What are Niche Edits, and How Do They Affect SEO?

Link-building is one of the most important aspects of SEO, especially for Google campaigns.  In fact, it’s been discovered that the #1 ranked page on Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than the other results.  The catch? Link-building strategies tend to be extremely challenging and time-consuming. It can take months of outreach to acquire just one guest post opportunity, not to mention the time it takes to create the content.  That’s why niche edit links have become so popular recently.  What are niche edits? A niche edit (also called a link insertion) refers to placing one of your backlinks into an existing article on a relevant website.  It differs from a guest post in that you’re placing the link into an older blog post instead of creating a new one.  The good news is that you don’t have to create any original content to acquire niche edits, and they will provide the same amount of link juice as a guest post (assuming you target an existing page that has relevant content and high authority).  Niche edit backlinks also benefit website owners too, so you won’t be begging for a handout.  Adding new outbound links can help freshen up older content, giving site owners a chance to generate more organic traffic from an existing blog post.  There’s a lot to know about niche edit link building, so stick around to learn more.  It’s different from a guest post because you insert the link into an existing piece instead of writing a new article.  You don’t have to create any original content to acquire niche edits, and they provide the same amount of link juice as a guest post (assuming you target an existing page that has relevant content and high authority). 

What is link juice?  "Link juice" (also known as “link equity”) is a term used in SEO to describe the value or authority that one webpage passes to another through a hyperlink.  Think of it like a vote of confidence between websites. When a website links to another, it's as if it's saying, "I trust and recommend this page."

Since the payoff is equal, niche edits are a quicker and easier way to obtain valuable backlinks. They’re a true embodiment of the phrase ‘work smarter, not harder.’ Niche edit backlinks also benefit website owners too, so you won’t feel like you’re begging for a handout.  Adding new outbound links can help freshen up older content, allowing site owners to generate new organic traffic from an aging blog post. 

What are Niche Edits Used For?

You can use niche edits to boost your domain authority, acquire quality link placements, and increase the number of links for your website. Also, there’s a reason why more than 63% of businesses choose to outsource their link-building to third-party agencies – they don’t have the time or capabilities to build high-quality links.  Link-building services have established networks and infrastructures they use to target guest post opportunities, citations, fix broken links, and more.  They also use niche edits to acquire high-authority backlinks for their clients. The good news? Niche edit link building is less time-consuming than other methods, and it doesn’t involve creating anything new.  That’s not to say that niche edits should comprise your entire link-building strategy, but they can help startups and small businesses establish their link profiles without having to spend too much time or money (especially if their niche doesn’t have much in the way of competition).  Once their efforts start to gain some traction, then they can consider outsourcing link-building to continue growing their online presence. 

What are the Benefits of Niche Edits?

Why should you focus on niche edits instead of (or alongside) guest posting and other link-building techniques? While a mix of link-building tactics works best, niche edits can help you obtain powerful link placements without doing too much outreach or creating new content.  For this reason, niche edits are an extremely cost-effective way to drive more traffic to your website.  Niche edits also provide plenty of other benefits, so let’s take a look at them all.

They’re easier than guest posts 

While guest posting remains one of the most popular link-building techniques, it’s certainly not the easiest.  For one, you need to find relevant blogs in your niche that accept guest posts in the first place, which is tough if you’re in an obscure niche (like selling jumpsuits for Elvis impersonators).  After that, you have to conduct intense outreach to contact webmasters and persuade them to allow you to write a guest post.  Once you land an opportunity, you’ve got to produce high-quality content that gains the webmaster’s approval, which can be easier said than done.  If your content is subpar, inaccurate, or just doesn’t catch the webmaster’s fancy, they may reject your guest post, and all your hard work was for nothing.  With niche edits, all you need is a link, some relevant anchor text, and perhaps a new line or two to add to the original piece.  Not only that, but you can conduct outreach to any blog or website within your niche, not just ones that accept guest posts.  That makes a lot more websites viable targets, increasing your chances of landing a quality link placement.  Of course, ensure the website’s content directly relates to yours – but other than that, any piece of content is fair game.  Conducting white hat outreach will take a bit longer and involve more effort since you’ll need to identify ways to improve an aging piece of content.  The upside is that you’ll have followed the rules and won’t have to worry about receiving any penalties. 

You decide on the anchor text 

The anchor text you use for a link has a significant impact on its authority and ranking power. In particular, Google values highly relevant anchor text that previews the page it links to.  Generic anchor text won’t earn you any favors, as Google explicitly dislikes generic phrases like ‘click here’ or ‘buy now.’ Instead, you should provide a few more words that add context to the page in question.  Additionally, squeezing in your target keyword will boost the power of your anchor text, so include it whenever possible.  What’s great about a niche edit is you have full control over the anchor text you use for your backlink.  Two anchor text rules to live by are A) the text must directly relate to your web page, and B) it needs to contain the target keyword.  For example, if you’re using a niche edit to promote a product page selling motorcycle wheels (target keyword) to enthusiasts, your anchor text could look something like this: Check out our premium-grade motorcycle wheels. The anchor text previews what the user can expect and even includes a CTA (call-to-action), letting the user know that you want them to click on the link.

They’re excellent for building authority 

To rank higher on search engines, your content needs to have a high domain authority rating, and acquiring high-authority backlinks is the best way to raise it. 

What is a high domain authority rating?  A Domain Authority (DA) rating typically refers to a score developed by Moz that predicts how well a website will rank on search engine result pages (SERPs).  The DA score ranges from 1 to 100, with higher scores indicating a greater ability to rank.

Niche edits rock because they’ll raise your authority equally as much as guest posts and other tactics but are less labor-intensive.  For instance, if you find a relevant website in your niche, it’ll be much quicker to just add a backlink to one of their existing posts instead of creating a new one from scratch.  Not only that, but the result is the same – a backlink pointing to your content that exists on their website.  The amount of link juice it will generate depends entirely on the domain rating of the website in question (and the relevancy/quality of your anchor text).  It doesn’t matter to Google whether your backlinks come from guest posts or link placements, which is why niche edits are such a powerful link-building tactic.  An extra perk is that the website you’re placing a link on already appears in Google’s index, so you won’t have to wait long for your link to appear in the SERPs (it can take months for new pieces of content to get indexed). 

The Different Types of Niche Edits 

There are a few different types of niche edits, including:

• White hat niche edits 
• Black hat niche edits 
• Gray hat niche edits 

Each involves different tactics and will have varying effects on your link profile, so let’s learn more about them.

White hat niche edits

What's with all the talk about hats?  The white hat/black hat dichotomy originates from old American Western movies, where the good guy wears a white hat, and the villain wears a black hat.  In terms of SEO/link-building, white hat techniques are considered ‘good’ in that they won’t land you in hot water with Google and other search engines.  These techniques don’t violate any guidelines, and they typically provide mutual benefit for the website and search engine users.

White hat niche edits involve reaching out to high-quality websites in your niche to request a link placement in one of their existing pieces.  In return, you must offer something valuable to the website in question.  The preferred white hat method is to point out ways to enhance and update their existing blog post. How do you do that? Here are some recommendations for niche edit outreach:

• Provide current metrics and statistics to update the post to the current year 
• Create an infographic that enhances the existing piece 
• Find areas where you can add new insights or go into further detail 
• Add a supplementary video if you have one (another link opportunity)

You should offer whatever you can do to update and enhance the post to encourage the webmaster to add your backlink.  This is the best way to acquire quality niche edits, and you won’t attract any negative attention from Google.

Black hat niche edits 

A "black hat niche edit" violates search engine guidelines, particularly Google’s.  Black hat SEO practices are used to manipulate search engine rankings in ways that are frowned upon by search engines. That’s because they interfere with the ultimate goal of a search engine, which is to match user queries with the highest quality results.  Black hat tactics throw that idea out the window, as they resort to spamming the internet with useless websites that only exist to superficially inflate link profiles and SERP rankings.  There’s no shortage of black hat niche edit techniques out there, although we highly recommend that you avoid them at all costs.  Not only will they tank your SEO profile through penalties and manual actions, but black hat practices also tend to negatively affect users and website owners. 

What do black hat tactics look like?

Here are a few black hat niche edit techniques:  ❌ Unauthorized changes: Adding links to existing content without the permission or knowledge of the website owner. This can involve hacking into a site or exploiting security vulnerabilities to insert links. ❌  Spammy links: Overloading articles with irrelevant or low-quality links that do not add value to the content or reader experience. These links are solely intended to manipulate search rankings. ❌SAPE links: These are link schemes where links are bought and sold explicitly to improve page rank. This often involves placing links in low-quality content farms or using automated programs to insert links across various sites.

What is SAPE? SAPE is a Russian link network that will inject your backlinks into hacked websites, artificially boosting your link profile in the process.  Black hat SEOs that run ‘burn and churn’ campaigns use SAPE links due to their long shelf life and effectiveness.  However, SAPE links are in strict violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, so you will incur hefty penalties if you get caught using them.

⚠️ For the sake of your SEO and link profile, we strongly recommend staying away from all black hat niche edit techniques.

Gray hat niche edits

There is a third type of niche edit that’s neither white hat nor black hat – hence the name gray hat.  Gray hat niche edits aren’t explicitly black hat tactics, but they aren’t a pure white hat strategy, either.  A gray hat niche edit is when you bribe a webmaster for a backlink with money or another incentive.  Most of the time, this involves paying a site owner to insert one of your links in an existing article.  It’s also common to offer discounts or free products as leverage.  While this is also against Google’s Webmaster Guidelines (technically, all link-building tactics are frowned upon by Google in one form or another), it’s less abrasive than using hacked sites, and it’s harder to track.  Gray hat niche edits are popular because they’re easier and less time-consuming to acquire than white hat links. Having said that, we don’t recommend using gray hat tactics either, as there’s still some risk involved. The safest way to snag niche edits while safeguarding your traffic is to become a law-abiding, white-hat-wearing SEO. 

Targeting Niche Edits

Here are some quick yet effective white hat techniques for acquiring niche edits. We won’t go over any black or gray hat tactics since we don’t want you to receive any manual actions or penalties.

Broken link-building

The tried-and-true process of broken link-building counts as a niche edit.  It’s where you find broken links (pages that no longer direct to anything) on relevant websites and then offer to replace their broken link with a similar piece of your content.  It’s a win-win because they get to fix a broken link (which isn’t good for their SEO or user experience), and you pick up a backlink. 

Pro-tip: You can use Ahrefs’ free broken link checker to discover broken links on related websites.

Press mention niche edits

Regardless of how notable your business is, there are probably sites that mentioned your brand but forgot to add a link to your content.  These are golden niche edit opportunities, and you can set up Google Alerts to find them.  Creating an alert for your brand name and URL means you’ll get a ping every time someone mentions your brand online, enabling you to pursue the link opportunity. ℹ️ You can also use Ahrefs to track your unlinked brand mentions. 

Getting in touch with a website owner

If you do uncover an unlinked brand mention, reach out to the person who wrote the content. Check their website for their email address or use their contact form to get in touch.  If you’ve scoured their site and social media profiles but still come up empty handed, a tool like Hunter.io will help you find their email address. 

Resource page link building  

Resource page link building is a strategic way to secure high-value niche edit links on influential sites.  You not only gain a powerful backlink but also the potential for generating high-quality traffic by getting your content featured on a resource page. What are resource page niche edits? Many website owners maintain a page dedicated to providing useful resources for their audience. It’s an SEO best practice, and a resource page will help establish topical authority. We do it with our Learning Hub, which provides a comprehensive crash course on digital marketing.   A resource page niche edit involves getting your content listed on these kinds of pages, usually managed by a blogger or influencer in your field. Here is how to achieve this: 

Create a list of potential websites

Start by finding related websites that have resource pages. Use Google searches like: “[Your niche] + “resources” “inurl:[your niche] + resources” Google will display websites in your niche that have resource pages. Compile these into a spreadsheet. Filter the list so the websites are:

• Relevant to your niche
• High-authority
• Offering valuable, do-follow links

This guarantees you only focus on quality websites that boost your ranking power through their links.

Reach out to website owners

While outreach templates are fine (and often a necessity, we even provide you with one below), you should still personalize your outreach emails to achieve the best results.  Evidence shows that personalized subject lines yield much higher open rates (35.69% compared to 16.67%) – so do what you can to track down your prospects' names (and maybe a little bit about their interests, too).  Consider what valuable offer you can make, such as a free trial, discount, exclusive access, or a guest post on your site. Your offer should appeal to the prospect or their audience (or both, if possible). Track down the website owner's email address and use the following template for your pitch (don’t forget to personalize it): Hey [First Name], I’ve been exploring [topic] for some time and found myself at a standstill until I discovered your resource page. The information I learned from the links there really helped me achieve [desired outcome]. I want to give back for the assistance I received. I have [created/written] a [product/article] on [topic] that I believe would be an excellent resource for your audience and a valuable addition to your resource page. [Your link] Thanks for all the great work you do. I eagerly await more of your content. Best regards, [Your Name] You’ll need to repeat this process for all your prospects while ensuring you personalize them accordingly. 

Concluding Thoughts: What are Niche Edits?

Niche edits (also called link placements and contextual links) are excellent for building domain authority and ranking higher on search engines. Do you need help acquiring high-authority backlinks for your company? Then don’t wait to check out our five-star link-building services at HOTH Link Insertions. Our link-building gurus have a ton of experience with taking link profiles to the next level, so get in touch with us today.