new(er) sites (I define that as anything with live pages and links <3 years old), there is a greater likelihood of seeing massive spikes and drops in rankings, especially for

All the Backlinks are a search engine optimizer’s best friend. But they can also be your worst enemy. High quality backlinks have the power to send your site referral traffic, improve your brand visibility and online reputation, and even help you rank higher in Google search result’s. A bad backlink can have the opposite effect, damaging your reputation and decreasing your rankings in search results. This isn’t fair if you’re not the one who built the link in the first place. Fortunately, Google has a tool that can help you – the Disavow Links tools. However, before you use it, there are some important things you’ll need to understand. We’ll explain everything you need to know – and how to use the Google Disavow Links tools – in this guide. What Are Backlinks? Back to basics. What are Disavow backlinks? A backlink is simply a link on an external domain that points to your site. They’re relevant for search engine optimization (SEO) because they’re important for calculating a website’s trustworthiness, or “authority.” PageRank, the driving ranking algorithm used by Google, prioritizes ranking sites with high authority. Authority is calculated using a number of ranking factors – but one of the most important is the number and quality of Disavow backlinks pointing to the domain (and the individual page in question). In other words, if your website has a lot of high-quality links pointing to it, it will be much more likely to rank highly for your target keywords and phrases. Of course, ranking higher isn’t just a matter of building as many links as possible – otherwise, anyone could rank highly in search engines. You also need to think about the quality of your links; links that come from high-authority, reputable, topically relevant sources are much more valuable than their counterparts. Why Are Some Backlinks “Bad”? If there are some links that are “high-quality,” “valuable,” and “good” for SEO, then that means there must be some spammy links that are “bad,” right? So what does that really mean? On a simple level, bad backlinks are backlinks that harm your website’s reputation, either in the eyes of users or as determined by Google itself. Even one of these links could potentially interfere with the calculation of your website’s authority – in other words, it could jeopardize your ranking strategy. Google states: Any links intended to manipulate PageRank or a site’s ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. This includes any behavior that manipulates links to your site or outgoing links from your site. If the link isn’t adding value, or if it isn’t relevant to you or your users, it’s probably a bad links. The most egregious offenders tend to fall into one or more of these categories: Directly paid links. If you directly pay for a link to be placed, with no regard for the context of that link, the quality of content surrounding it, or the relevance of the link to users, it’s probably going to be a bad links. Links should be earned and thoughtfully constructed – not cheaply bought from a random company on the internet. Links from Private Blogging Networks (PBNs). PBNs are networks of websites that are specifically designed to trade links; they’re often owned and operated by the same person or same group of people and are used as a kind of link scheme. Google has been penalizing and deindexing PBNs since 2014. Spam. “Spam” is a bit in the eye of the beholder. But if you’re building links in forums, blog comments, and other publicly available areas of the web, you can easily be accused of spamming. Again, your links need to be relevant and valuable; if they’re dispersed throughout the web with no real purpose, they’ll work against you. Hacked websites. If a link to your site ends up on a hacked website, it’s going to hit you with a massive penalty. Fortunately, this type of thing is exceedingly rare. Negative SEO. It’s also possible that someone could be building “bad” backlinks to your site intentionally as a way to decrease your rankings. It could be a competitor eager to surpass you in the search engine results pages (SERPs), a disgruntled former employee, or someone else “out to get you.” But don’t put on your tinfoil hat just yet – negative SEO attacks are rare. If you intentionally engage in shady link building practices, like spammy backlinks or manipulating PBNs, you probably deserve whatever ranking penalties you get. But what if you didn’t intentionally build these bad backlinks/spammy links? What if someone on your team built them by mistake? What if you outsourced your link building to a white label SEO agency and you did not vet the quality of work they were providing? What if you’ve recently learned the “right” way to build Disavow backlinks and you want to recover from your previous errors? Don’t worry. There’s an option for you. The Google “Disavow Links” Tool Google offers a “Disavow Links” tool to allow webmasters to get rid of problematic backlinks. Essentially, this is your opportunity to instruct Google to ignore specific backlinks for ranking purposes. These links may remain on the web, and still be capable of forwarding traffic to your site, but they won’t be considered when calculating your authority or rankings. Do note, however, that this is considered to be a “strong suggestion,” rather than a directive. Google reserves the right to ignore your disavow file. So why does this tool exist? First, understand that Google is staunchly anti-spam. The company has been fighting spammy SEO tactics for more than 20 years now, introducing penalties and disincentives for webmasters who violate Google’s terms of service. These include both algorithmic penalties, which occur automatically to reduce your chances of ranking well, and manual actions, which have far worse consequences for your site. The Penguin update, along with subsequent smaller updates, imposed new quality standards so

Not all backlinks are created equal. In fact, some types of links can do more harm than good if you’re looking to rank a website in online search. While most of the focus for bad links revolves around the quality of the publisher websites in guest posting, the quality of the publisher may not be the only thing weighing down your rankings. One oft-debated area for link quality is the presence of sitewide links from other websites. What are sitewide links? Simply put, a sitewide link is a backlink that appears on most, if not all, of a website’s pages and/or posts. Sitewide links typically are included in things like footer menus or sidebar menus. They will look something like this: In the pre-Penguin update days, many anchor text specific sitewide links appeared on blogrolls, ensuring that with each new blog post a new outbound link would be given to those included there. If you’re looking at your linkgraph in Google Search Console or Ahrefs, you might see something like this: History of sitewide links In the days before Google’s release of Penguin, obtaining 24K+ links from a single source with exact match anchors would likely have lead to elation. Not today. The Google Penguin update really put the hammer on unnatural link building in SEO. Sitewide links were a component of that update. As an oft-abused link building tactic, sitewide link building was a strategy used to game Google’s pre-Penguin reliance on anchor text as a more primary driver of relevance for a page. But, does it really look natural if you have 24K+ sitewide links using anchor text that includes “payday loans?” Hardly. In today’s world, sitewide links are weighted much differently in the overall linkgraph. They’re not only discounted in the weighting factor, the total quantity of the anchor text can serve to work against you if they are keyword and not brand-specific. Are sitewide links considered “natural” links? Not always. Here are some instances where a sitewide link may be considered very natural: Copyright, Website Agreement, Privacy Policy or other links to external sources that reference something for legal purposes are, in most cases, natural. If you provide an outbound, sitewide link to your privacy policy, it’s not likely you’re trying to rank for the term “privacy policy.” Showcasing the website designer or website developer can be done very naturally with a link to the service provider in the footer with something like “website design by XYZ.digital,” or something similar. However, in doing so, it is suggested that 1) the link anchor text only reference the brand and no money keywords (in this case “XYZ.digital” only, not “website design”) and 2) that the backlink be marked as nofollow, just to stay on the safe side. Showcasing the software that powers a website is acceptable. This could mean the content management system (CMS) or platform that runs a site’s backend. For instance, many sites might have listed, “Proudly Powered by WordPress,” with a link to WordPress.org. If you include links to another publication or website owned by your organization, then those links are considered natural. However, such links will be highly discounted because 1) they are likely to reside on a similar IP or IP block (which further discounts the link equity), 2) the Whois registry on the domains is likely the same or similar and 3) the links are likely to be reciprocal (site A links to site B and site B links back to site A). It’s natural, but does not carry near the same weight. Are Sitewide Links Always a Bad Thing? It’s true that building low-quality or irrelevant sitewide links can have a disastrous effect on your ranking potential. But does that mean sitewide links are always a bad thing, or that they should be avoided? Not necessarily. There are plenty of anecdotal examples of websites that feature inbound sitewide links – and they seem to be doing just fine in search rankings. And Matt Cutts, Google software engineer, once confirmed that there are certain types of sitewide links that are entirely deemed “natural.” In other words, some forms of sitewide links can aid your strategy, while others might attract a penalty. That said, not all links are treated equally. Some links are determined to be more relevant and more important, based on where they appear. Oftentimes, links that are found in sidebars, headers, and footers are actually valued less by Google – even though they may seem like a more important location than a simple blog post. In other words, there are natural ways to establish sitewide links, but even if you get the authoritative value from them, they probably won’t be as significant as other links you could build. The Benefits and Dangers of Sitewide Links Let’s recap. What exactly are the benefits and dangers of sitewide links? Sitewide links can, under the right circumstances, pass authority to your site much like standard links. However, because links in footers, headers, blogrolls, and other common areas are undervalued compared to standard backlinks, you’re probably not going to see as many benefits from this practice as you would with a conventional link building strategy. So what are the dangers? If you use sitewide links as a cheap tactic to get lots of links at once, if your sitewide links are irrelevant, or if your practices are found to be “unnatural” in any way, sitewide links can get you penalized. In egregious cases, you may see a manual penalty that gets you deindexed, but more commonly, you’ll just see a fall in your search engine rankings. Either way, bad sitewide link building practices are going to hurt you. Is It Worth Using Sitewide Links? Knowing the balance here, you may be wondering if it’s worth using sitewide links at all. Here’s a general rule to follow: if you have a good reason to use sitewide links, go ahead and use them. Otherwise, don’t bother trying to force them into your strategy. For example,