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Civil Litigation Lawyers: How to Get Clients with Online Marketing

Clients searching for civil litigation lawyers aren’t flipping through the Yellow Pages anymore. They are turning to Google. As a civil litigation lawyer in Singapore, if you’re not online, you are missing out on a pool of potential clients. The strategy our marketing agency for lawyers in Singapore isn't complex. Step 1) Understand customers and create content that converts. Step 2) Leverage the power of pay-per-click advertising to get immediate leads. Step 3) Optimize local SEO and rank on Google Maps Pack to diversify sources of leads. Step 4) Rank in traditional search results with traditional SEO. I might be spilling the beans, but here are some actionable strategies to help your civil litigation law firm attract more clients online.

Step 1) Content That Converts

It’s not enough to get clicks from users searching for terms like “civil case Singapore” or “filing a civil suit.” Users need to be persuaded after they click through the ad onto your website. That's why CONTENT is important! Here are some ideas: Address common legal questions and make them easy to understand to someone without legal training. Craft FAQs or videos that explain complex legal issues in simple terms. Use videos, infographics, or case studies to simplify legal jargon into easily digestible content. For example, create a short video explaining the difference between litigation and arbitration. Additionally, include client testimonials, a concise explanation of your law firm’s unique selling proposition, and a clear, user-friendly contact form.

Step 2) Pay Per Click Advertising for Immediate Leads 

There is clear search demand, as evidenced by the keyword search data. Pay per click (PPC) advertising can generate immediate results. Pay per click ads help your firm appear at the top of Google search by bidding for keywords like “civil litigation lawyer Singapore” and “filing a civil suit". Keyword Search Volume Keyword Difficulty civil litigation defense attorney 90 22 civil lawyer sg 90 23 litigation lawyer singapore 140 22 civil case singapore 90 18 filing a civil suit 90 17 litigation and arbitration attorneys 90 22 civil litigation 140 21 Your ad is only half the battle. You’ve got to ensure your landing page features content that designed to convert.

Step 3) Local SEO

Once your firm achieves a solid return on investment from paid advertising, diversifying your lead sources can become a valuable mid-term growth strategy. That’s where local SEO comes into play—ranking on the Google Maps Pack for targeted keywords. Here’s the local Google Maps Pack data as of 25th January 2025.

In my assessment, these Google Business Profiles are currently not well-optimized for the keyword "litigation lawyer Singapore." However, it’s important to note that Google factors in semantic search. Semantic search is how Google understands the meaning behind search queries instead of just matching exact words. It focuses on context, intent, and relationships between words to provide more accurate and relevant results. Secondly, as evidenced, there is significant competition, particularly from profiles with numerous reviews. I recommend targeting less competitive keywords and optimizing client reviews to include relevant keywords. For instance, you could focus on the keyword "civil litigation defense attorney" to improve your rankings in local SEO results.

Step 4) Traditional SEO

Winning in traditional SEO isn’t rocket science. Currently, SingaporeLegalAdvice.com ranks at the top for the "litigation lawyers Singapore" keyword, followed by the Law Society.

I mean, I do run an entire blog on link building and SEO. This includes writing keyword-rich titles and meta descriptions and link building. Here's the current commercial keyword data: Keyword Search Volume Keyword Difficulty civil litigation defense attorney 90 22 civil lawyer sg 90 23 litigation lawyer singapore 140 22 civil case singapore 90 18 filing a civil suit 90 17 litigation and arbitration attorneys 90 22 civil litigation 140 21 The keyword difficulty in this niche isn’t too high (note: data as of 25th January 2025). It would be a worthy attempt to target these keywords.

Conclusion

For civil and litigation lawyers in Singapore, there is clear search competition and strong demand in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising results. Contrary to the popular belief that the market is oversaturated, this is actually a good sign. You only want to advertise in markets where there is clear demand. To sum up, I recommend starting by curating content that converts, then driving traffic through pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. After that, focus on local SEO and traditional SEO. With our unique search-blended approach, civil litigation lawyers in Singapore can effectively acquire more clients online. Read the full article

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Conveyance and Property Lawyers: Get Clients with Online Marketing

From property transactions to drafting sale agreements, conveyance and property lawyers provide essential services to both individuals and businesses. Your legal expertise is invaluable to clients dealing with property transactions and disputes. Through our unique blended search strategy, we help you connect with them at the right time by combining the immediacy of PPC with the staying power of SEO. Yes, potential clients are searching for property lawyers online daily. If you aren’t using online marketing channels, you're leaving money on the table. Now let’s break it down step by step.

Step 1: Create Content That Speaks to Your Audience

Your potential clients are searching for solutions to their specific legal problems—not generic legal jargon. Whether they’re buying their first home or resolving a title dispute, your law firm’s service pages should directly address their pain points and goals. For Example: - First-Time Homebuyers: Explain the legal processes involved in property purchases, such as conveyancing, and how your expertise ensures a seamless transaction. - Dispute Resolution: Explain in laymen terms how you can resolve title disputes efficiently, minimizing stress and financial risk for your clients. Pro Tip: Use simple, relatable language. Instead of saying, “We assist with conveyancing,” say, “We help you with the legal paperwork for buying or selling your home.” Online marketing isn’t just about visibility; it’s also about credibility. Showcase testimonials and case studies prominently on your website. This reassures potential clients that you have the expertise to handle their property legal needs. You can create short videos that explain common legal processes, like conveyancing or regulatory requirements in Singapore's property law. These videos humanize your brand and make your services more relatable to potential clients.

Step 2: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Traditional SEO is a long-term strategy, while PPC advertising delivers immediate leads. The approach is straightforward: by targeting high-intent keywords, your ads can appear at the top of search results, ensuring you connect with potential clients actively searching for services like yours. The many ads and reviews in the Google Maps pack show a clear demand for property and conveyancing law services. Keyword Search Volume KD conveyancing lawyer singapore 140 20 conveyancing lawyer singapore fees 90 20 conveyancing lawyer 720 25 property lawyers near me 90 25 property lawyer singapore 140 17 hdb lawyer fee 480 35 For instance, if someone searches for “conveyancing lawyer Singapore,” your pay-per-click (PPC) ad can direct them to a landing page specifically designed to convert visitors into clients. The key is to ensure the page effectively highlights the key benefits of your services, addresses your clients' pain points with clarity, and showcases your firm’s proven expertise and track record.

Step 3: Local SEO For Property and Conveyance Law Firms

For a quick summary: ranking in Google’s local pack, the top 3 results that appear alongside Google Maps is going get your clients. However, it looks like local SEO for property lawyers in Singapore is highly competitive. You're competition with firms with thousands and hundreds of reviews. In this case, I'll go for less competitive keywords, and start from there.

  Step 4: Opportunity in Traditional SEO Search Results

One quick Google search reveals opportunities in the traditional SEO search results. I'd like to point you to the "People Also Ask" section. The good news is that you can rank for these results too, if done right. Secondly, by publishing long-tail informational keywords, you build trust with potential clients and position your firm as an authority in the conveyancing and property law industry.

- Short Tailed Commerical Keyword Strategy Secondly, to repeat, here are some high-value keywords along with their monthly search volume and keyword difficulty: Keyword Search Volume KD conveyancing lawyer singapore 140 20 conveyancing lawyer singapore fees 90 20 conveyancing lawyer 720 25 property lawyers near me 90 25 property lawyer singapore 140 17 hdb lawyer fee 480 35 This is as of 24th January 2025. Surprisingly, the keyword difficulty in this niche isn’t as competitive as in the family law industry. This creates a valuable opportunity in traditional SEO search results. I highly recommend law firms looking to get property or conveyancing clients to target these keywords.

Conclusion: Start Now, Stand Out

Conveyancing and property lawyers provide essential legal services for property transactions and disputes. To attract clients, a strategic approach to online marketing is needed. Notably, traditional SEO with less competitive keywords in this niche presents an opportunity. Together, a blended search strategy combining content creation, PPC advertising, and local SEO can yield both short- and long-term results to attract clients. Read the full article

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Corporate Lawyers: How to Get Valuable Enterprise Clients

From drafting airtight contracts to advising on mergers and acquisitions, your expertise is indispensable to businesses. Here's how you can stand out in the crowded legal industry as a corporate lawyer in Singapore. If you’re a corporate law firm looking to attract more clients, digital marketing strategies like pay-per-click advertising, local SEO and traditional SEO can help you get more clients. The good news? Through our unique blended search strategies, you can target enterprises and C-suite executives actively searching for your services while getting a return on investment (ROI) at every step of the way.

Step 1: Content That Converts

Whether you specialize in mergers and acquisitions, corporate compliance, or business contracts, your service pages need to do more than just describe what you offer. Your service pages should address the specific pain points your clients face. To give some examples: - Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A): Highlight how you streamline complex legal processes and protect their business during M&A deals. - Business Contracts: Show how you can draft contracts that safeguard their interests and minimize disputes. - Regulatory Compliance: Explain how you keep businesses compliant with Singapore’s legal landscape. When business owners search for “corporate lawyer Singapore,” they’re looking for more than just legal jargon—they want someone who understands their aspirations, concerns, and objectives. By addressing these needs in your content, you can attract higher-quality leads. This comes from good customer research and copywriting.

Step 2: Pay Per Click (PPC) for Immediate Leads

Traditional SEO takes six to twelve months to bear fruit, but PPC advertising can help you capture ready-to-hire clients on demand. For corporate lawyers, there are commercial keywords that indicate that the searcher is ready to take action. For example: - “Corporate lawyer Singapore” (110 searches/month) - “Finance lawyer Singapore” (90 searches/month) These searches indicate users specifically looking for corporate legal expertise. They are perfect for targeting business owners dealing with financial legal matters. Our goal is to design search ads that lead directly to well-optimized service pages. For instance, if someone searches for “corporate attorney lawyer Singapore,” your ad will lead to well-optimized service pages that are persuasive and designed to convert.

Step 3: Local SEO for Quick SEO Wins

Let us move on to local SEO. To note: ranking in Google’s local pack (those top 3 spots on Google Maps on Google search results) can drive a targeted leads to your law firm.

On first research, there isn't much competition in the local SEO map pack. (Screenshot as of 20th January 2024*) You can conclude that there's opportunity. - Local SEO Strategy: Target local keywords The local SEO keyword strategy ain't complicated here, it's to target keywords like “corporate lawyer Singapore” or “finance lawyer Singapore”. To reiterate, it’s "easier" to rank in the local pack than in traditional search results. So, if your firm isnt as visible as the bigger players, local SEO helps you compete with the bigger brands.

Step 4: Traditional SEO to Dominate the Industry

If you are serious about long-term market domination, then traditional SEO is non-negotiable. This involves optimizing your website to rank for competitive commercial keywords.

For the corporate law industry, there's potential here. The keywords aren't that high in difficulty, as compared to family law. Transactional Keywords for Corporate Law Here are some examples of high-value transactional keywords: - “Corporate lawyer Singapore” (110 searches/month, KD: 25) - “Finance lawyer Singapore” (90 searches/month, KD: 20) These keywords can be competitive but they are definitely lucrative. Secondly, ranking for them positions your firm as a trusted authority in corporate law.. Pro Tip: Commit to SEO as a long-term strategy. It can take 12 months to rank for highly competitive terms, but the return on investment is worth it.

Conclusion

The corporate law industry in Singapore has potential, especially for local SEO and traditional SEO. Through the right digital marketing strategy, your firm can stand out and attract high-value clients. By leveraging digital marketing strategies like PPC, local SEO, and traditional SEO, you can effectively attract high-quality leads, enhance your visibility, and position yourself as an authority in corporate law. Read the full article

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Family Law: How to Get More Clients in a Competitive Market

From divorce cases to custody battles, family law deals with some of life’s most emotionally charged moments. But let’s face it, finding the right clients who genuinely value and need your expertise is equally challenging. Not to mention, family law is one of the most competitive law industries. However, if you are a family law firm looking to attract more clients the right digital marketing strategies can help you grow sustainably. There's huge potential to get clients online for the family law industry. By integrating pay per click, local SEO and traditional SEO, we achieve both short-term wins and long-term growth for your firm. That’s where our unique blended search strategy comes in. PPC, local SEO and then traditional SEO creates a sustainable marketing approach that ensures you get return on investment on every dollar spent through this process.

Step 1: Content That Converts - Firstly, service pages got to be re modelled in a way that answers clients’ hopes, fears and dreams while showcasing your expertise. - This helps in increasing the quality of your leads. Step 2: Pay Per Click for Immediate Leads - Paid ads get you in front of potential clients actively searching for services like “family lawyer Singapore” (480 searches/month). - This ensures that while SEO efforts build over time, you’re still capturing ready-to-hire clients today. Step 3: Local SEO for Quick SEO Wins - Your firm can quickly attract clients who are searching for services in their area - This positions your business to appear in the coveted local pack (top 3 results on Google Maps) and boosts visibility in organic results for location-based searches - It's relatively "easier" to rank on Google maps pack than traditional search results Step 4: Traditional SEO to Dominate the Industry - Long-term dominance in search rankings for highly competitive keywords like “divorce lawyer Singapore” (3600 searches/month). - Informational content targeting long-tail keywords like “how to file for divorce in Singapore” (590 searches/month) builds trust and positions your firm as a thought leader

Family Law General Difficulty

There's a growing commercial demand in the family law industry. This is reflected in the increasing number of divorces. This is also reflected in the competitiveness in SEO keywords Some of the most-searched keywords in family law—such as “divorce lawyer Singapore” (3600 searches/month)—come with stiff competition and high keyword difficulty (KD). High keyword difficulty means ranking for such terms organically is going to take a bigger budget. Nonetheless, here's how I'll personally approach beating the competition if I was running the marketing department of a family law firm in Singapore.

Pay Per Click For Family Law: Opportunities

Pay per click advertising is how you get immediate leads. The key here is to drive traffic to service pages with content that converts. Eg. Let’s say someone searches for “uncontested divorce Singapore” (320 searches/month; KD 23)—your PPC ad can land you right at the top of the search results. - Use Transactional Keywords in Your Ads Transactional keywords indicate high commercial intent. Keywords like “cheap lawyer Singapore” (320 searches/month; KD 29) often signal that the searcher is actively seeking legal representation. These terms may have slightly higher CPCs (Cost Per Click), but they’re worth the investment. - Target Specific Legal Services Rather than going broad, target ads toward niche services like: - Prenuptial agreements (“prenuptial agreement Singapore” – 390 searches/month) - Child custody (“child custody Singapore” – 170 searches/month) - Divorce consultations (“divorce lawyer Singapore free consultation” – 140 searches/month)

Local SEO For Family Law: Opportunities

One quick Google here shows that you are up against law firms with hundreds and thousands of reviews. Yes, they've done their local SEO perfectly.

However, not to fret, there are ways to compete indirectly. Target Local Keywords with Low KD First, focus on ranking for low-difficulty local keywords like: - “cheap divorce lawyer Singapore” (320 searches/month; KD 16) They come with easier difficulty. Yes, no one wants to be branded as a "cheap divorce lawyer"; however, unless you're able to get at least 600 Google reviews overnight, it will be difficult to compete head on!

Traditional SEO For Family Law: Transactional Commercial Keywords 

Lastly, traditional SEO. I used to be a huge fan of traditional SEO. However, it's difficult to compete head-on. I learned this while trying to rank for our own SEO agency. It would cost me a minimum of a six-figure sum to compete against the big branded SEO agencies. The same applies to the law industry. Here's a list of commercial keywords you can target: Keyword Search Volume Keyword Difficulty divorce lawyer singapore 3600 43 best divorce lawyer singapore 390 34 cheap divorce lawyer singapore 320 16 custody lawyer 90 23 uncontested divorce singapore 320 23 singapore divorce lawyer free consultation 140 28 divorce lawyer 880 33 prenuptial agreement singapore cost 90 17 contested divorce singapore 140 17 conveyancing lawyer singapore fees 90 20 cheap lawyer singapore 320 29 mutual divorce agreement 320 17 law firms in singapore 2400 25 family lawyer singapore 480 38 lawyer singapore 1900 39 contested divorce 140 18 free divorce lawyer singapore 110 36 Yet, you can go after lesser competitive keywords like "custody lawyers". They have lesser search volume, however, these keywords too reflect potential clients ready to hire legal help.

Traditional SEO: Informational Long Tail Keywords

If you're ready to invest in traditional SEO for the long term—and yes, I do mean a minimum 24-month commitment—you can also target informational long-tail keywords. Not every potential client is ready to hire a lawyer immediately. Many are still in the research phase, searching for answers to questions like: Keyword Search Volume Keyword Difficulty how to file for divorce in singapore 590 24 separation vs divorce 260 9 annulment 1300 33 prenuptial agreement singapore 390 17 singapore child custody law 90 19 divorce rate in singapore 2400 20 restraining order singapore 480 29 how long does it take to divorce in singapore 110 31 grounds for divorce singapore 210 33 reasons for divorce singapore 210 28 singapore divorce process 720 34 ppo meaning 260 48 child custody singapore 170 20 deed of separation singapore 390 9 alimony meaning 880 58 what is a prenup 390 32 child support mediation 90 25 how to annul a marriage 90 14 difference between legal separation and divorce 90 17 marriage annulment 320 25 filing for divorce in singapore 390 27 divorce singapore cost 110 14 legal rights of parents 90 13 divorce rate 110 54 alimony after divorce 90 17 how to get a divorce in singapore 260 31 annulment vs divorce 260 21 financial separation in marriage 90 16 legal fees singapore 140 18 personal protection order singapore 260 29 domestic exclusion order 170 24 These informational keywords serve an essential purpose: they position you as an authority in family law. Not only do they provide topical SEO benefits, but they also allow you to craft blog posts or FAQs that answer these questions in detail while subtly introducing your services. For example: - Topic: “How to File for Divorce in Singapore” - Hook: Break down the process step-by-step, and mention how your firm simplifies the process for clients. By addressing these topics, you not only build trust with potential clients but also help establish your law firm as a thought leader and market authority in the industry.

Conclusion

The family law industry in Singapore is highly competitive. However, by using our unique marketing strategy—a blended approach of Pay Per Click, local SEO, and traditional SEO—you can drive immediate leads, get more clients, and build long-term growth. Pay Per Click captures high-intent clients searching for terms like “divorce lawyer Singapore,” while local SEO positions your firm in Google’s local pack for area-specific searches. Traditional SEO targets both transactional and informational keywords, helping you dominate competitive terms over time. Our unique strategy isn’t just about ranking higher; it’s about reaching clients who are ready to hire and ensuring every marketing dollar spent delivers results. Read the full article

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Automated Link Building Tactics That Can Save You Hours

Link building is time-consuming and labour-intensive. It’s also said to be the most difficult part of SEO. I hated it for years. This is also backed up by a public poll done by Gael Breton from AuthorityHackers.

Nonetheless, God bless the concept of automation. Today you are able to streamline the link building through automation, saving time without compromising quality. Automated link building leverages technology to perform part of tasks traditionally handled manually, such as prospecting, outreach and tracking. Even though technology can’t entirely replace or automate the entire link building process without the need for humans, it definitely can less the burden (and pain) of SEO professionals.

The Benefits of Automation in Link Building

I didn’t build my first backlink until after two years SEO . I got tired of fiddling with on page SEO elements and finally admitted that link building is the needle mover.

The powers of link building If you use a process engineering mindset, anything painful and tedious can be carefully studied, made into a process and automated! Firstly, automation reduces the hours spent on repetitive tasks like sending outreach emails and monitoring backlinks. Secondly, systems minimize human errors in data collection and analysis, ensuring more accurate results. Thirdly, there's scalability. You’ll be able to handle larger volumes of prospects and campaigns. You're able to increase your link velocity and manage multiple SEO campaigns without a proportional increase in team size or operations. Nonetheless, it is also essential to maintain a level of personalized touch in your outreach efforts.

First Phase of Automation Tactics: Prospect Identification and Qualification

I use basic SEO prospecting tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, Majestic SEO automate the process of finding websites relevant to your niche. These tools assess relevance and other key metrics to help my link building team identify high-quality link prospects. - Automating Criteria for Selecting Quality Prospects I use Majestic SEO to evaluate potential link partners based on their relevance to your industry. Then, I rely on tools like SEMrush or Ahrefs to assess metrics such as organic traffic, domain authority, and more. The key to automating this process is hiring and training a capable team. Additionally, using simple custom GPTs can help score the quality of a backlink efficiently. Some of the key factors I consider include the source domain’s topical trust flow (via Majestic SEO), the quantity of traffic, the quality of organic traffic, the content quality of the site, if there are annoying pop ups... etc. Manually scoring these factors on an Excel sheet can be time-consuming. Instead, create a custom GPT that your team can use repeatedly. Email Finding/ Prospecting Tool - Hunter.IO Hunter.io is a powerful tool for finding email addresses associated with websites. It can research contact information for your prospects in bulk and includes an email verification tool. You can train your link prospector to automate the email prospecting process using this tool.

Second Phase: Automating Outreach with Tools

Using email automation tools helps scale your outreach process. I use tools like Mailshake and Lemlist to streamline the workflow. These tools offer features such as drip campaigns and customizable personalization. - Personalization Strategies Today, most outreach tools provide AI-generated suggestions for personalization. You can incorporate dynamic fields in your emails to insert recipient-specific details.

- Scheduling and Follow-Ups Our SEO agency’s guest article outreach is mostly automated initially at it's first phase. Our team schedules follow-up sequences based on recipient actions, primarily whether they’ve responded or not. To avoid spam filters and annoying the internet, we space out follow-ups with at least a 5 days interval in between.

Integrating Virtual Assistants in Link Building

By integrating virtual assistants (VAs) into your link-building process, you can streamline your efforts and focus on strategic decisions while your team handles the groundwork. Here’s a breakdown of the roles I typically hire for to automate link building effectively: - Link Prospector This job is to identify potential link opportunities. They are trained to tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs or Majestic SEO to find websites relevant to your niche and evaluate them based on factors like relevance content quality and traffic. This role ensures you’re targeting the right websites from the start. - Outreach Manager Once the prospects are identified, an outreach manager takes over. They handle all communications, from sending outreach emails to managing responses in your inbox. - Content Writer Our link building system is mostly guest articles oriented. Hence well-written guest posts are required. I hire out a dedicated content writer that produces content tailored to the requirements of the target websites, ensuring our placements are accepted. Using Upwork to Hire VAs for Your Link Building Team I personally enjoy using the Upwork platform. It has a good "HR" system, a billing system, and helps track my coordination with freelancers. I recommend it. They increased the fees to use the platform; however, it's still pretty good.

Monitoring and Reporting Automated Tracking Tools

- Zapier Zapier is an uncanny tool to use in outreach automation. However, it's definitely useful. I ZAP all replies from my outreach tools to a Google sheet, hence making my tracking easier. I then use my VLOOKUP function to pull replies data on my prospects on another sheet. I then filter the no-replies prospects for a re-outreach. Let me explain further the magic of Google sheets. - Google Sheets and VLOOKUP Functions Google Sheets is an underrated tool for staying organised during link-building campaigns. If you’re reaching out to thousands of prospects, it helps you keep everything in one place. I use the VLOOKUP function in Google Sheets to pull data from a "main database." P.S. I highly recommend to learn VLOOKUP. It's an extremely helpful Google sheet function for SEO automation. For example, you're bound to have many different "databases" for outreach prospects (local, skyscraper, guest posts). Then another main one for email details: deliverability data, website info and contact details. Since same prospects may appear in multiple link prospects databases, it’s important to always reference the same main email database. This keeps things accurate and avoids duplication. You'll also spend less time and money on prospecting tools such as Hunter.IO and virtual assistants. - Ahrefs Alerts Now that we're done with prospecting, outreach, negotiation and placement. How do we track if backlinks are actually hitting your site? SEO tools such as Ahrefs have an alert feature where you monitor your backlink profile, alerting you to lost or gained links.

Conclusion

Thoughtfully integrating automation into your link-building efforts can free up tons of time and manual costs, allowing you to focus on the holistic aspects of SEO. Yes, automate whilst staying ethical and avoiding spammy practices. Read the full article

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Link Building Prospecting - 3 Methods for Unlimited Backlinks

Yes, if backlinks are the backbone of SEO success. Then prospecting for backlinks is the key to building a strong pipeline for backlinks. Link building prospecting is the process of identifying and evaluating opportunities to acquire high-quality backlinks that drive authority and traffic to your website. Here are three proven strategies for successful prospecting: competitor backlink analysis, using advanced search operators in search engines, and the skyscraper technique. Each method is designed to help you streamline your process, identify the best opportunities, and secure impactful backlinks.

Link Building Prospecting Is Just another Funnel

One way to view prospects is to see them as part of another funnel. It's similar to sales and lead generation funnels, even a cold B2B outreach email funnel or distributing flyers. There are always factors of quality and quantity involved. The more your prospect, the higher the likelihood of getting a good linking opportunity.

Then again, you don't want to spam outreach messages to just anyone. It's frustrating to receive angry emails in your inbox, especially if most of the process is automated. That's why it's important to filter your backlink prospects carefully. For us, our SEO agency uses organic traffic and relevancy as key filters.

Method 1) Competitor Backlink Analysis

Competitor backlink analysis is s studying your competitors’ backlink profiles, you can uncover valuable opportunities and gain insights into strategies that drive results in your niche. How Competitor Backlink Analysis Works When you analyze competitor backlinks, you’re essentially identifying: - Trusted domains: Sites that are already linking to your competitors and could link to you. - Successful content types: Topics or formats that attract backlinks in your niche. - Relationship networks: Potential partners for collaboration or guest posting. Step-by-Step Guide to Competitor Backlink Analysis - Identify Your Key Competitors - Search Google for your target keywords to identify top-ranking sites. - Focus on competitors with similar audiences and content. - Extract Their Backlink Profiles - Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Moz to analyze their backlinks. - Export the data for a detailed review. - Evaluate the Backlinks - Check metrics like Domain Authority (DA), Trust Flow, and Spam Score. - Prioritize do-follow links from reputable, niche-relevant domains. Benefits of Competitor Backlink Analysis - Shortcut to Opportunities: Competitors have already vetted these domains, saving you time. - Better Strategy: Learn what works in your industry and replicate it with improvements. By leveraging competitor data, you can create a targeted prospecting list that’s already optimized for success.

Method 2) Search Operators and The Power of Google

Google is more than a search engine; it’s a powerful tool for precision prospecting. Search operators allow you to refine results, uncover hidden opportunities, and find the perfect sites to target for backlinks. What Are Advanced Search Operators? Advanced search operators are commands you can use in Google searches to narrow down your results. They help you bypass irrelevant pages and zoom in on high-value opportunities. How to Use Search Operators for Link Building Prospecting Here are some practical ways to apply search operators: - Find Guest Posting Opportunities - Use intitle:"write for us"  to locate blogs that accept guest posts. - Example: intitle:"write for us" technology to find sites open to tech-related contributions. - Locate Resource Pages - Use inurl:resources  to find curated content pages in your niche. - Example: inurl:resources sustainable living for sites compiling green-living resources.

Method 3) The Skyscraper Technique 

The skyscraper technique is a content-driven strategy that leverages superior resources to earn backlinks. It’s simple in concept but highly effective when executed well. What Is the Skyscraper Technique? This technique involves three key steps: - Research: Identify popular content in your niche with strong backlink profiles. - Upgrade: Create a better version of that content—more detailed, engaging, or visually appealing. - Outreach: Pitch your improved content to websites linking to the original. How to Execute the Skyscraper Technique - Identify Content Worth Upgrading - Use tools like BuzzSumo or Ahrefs Content Explorer to find high-performing articles. - Look for outdated, incomplete, or poorly formatted content you can improve. - Create Outstanding Content - Add unique insights, visuals, or case studies. - Ensure your content is well-structured and easy to read. - Reach Out to Relevant Sites - Use tools like Hunter.IO to find contact information for site owners. - Highlight how your improved content adds value to their audience. Why the Skyscraper Technique Works - It’s a Win-Win: You provide better resources, and websites enhance their content. - Natural Backlink Growth: Exceptional content naturally attracts more links over time. This method is perfect for building a strong backlink profile while establishing yourself as an authority in your field.

How to Refine Your Prospects

Traffic Majestic SEO for Trust Flow. Email Deliverability.  

Tools to Simplify Link Building Prospecting

Investing in the right tools can make your prospecting process faster and more effective. Here are some must-haves: - Ahrefs or Semrush: For competitor insights backlink analysis and keyword research - Hunter.IO: To locate email addresses for outreach. - Mailshake or Lemlist: To automate and track email campaigns - Google Sheets: To organize and manage your prospecting data. These tools help you stay organized, save time, and scale your efforts without sacrificing quality.

Conclusion: Make Prospecting Your Superpower

To recap, here’s how you can dominate link building prospecting: - Use competitor backlink analysis to find high-quality opportunities. - Leverage advanced search operators for precision and speed. - Look at skyscraper content to get prospects. By combining these strategies, you can simplify the prospecting process and build a robust backlink profile that drives traffic, authority, and results. Start small, stay consistent, and watch your SEO efforts pay off. Read the full article

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How to Outsource SEO Link Building Without Compromising on Quality

High quality backlinks the most important ranking factor if you asked me. Quality backlinks are also the hardest to procure. Even SEO professionals have mentioned that link building is the hardest task in the SEO process. To second this, Ahrefs studied 14 billion web pages and they revealed that 96.55% get no organic traffic from Google. They found out that one of the top reasons for this being the absence of backlinks. You can understand why many SEO agencies themselves use white labelled outsourced link building solutions when serving clients. Nonetheless, Fiverr is here to save the day... or is it?

There are clear benefits to outsourcing. It frees up your in house SEO or digital marketing team to look at SEO as a holistic activity, such as focusing on content, conversions from SEO efforts etc. Secondly, outsourcing your link building can be more cost effective than hiring full time SEO specialists.

The True Cost of a Link

The cost of a done for you high-quality backlink is estimated to range from $150 to $300. This is due to the extensive effort involved in link building. Typically, most outsourced link-building agencies provide either guest post placements or link insertions as part of their link-building services. Here's an example of a "white hat" link building agency's price chart:

That is a whooping $160 USD for ONE link. Yes, good SEO isn't cheap. You'll need SEO tools for research, outreach tools, virtual assistants to project manage. Then, you need to manage outreach, track replies, and negotiate. Secondly, your team must audit the quality of the websites. On top of that, you’ll need a content writer to craft the guest article for the site where the link will be placed. Not to mention, a significant portion of sites—50% or more—request some form of payment for publishing on their website.

Poor Quality Outsourcing - Sub Par Providers

Butttttt Marcus, isn’t Fiverr promising to get me to a domain rating of 80 for only $10 per link?! How can these link brokers charge up to $300 per link?! Yes, there IS a difference in quality when outsourcing. Be warned: engaging subpar providers can lead to penalties or harm your brand’s reputation. One search on Fiverr, and you’ll be inundated with promises to skyrocket your domain authority to a million for just a few dollars.

Spammy Fiverr link-building services often promise hundreds or even thousands of backlinks at unbelievably low prices. Here's an example where you can get hundreds of do follow back links for only two hundred Singapore dollars. That's $2 per high quality do follow back links! These offers are typically "too good to be true." In their deliverables, they may rely on “black-hat” SEO tactics, such as automated link generation, backlinks from private blog networks (PBNs), or links from irrelevant, low-quality websites. Such link-building strategies can tarnish your brand's reputation by associating it with untrustworthy sites or even result in penalties from search engines! This is why I took link building into my own hands and developed a well-oiled system to manage it. Supported by a team of trained virtual assistants, SEO tools and a few simple ChatGPT-powered AI workflows.

Criteria for Selecting a Quality Link Building Service

You’ll want to know the quality of links pointing to your website. Imagine if there are hundreds of pornographic links pointing to your website. Is that trust worthy in search engines eyes? Now, to be specific, our Singaporean led SEO agency looks at a couple of key metrics when it comes to building links. Every link building decision is manually audited by a team. Yes, they are nonetheless assisted by a couple of cool A.I. workflows. Link Relevancy A high-quality service should prioritize securing backlinks from sites closely related to your niche. For example, if you’re a fitness brand, links from health, wellness, or sports-related websites carry more weight than random, irrelevant sites. Relevant links signal to search engines that your website provides authoritative content in your industry. Our team uses Majestic SEO to determine link relevancy. Majestic SEO provides you with topical trust flow. Quality of Organic Traffic The quality of organic traffic one of the key factors a link building agency should account for when assessing link-building opportunities. Tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush can help analyze a website’s organic traffic by showing you the keywords it ranks for and the estimated traffic it generates.

When evaluating a potential backlink source, look for keywords that are related to your niche or industry. They don't have to be 100% niche related. You can highly consider parallel niches too. For example, if a small business service site links to my SEO agency site. That's 100% fine too. Quantity of Organic Traffic There are different opinions on this, however, it's a consensus amongst the SEO community that sites with at least 300 - 1000 organic traffic show that they are trusted by search engines. Hence, a credible link-building service will prioritise links from such sites, as this indicates the potential for real visitors to click through to your site, improving both SEO and referral traffic. Domain Authority/ Rating (DA/DR) In my experience, high domain authority or rating is one of the most overused pitches. There are countless high-domain-rating sites out there that struggle to rank for any meaningful keywords. Domain rating can even be "manipulated" by sending low-quality links to inflate the score. This issue became even more apparent after the helpful content update, as many high-DR sites saw their traffic plummet due to thin or poor-quality content. From our perspective, domain authority or domain rating isn’t a critical direct ranking factor. Our link-building team uses it cautiously and sparingly when assessing a website’s overall strength and credibility.

How to Budget for an Outsourced Solution?

A good link-building campaign is typically executed over a 6 to 12-month period. Hence, it’s important to start with the end in mind: how many links are needed to outrank your competitors? Begin by calculating your link gap—the difference between the number of high-quality backlinks your competitors have and those your site currently holds. Use SEMrush to analyze the backlink profiles of your top-ranking competitors in your niche. I’ve written in detail on how to calculate an accurate backlink gap. Once you identify the gap, work backward to estimate the number of links required to close it. This includes calculating the cost per link, which typically ranges from $150��$300 for a high-quality, done-for-you link.

Transparency and Documentation

Ever paid one of those agencies and felt like nothing was actually being done? When choosing an outsourced link-building solution, always request that they show you the anchor texts and backlinks from the websites. Transparency and documentation are key pillars of a reliable outsourced link-building service.

Conclusion

To sum it up, link building is undeniably one of the most challenging yet crucial aspects of SEO. High-quality backlinks IS the needle mover. While outsourcing link-building efforts can save time and free up operational bandwidth, it is essential to not cheap out on this. Investing in reputable providers that provides transparency and relevancy ensures you’re building a penalty free foundation for your website. Read the full article

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Coaching Niche - SEO Case Study - MarcusNeo.Com

I learned about SEO through my first business, a Singaporean dating advice site that I later wanted to take international. This is in the coaching niche. Service professionals and providers in Singapore can take away key lessons from this case study. In hindsight, it taught me lessons that go beyond SEO—it showed me that traffic isn't as important as product-market fit. However, for this SEO case study, I'll mainly focus on how I achieved SEO organic growth locally, then on an international scale.

Targeted Keywords for MarcusNeo.Com

I obsessed over the keywords "dating coach" and "dating coach Singapore" in Singapore's local search results. Eventually, I achieved page one, rank one for those keywords. The SEO traffic led to interviews on national TV and a couple of articles written for Channel News Asia. However, these keywords only added up to 20-30 searches a month. (inspite of this, I generated more than 100k of revenue in this business). In hindsight, it was quite a feat.

Using the Ahrefs free keyword generator tool I focused on a lot of dubious local SEO methods up till the pandemic came and the local market dried up. I then had the idea of making it into an international blog using SEO. Once the local market dried up,

MarcusNeo.Com Link Building Track Records

I understood the importance of link building and hired a link building agency on Upwork that specialized in the Skyscraper method. Yes, links were coming in, but they weren’t very targeted. If I remembered correctly, I paid around 2.5k USD for two - three months of link building efforts. Yes, and $500 for a setup fee.

That’s around 10 links per month for September 2019 and October 2019, totalling 20 links. However, the links came from sites that weren’t very niche-relevant. I decided to stop working with the agency after a couple of months, as there was no noticeable improvement. In hindsight, my site might have just been in the sandbox phase.

Our Own Internal Link Building Efforts

I then took it upon myself to learn link building and studied more from SEO experts and thought leaders. I signed up for online SEO courses and started managing everything myself, from research to outreach. I hired virtual assistants on Upwork to help, and focused on building links from sites that were more relevant to my niche. For example, if my site was about dating advice, I aimed for links from dating, relationship, or men’s self-improvement websites. From December 2019 to June 2020, I focused on building links aggressively. Traffic skyrocketed, and in early 2022, the site even crashed from the surge in visitors.

Tabulation of Link Building

As of writing this article, I have lost most of my tracking data. However, I have done my best to recover what I could and managed to retrieve these records. Month Links Built January 2021 2 February 2021 2 March 2021 7 May 2021 1 June 2021 7 July 2021 4 Total 23 These are all high-quality links were built by my link-building team, and each one has been manually vetted.

Traffic Growth on Google Analytics

The site generated up to 20k readers a month (and more). On Google Analytics, it showed that the site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. This meant that SEO takes more than six months to "kick in".

Our link-building efforts began as early as September 2019, but the site only started gaining significant traffic in July 2020. This is only after solid 6 to 9 months of consistent work. On the content's end, I also streamlined blog articles, combining them and making articles more solid. I also targeted lower-competition, long-tail keywords for each article. These combined strategies played a key role in driving a steady increase in traffic.

Conclusion

In conclusion, my SEO process has been one of trial, error, and persistence. Starting with a niche local site and transitioning to an international blog taught me that success in SEO is hugely reliant on high quality link building.   Read the full article

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Enterprise SEO: Strategies for Corporate Success

It can be said that all SEO is a form of enterprise SEO. However, working with a small medium business’s site can also be said to be different as compared to working on a medium to big size corporation’s site. There are also different opportunities for “enterprise level SEO”. Not to mention different working dynamics. For small to sized businesses, SEO strategies is heavily focused on local SEO like ranking highly on the local maps pack. However, enterprise SEO caters to larger companies with larger websites and multiple departments, lead to unique challenges and opportunities.

Firstly, let us look at how enterprise SEO differs from SEO for small medium sized businesses

Branded Content and Keywords

Enterprise websites, especially those with well-known brand names, often receive a substantial portion of their traffic from branded searches. This is because larger companies usually invest in offline media buys or other offline brand marketing activities. For context, as a Singaporean, I’ll use FWD Singapore Insurance as an example. I’m a fan of their SEO efforts and their approach as a brand that sells insurance directly online. They are also a multinational corporation that can be considered "enterprise-level." Let's dive in. For branded searches related to FWD Insurance, consumers may search directly for terms like “FWD critical illness insurance” or “FWD travel insurance.”

Firstly, branded traffic is valuable, and enterprise SEO efforts should account for these branded keyword queries. However, solely relying on branded keywords is limiting. Enterprise-level sites may struggle to rank for unbranded terms, as these are generally more competitive. In this case, ideally, FWD would want to rank for terms like “travel insurance” or “critical illness insurance” for local searches. To address this, enterprise businesses can create a balanced content strategy that targets both branded and non-branded terms. Branded content can showcase the company’s unique offerings, while non-branded content can be optimized for popular, high-traffic keywords related to industry-specific topics.

Opportunity for Programmatic Content for SaaS and E Commerce

One unique aspect of enterprise SEO is the opportunity for programmatic content. Enterprise sites that are SaaS or have a bigger E Commerce presence often have thousands of product pages, service descriptions, or geographic pages, making manual content creation unmanageable. On the flip side, there’s a huge opportunity for programmatic content. Programmatic content allows enterprises to scale by automating the creation of optimized pages based on templates.  - Scalability: Programmatic content can generate large volumes of optimized pages quickly, ideal for companies with vast inventories or products. - Long-tail targeting: By using specific, localized keywords, programmatic content can improve visibility for niche searches without heavy manual input. Example:  A major e-commerce site like Lazada or Shopee Singapore can benefit from programmatic SEO. Manually creating a unique page for every product and its variations would be unmanageable. However, programmatic SEO solves this by using templates that automatically generate countless product pages, each optimized with targeted keywords, metadata, and descriptions. This approach extends the site’s reach across locally specific search terms without overwhelming resources.

Schema Markup

Nonetheless, enterprise SEO also offers opportunities to implement structured data at scale, helping search engines better understand the vast amount of content on an enterprise site. This can enable rich results, which are particularly beneficial for larger eCommerce sites, sites with multiple locations, or those with extensive content databases.

Schema markup can highlight key data such as product details, reviews, and FAQs, which enhances search visibility and click-through rates. Types of Schema for Enterprises SEO:  - Product Schema: For sites with a wide range of products, adding schema markup for individual products can make them "pop" in search results: star ratings or price ranges. - FAQ Schema: This markup is helpful for sites with extensive informational content, as it allows businesses to capture more SERP space with question and answer formats. - Local Business Schema: For enterprises with multiple locations, local schema helps users find the nearest locations.

Enterprise Tracking Needs and Reporting for SEO

Larger enterprises usually have the budget for more extensive digital analytics and SEO tracking. In my enterprise days, our team used tools like Google Analytics 360, which provides deeper insights. Nonetheless, I believe that Google Analytics 4 is powerful enough for most enterprise-level SEO reporting needs. Enterprise-level reporting requirements range from monitoring organic traffic and keyword rankings to gaining insights into user behavior across pages, regions, and channels. Google Analytics 4 has the capability to create custom dashboards that monitor key metrics specific to enterprise needs, such as sales, traffic by region, or content type. You can also set up conversion goals for various objectives, such as product sales, subscriptions, or lead captures.

Team Buy-In

SEO at the enterprise level is also unique in the sense that it may require coordinated effort from multiple departments. SEO specialists often work closely with IT, marketing, and content teams to ensure alignment and execution. - Shared Resources and Regular Collaboration Our Singaporean led SEO experts also play a consultative role in enterprise SEO, collaborating with different departments and seeking opportunities to leverage existing resources. Our team understands that enterprise-level SEO isn’t limited to traditional SEO tactics alone. SEO often overlaps with broader marketing efforts, ranging from pay per click marketing to offline media buys. The last thing we want is for SEO to disrupt other marketing initiatives. Yes, regular SEO meetings and cross-department collaborations are essential for effective enterprise-level SEO! To name some examples... - Aligning on KPIs Make sure each department understands and agrees on the key performance indicators (KPIs) for SEO success. This shared understanding will help everyone work toward the same goals. - Brand Alignment Marketing ensures that content matches the brand’s message and reaches the right audience segments. - Content Development Working with content marketers helps create SEO content that’s both engaging and optimized for target keywords, whether they’re branded or unbranded. - Campaign Synergy Marketing teams can use SEO insights in paid campaigns (vice versa) and making sure SEO and PPC efforts work together.

Enterprise Level Scale of Link Building

Link building is challenging for any SEO team—it’s the hardest part of SEO. However, it can be argued that link building at the enterprise level requires even more attention. In industries like insurance or banking, keywords usually have high difficulty scores, making it especially tough to rank.

You’re competing with other large companies that have substantial SEO budgets. Hence, a scalable link-building strategy with customised outreach at scale is essential. Here are some ideas! Scalable Link Building Strategies for Enterpises - Guest Posting at Scale: This is our preferred link-building method. It involves reaching out to reputable sites for guest blogging opportunities. - Partner Outreach: Through outreach to business partners, you can build a network of mutually beneficial links. When your partners link back to your content or reference your services, these backlinks carry weight with search engines, especially if the partner’s site is reputable. For example, an insurance company could reach out to its affiliate partners’ websites for links. - Collaborations and Sponsorships: Partnering with industry influencers or partner organisations can generate authoritative backlinks.

Enterprise SEO Project Delivery

I understand that enterprise-level stakeholders have different concerns from small business owners. Therefore, our Singaporean-led SEO agency prides itself on a "ninja-like" project management and delivery mindset. Our agency breaks down tasks into phases, including technical audits, content strategy, and link building. Our approach centers on clear tracking, timely communication, and an end-to-end delivery framework that ensures transparency. For example, by using simple yet effective project management tools like Google Sheets, we make every task fully transparent.

Sneak peak of our project management mindset! Each SEO sprint and phase—from keyword research to content creation and link acquisition—is carefully planned, allowing both our agency and our client’s team to maintain transparency and accountability throughout the process. During the technical audit phase, for instance, each identified issue is prioritized based on its impact, ensuring that resources are directed toward high-value areas. This project delivery model has consistently helped us achieve SEO success, whether scaling for enterprise clients or delivering high-impact results for SMEs.

Technical SEO and Page Bloat

A high volume of pages is common for enterprise websites. For example, a large eCommerce site like Shopee, which frequently publishes new product listings, faces technical SEO challenges such as duplicate content. Enterprise sites may have multiple pages with identical text for similar products or categories. This can result in duplicate descriptions or titles across various category pages that list similar items. This buildup contributes to page bloat—when low-value pages, like outdated product listings, expired promotions, company announces that are no longer relevant or accidentally indexed pages. They accumulate over time. At the enterprise level, where multiple departments and vendors contribute content, the marketing team may not always notice page bloat. However, page bloat can impact SEO performance by consuming valuable crawl budget, making it a unique SEO challenge for enterprise sites.

Conclusion

Enterprise level SEO IS still SEO... However, it requires a slightly different approach than traditional SEO due to the scale, resources and coordination required. In my experience, managing stakeholders is just as important as the technical aspects of SEO. Therefore, communication, delivery, and transparency are key. Our agency doesn’t want to be yet another SEO agency that charges a costly retainer with no results. This is why we document and stay transparent with all our deliverables. From branded and programmatic content creation to scalable link-building strategies, enterprise SEO can improve your company’s search engine rankings and capture valuable organic traffic if done right. Read the full article

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How Many Backlinks Needed To Rank On Page One? + Case Study

Our SEO competitors are big agencies with a headcount of around 50 staff or more… I am a one-man founder taking them on from the bedroom of my HDB in Singapore! How can I outperform these huge Singaporean SEO agencies when it comes to beating them in search engine results? It is normal to feel intimidated by your competitors. You input their domain into SEMRush or Ahrefs, and you see they've accumulated tens of thousands of backlinks. Outperforming them in search engine results can seem like an impossible task. Here is a case study. I put in one of my top competitors into SEMRush. At first glance, it seems like my competitor has 71,100 backlinks. To beat them, that must mean I got to build 71,100 backlinks in 6 months? That amounts to more than 10,000 backlinks per month.

The truth is, your competitor does NOT have 71,000 backlinks. Let me explain how to get the real number. Not all backlinks are created equal. Generally, you can ignore backlinks built through black or grey hat strategies. These include backlinks placed in the footer of other websites, on forums, or in blog comments. There are also backlink service providers on Fiverr that offer spammy backlinks.

How to Budget for SEO Backlinks Even Before Starting on SEO

According to an Ahrefs study, the average backlink costs $83. Note that this is before factoring in your content costs if you’re providing a guest post in exchange for a backlink. By examining your backlink gap with top competitors, you can project what it might actually cost for your site to rank in the top search results on Google. If my competitor has 71,000 backlinks, does that mean I need to pay $83 x 71,000 = $5.8 million to outperform them in search engine results? Fortunately, no. This is because not all backlinks are created equal. Here's an example of spammy backlinks from my competitor. I’m sure Google devalues these backlinks, yet they are still counted by most backlink analysis software!

Using Majestic SEO Filter Relevant Sites

Depending on your SEO philosophy, you can narrow down the backlink gap based on certain criteria. At our SEO agency, I typically prioritize relevancy first, followed by organic traffic, and then domain rating or authority. I believe that domain rating and authority are vanity metrics. While they are factors, they should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Key Issue: Relevancy

First, I use Majestic SEO to filter for relevancy with the source domain’s trust flow. Sometimes the filter can be a bit buggy; if so, you can download the entire Excel sheet and filter manually. I use the following filters: - It is a Live Link - It is Do Follow - It is a Text Link - It is Non Sponsored - It is In Content - Language is in English Make sure you are analyzing the Root Domain, and not the URL!

Looking for Relevancy Using Source Domain Topical Trust Flow

I use MajesticSEO software because it's the only SEO backlink analysis out there that breaks down relevancy to a numerical form. To understand it in depth, you can read more about it here. I filter the results by examining backlinks from sites with a source domain topical trust flow rating of 10 and above, ensuring they are directly or niche-related. For example, web design and online marketing are niche-related. Similarly, small business services and online marketing are related. However, construction and web design are barely related. You’ll likely be surprised at the number of irrelevant backlinks your competitor has. Next, download your filtered competitor backlinks with the initial filters and refine them further using source domain topical trust flow. Majestic SEO assigns multiple topical trust flow categories to each website, meaning one website can have several categories. For example: - Small business - Small business services - Construction I take the top three highest-scoring categories, check if their scores are above 10, and ensure they are niche-related. This exercise should reduce the number of backlinks your competitors truly have. Next, I’ll further filter the remaining results using traffic indicators.

Using SEMRush to Filter Organic Traffic

I then use SEMRush to filter by organic traffic, considering sites with fewer than 300 organic visits to be lower-quality. You can adjust these numerical filters based on your SEO hypothesis. Sometimes, I'm okay with blogs that generate at least 100 organic visits if they have high-quality content or exceptional relevancy (source domain trust flow above 20). Take the filtered results from the previous step in Excel and upload them into SEMRush’s bulk analysis. You can do this with Ahrefs as well. With SEMRush’s bulk analysis, you can pull the traffic data for these sites and match them side-by-side in an Excel sheet. Now, you might ask, what about domain authority or domain rating? Personally, I don’t focus on domain rating or authority, as I consider them vanity metrics. I prioritize traffic and relevancy, as many high domain authority or domain rating sites don’t generate any relevant traffic—or any traffic at all!

Final Filter: Excel Formulas to Filter Out Low Quality Backlinks

I’d like to remove sites that I consider spammy and low-quality backlinks, such as forum comments, blog comments, and directories. You can also hire a virtual assistant to manually identify scraper sites and backlink farms. Yes, that'll be extra cost and time. There are some things that can only be done manually. For now, I'll use an excel formula to flag some of these low-quality sites. =IF( OR( ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".xyz", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".info", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".tk", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH(".top", A1)), LEN(A1) > 20, SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(MID(A1, ROW(INDIRECT("1:"&LEN(A1))), 1)*1)) > 3, LEN(A1) - LEN(SUBSTITUTE(A1, "-", "")) > 2, ISNUMBER(SEARCH("forum", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("directory", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("thread", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("directories", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("listing", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("discuss", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("discussion", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("board", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("list", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("classifieds", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("bulletin", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("faq", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("announcement", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("archive", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("community", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("Q&A", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("support", A1)), ISNUMBER(SEARCH("help", A1)) ), "Flag", "Keep" The great thing is that you can do most of the filtering manually in an excel sheet. You do it once, then train a virtual assistant to handle it, so you don’t have to do the mind-numbing work.

Your Final Backlink Gap

The entire filtering process can be done manually in an Excel sheet. In the end, my competitor's backlink count drops from thousands to just 129.

Calculate Link Velocity Required

From here, things are straightforward. In this case, my competitor has 129 real backlinks, which theoretically means I need to build 22 backlinks per month for six months to catch up. The cost of it will be 129 x $83 divided by 6 = $1785 per month. Note that this amount covers only link-building costs, excluding content, outreach team, data research required to put everything together. Yes, good SEO isn't cheap.

Conclusion

In our experience, link building is one of, if not the top ranking factors for reaching page one. However, it is important to note that this link gap analysis process is not a be-all, end-all solution. Original, helpful content that fulfil the users query is another crucial factor. Other important technical SEO considerations such as interlinking, silo structure, topical authority, and basic on-page SEO. The costs estimated in this article also do not include content writing expenses for guest posts or content on your own website. You got to calculate your total projected costs for link building to include these other costs. Nonetheless, calculating your backlink gap provides a useful estimate of what it might take to rank on page one of Google. Read the full article

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Link Building Case Studies + Data for Two Singapore Sites

96.55% of web pages on the internet do not get any traffic from Google. One of the commonalities among these sites is the lack of backlinks. In short, backlinks are like votes from other websites that signal to Google's algorithm that your site is trusted and reputable. I started learning about SEO in an attempt to generate leads for my first business—a dating advice business in Singapore. I attended a couple of SEO courses taught by Singaporean SEO experts, and I found that neither of them focused much on outbound link building. This is because link building is complex, difficult, and really... a pain in the butt. In an article done by Ahrefs, it was stated that 74% of SEO link builders are willing to pay for links, and most site owners are going to charge a fee for a link. That is despite Google's official guidelines, which state that you must never exchange money for links. There are other link building costs, such as: - Hiring a VA for prospecting - Hiring an outreach manager to coordinate link building - Hiring content writers for guest article creation These costs add up, and link building expenses can reach thousands of dollars per month. Either way, I realized that link building is the true needle mover, as opposed to stuffing keywords or trying to optimize each keyword for the perfect keyword density. The SEO courses I attended back then focused on these outdated methods.

MarcusNeo.Com Link Building Case Study

I understood the importance of link building and hired a link building agency on Upwork that specialized in the Skyscraper method. Yes, links were coming in, but they weren’t very targeted. I had links coming from sites that weren’t very niche relevant. I decided not to continue after a couple of months as there wasn’t any improvement. However, in hindsight, my site might have just been in the sandbox phase.

I then took it upon myself to learn link building and studied more about SEO from internationally based SEO experts. I enrolled in Authority Hacker's online course and started doing everything inhouse, from research to outreach. I hired a team of virtual assistants on Upwork and began building links from sites I thought were more niche-relevant. This means that if I were a dating advice site, I should be getting links from dating, relationship, or men's self-improvement websites. I put on blinders and built links aggressively from December 2019 to June 2020. Lo and behold, the site exploded in traffic. I even experienced a server crash in early 2022.

On our Google Analytics end, it showed that the site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. This could mean that SEO takes an entire six months to "kick in." As observed below, our initial link building efforts began as early as September 2019. The site only started gaining traffic in July 2020. That’s a solid 6 to 9 months of link building! Nonetheless, I was attempting to rank on global search engine results for MarcusNeo.com. I also consolidated our content and targeted lower-competition, long-tail keywords. These different factors contributed to the steady increase in traffic. Alright, let’s now move on to our own Singapore-based digital marketing agency. This time around, I am trying to rank on Singapore’s local search engine results. Yes, the competition here is tough—arguably the hardest! I’m going up against industry giants such as First Page Digital and OOM. These are large, enterprise-level agencies that have been market incumbents for more than half a decade!

ThreeLittlePigs.Pro Link Building Case Study

ThreeLittlePigs.Pro was registered on Monday, 5th of July 2021. I started link building in September 2021 using the same strategies I learned from my first site. The goal is to bring an outreach-based link building methodology to Singaporean shores. In my experience, SEO is perceived by many small and medium business owners as a black box. With Google’s Helpful Content Update, understanding and growing through SEO can be complex and messy. Link building Efforts in 2021 and 2022: Month Number of Backlinks September 2021 4 October 2021 1 December 2021 8 January 2022 1 February 2022 2 March 2022 2 Total 18 Link building Efforts in 2023: Life got in the way. So nil. Link building Efforts in 2024: I exited the corporate world in Singapore and decided to restart my SEO journey, building a Singaporean led SEO agency. So much has changed in just a couple of years. I learned about using AI in content creation and implementing AI in my prospecting and link vetting processes. Google also implemented the Helpful Content Update, which affected many small and independent publishers, My research into local publishers shows that they were not spared! However, in my opinion, Google still isn’t able to distinguish between genuinely helpful content and what isn’t. In the SEO industry, there are exact match domains that rank on the first page despite having poor backlinks and content. Then there’s the issue of parasite SEO, where publishers abuse a site’s high authority to rank for their targeted keywords. Recently, Forbes received a manual penalty for site reputation abuse. Evidently, site authority still plays a huge role algorithmically. The best way to increase your site authority is by building high-quality backlinks! Link building ThreeLittlePigs.Pro data I started link building again from June 2024: Month Number of Backlinks June 2024 2 July 2024 6 August 2024 8 September 2024 6 October  To be Confirmed! November 2024  To be Confirmed! Total Year to Date  To be Confirmed! Of course, the data here doesn’t show the domain authority of each domain we received links from. It also doesn’t reveal the degree of relevance of the sites. However, I use Majestic’s SEO tool to quantify relevance. I look at each domain’s Topical Trust Flow and only acquire links from sites that pass a certain threshold. They need to be either in my industry or in a closely related niche. This also helps standardize the link vetting process for my SEO team to follow. Link building Results in 2024: Our site ranked on pages 3 to 5 within 4 months of link building efforts by Google. We were beyond page 100 before that! I also want to point out that our domain is ThreeLittlePig.Pro, not ThreeLittlePigs.sg, which might have given us an extra localized ranking signal boost. The goal is to demonstrate ranking for brands and not to abuse loopholes in Google’s current algorithm that may prioritize exact match domains. Examples of exact match domains: - bestcreditcards.sg (for the keyword “best credit cards Singapore”) - plumbersingapore.sg (for the keyword “plumber Singapore”) - webdesignservices.sg (for the keyword “web design services”) Yes, we don’t want to be leveraging “loopholes” in Google’s algorithm. The majority of businesses out there are not named after exact match domains! Less than half a year in, our agency even got our first ever SEO lead!

Link Building and Google's Helpful Content Update in 2024

An article published by Moz argued that Google has "cranked up" the authority weightage on "branded terms" in their Helpful Content Update. They argued that update isn’t solely about content quality but rather about the ratio of brand search volume to link signals. This also means that doing SEO (and link building) in isolation and not having your brand mentioned in other areas of the internet may negatively affect your "brand" ranking signals. I am currently putting this to the test on my own site, as I am not building other channels for client acquisition. This means that SEO can be more effective when done in conjunction with other channels, such as search engine marketing or Meta advertising. If your brand name is out there through paid channels, it translates to higher brand search volume. Organically, if your company has a YouTube channel, an active Instagram page, or other forms of social media, it increases brand searches as well. I am not a fan of building multiple channels at once. However, this has implications for businesses looking to implement SEO. I’d say that using only SEO to grow your business from zero is no longer viable. You’ll need a “blended search” methodology that incorporates both SEO and paid social media marketing. I will update this article as we continue our link-building efforts throughout 2024. Read the full article

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Singapore SEO Case Studies - Ranking Sites from my HDB Room

I shall discuss two SEO case studies that are from the ground up. I started both sites from zero, in my Singapore HDB bedroom with zero page authority and domain authority. The first site was built on passion, in the dating advice niche, and I eventually got it to around 20k global readers and sold it off. The second site is ThreeLittlePigs.Pro, this site! Nonetheless, I am attempting to rank for digital marketing related keywords in Singapore. These case studies are different because the former focused on global search engine results and the second one is localised to Singapore. The goal is to also demonstrate competency by ranking our own website on the first page on Google for industry related keywords. It is also to test out certain factors that small medium business owners in Singapore aren't that aware of: such as being in the sandbox period for new websites. The SEO agency business in Singapore is dominated with incumbents dominating the top search results. Top digital marketing agencies such as First Page Digital and OOM and long time dominators of Singapore's search engine results. However, that does not mean that you can easily help other clients rank. Or that any agency should over promise results. That's because the difficulty in every niche is different. In fact, I know a friend who hires an India based SEO consultant who charges $150 a month. He is ranked on page one, rank one on Google for an industry with zero SEO competition.

Singapore SEO Case Study 1: MarcusNeo.Com (Sold to BeyondAges.Com)

I started a dating advice business blog for Singaporean men as my first business. That’s how I got involved in SEO. I wanted to rank on page one on the search results and get clients. SEO was also how I generated my first business.

The money keyword “dating coaching Singapore” also only had 20 searches a month.  Nonetheless, it put me on a sprint to learn more about SEO. I attended two Singaporean local SEO programs. Even though I would disagree with their methods of ranking today, I did manage to rank “dating coach Singapore’ to the top of Google.Com.Sg search engine results. The niche isn’t that competitive and I was able to do it through a combination of internal linking and a couple of backlinks from local publishers. However, I quickly realised I didn’t have enough clients from SEO alone and pivoted to Facebook advertising. One and a half years after advertising on Facebook, I got hit by multiple bans from Meta. I tried all sorts of tactics such as changing credit cards and making multiple accounts. The bans only got worse. Yes, I believe Meta tracks your account on a computer ID level.  Looking for a replacement traffic source, that’s where I turned to global SEO. The idea was to monetize my content globally. That was where I learned about Skyscraper SEO, guest post link building and other more advanced methods of link building. Initially, I hired an SEO expert link builder to build links to my Skyscraper articles. However, I felt that the links were lacking in relevance and decided to take link building in my own hands.

I learned outreach based link building and low behold, the benefits kicked in after six months of link building, hitting 20000 readers globally in around 8-12 months.

The process took some manual work initially. However I built the link building system system to: Ensure the links coming in were from legitimate websites, with traffic and not link farms Ensure the links were coming from websites with relevance Here are our link building results: High number of backlinks but poor organic traffic? Even though my website had majority traffic from US and UK audidences. I couldn’t convert the traffic from US and the UK. That is where I learned about the concept of product market fit. The site's domain was my name and I wrote content under my own name. Long story short: trying to sell dating advice to Western countries written in an Asian/ Singaporean context wasn’t possible. I had a lack of experience living in Western cultures and a lack of case studies.  An American company eventually approached me to buy the site and I agreed.

Singapore SEO Case Study 2: ThreeLittlePigs.Pro

I purchased the site on X date. I did a little bit of link building but life got in the way and I stopped entirely. If you looked at the data, I opine that Google gives fresh sites a boost as opposed to inactive sites. The site was registered and purchased in 2021. I did initial link building from September 2021 to March 2022. I built around 19 backlinks to ThreeLittlePigs.Pro. They did give me some traffic boost initially during April's 2023 when I started link building!  However, life got in the way and I left the site inactive for a couple of years. I only restarted activity in June 2024. I guess you aren't really in Google's good books if you are inactive for years. 

As of writing, September 30th 2024. I started link building for 4 months. I built around 22 links within 4 months and published around 20 articles. The links are manually vetted, of relevance and come from high quality sites. I built around 22 backlinks from 22 different referring domains since June 2024 to October 2024. Our site finally got recognised by Google and started ranking on the first 3-5 pages on Google. Here are our link building results:

I shall update this article as I continue link building into the 5th, 6th month onwards for our Singaporean based digital marketing agency.

Studying The Competition in Singapore SEO Industry

Trying to rank on page one in the SEO and digital marketing industry is one of the hardest niches to get into. I am competing against big digital marketing agencies that have at least 30 men head counts. Secondly, they are supposedly SEO experts themselves right? However, I am testing out a hypothesis as only a handful of digital marketing agencies on page 1 are using high quality outreach based links. This data can be researched by using Ahrefs, Semrush and looking at your competitions's backlink profile. You can roughly reverse engineer the competition. For example, if your competitors ranking on page one have 100 high quality backlinks pointing to their site, then your gap is to build around 17 high quality links per month for the next 6 months as a new entrant. Nonetheless, our site went from not being found on the SERPs to being somewhat stagnant on page 3 to 5 for targeted keywords. I suspect it is Google's sandbox where they prevent new or inactive sites from ranking on the first page of the search results too quickly.  I am still sticking to the game plan of continuing to build high quality backlinks through months 5 and six. Note, aside from link building, I also published high quality blog articles SEO, digital marketing in an attempt to achieve “topical authority”.

Conclusion

I am mindful that Google's helpful content algorithm update in 2023 affected many small, independent publishers. Traditional SEO search results are quickly losing their spark/ focus in the SEO industry. They are deemed unstable and unreliable by many SEO experts. On the contrary, the maps pack and local SEO have been gaining relevance in the last couple of years. I myself am hugely reliant on the search results on Google maps, looking for places to eat nearby etc.  Yes, I recommend ranking on the local maps pack (outranking traditional SEO results) and acquiring customers that way. Local SEO and ranking via the maps pack is an SEO aspect I intend to dive deeply into in the coming year. For established small businesses with satisfied hundreds of customers, it's a way more efficient method of acquiring customers as opposed to trying to rank on traditional SEO results. Lastly, SEO is a marathon. It can take up to 8 - 12 months in some niches. Yet, a friend is ranking on Google's first page and page one because his industry isn't competitive. I suggest business owners to figure out their paid traffic funnels before investing into SEO, whether be it SEM or social media advertising. Read the full article

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A/B Testing: What is It and Why You'll Want to Skip It

“Let’s do an A/B test”. This is a common buzzphrase thrown around during my agency and enterprise days as a digital marketer. Today, A/B testing is a popular concept used for decision-making amongst marketers, product teams and web developers.  However, as much as it is celebrated, there are compelling reasons to NOT A/B test. Now, before that, let’s look at what’s an A/B test, why do people do it and the benefits.

What is A/B Testing?

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is a method where you compare two versions of a web page, email, ad or an app feature to see which performs better.  You present version “A” to one group and version “B” to another, tracking how each performs on a specific metric such as click-through rates or conversions. The idea is simple: change just one element like a headline, call-to-action button, or product image and see which version gets more favourable results.

The Benefits of A/B Testing

The benefit behind the A/B test is relying on data driven decisions to improve business outcomes. Instead of relying on intuition or guesswork, A/B tests provide quantifiable data. Small changes like tweaking a headline or changing the layout of your landing page can lead to improvements in conversion rates​. Theoretically, if you manage to double your conversion rate from 1.5% to 3%, your sales is going to double. Holding all other variables constant. I use “casual A/B tests” mostly on an ad level. If I am running a video ad on Meta's advertising platform and it’s not getting the desired click through rate. I’ll switch up the headlines (as a “hook”) and look at the data for a couple of days. It is also common consensus amongst the digital marketing community to also test headlines on landing pages. Here are five common areas where A/B tests are applied: - Website Design: Testing layouts, call-to-action buttons, or navigation changes to improve user engagement and conversion - Email Marketing: Comparing subject lines, email content, or sending times to increase open rates and clicks - Advertising: Testing ad copy, images, or targeting to improve click-through rates and ROIs - App Features: Testing different app functionalities to enhance user experience or retention. - E-Commerce: Testing product descriptions, pricing strategies, or checkout flows to boost sales.

Free Tools for A/B Testing

A/B tests have to reach “statistical significance”. Statistical significance in an A/B test means that the results aren’t just due to random chance.  It tells you if the difference between version A and version B is real and not just a coincidence. If a test result is "statistically significant," it means you're confident that the changes you made (like a new headline or button colour) caused the difference in user behavior.  Usually, this confidence is set at 95%, meaning there’s only a 5% chance that the result happened by luck.For your A/B test to stand mathematically, I recommend using the AB Test Significance Calculator by SurveyMonkey​.

The Math Fun Behind A/B Tests

Now, here’s why I say that most marketers don’t truly understand A/B tests. When testing small changes in conversion rates, the number of visitors needed grows drastically as the conversion rate decreases: 50% to 55%: Needs 1,567 people per group. 20% to 22%: Needs 6,347 people per group. 10% to 11%: Needs 14,313 people. 5% to 5.5%: Needs 30,244 people. 1% to 1.1%: Needs 157,697 people. For a 0.1% to 0.11% increase, you’d need over 1.5 million unique landing page visitors.  You can interestingly observe that as the base rate gets smaller, you need exponentially bigger sample size to get reliable results. Source: https://www.evanmiller.org/the-low-base-rate-problem.html Let’s further math it into practical terms. Let’s assume you are paying $2 per click from Meta ads to driven traffic to a landing page converting at 5%.  You’ll then need at least $60,488 ($2 multiplied by 30,244) in advertising budget to confidently say that your test is statistically significant if your conversion rate increases to 5.5%. That’s ALSO assuming each click drives a unique landing page view on your landing page.

When and Why You Should A/B Test

Look, I can confidently say that if you are fixated on A/B testing button colours, you're missing the bigger picture.  If your marketing strategy focuses on tweaking minor design elements instead of addressing core customer pain points, product-market fit or building trust with your audience.  You have a business problem, not a “split testing” problem. Marketing success is built on understanding your customers: their motivations, needs, and barriers to purchase. Even though A/B tests are a buzzword thrown around marketing discussions. In reality it requires a good amount of time (and traffic) to gather enough data for statistically significant results.  This isn’t plausible for smaller websites with low traffic or a lower paid media budget. They can also often produce incremental improvements, which might not justify the time and resources invested.

How about… A/A Testing?

There's a blogger that ran A/A tests just to demonstrate the ridiculousness of running A/B tests. A/A testing is an experiment where two identical versions are tested against each other. Ideally, the results should be the same. However, if it’s different, it indicates sampling errors or flaws in your A/B testing setup. This helps point out natural variation that can occur when split testing, showing how often you might get false positives in A/B testing. The more interesting part is that it can occur just due to random chance, especially with small sample sizes. This goes to show that just because a test hits a significance threshold (often 95%) doesn’t mean the results are always valid. 

Small Sample Sizes Lead to Misleading Data

When you run tests on a small set of users, you are more likely to get skewed results. If you don’t have enough traffic, the variations between two groups may seem significant when they could merely just statistical noise.  In Kadavy's case, his A/A test showed a 300% increase in conversions even though he made no changes. Hence demonstrating how unreliable small sample tests can be. For the most part, small businesses often do not have the traffic necessary for statistically valid A/B tests.  Simple question to ask yourself: Do you have enough traffic to make the test valid? You can use a sample size calculator to check. In my experience, you are a hundred percent better off relying on qualitative data like customer feedback than investing heavily on split testing.

Minor Gains are Often an Excuse of Vision

In corporate speak, you may sound smart in marketing discussions for proposing A/B tests. However, A/B tests are often a poor excuse for a lack of vision. Yes, a website that looks like it’s designed in the early 2000s isn’t going to need A/B testing. It needs a revamp. If your customer acquisition funnel has poor images, is barely congruence to your Facebook advertising visuals… does it need an A/B test? Or does it need a revamp? 

Bro, do you even A/B test? As mentioned, A/B tests detract from long-term vision and bolder business decisions.  Secondly, if you overly emphasize data, metrics, you can lose sight of creative ideas and larger brand messaging.  Peter Thiel, a well known tech entrepreneur criticizes incrementalism, which is just making small improvements to existing ideas. He believes that entrepreneurs need bold visions, not constant second-guessing through endless tests.  Eric Ries, known for the Lean Startup concept, also warns against turning A/B testing into a strict routine. He argues that over-relying on tests can hurt creativity and agility.  They both mentioned that testing can't replace the big-picture thinking needed for true innovation.

100 Million Dollars in Revenue without a Single A/B Test

Ahrefs, an SEO tools company that grew to $100 million in annual revenue. They achieved this growth without a single A/B test​. They even did it without using traditionally data driven strategies or tools like Google Analytics, conversion tracking and retargeting. They offered no discounts, discontinued their affiliate programs and didn’t bid on competitor's keywords. Tim Soulo, their chief marketing officer, attribute their success to focusing on product development, constant re-iterates based on gut, qualitative feedback. Source: https://blog.getlatka.com/ahrefs-lessons-to-grow-revenue/https://kadavy.net/blog/posts/aa-testing/?utm_content=bufferb7ac0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

My Own Experience with A/B Tests (Or a Lack Of)

I was an employee for a digital marketing agency serving small medium enterprises in Singapore. I also managed millions of dollars in paid advertising spend on an enterprise level. I always rejected A/B tests both internally and proposals from vendors. If I wasn't in the position to make the call, I didn't pay much attention to A/B tests. In short, I never bothered.  I also grew my first business, a dating advice blog for men targeted at the Singaporean market to more than 100k in sales without a single serious A/B test.  If I had a hunch that the headline copy of a three minute video ad on Meta platform was causing a drop in click through rates, I’ll duplicate it on an ad level in the ad dashboard, run it side by side with the original for a couple of days, and then look at the results. That is the CLOSEST I did to a proper A/B test.

Multivariate Testing: Can you Test Multiple Things at a Go Then?

Now, can you testing multiple changes (variables) simultaneously? Multivariate testing allows you to test multiple elements simultaneously. For instance, if you’re testing headlines and images, a multivariate test could assess how various combinations perform​. The downside?  Multivariate tests require significantly more traffic to achieve meaningful results, as you need a larger sample size to ensure that your findings are statistically significant. You're back to the same constraint: a lack of traffic (and budget to purchase that type of traffic). Then again, I’ll assure you that most marketing issues aren’t in single or multi variable tests. They are in your advertising creatives, customer research, messaging and lack of a product market fit.

Conclusion

All in all, should you conduct A/B tests? Yes, A/B tests can be helpful if it is implemented on high-traffic sites or customer acquisition funnels with bigger budgets. If you are spending hundreds of thousands on paid media buying per day, then A/B tests can be a good consideration. Here's the bottomline: if you are obsessing over testing button colours... then you’re probably missing the point.  In our opinion, marketing success is built on understanding your customers and addressing their pain points. Yes, Ahrefs grew to $100M in revenue without a single A/B test, no Google Analytics, no conversion tracking, just focusing on product development, listening to customers, good content marketing and reiterations. Read the full article

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Google’s Sandbox: What Is It and Get Unstuck + Case Study

Finding it difficult or rank a new or in active site despite your best SEO efforts? Google’s Sandbox is a term that’s been floating around the SEO community since 2004. The Google Sandbox is an unofficial concept suggesting that new websites go through a "probation period" during which their ability to rank in Google’s search results is temporarily suppressed regardless of your SEO efforts. The Google Sandbox can be applied to both new and in-active websites.

Google’s Official Statement on the Sandbox

Google’s search relations team lead, John Mueller has denied the existence of a specific sandbox filter 25:38 in the recording during a Google webmaster hangout. However he acknowledges that their algorithms may need time to understand where new websites fit in relation to the rest of the web.  John Mueller also explained that new websites may find it challenging to rank initially because they have fewer signals, such as backlinks.

Our Own Website’s Data in "Google’s Sandbox"

Now, let’s use our own online marketing agency’s website Threelittlepigs.pro as a case study. Our agency is trying to rank for competitive keywords in Singapore’s digital marketing space such as: “SEO agency Singapore” “SEO services Singapore” “SEO consultant Singapore” “SEO expert Singapore” “Digital marketing agency Singapore” “Lead generation Singapore” Let's see how I fared since registering the domain. Our Domain Age Our check was on 29th August 2024. Threelittlepigs.pro was registered on: Monday 5th of July 2021. It's 3 years, 1 months and 24 days or 1151 days old. Our Site's Inactivity The site was registered on 5th July 2021 and was generally inactive until September 2021. I started to build some backlinks using the Skyscraper method and did some guest posts during towards the end of 2021. However life got in the way and I left it inactive till June 2024. Yes I know, I ain't a perfect SEO... neither is anyone. Our Link Building and Content Efforts I started building links, around 5-10 backlinks a month from June 2024, and started posting content targeted some long tailed local SEO keywords. Here's a screen shot of our posting frequency: Our blog's content is mostly humanly edited from A.I. outlines. Yes, it is my opinion that A.I. can't completely replace human writers just yet. However, A.I. is great at brainstorming outlines, and expanding on sections of content that you may run out of creative juice for. Here's our backlinks growth and organic positions data: Our site started being "noticed" by Google, and we got into many of the top 100 rankings on local search engine results. Social Signals Our site isn't really big on social media engagement, and SEO is still a pretty nerdy and niche topic in Singapore Hence forth, there's not much likes or follows on our social media. It is arguable that social signals may be one of the factors that can help you "escape the sandbox". To help with that that, you can run a paid social media engagement campaign on Meta ads. Or you can choose to leave it. I didn't run any engagement ads. The Results Our agency got our first SEO generated lead within two months of starting to publish content and link building. (Read: No, I'm not going to start shouting on social media that you can rank page one in two months) One of our targeted pages is also ranked on the 4th to 5th page of local SERPs. However, despite continuing to build high quality links and publish content onwards in August 2024 (the 3rd month), there has been no movement on the search results. That may... be alluded to the Google's Sandbox.

Tips to Get Out of the Sandbox

- Content Quality High-quality and unique content is the bare minimum these days for ranking in the SERPs. This is in light of Google’s helpful content updates in recent years. They’ve taken a tougher stance on people’s first, high quality content. - High Quality Backlinks Yes, getting high quality backlinks. This signals to Google that your site is trustworthy. Google’s API leak confirms it, alongside other technical SEO and UX factors. Rand Fishkin from Moz even suggested that relying solely on acquiring lower-quality links, such as those from SEO-specific directories, article submission sites, reciprocal links, dofollow blog comments, and forum signature links, could potentially extend your time in the "sandbox."  - Technical SEO and UX Make sure your site is technically optimized for speed, mobile-friendliness and has a clear URL structure. The implement on-page SEO practices like using headings tags, alt texts, and internal links. Ensure that your site is easy to navigate and provides a great user experience, menus, contact us pages, etc. You can also use Google Search Console to identify potential indexing issues.

Time for SEO to Work

The SEO community generally agrees on average that it takes 4 to 6 months for noticeable improvements in a website's ranking and traffic.  This may correlate to the notion of a “Google sandbox”. To second this, Ahrefs conducted a study on over 2 million keywords. They found that only 5.7% of newly published pages make it to the top 10 results on Google in one year.

Conclusion

My view is that whilst Google Sandbox remains an unofficial concept, the hypothesis can be viewed as informally valid as many new/ inactive sites experience a delay in ranking.  Whether it is due to Google’s caution with new content or simply a lack of authority signals, the best approach is to focus on people's first content, quality backlinks and good user experience. You increase your chances of breaking free from any "sandbox effect" and achieving higher visibility in search results. Read the full article

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How to do Lead Generation with AI - ChatGPT Examples

Today, you can use A.I. to help you generate leads for your local business. I am a huge user of ChatGPT, and use it in my day to day operations for my business. You can use ChatGPT to craft personalised emails for your products to outreach emails and brainstorming buyer personas. If you are a marketer (or really, any business owner), you’re juggling multiple tasks, from operations to customer service and to content creation. It is time-consuming. ChatGPT and A.I. can streamline your marketing processes, leaving you to focus on higher impact activities.

How to Use AI For Lead Generation

ChatGPT is perfect for creating content that helps you attract potential customers and leads Whether you’re writing emails, social media posts, or landing pages. It is a pretty good tool for creating copy for first drafts. Step-by-Step Prompts to Use ChatGPT for Lead Generation Set the Stage:  “Craft an email outline to our newsletter, introducing our new travel insurance plan. Start by addressing a common concern Singaporeans face when traveling, such as unexpected medical emergencies or trip cancellations. Then, present our travel insurance as the perfect solution, highlighting how it provides comprehensive coverage and peace of mind.” The Audience and Tone:  "Make the email more personalized by mentioning how our products can solve a common problem Singaporeans might face, such as reducing waste in a small urban environment." Crafting Landing Page and Blog Article Outlines I am not a fan of using ChatGPT for word for word direct response copywriting. Currently, it still lacks depth. However, ChatGPT is great for creating outlines, whether be it for a landing page, blog article or a podcast. Prompt: "Create a landing page outline for a webinar about the benefits about SEO the benefits of link building. Include sections like an introduction, benefits, testimonials, and a call to action. I’ll upload three key articles on our brand and SEO, please learn from it and take into consideration whilst building the outline" Personalizing Email Outreach and Email Sequences Today, I use GPT to create email sequences for SEO link building outreach. You can use the same concept for other types of outreach. Yes, including lead generation. Set the stage: "You are to write a 3 day automated follow-up email sequence for our outreach program regarding X product or Y pitch. In the first email, mention a few key benefits of X brand/ Y product and how it can help them with their specific challenges. I’ll upload a transcript the product/ brand and please deep dive into that for the outreach emails" Set a friendly tone: "Keep the message friendly and non-salesy, focusing on building a relationship first." Social Media Posts to Distribute Content You can always transcribe your Youtube video, blog post and then upload it to GPT. Here’s the prompt: “You are to promote my blog post or Youtube content on social media. Generate 5 variations of headlines and body for each social media post to promote our new blog posts. Each post should be engaging, include a call to action, and be tailored for Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn."

Identity and Brainstorm Buyer Profiles

Customer research is a keystone to effective digital marketing. If you run out of ideas, you can always feed ChatGPT with your business's existing data, get it to sort the data, and help you brainstorm. Step 1: Prepare Your Customer Data Before you start, gather key customer data points, such as: Demographics (age, gender, location) Behavioural data, purchase history (frequency of purchase, types of products/services) Interests and preferences Pain points, Fears Desires, fears Objections to purchase No buy surveys/ Common feedback Compile the data into an excel or PDF and upload it to GPT. Step 2: Start with General Buyer Profiles Example Prompt: "Based on the following customer data, help me create general buyer profiles: ." Example: "Based on our customer data, most of our customers are aged 25-40, live in Singapore, and frequently purchase travel insurance for trips to Southeast Asia. Help me create a general buyer profile for these customers." Example: "Identify key segments among customers who buy travel insurance frequently. Consider factors like age, destination preferences, and frequency of travel." Step 3: Brainstorm Deepen Each Profile Prompt: "For each identified segment, provide more detailed buyer profiles. Include details like their travel habits, specific needs from travel insurance, and common pain points." Example: "For frequent travelers aged 30-40 who visit Southeast Asia, create a detailed buyer profile. Include their travel habits, what they look for in travel insurance, and any concerns they typically have." Step 4: Identify Potential New Segments Prompt: "Given the existing data, brainstorm potential new customer segments we might target. Consider any underserved demographics or new trends in travel that could influence our strategy." Example: "Brainstorm potential new customer segments we could target, such as digital nomads or retirees who are starting to travel more. How could our travel insurance appeal to these groups?" The key here is to be conversational with ChatGPT, and not rely on modelled prompts. The more data you feed ChatGPT, the better your output will be.

How to Use AI for Chatbot for Lead Follow Ups

Today, you can build a customer service chatbot using A.I. and/ or ChatGPT for a fraction of the cost. The pros? Your chatbot is available round-the-clock, provide personalised conversations, and can qualify your leads. They can manage multiple chats at once, making it easier from a cost standpoint. Secondly, you can automate industry trained follow-up messages, keeping potential customers engaged and moving them through the sales process. Step 1: Choose a Platform Use a platform like Voiceflow to build your AI chatbot. Voiceflow is user-friendly and popular with companies like Amazon and BMW. Step 2: Upload Knowledge Base Secondly, gather and upload relevant documents in PDFs or text files that contain the industry information your chatbot will use to answer questions. Step 3: Design the Chatbot Flow Greet the User: Set up the chatbot to greet users and capture their queries. AI Response: Use AI to generate answers based on the uploaded knowledge base. Step 4: Test the Chatbot Run tests to ensure the chatbot is responding correctly to various queries. Step 5: Deploy the Chatbot Publish the chatbot and embed it on your website using a simple code snippet.

Other Worthy A.I. Tools I Use for Lead Generation

Our digital marketing agency uses Canva and Descript regularly for lead generation activities. They come with A.I. features that can assist in creating content. - Canva Canva is an easy-to-use graphic design tool that helps you create cool visuals for things like marketing, social media, and presentations. Features like the AI image generator and Magic Resize allow users to produce custom images and designs tailored to specific audiences and platforms, improving the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. They have an A.I. image and video generator as well. - Descript Descript is an AI-powered tool. It makes video and audio editing fast and simple, helping marketers quickly produce quality content. I use Descript to quickly edit Youtube videos/ podcasts. It’s extremely helpful for content creation, which helps with overall lead generation. Text-Based Editing: Edit videos and audio just by changing the text, so it’s easy to cut and move things around. Overdub Feature: Create new audio by typing, using a clone of the speaker’s voice. Regenerate Features: Helps fix issues like mismatched tones, dull dialogue, or background noise without needing to re-record

Conclusion

Today, you can hire one or two AI-trained marketers (or hint: an agency like ours); they can double or triple your lead generation efforts with AI. However, do note that AI currently cannot 100% replace human input. This article is still written and edited by a human, even though I did use many of the same ChatGPT prompts I provided in this article. Read the full article

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Lead Generation vs. Demand Generation: For Powerful ROI?

For small medium businesses to enterprise level marketing, there are generally two main marketing strategies: lead generation and demand generation. They might sound similar, however, serve different purposes and work well together. Lead Generation is turning online traffic, whether paid or organic and converting them into leads. These are leads your sales team can call, follow up with directly. Demand Generation is about creating awareness and interest in your product or service. It is about getting people to notice you, create buzz, excitement and focused on more on top of funnel activities.

Section 1: Understanding Lead Generation

Lead generation focuses on immediate lead capture and conversion, primarily on bottom-of-the-funnel activities where potential customers are ready to make a purchasing decision. These are individuals or businesses that have shown direct interest in your product or service and can be turned into paying customers. Key Strategies - SEO and PPC Advertising: Increase visibility and attract targeted traffic through search engine optimization and pay-per-click ads. - Paid Social Media Campaigns: Utilize lead capture forms on platforms like Facebook. Benefits - Measurable ROI: You are able to tracking marketing spend turned into leads, turned into customers.

Section 2: Understanding Demand Generation

Demand generation, on the other hand, is more focused on building interest and awareness for your brand. It reaches a broader audience and aims to create excitement around your product. It involves a mix of marketing activities designed to garner attention and interest. It focuses on awareness, nurturing prospects from the top of the funnel. It involves guiding potential customers through a buying journey. The goal is to also foster trust and loyalty among your audience, turning one-time buyers into lifelong customers. Common Demand Generation Strategies Used - Influencer Marketing: Partner with influencers to reach new audiences, create excitement and build trust. - Social Media Advertising: Use paid ads on social platforms to engage with your audience and keep your brand visible. - Offline Events: Host in-person events to create buzz around your brand - Seminars and Webinars: Educate and engage your audience with both online and in-person events. - Content Marketing: Create valuable content like eBooks and blog posts. - Email Campaigns: Send targeted emails to keep your brand top-of-mind. Benefits - Builds a Database: Creates a list of potential customers for future marketing efforts.

Key Differences Between Lead Generation and Demand Generation

Metrics and Measurement: - Lead Generation: Focuses on conversion rates, cost per lead, and lead quality. - Demand Generation: Focuses on brand awareness, website traffic, customer feedback and audience engagement. Stages of the Sales Funnel: - Lead Generation: Works at the bottom of the funnel, turning interest into sales. - Demand Generation: Operates at the top of the funnel, creating interest and drawing in potential customers. Here's an example of a sales funnel:

Factors to Consider: Lead Gen or Demand Gen?

I assume most businesses's primary goal is to drive immediate sales. Therefore lead generation is the go to strategy. However, if you're launching a new product or service that lacks product market fit then you should not only rely on direct lead generation. For audiences unfamiliar to your new product, demand generation strategies can be used to raise interest. Choosing lead generation or demand generation depends on constraints such as budget and team capacity. Resource Constraints - Marketing Budget: Lead generation might give quicker returns by focusing on ready-to-buy prospects. - Team Capacity: Demand generation often needs a larger investment in content creation and advertising. - Marketing Tools: The marketing tools you have available. Tools like CRM systems and automated marketing platforms can help lead and demand generation strategies go together.

Key Decision Factor: Product-Market Fit

If your product has achieved product market fit then lead generation strategies are the go to. However, if it is still finding its place in the market, or if you're launching a new product, then leaning to demand generation can be helpful. Yes, demand generation activities can help you understand your market's needs and adapting your product offerings accordingly. Strategies for Establishing Product-Market Fit - Customer Feedback Loops - Talk with your customers to learn about their needs and how your product can help them. Use this feedback to improve your product and make sure it matches what the market wants. Keep improving your product based on feedback and market changes. - Competitive Analysis - Look at your competitors to see what makes them successful. Find any gaps in their products that your product can fill, and use this to stand out in the market.

How Lead Generation and Demand Generation Work Together

Many may think that demand generation and lead generation should be done separately, but combining these strategies can lead to killing two birds with one stone. How to Combine Demand and Lead Generation You can integrate demand and lead generation to create a customer journey from awareness all the way to purchase. - Demand Generative Content Marketing Start by creating buzz through creating top of funnel SEO optimised content, Youtube content, online webinars and/or offline events. The form of content here should both educate and entertain. - Use Branded Social Media Advertising Use social media ads to create excitement about your products. Make sure your ads show what makes your product unique and why people should be interested. Include a customer journey in the advertising process that makes it easy for users to sign up or ask for more information. Best Practices for Combining Strategies - Align Marketing and Sales Teams Ensure your marketing and sales teams work together. Sales teams can provide marketing teams with direct customer feedback allow. This cooperation quickly helps turn potential customers into actual buyers. -  Continuous Nurturing Engage your lead database using a mix of demand and lead generation tactics. You can send content and personalized messages to nurture your audience. Use email marketing, send them offers such as discounts and direct call-to-actions to purchase from you.

Example: Fitness App Launch Campaign

Let's use an example. You are launching a fitness app and the goal is to increase brand awareness and get people to sign up for a new fitness app. Campaign Overview - Platform: Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube - Target Audience: Health-conscious people aged 31-49 who are interested in fitness and wellness. Branded Demand Generation - Content: The story and content in the ads should show a middle aged individual reaching their fitness goal whilst using the app’s custom features like personalised workouts and tracking capabilities. The message should be motivational, encouraging users in the target audience to start their own fitness journey. - Call-to-Action (CTA): Encourage users to "Start Your Free Trial Today" sending the user to an app download page that captures their name and email. On the page, it should stress that the free trial is only available for a limited time. - Objective: The goal is to build awareness of the brand (demand generation) and turn interested viewers into active leads by offering immediate value with a free trial. - Follow-Up Nurturing: When users sign up for the free trial, send them personalised emails or push notifications with tips on how to use the app, success stories, and content to encourage them to continue using the app and become paid subscribers.

Conclusion and Recommendations

The marketing mix between lead generation and demand generation should be guided by your audience's awareness levels, your team's resources and the product-market fit of your services. For products with established market fit, lead generation can effectively drive conversions and sales. However, if your product has not achieved product-market fit, then you need to focus more on demand generation to build awareness and gather the insights necessary to tailor your offers to market needs. Here is our recommended roadmap: Focus on lead generation to drive conversions and sales from existing interest. Then, simultaneously, use demand generation strategies to create customer feedback loops to get insights and product-market fit. Read the full article

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Lead Generation for Financial Advisors Without Cold Calls

I generated more than six figures in my first dating advice consulting business for men, which relied on high-quality lead generation, appointments, and in-person sales. I also worked for one of the biggest digital insurers in the region, selling millions in premiums per month during my enterprise days. The consulting business is similar to the financial advisory business. Today, there are multiple marketing agencies providing lead generation to financial advisors and insurance agents in Singapore. They take different approaches from selling the product directly, to branding the agent... to Tiktok videos... etc. However, here is how I'll do if I was in in the shoes of a financial advisor.

Niching Down in Your Market

Firstly, I'll ignore most of the total market and narrow down to a specific segment. You'll want to carve out a market segment that has both the ability and willingness to pay. This ensures that you’re not just generating any leads, but those who are most likely to convert into profitable clients. For example, products like retirement or savings plans are high-margin products and offer high commissions for financial advisors. There is going to be a certain client profile that is seeking out such products. Once, an insurance agent acquaintance of mine told me he doesn't want to sell to anyone below 40 years old because investors below that age are more hands-on and wouldn’t require a financial advisor. That is a form of honing in on a niche market. This also makes sense from an economic perspective, helping you recoup and make a profit on advertising spend. Yes, these products may be similar across insurance companies. However, it is how you deliver your message and consult clients that'll set you apart. - Economics of Lead Generation Let’s say you make $1,000 profit per sale of a retirement plan, and it costs you $30 to get one webinar sign-up. If the net conversion rate on live webinars is 5%, you’ll need 100 sign ups to convert 5 leads, hence resulting in $5,000 in revenue. The key idea here is to get the economics of your business right from the get go. Hence, you’ve got to refine this process until your live webinars convert at the right rate before scaling.

The Pitfalls of Quick Lead Capture

One common mistake is running an ad and immediately trying to capture contact information. There are many Facebook marketing agencies that do this. They run simple lead form ads and all the user has to do is to fill in their information, and the user become a lead.

This may generate a large number of leads, but the quality of those leads are often low. The reason? The resistance to becoming a lead is minimal, which means many people may sign up without any real intent to follow through. High quality lead generation exists on a continuum. On one end of the spectrum, highly qualified leads are those who have consumed your content and are genuinely interested in your services. On the other end, you have low-quality leads—those who may have signed up out of curiosity or by accident. The goal is to increase the quality of your leads by creating a process that naturally filters out those who are less likely to convert. This is commonly known as a sales funnel in the online marketing industry.

Live Webinars, Is it a Dinosaur Method Today?

Instead of trying to capture leads immediately, consider a more structured approach: run an ad that leads to a live webinar, and then encourage attendees to book a call. You can't automated a webinar until you're sure that the live version converts. Here’s why you got to go LIVE: - Live Webinars Provide Valuable Feedback Hosting a live webinar allows you to interact with potential clients in real-time, gathering feedback that can help you refine your marketing message. This interaction is crucial because it ensures that your content resonates with your audience. You can ask questions, get them to fill in survey forms, and most of all, it allows you to tweak your messaging from the first to second one, so on and forth. - Test Before Automating Many people rush to automate webinars before perfecting their live presentations. However, if your live webinar doesn’t convert, automation won’t save you. It simply makes sens right? There fore, you got to focus on honing your live webinars first, ensuring that your conversion rates are where they need to be before automating the process.

Refinement Is Key: Listen to Customers

The different mechanisms of your lead generation process can then be continually refined based on customer feedback and data. After each webinar, you can gather feedback from attendees, what resonated with them, what didn’t—and use this data to improve your approach. - Send out SMS and ask for feedback - Listen to them on free consults - Send out emails and survey forms This ongoing refinement can significantly boost your conversion rates. For instance, if you initially convert at 4%, but through refinement, you double that to 8%, you’ve just drastically increased your profitability. I can't stress this enough but successful campaigns, whether in e-commerce or lead generation both rely on constant feedback from customers. Hence forth, by listening to their needs and refining your messaging accordingly, you can adjust both the message and the offer of your products.

Scaling Your Business

Once you’ve refined your front end lead generation process and have consistent conversion rates, scaling becomes a matter of increasing inputs such as ad spend and impressions. This can't be achieved if you're losing money if your conversion rates at poor or negligible. Lastly, the big profits come from lifetime value (LTV) of a customer without additional advertising costs. The lifetime value of a customer represents the total revenue you can expect from a single customer over the entire duration of your relationship with them. - Repeat purchases, upsells, down sells and side sells - Referrals Therefore, your email list and sms data base becomes an asset. Your email list is a direct line of communication with your customers and potential clients, allowing you to nurture relationships, build trust, and maintain engagement over time. You can send them content pieces, such as informative blog posts or exclusive video content. You can look for a graphic explanation of the system here:

Conclusion

Everyone is a lead in the financial advisory business. However, it is the quality leads that matter. The key is to build a process that naturally filters out the noise. Our choice is a live webinar. It can seem daunting to go live, but live webinars  allow you to interact directly with potential clients, tweak your approach on the fly, and get a ROI positive conversion rate  before going on to automate it. Then build up an asset base such as an email list and continually to value add to your audience through content pieces. Read the full article