The Dual Nature of Links in SEO

Marta Szmidt says: "Hi, I'm Marta Szmidt. I am an SEO consultant in the iGaming industry, and you can find me on my website SEObymarta.com "

Marta, why do you use Majestic?

"I use Majestic mostly to evaluate a site's Link Profile and to prepare competitive analysis of niche in terms of link building."

And you work in the iGaming industry, you were saying there. So why is the iGaming industry so interesting and relevant when it comes to using Majestic?

"Oh, because links are very big in our industry. Yeah, it's one of the metrics that will always matter for us. How good is your link profile. And Majestic is very helpful for me because it's saving me a lot of time. The competition is very big, so it's a very useful tool for iGaming industry."

Okay, so, but is the competition, are the competition all using Majestic as well? Do you do the same analysis, or is this one tool that not many people in the industry are using?

"I think we are all using different tools, and some tools in common, like Ahrefs or Majestic, I can imagine as well. I'm not sure how many of the other consultants and SEOs are using Majestic. Actually, I know quite few people, but for me, it's very helpful when I combine with other tools, I think it's very powerful, yeah."

Brilliant. Okay, so how do you go about using Majestic? How do you go about finding the information that you're looking for?

"So usually, when I get a new website to analyze, I start with link profile analysis and audit, especially if it's like new niche for me, if it's in iGaming, but for example, the aggregator niche that I don't know very well, in comparison to the affiliation or to the casino operation, yeah, it's good for me to get the standards of what is the Trust Flow of the websites profile in this industry. Can I, can I put a benchmark on it, and can I say, if we achieved this trust, if we have this quality of links on our site, we will get closer to the niche standards. And the same with topical relevancy, I can see that a lot of sites are just buying links for the sake of buying so the quality is missing, and the topical relevance is missing.

I like using Majestic because which, in yes, minutes almost I will get an overview of the niche standards. So the overview shows me which categories in terms of websites the relevancy in terms of topic should we get links from? In casino industry, this is very often games, obviously, but not only this one category matters, so it's good to see what other topics should we cover with our links, from which websites should we get the links. And not only to look at the standard metrics like Domain Rating, for example, or traffic, right? So I always try to find a way to do something more. "

And when you're doing that initial link profile analysis audit, how do you actually determine that the links that are existing already are good, okay, not so good? Do you benchmark them against other competitors?

"Yes, of course. So it's very important to compare our side the site we are working on, with the competitors that have already established good link profile and have good results. So the first step is to choose the best competitors based on how they rank and the estimated traffic they have on the monthly basis. I mostly choose up to ten competitors. Then I try to focus on the top five, top three later on, but the top ten will give me a good overview of what is the standard in link profile.

In casino industry, we can be a bit spammy. I always say, so it's it's much easier to get links that probably wouldn't be considered as good links in other industries. So yes, I for sure, first benchmark the websites that are having a good link profile and are linking also because of the link profile. Some of the websites, they might have less weaker link profile and links because of the content quality, mostly or other features, especially new websites that are just great products.

But if it's a strong link profile. It's easy for me to see, okay, this is something we should aim to build as well on our side. Not to get identical links, maybe few links in common as well, is good for our strategy, but mostly to see what is the ratio between no follow, do follow links? Where are the links coming from? From the home pages, or are those the most common links coming from articles? And again, then I also have a look what kind of topics can we cover with those links? What kind of topic categories should we go after? And yeah, this is something Majestic is helping me doing."

It's interesting. You saying that in the casino niche you can be a bit spammy. Why do you think that is is that because every operator in that particular niche is relatively spammy, and also, what would be your definition of a bit spammy?

"Ah, that's a very interesting question. I think, in general, this industry itself, it's not the kind of industry that is completely "white", right? We would consider a lot of techniques like SEO is almost normal in this niche, and it's close to adult niche as well. So this is why I would consider this as spammy. Very often we see websites that have questionable links. "

So questionable links has links from websites that are irrelevant, kind of not that category, or links from websites that are perhaps adult only websites. How do you define that?

"You can find everything, also expired domains and links farms. You can find everything. And I think very often it's a mix of everything. You will find those next to high quality websites and publications from really good websites, because if a big operator has very good press release posts that go viral, they will have a very trustful links as well. So it's a mix of everything.

I wouldn't almost do disavowing too often or never on casino website, because I think Google can filter the spam that is coming as well. We get a lot of attacks, which is also our bread and butter. There could be even weekly or daily attacks on our casino website, because it's a competitive niche. I think even Google got used to do this one as well.

Historically, we were always getting a lot of links just to be above the competition. The SEO budget in for link building are very, very high, but now I do see in the last three, four years, the trend that every SEO and industry recognized as well to get more natural links, to try to go with PR campaigns rather than link building only."

Yeah, because obviously you can only copy so many competitors in terms of their link strategies. More recently, you've mentioned going for PR type campaigns. Are there any types of links that you've found as the best way to differentiate your clients link profile from competitors?

"Yeah, I always say, build the brand first. This will help you, not only today, but also for the future. And we see this also with the AI search rise. Brand mentions are extremely relevant, and even if we don't aim to get a specific number of backlinks, if we get brand mentions, this is gonna help our site as well, and maybe we will get the backlink or two.

So I think most of the times I try to speak to the owners of the business and explain why it's important to put your face out there and be present with your brand online. Because for some this is like, I don't have time for it. I have time for everything else. But what is important to understand that this is how they will save the link building budget money as well, if they invest a bit of time to give interviews, for example, relevant to the industry.

Now, with the rise of AI, any automation, any AI tools they're using for their own business, like create interviews about that and write articles with your name, and you will get the mention of your company as well. This is my advice."

Do you have a favorite feature that you use on a regular basis inside Majestic?

"I have a few, so the old school Trust Flow and Citation Flow, obviously, I think it's very, very old, right? It was like the first feature that everyone was talking about in Majestic and it's still for me very good to have an overview of the industry when I start working on a new niche.

But I also like the Topical Trust Flow , because it shows me the relevancy, not only the how trustful the website is, but also how relevant the links are, right? That they're coming to this website. And I think very often, I can almost save so much time and say, 'okay, we have enough links from the category games, but we have zero links from business publications,' so it's very useful.

What else do I like? Oh, I like the Backlink Bulk Checker feature , because it's literally copy and paste the competitors, your website and you have an overview of the most important features, like the Trust Flow, the Citation Flow and the Topical Trust Flow. Yeah, and I think this is the unique feature, like the topical relevancy that I appreciate the most, and also the referring domains mapping, with one click, I can see what are the countries that the links are coming from. So I think this is very unique as well."

Lovely, okay, and in terms of how you go about using Majestic for maybe onboarding a new client. Do you find that you use Majestic a lot to begin with, in the first couple of weeks, and then maybe just on a weekly basis or regular basis after that, to benchmark how what you're doing is actually performing and how it's changing link profiles?

"Exactly. So in the beginning, to do the audit of a link profile and to see what is the standard in the industry, I use it quite a lot. And then later on, even to show to the client how we changed the link profile. How much more closer are we coming to the standards of the niche I'm using on a weekly on monthly basis."

Brilliant. Okay, and obviously you're working as an independent SEO consultant now, if you were to go back in-house or work for an agency at some point in the future and they weren't using Majestic, how would you go about trying to actually recommend for them to use Majestic and have that as a tool for you to use?

"I would just say that in combination with other tools, it's something we can add on top that will make probably a big change to our workflow, because we'll save a lot of time. I think, Majestic just replace all the manual job that I usually need to do if I don't use Majestic. So this would be something I would say."

Marta Szmidt is a SEO consultant at SEOByMarta and you can find her over at SEObymarta.com.