4 ways to save money and passively earn backlinks

Link building is a never-ending game. Even once you start competing with the big dogs, the backlinks still need to flow.

The best way I’ve found to lower your link building costs is to create content that earns them naturally.

Do this well enough and you’ll suffer no more digital PR campaigns or $5,000+ monthly link building costs. 

1. Data studies

Data studies are the number one way I’ve been able to passively earn links. You see, journalists are writing thousands of stories each and every day.

Within these stories they need data and information to cite to strengthen each article. That’s where you come in. 

Nine times out of ten journalists are going to Google and grabbing the top-ranking result that supports their argument/claim. 

If you can find the data points journalists are searching for, and can rank for the keywords, they will start quoting you.

Prime example is this article: https://www.evolvesecurity.com/blog-posts/actual-cost-of-cybercrime

This article is ranking for the keyword “cost of cybercrime” and it’s earned 59 referring domains. 

Many coming from the biggest media sites on the internet. 

Most people fail at these data studies because their keywords are too vague:

• Cybercrime statistics

• Cybersecurity statistics

• And other general statistic-related terms

But journalists aren’t interested in general statistics. They are looking for one or two main data points to support the article they are writing. 

Find these data points by looking at a page’s anchor text. What data point did the author quote when they linked back to the article?

Looking at the article above, we see the main data point journalists are interested in is “20 trillion U.S. dollars.”

Based on this information, you want to write an article dedicated to these specific data points instead of a generic statistics article that gives them 100+ data points. 

👉 Find out the data journalists want and give it to them.

Now, I can already hear you saying, “I don’t have the authority to rank for this keyword, what do I do?” 

The quick solution is Google Ads. These get you to the top-ranking position immediately, and guess what. No one is bidding on these keywords because they don’t drive revenue for businesses.

This makes the cost to run ads insanely cheap.

If you want to see more examples of a site killing it with data studies, pop Exploding Topics into Ahrefs and see what Brian Dean is doing.

He’s crushing it.

2. History content

I fell into this strategy, but now realize just how damn well it can work.

I’m partnered on a website that’s in the history niche, and we cover everything from the history of the iPhone to the creation of the U.S. Constitution.

Just within the last 30 days we’ve been cited in Vox, Quartz, Techopedia, and many more.

Lucky for you, this strategy works in pretty much any niche. 

Let’s assume you’re in the fitness industry.

Consider writing content around the history of specific diets. For instance, the history of veganism, the carnivore diet, keto, and more.

Looking at the history of veganism SERPs, we can see the top-ranking page has gone from 350 referring domains to 457 in the past 12 months.

That’s an average of 10 backlinks per month, with many coming from some of the world’s top publications.

And you know what’s great about this? Ahrefs is showing the page only gets ~68 visitors per month. 

Many SEOs overlook these sorts of keywords because they’re not worth it traffic wise. 

But you’re not writing this article to get traffic. You’re writing it to get backlinks.

3. How-many content

I tend to find that direct question-to-answer articles are honey holes for passive link building. Especially if there is a hard number associated with the answer.

For instance, if you can rank for how many carbs a day on keto, you’ll have a link magnet.

Harvard is the top-ranking article right now and it’s got ~1,500 referring domains.

Just in the past 30 days it’s gone from 1,385 referring domains to 1,467. That’s almost 100 new backlinks. 

It’s safe to assume Harvard doesn’t have a link building team and these backlinks came in naturally. 

How tf am I supposed to outrank them?

I know, I know. This question is in the back of your mind and what you just mouthed to your computer screen. 

Remember what I said before. Run $200 in paid Google Ads to this keyword and you’ll immediately be the first article to show up.

Assuming you get half of the backlinks Harvard has, you’re looking at ~50 new backlinks at a $200 price point . . . coming from some of the largest websites on the internet.

What’s more, Harvard isn’t good at SEO. 

Its page isn’t optimized and it doesn’t even have the keyword anywhere on the page.

Once you get a few backlinks via PPC (pay per click), you have a legit shot at outranking them thanks to your on-page SEO skillz.

It’s also worth mentioning that the above example, how many carbs a day on keto, is a hard keyword to rank for. 

Spend an hour searching and you’ll find easier targets. 

An example of this is the history of fad diets. A lot easier to rank for organically and it’ll still result in backlinks each month. 

As with all keywords, the harder to rank for, the larger the payoff. 

If you’re a lower-authority site, start with the easier keywords in the beginning and slowly build your way to the big dogs.

4. How-to guides

I gotta tip my hat to Stacey MacNaught for this next one. 

My fiancée was gone over the weekend, and since I was bored at the house on a Friday night I did what any normal SEO would do: I turned to YouTube, and I watched this video of Stacey’s.

In it she demonstrates exactly how Wickes is passively generating backlinks via how-to articles.

For example: 

• How to plaster a wall

• How to lay laminate flooring

• How to insulate a loft

The content itself isn’t overly complicated either.

A video at the top:

With step-by-step instructions below:

For content that passively attracts backlinks, I would rate this a 5/10. It’s not the best, but there’s another benefit (more on this below). 

If we take a look at all of Wickes’s how-to content over the past 12 months, it’s gone from 343 referring domains to 403. So about five links per month.

Not too shabby, but I tend to find data studies, history, and “how many” content do a bit better. 

That said, this content has a lot going for it outside of link acquisition by enticing users who aren’t journalists to buy from them.

Remember the video Wickes had at the top of the page? It’s done something amazing with this. 

The blue highlighted section in the screenshot above is taken from the video. This feature allows you to easily add any item mentioned in the video to your cart.

While this may not be the best type of content for attracting links, it’s a wonderful blend of link acquisition and conversion.

• Some visitors are journalists writing about the cost of plaster, and they link to this guide as a helpful resource.
  

• Other visitors are consumers who are about to plaster a wall and are likely in the market to buy materials.