When not to act like James Bond when building links

There are times when it’s really not good to stand out in a crowd. Like when there’s a serious penalty to pay.
The real smart spies blend in and do things nice and slowly.

What type of business are you?
- Agency
- Freelance
- Company marketer
- My own websites
- None of the above
How many of your [answer:What type of business are you?] clients need links?
- 1-5
- 5-10
- 10-20
- 20+
- None, I don’t have any yet
How many links do you need to build per month?
- 1-5
- 5-10
- 10-20
- 20+
What is a realistic monthly backlink budget for you?
- $75 – $500
- $500 – $1000
- $1000 – $2000
- $2000 – $5000
- $5000 – $10,000
- $10,000 +
How do you currently build links?
- In-house team
- Agency / link building service
- Freelancers overseas
- None of the above
How’s your link building knowledge?
- Advanced / Expert
- Average
- Just starting out
What are your go to tools for checking sites?
- Moz DA
- Majestic TrustFlow
- Ahrefs DR
- SEMRush traffic
- Ahrefs Organic traffic
- Others
What are your biggest link building problems?
- Links are too expensive
- Higher quality links are hard to find
- Need help from genuine experts
- Don’t trust most link builders
- Need faster link builders
- Afraid of Google penalties
What are the top 3 qualities you look for in a website when considering acquiring link from it?
- Relevance to my niche
- Moz DA score
- Majestic Trust Flow score
- Location of the site
- Design and usability
- Estimated search traffic
- Site is visible for its keywords
What sort of service appeals to you most?
- Predictable numbers of links at an agreed quality level where I review and approve everything
- Mostly high quality earned links using white hat tactics
- Cheap links of an acceptible quality without any review process
List up to 5 competing websites
List up to 10 of your target keywords
Your target website url for this trial
If you want to build links but avoid a nasty slap from Google, you need to do the same and think like the epic World War 2 British spy Virginia Hall and not like James Bond (more about her later, she’s interesting).

What has spy-craft got to do with link building for SEO?
Every website has a backlink profile, which is made up of the sites that are linking to them.
And the strength of those backlinks partially determines it’s ability to rank (it’s a top-three ranking factor, as confirmed by Google many times).
In every niche, backlinking happens in different ways.
And at different speeds.
So back to our spies; if you go gung ho like James Bond, then you’ll attract attention and end up in a fight to the death – cover blown and back to square one.
But if you limp around with a false leg, you’ll go right under the nose of the Gestapo and help free France from the Nazis, just like brave Virginia Hall did in World War Two 😉
The takeaway here is that if you break cover and build 30 backlinks in a week after never building a link in 5 years, you’ll risk getting a Google penalty.
So, trying not to ‘stand out’ is the key to successful spying and also backlink building
…and I’ll show you how that’s done further down.
But first, have you heard that backlink building is becoming ineffective?
Well, the truth is it can be and here’s why.
I’ve seen sites make no progress at all after firing a lot of good backlinks at them.
That is often because for most niches Google are switched on to what is classed as ‘normal’ linking behaviour.
So, over-aggressive linking activity can raise a red flag with them.
It’s not always the case though, as some niches acquire backlinks like crazy.
News sites, offer code sites, sports sites, celeb sites, and many others pick links up easily due to the turnover and share-worthiness of their content.
So, Google has a higher tolerance for this link building activity.
But others niches, like refrigerator maintenance sites, don’t see high levels of linking,
And that’s why going crazy building backlinks in certain niches risks getting a penalty, especially if you just use one type of link.
How do you act like Virginia, and get great link building results?
Easy.
Do as everyone else does in your niche.
Be discreet if that’s what is going on.
Build links from similar sites at a similar pace, but take the odd calculated risk (like Virginia did).
So that you steadily get and keep the edge without raising suspicions with Google.
Backink building, like spying, has its risks.
Anyone that says it doesn’t is a liar.
Google categorically states that virtually any backlinking activity can be considered manipulative and therefore qualify for a penalty (ouch).
But by taking the time to build your backlink profile and following the trends in your niche, you can build rankings and avoid the Gestapo…‘ahem’ Google, and get your rewards 😉
In my next post, I talk about why traffic matters to links and why it isn’t the next big thing – as some are making out.