In Episode #385, Eric and Neil discuss how to monitor your backlinks in 15 minutes or less per week. Tune in to learn the advantages of checking your backlinks—such as building your network and watching for those who can negatively affect your Google search ranking.
Time Stamped Show Notes:
- 00:27 – Today’s topic: How to Monitor Your Backlink Profile in 15 Minutes or Less in a Week
- 00:34 – Neil uses Ahrefs to continuously see which sites link to him
- 00:43 – It’s not time intensive and he checks three to four times a week
- 01:18 – You monitor your backlinks because a site that consistently links to you can penalize you and screw up your search ranking
- 01:30 – Eric checks his backlinks to build relationships
- 02:03 – Eric uses Ahrefs as well and sets alerts weekly
- 02:35 – There are other links that can be missing that you need to watch for
- 02:40 – Marketing School is giving away a free 1 year subscription to Crazy Egg which is a visual analytics tool
- 03:28 – Go to SingleGrain.com/giveaway for multiple entries
- 03:35 – That’s it for today’s episode!
3 Key Points:
- Reach out to those who link to you and try to build your network.
- You can check your backlinks through Ahrefs which already has detailed data regarding your backlinks profile.
- Be careful with who links to you so you can avoid getting penalized by Google.
Leave some feedback:
- What should we talk about next? Please let us know in the comments below.
- Did you enjoy this episode? If so, please leave a short review.
Connect with us:
Full Transcript of The Episode
Eric Siu: Get ready for your daily dose of marketing strategies and tactics from entrepreneurs with the guile and experience to help you find success in any marketing capacity. You're listening to Marketing School with your instructors Neil Patel and Eric Siu. Welcome to another episode of Marketing School. I'm Eric Siu.
Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: And today, we're going to talk about how to monitor your backlink profile in 15 minutes or less every single week. So, Neil, how do you do this?
Neil Patel: I just use [Ahrefs 00:00:32]. I continually see what are new sites linking to me, which ones I'm losing, which ones I'm gaining. Anytime I see a bad link, I just disavow it, but that's pretty much how I do it. It's not really time-intensive. I don't really spend 15 minutes in one sitting. I more so check in two to three times a week. I get a lot of links, but if you're not getting thousands of links per month, then you can probably do it just one day. Pick a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday, and they'll show you what links were added and which ones dropped off, and disavow the ones that suck, and you can do that usually in like five or six minutes. It doesn't take longer than that. It'll take like 15 minutes if you're getting thousands of backlinks.
Eric Siu: Why is it important to monitor your backlink profile?
Neil Patel: If bad sites keep linking to you, it can penalize you and screw up your search rankings. That's the last thing you want. If you're getting loved by Google, you want to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Eric Siu: I like looking at the backlink profile as well, just to see is there a relationship I can build with somebody? So if a big site links to me, it's some kind of editor, maybe I can reach out to say, "Hey, thanks for the link," or "Thanks for writing about us, how can I help you out?" So it's taking those little kind of micro-interactions and then making them into something bigger. Maybe you can invite all the editors that wrote about you to a dinner or something like that. Then it becomes something much bigger because more business can happen that way. So that just becomes more like a sales thing, right? But you can look at it that way. To be honest, the same way I monitor backlinks is basically the same as Neil's. So I look at Ahrefs. I might set ... you can set some alerts with Ahrefs, every single week, basically saying you want to have a report every single day or every week. I set mine to weekly and then on Sundays I might check the new links that came in and the links that I lost, things like that. But Ahrefs is a good way, just bear in mind there's a lot of links that they're missing, but it is kind of a good indicator and it is the favorite SEO tool that Neil and I use. Neil, anything else?
Neil Patel: Nope, that's pretty much it from my end.
Eric Siu: All right, so before we go, we wanted to again talk about the one-year annual subscription of Crazy Egg that we are giving away. Neil, what's Crazy Egg?
Neil Patel: Sure, Crazy Egg is a visual analytics tool. Shows you where people click, where they don't. It'll tell you what's causing people not to convert on your site, so that you can watch video recordings to see where people drop off. If you have form fields or check out pages, it'll even show you which step they're getting stuck and dropping off, so you can modify it. And the beautiful part about Crazy Egg is that you can modify everything within the app. So Crazy Egg has a WYSIWYG editor. You don't have to be a designer or developer. You can make design changes, marketing changes, copy changes, image changes, whatever you want, roll them out and even A/B test them, so that way you know you're maximizing your conversions and sales.
Eric Siu: Great, so we're giving away one of these every single week for the next year, and you could actually get multiple entries. So if you want to learn more about how to do this, just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. If you're driving right now, not hard to remember, singlegrain.com/giveaway. And we will see you tomorrow. This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of, and don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.
Neil Patel: And I'm Neil Patel.
Eric Siu: And today, we're going to talk about how to monitor your backlink profile in 15 minutes or less every single week. So, Neil, how do you do this?
Neil Patel: I just use [Ahrefs 00:00:32]. I continually see what are new sites linking to me, which ones I'm losing, which ones I'm gaining. Anytime I see a bad link, I just disavow it, but that's pretty much how I do it. It's not really time-intensive. I don't really spend 15 minutes in one sitting. I more so check in two to three times a week. I get a lot of links, but if you're not getting thousands of links per month, then you can probably do it just one day. Pick a Saturday or a Sunday or a Friday, and they'll show you what links were added and which ones dropped off, and disavow the ones that suck, and you can do that usually in like five or six minutes. It doesn't take longer than that. It'll take like 15 minutes if you're getting thousands of backlinks.
Eric Siu: Why is it important to monitor your backlink profile?
Neil Patel: If bad sites keep linking to you, it can penalize you and screw up your search rankings. That's the last thing you want. If you're getting loved by Google, you want to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Eric Siu: I like looking at the backlink profile as well, just to see is there a relationship I can build with somebody? So if a big site links to me, it's some kind of editor, maybe I can reach out to say, "Hey, thanks for the link," or "Thanks for writing about us, how can I help you out?" So it's taking those little kind of micro-interactions and then making them into something bigger. Maybe you can invite all the editors that wrote about you to a dinner or something like that. Then it becomes something much bigger because more business can happen that way. So that just becomes more like a sales thing, right? But you can look at it that way. To be honest, the same way I monitor backlinks is basically the same as Neil's. So I look at Ahrefs. I might set ... you can set some alerts with Ahrefs, every single week, basically saying you want to have a report every single day or every week. I set mine to weekly and then on Sundays I might check the new links that came in and the links that I lost, things like that. But Ahrefs is a good way, just bear in mind there's a lot of links that they're missing, but it is kind of a good indicator and it is the favorite SEO tool that Neil and I use. Neil, anything else?
Neil Patel: Nope, that's pretty much it from my end.
Eric Siu: All right, so before we go, we wanted to again talk about the one-year annual subscription of Crazy Egg that we are giving away. Neil, what's Crazy Egg?
Neil Patel: Sure, Crazy Egg is a visual analytics tool. Shows you where people click, where they don't. It'll tell you what's causing people not to convert on your site, so that you can watch video recordings to see where people drop off. If you have form fields or check out pages, it'll even show you which step they're getting stuck and dropping off, so you can modify it. And the beautiful part about Crazy Egg is that you can modify everything within the app. So Crazy Egg has a WYSIWYG editor. You don't have to be a designer or developer. You can make design changes, marketing changes, copy changes, image changes, whatever you want, roll them out and even A/B test them, so that way you know you're maximizing your conversions and sales.
Eric Siu: Great, so we're giving away one of these every single week for the next year, and you could actually get multiple entries. So if you want to learn more about how to do this, just go to singlegrain.com/giveaway. If you're driving right now, not hard to remember, singlegrain.com/giveaway. And we will see you tomorrow. This session of Marketing School has come to a close. Be sure to subscribe for more daily marketing strategies and tactics to help you find the success you've always dreamed of, and don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best daily content possible. We'll see you in class tomorrow right here on Marketing School.
