Ultimate Link Building Guide

Private Blog Network (PBN) is a technique derived from the concept of "Marketing By Acquisition". It is the process of buying websites or domain names and converting them to properties that relate to your niche. Thereafter, those websites can be served as marketing tools for your main website. This also exists in real businesses, when one company acquire another company to strengthen its position in the market and improve its sales. Although it can add up to be an expensive marketing technique, but it surely worth it when done the right way. In the following paragraphs, we will highlight the main steps for building your own private blog network.

Part 1 - Elements Of A Strong PBN:

• All the websites that you acquire or buy must be of high quality and not penalized.
• You must always add unique, original and useful content to your newly acquired websites.
• All the websites must be hosted on different A-Class IPs. C-Class IP diversification is not enough anymore.
• All the websites must have a proper decent design with clear navigation and proper on-page optimization.
• Preferably if those sites or expired domains were previously related to your niche.
• All the backlinks that are coming from your private blog network must be natural, within the context of the articles and not overly optimized. 95% of your hyperlinks must have your brand name, website name, website URL and other generic terms - as in "click here", "here", "this link" and such.

Part 2 - Finding, Bidding, and Buying Domains:

There are many tools, services, brokers and websites up there to find, bid and buy expired domains from. GoDaddy provides various options for domain auctions but you need to analyze every domain very well before bidding on it.

Part 3 - How To Find The Right Domains?

Finding the right domain can be a tedious task among millions of available domains. However, if you follow the tips below, you will be able to sort them properly.

• The domain names must have a Citation Flow of at least 20.
• The domain name must have a Trust Flow of at least 20.
• The domain name must have a Domain Authority (DA) of at least 20.
  
• The domain name must have a Domain Rank (DR) of at least 20.
• You need to check the backlinking profile of the domain before bidding on it or purchasing it. You can do that easily using SEMrush, Moz Link Explorer, Ahrefs, or Majestic.
• The domain name must not be penalized and it must be listed as the first result when typing its full name or URL in Google's search box.
• Preferably if the domain name is at least 1-year-old.

Note 1: The "Citation Flow" and "Trust Flow" are two metrics used by Majestic-12 Ltd.
Note 2: The "Domain Authority (DA)" and "Page Authority (PA)" are two metrics used by Moz, Inc.
Note 3: The "Domain Rank (DR)" is a metric used by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd.

Part 4 - Building and Hosting Your Domain Names:

After acquiring your domain names, you need to host them on different Class-A IPs. The best way to do that is by hosting websites under different hosting companies that operate their services in different countries. SEO dedicated hosting services are not safe anymore so be careful when registering in any of them.

Part 5 - How To Build Your Backlinks From Your Private Blog Network?

For building your backlinks, try following the guide below for best results:

• Your anchor text must be a combination of your money keywords and niche related keywords. Always use different keywords on different domains to maintain a natural link building profile. Mix those up with the image type of backlinks.

   

• Every domain in your PBN must not link to your site more than 3 times at most. Ideally, two times is enough.

   

• You should not link from every page of your domain to your site. 1 to 3 links at most from the homepage will be more than enough.

   

• You should not link to the same page over and over again. Target different pages across different domains in a logical natural way (e.g. home page, product pages, service pages, and blog posts).

   

• The vast majority of your PBN backlinks must be contextual coming from high-quality articles with images and videos.

   

• Always follow our complete on-page optimization guide to fully optimize all your pages and posts.

   

• Always have an external link to authority websites like Wikipedia in all of your domains.

   

• Never connect or link your blog network sites together in any way, shape or form.

   

• To hide your track and marketing plan from your competitors, you need to block all SEO analysis programs, bots, and services.

   

• Make sure all your posts and articles are readable, useful and of high quality.

   

• Always maintain and update your blog network websites and keep them fresh and useful.

Part 6 - How To Choose The Right Anchor Text

Keeping your link building profile natural is mandatory when building backlinks. A common mistake among many marketers around is that they use certain percentages when deciding on their anchor text. A better more natural way would be to pick the right anchor text for every specific type of link you are building. A detailed guide is listed below:

• Profile Links, Citations, and Directories: Those type of backlinks must have either Branded or Naked URL anchor text.

   

• Blog Comments & Social Shares: Those type of backlinks must have Naked URL anchor text.

   

• Media Coverage, Outreach, and Press Releases: Those type of backlinks can have a variety of anchor text including Branded, Naked URL, Generic, and niche related ones. The most popular choice would be Branded and Naked URL, followed by Generic.

   

• Private Blog Networks (PBNs) and Blog Posts: Those type of backlinks must take various anchor text variations for best results. That includes your money keywords and other niche related keywords.

[ New update for 2017 and onward ]

Expired domains have now less effect in PBNs than the previous years especially when you completely change the original niche of your purchased expired domain. The best you can do in respect to that is to find highly relevant expired domains that used to feature content related to your current niche.

[ For Reference ]

• Branded Keywords: Keywords that contain your brand name (e.g. Labinator, Labinator Solutions).

   

• Naked URLs: Keywords that contain your full URL (e.g. labinator.com or https://labinator.com).

   

• Generic Keywords: General keywords that can be used for anything (e.g. click here, learn more, visit us, more details, more information).

   

• Money Keywords: Keywords that include your list of targeted phrases that you want to rank for. This also includes your long tail keywords.

   

• Niche Related Keywords: Keywords that are highly related to your niche and your money keywords.

Note 1: It is a good practice to target different pages depending on the type of backlink that you are building. You can link to your home page, product pages, service pages, and your blog posts. For example, branded and naked URL type of keywords should logically lead to home pages rather than product/service pages or blog posts. Long tail keywords and niche related keywords are more logically to be leading to product/service pages or blog posts rather than home pages. There is no precise rule that covers that, but the idea here is to keep them natural and user-friendly as much as possible.

Note 2: Always add good value when building backlinks. Write unique useful articles and keep your readers and visitors in mind above all. When your visitors are satisfied, your conversion rate will increase along with your authority level.