Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, I'm Jeremy Rivera, your unscripted SEO podcast host. I'm here with Christian Jankov and his agency above Apex players in the SaaS space and in link building niche. And I love having link building guests.
It's a very niche element of Link of the SEO game that I think is becoming more important.
But before we delve into the specifics of link building SaaS, um, let's get a taste of your history. Tell us why we should trust you based off of your previous experiences.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Well, thanks for having me, first of all. Second, you shouldn't trust anyone. You should verify. You should verify, especially in our industry.
So, yeah, just a brief, let's say 60 second overview.
I turned 30 this year and I've been freelancing since high school, literally. And since then it was focused actually on SEO and digital marketing.
And I was helping one of my friends. He created one of the biggest SEO agencies on fiverr with over 100,000 orders. So that's where my journey began as a freelancer. And with time, one of my other close friends and I, we were discussing how we wanted to venture out into more mature and big projects when it comes to SEO, not gigs and small stuff. And from there we actually went into what I like to call generalist hell.
It's just like all kinds of projects, all kinds of clients and whatnot. And at that point, link building was probably our worst vertical. It was really bad. So we actually started talking about it a lot, reading about it a lot. We started testing a lot of stuff, strategies, and probably like a year into it, link building became like really our main thing. We became like really good at it. And at that time I was one of our main client acquisition channels was upwork. And I started getting, let's say, leads that were more in the tech SaaS industry.
It was natural. And we started pivoting more and more into the link building stuff specifically for SaaS. And our pivoting point was when I watched Alex Hormozy who said one avatar, one icp, like one service. And it really clicked for me that this is probably a really good opportunity to develop our skills and work with specific kinds of businesses and people and super specific industry and offer a specific service and not just be a general SEO agency.
So that's how the whole journey came to be, let's call it.
[00:02:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that. I'm curious what it is that you've been learning about building links in the SaaS niche specifically because every industry has its own challenges, has its own ups and downs.
I think in general, SaaS is interesting as a model for agencies to work with because by their very nature, they're much more digital in their footprint and they don't have as much access to, you know, like the brick and mortar can, you know, they can do their grand opening, you know, they can have events at their space. They can participate more legitimately in the local community. Not that assass should be isolated from the city it's in. But, you know, I, I cut my teeth on, on working within an, within an SEO SaaS. Raven Tools.
And so I'm curious what's been kind of that experience of tailoring that experience into the SaaS vertical?
[00:04:03] Speaker B: I think, at least from my experience, the biggest difference is probably that you have a bigger playing field in terms of strategies and opportunities.
Because, for example, let's take local SEO, you have a pretty limited, I would say, playing field when it comes to what kind of links you can build and how you can build it, the actual links. When it comes to SaaS, it's like there's probably five to 10 different strategies that you can implement that would probably work, all of them some much better than others, and some would have much more, I would say, of a success rate. But still, I think this is one of the main things that early on we saw and it was a key factor for us taking that decision to focus on SaaS. You can focus on link brand mentions, you can focus on link exchanges, you can focus on listicle inclusions, you can do podcasts and syndications which would get you a lot of brand mentions as well. You can do a lot of stuff. And this is something I really like about that industry.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: I think also there's something to be said about some of the stability within a SaaS model.
I mean, you do have the bootstrap challenge and then you bootstrap class of SaaS and the solopreneur sas, but then you have, when there's usually an engaged level of funding, you have like this Runway and launch and there's kind of a commitment from the business side and a knowledge that they need to break into the marketing space, which is kind of a different, it's a, not a total different business business model, but I think it is much more marketing forward and digital marketing forward than, you know, you know, I work with a contractor, I work with, you know, they put in, you know, concrete walls and those guys, like they have their partnerships that they're leaning on, they have those other real world connections. They've got their Rotary clubs and they've got you know, these bigger contracts that they can tap into.
And so digital is, it's there but it's not like, okay, it's not like the base basis of their battle plan, their, their business plan from the outset. It's like almost like an after. Oh yeah, did somebody build a website? Like, oh yeah, I guess we got to build a website at some point and oh yeah, can somebody do some SEO for it? Oh, links. I don't. What's a link?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:06:48] Speaker A: That's not the mentality at all that I've run into with SaaS that have any level of maturity or funding behind them. Is that your experience too?
[00:06:57] Speaker B: I agree. I agree entirely. And it's something that since the beginning I've seen. So I, I'd say you're pretty spot on.
[00:07:07] Speaker A: Yeah. What is one challenge point when it's when you're building SaaS, like what's the consistent achy joint? You know, because every again, just like every vertical has something that's kind of easy. What's the, what's the squeaky wheel that you are always running, that you are always running into on your consultations or your campaigns?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: In terms of campaigns, I think and in general, in terms of the workflow and the work itself, I think the biggest.
It's both misconception and a hurdle and that is that it needs manpower and hours put behind the process.
A lot of the companies and heads of SEO and heads of marketing that we talk with, a lot of them know that they need to do more of page, they need to build brand mentions, they need to control the narrative, they need to build links, they just don't have the bandwidth. And that also segues into.
We know that we need to do it. We don't have the bandwidth, we don't have the time to onboard someone and teach him. So we're at a point where we probably need a dedicated partner that can help us without us micromanaging them or worrying about them or worrying about poor quality. And that's usually where things like sync up.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: So then the challenges in terms of thinking of link building in measurements or budget units according to hours versus what, like by project or by outcome? Like what's.
How are you pitching that scope?
[00:08:57] Speaker B: So we work in two ways. We have two models. We have paper link model and we have a fixed model. With the pay per link model, it's pretty self explanatory. You pay for the links and branch mentions you are getting at the end of the month based on specific criteria. With the fixed model, you're paying let's call it the conventional package price. It's just like a fixed price and you're getting a specific number of deliverables per month.
That's how we do it because we want to create that flexibility and the ball is in the client's yard. If you want to do it that way, if you want to do it for that long. We don't work with lengthy contracts. It's a month to month thing. As long as you're satisfied and you want to do it, we continue working together. And actually that is something that really helps us because the lifetime value and the customer rotation is really high.
And that's one of the main reasons actually because we don't tie them down
[00:09:56] Speaker A: is that pricing delivery model on a monthly basis.
Here is how you've figured out a fix for the fact that some of these things take time to, to do organically. And you know, so you have like, like a lagging element of like, hey, this month you're paying for 10 links and you, you push the buttons to get 10 links. But that's a variable. Timeline is when they'll come in. Because you have, you know, somebody writing an article on, you know, a legitimate journal, you know, it might be a local newspaper, but you don't know whether they're going finish and publish and two weeks or like they say, or their editor pushes it out to another additional week. So is it, is the delivery staggered and the payment upfront or is the delivery staggered and you charge for however many that you accrued or were able to generate within that one month window?
[00:11:03] Speaker B: So you're partially right. There's two things to digest here. The first is that the reason why we created as well the paper link model is to have that flexibility on our end as well for multiple reasons. One is that you might be a super, super niche and specific software which limits our opportunities. There's a lot of overhead, a lot of time to set up the strategies and we'll still probably get not as many links and brand mentions as we would probably get for a CRM, for example. That's one of the reasons. And the second reason is just that, because let's say in the first 30 days we set four strategies. But editors are people like everyone, heads of SEO have families.
You know, you can't control everyone 100%.
Then there's just another example that's on top of it. Let's say we are sending our type of pitches to journalists. We call them expert quote pitches. So someone from HubSpot gets back to us and Says like, guys, we really liked your quote, but we're gonna publish article in the Next, let's say 40 days.
It would be between 30 and 40 days. So it's a bit difficult to predict it like 100%.
But this is something that helps us and helps us with the communication with the client because once we let them know upfront, they know what to expect. So in a way it's a win win.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: Would you say that with the prevalence, the growing prevalence of LLMs and the growing understanding that businesses need to be cited elsewhere, has it been, has that been easier to make link building budgets happen?
Because then like, the conversation's much more simple, you don't have to explain algorithms. Or is there more conversation? Because they wonder why am I paying extra to get links when I can just try to get citations or just unlinked mentions.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: I have to say, I haven't up until now seen clear validation of one more than the other. It's like everywhere we have clients that are saying, like, we know what's going on with AI search. A lot of those stuff are not going to be working in, let's say, six months. We want to focus on the fundamentals in SEO that have been working for the past 10 years, that are still working today, with which I agree completely. But still, AI search is just an extension of where things are going and you need to adapt. And that's one case. Then we have another case where a big HR company with a thousand plus people says to me, the global SEO manager says to me, I have this list from a specific tool, let's say PKI with 300 opportunities.
Can you guys help us get more brand mentions? We don't want anything else. And then I have a person who says to me, there's zero points in link building in general.
That doesn't make any sense today. This is pointless. And she's like, with such conviction.
And when you, and she's the head of SEO, for example, and when you see at the website, you probably cry for five to 10 minutes. So there's like, oh, it's, it's here and there. It's like everywhere. So it's super difficult. I still haven't seen like a clear validation of something that would allow me to answer your question, like with something super specific. But yeah, it's like all kinds of people and beliefs and LinkedIn, as you know, doesn't help at all.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: So yeah, that is difficult with like the messiness of the, the messaging ecosystems where, you know, we are so fractured into different communities. You Know, like if people are hanging out substack, they're hearing one thing, if they're absorbing so much information and the, the AI bros on LinkedIn, there's an economy of, of people that are there, that are pushing one ideology and approach.
And then there's some, you know, pretty legit SEO communities where you can talk about, you know, anchor text distribution and what are, what is your deep linking strategy confidently and come back with answers that kind of reflect a true level of knowledge in the industry.
Because talking about, okay, do I worry about the left and right context of the link as much?
How to what degree do I care about the overall relevance of the page?
Am I aiming to build just the safest links, branded links only versus you know, having branded links with the context surrounding it of being a sentence that's relevant to your mission or core.
You know, I have people all along the spectrum of some people are like, yeah, just help me get some links. And other people are like, okay, I want this keyword phrase and the sentence needs to have like these three variable keywords. Only these three variable keywords never link exactly on those because that's too much. And the page can't be too off topic. But it has to be within the niche and I don't care about Dr. But it should be within, it shouldn't be under this range of Dr. They'll have all these very hyper specific criteria.
My question for you with that reality is what do you care about as far as like the, those, those specifics within the link building ecosystem? Like if you were to map out for a SaaS the ideal campaign, are any of those factors things that you care about or do you have a much more brutalist approach?
[00:17:20] Speaker B: That's a really good question.
We're looking at a lot of stuff, this is something that I talk about like literally in the first few minutes with prospects. So we're looking at five to 10 different metrics as a starter. We're not looking at just something like domain rating. That's a big thing within the link building industry.
We're looking at the website first at the page.
Uh, one thing that I always say is that if I look at a link building opportunity and it makes sense to me, it would be the same for Google because Google is definitely not more stupid than me. Uh, it's quite the opposite. It's actually smarter. So if it, if I look at it and it makes sense to me, the website is a genuine website that serves a purpose. It's not a PBN or whatever, it has relevant Content, the link is seamlessly, seamlessly integrated into the actual copy and the article itself. It looks good. And I'm like, this looks really good. Google would probably say the same thing.
So to answer your question, we're looking at it from a lot of different viewpoints and then we're having a look at the manual, let's say glasses that we put on.
So that's how we approach it. And actually you mentioned the example with the super specific frame within the expectations and we actually have a client like that. And it's like at the beginning we had a lot of internal discussions that were like this is extremely unrealistic. But at one point we were like, let's look at this as a challenge. Let's try to do every single thing this person wants.
He mentioned a few times that he's an ex Google person, he's pretty well known person in the industry.
And we were like, let's do it, let's give it all we can. So it would be like a case study for our own team. So I completely understand what you mean but at the end of the day we're trying to look at a lot of stuff, get a picture based on all of it, not just one thing because that's a bit unhealthy. And at the end of the day the people we work with, they're have experience and when we align ourselves with them at the beginning we can just look at one thing. That would be misleading. It would be, it would be bad in general and it's something we don't believe in like in terms of deliverables and work.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: So yeah, I was just saw something on LinkedIn that caught my eye that said ChatGPT is going back to get more results from Bing.
Perplexity is using Brave Goop. A lot of responses are just a fancy wrapper for Google. And so the rag system, the underlying technology and terminology, you know, a lot of the fresh retrieval stuff is a filter for what we've always been optimizing for, which is search engines.
So if that's the core, you know there's going to continue to be a core value there.
I'm curious if you know, you've thought about or looked at different search engine criteria. How does Bing react to links?
Is the broader view, you know, as we kind of come out of the monopolistic only Google matters, is there any additional data points that you're looking at? Anybody that's doing research on, well, how do you rank better in Bing based off of rank based off of backlinks? Or, you know, DuckDuckGo or other alternate. You know, I think, I think the Chat GPT browser might be dead, but you know, there's certainly other search engines on the market. Is thinking through how backlinks might be viewed on these different platforms or strategies for them something that comes up for you or is it let's get some blue links?
[00:21:42] Speaker B: It's probably not an answer you're hoping to hear, but I'm thinking about it in a more pragmatic way, which is I'm looking at what people want and pivoting in that direction because I believe that the fundamentals are not going to disappear. So when the hype is over, I'll still be able and my team to provide everything that we've provided up until now. So to answer your question, we haven't looked specifically at that lately. We've been more focused on what we've seen from studies, which is that more than half of citations all across platforms come from UGC platforms. So this is something that we've looked more into and we've been testing lately
[00:22:31] Speaker A: when it comes to, you know, those strategies you said SaaS has, you know, this specific range. What are your top two strategies that you like to go for for SaaS link building?
[00:22:46] Speaker B: I probably say number one would be the obvious one for the SaaS industry, especially in the last six to 12 months, which is Listicles and Roundups because we know across the board basically including a product into a CRM, into best CRM for agencies, Roundup, because 40 plus percent of listicles have traffic, which means potential direct clicks and visits.
Also it's one of the most relevant links and brand mentions you can get. At the same time, it's a winner across the board. You have relevancy, you have the brand mention, you have direct clicks and visits. And also probably for the past six plus months or more, it's been proven that that is one of the main factors for getting in AI models and AI overviews. So. And the demand is crazy for roundups and listicles. So this is the first one. The second would probably be just outreach link swaps or whether it's direct or abc. And then you have expert quote outreach. Some of the best brand mentions and links that we've gotten that could be both extremely authoritative and relevant have been with expert quote outreach. And the mechanism behind it is something that I like a lot because you're leveraging the person that you're pitching on the behalf of and the brand behind him. And this is a big leverage, especially when you want to get, for example, we've gotten brand mentions and links from BBC.
So you can imagine it's not something that you can do easily any other way except with some kind of paid media.
So those would probably be the 2, 3 that I really like a lot.
[00:24:38] Speaker A: So just to make sure I have the definition right of what you're describing, that's having somebody in house who has expertise, a subject matter expert, make a series of quotes specific to something and then you're finding existing content places out there topically relevant and you're doing outreach to say, oh hey, I saw your article about, you know, well water. And my well water expert, you know, says this about midi chlorians, you know, here's a quote graphic if you want to include it into your article, we'd be happy to cross promote your article on our socials. You know, if you find that useful. Something like that.
[00:25:22] Speaker B: It's something like that, but it's actually reversed. Actually it's. We're looking at what editors are looking for when they're creating their new pieces that are part of their content calendar. And for example, let's say we see that they're going to build a piece on marketing analytics and we have a marketing analytics and contribution client and we have, let's say the cmo, the head of SEO and the CEO and we represent them. And what we do is we basically say to them like we can comment on this on the new topic at hand that you're building and provide valuable input and if they like it, they include it in the actual article.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: I got it. So it's, it's, it's leveraging those conversations used to be just haro. I know there's featured and quoted. I think there's three or four what platforms like that as well as it's smart to over time if you're interacting with those journalists to make a list because that's, that's kind of their job is to find expertise. So why not play a middleman role and connect the people looking for expertise with your experts. That seems like a pinch hit.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And when you do it at volume, I mean like when you do it a lot for a lot of clients, all the time throughout the day you're tracking, you see basically what works and what doesn't and what are the specifics and things that you can do to increase your chance of actually getting that mention and link.
[00:26:54] Speaker A: I have one of my friends, Michael McDougall, the right thing Agency. He has a lot of concerns about, you know, too many links with specific Anchor text coming in too quickly?
Is that founded it like in the post Penguin ecosystem?
Where is the red line that'll get you slapped down for being too aggressive?
And is it anywhere within the normal context of what you can realistically do with, you know, outreach based link building? Is it like if you get a programmatic set of 100, 200, 3000 links then that could be a trigger for an actual penalty penalty?
Or is there have you experienced oh hey, with this velocity of links there is a red line or too much focused anchor text without brand new. Is there red lines that still exist after the Penguin update to remove the the biggest threat of penalty now is mostly devaluation, right? Like that's what Google has said. Like we're not going to use the Penguin style penalties which in 2017 still got sites nuked and then they flipped the switch and Penguin model changed. But I do know and have seen active link penalties or what seems like algorithmic penalties for excessive link building. I'm curious about your take on that.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: I partially agree with him and but as with anything in regards to SEO, it depends.
But what I'm going to say is the following. It really depends on how big the website is, the specific industry it is, how saturated it is and their link profile. If we are talking about again with the example of a CRM or project management, something that's extremely saturated. The websites there have enormous link profiles. They work a lot on their SEO fundamentals. They do quite a lot of outreach in my opinion. They build a lot of content.
So there probably the volume would be higher than doing something for a QMS software. Let's say where it's a bit smaller, it's a bit niche, you don't have as many opportunities.
This is the first thing. The second thing is that when the data was leaked by Google there were a few really I would say seasoned people with experience that did really interesting overviews on the data. And something that I remember from then that was really interesting was that and that's how I understood it and I believe that's the case, is that those spammy links that you're building, if they are spammy or that lack quality, Google actually disregards them at all. Like it doesn't count them as anything more than something they should put aside and don't take into account.
So even if I built now like a hundred links for a website from PBNs, let's call them hidden PBNs that look like real websites or whatever, I don't think it's going to do anything to this website, even like negatively. Because again, Google's pretty smart. If I see them and I'm like, that's bs.
Google's going to say the same and the algorithms are going to recognize it as the same. That's my opinion at least.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: What, and this, this is a question Matt Brooks of SEOT had was what's the timeline of seeing the impact and what's your understanding? You know, like you've probably kicked off dozens of link building campaigns.
What's the lag time between starting to really accrue them to when you start to see, you know, measurable shifts in first rankings, then traffic and then conversions?
[00:31:16] Speaker B: With, I would say that with, with a lot of the websites we work with that have really good SEO managers and people that are heading the SEO stuff.
When we start working with them, the link building basically turbocharges a lot of the content and the pages and we start seeing like really good indications that the link building is boosting all of their existing traffic. And the pages we're working on probably in the 30 to 60 days range a month after we start working, if it's, especially if it's a website that's positioned where when everything is done properly, we'll probably see it in the middle of the second month.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Any advice for the SMBs, you know, like, who are starting out? You know, I was privileged to work on a project where it's like power for AI data centers and so they had a huge burst of press releases and huge authority sites to start.
But I don't think most businesses have that, that success.
So if you're a typical business, how are you seeing a sandbox effect?
And if so like, how long are you in the kiddie pool before your, you know, your link building really starts to take a hold and you get an impact? Because I don't think it's going to be like one month for a brand new site.
It's going to be longer. But when, what does that horizon look more like now?
[00:32:57] Speaker B: I think you probably need long term mindset for something like that, that's for sure.
And it's difficult to give a ballpark here because you know, I don't want to say it depends, but it's quite subjective.
My advice probably would be focus on the fundamentals. It's my strong opinion that the SEO fundamentals are still working and still impacting search.
Uh, I think especially in the SaaS industry, this is something that you could still, I would say, pull the fruits from if you implement it properly. Uh, let's Say for example, you're a bootstrapped SaaS. I'll probably do expert quote outreach even with a freelancer and leverage my own expertise as a co founder or whatever. Uh, I'll work on content. And the reason why I'll work on content is because I want to start driving traffic. It doesn't work, doesn't matter what it is. And the reason why I would want that traffic is so I can start doing link exchanges and focus on more link building strategies. And this is actually something that the people on the other end would look at. Does this website has traffic?
What's its technical condition? Does it look good? You know those types of stuff. Because till this day people still look at this and decide whether they want to swap links with you or they want to do some kind of partnership. That's a win win.
Those are the stuff they're looking at and evaluating.
And when you're at a point where you're just beginning having traffic, having that good looking brand and leveraging your own experience, if you have such, I think this is a good starting point. And there are still strategies that you can implement in house by yourself that could still get you links.
And even with small budgets, as I said, whether it's a freelance or whatever,
[00:35:05] Speaker A: can you give one what your recommended DIY link building strategy would be?
[00:35:16] Speaker B: Let me think about this.
Listicles is the easiest, I think the easiest in terms of you have a product, you pull up all of the opportunities you have in roundups, you separate them in three different buckets, you have the exact solution you provide if you are. Let's go again with the CRM example. If you're a CRM for agencies, you find all of the CRM for agencies Listicles. Then if you have a broader industry, for example, let's say growth hacking tools that everyone should know about. In growth hacking, this is another bucket of Listicles or tools about growing a business. They're all kinds of listicles in that direction. We call them industry Listicles and another one is alternatives Listicles. So for example, you're a small player, you have some kind of USP against the biggest players in the industry.
You can find the articles that are being built on a monthly basis about alternatives and comparisons. So you have three different buckets on a monthly basis that you can reach out to as the founder, they'll probably ask you to pay. If you have a budget, even if it's like 300 or 500 bucks, you can still probably get those inclusions and start building out your link profile.
So I think this is probably the highest strategy in terms of ROI that I could think of right now because it goes into the comparison layer and it goes into the important stage in the funnel for your potential buyers when they are researching and comparing solutions. So in a way, it's a win win.
[00:36:59] Speaker A: Sweet.
If you have any resources that you've built recently, any articles that you've been working on, give us a taste of that. I'll add them to the show notes and get them syndicated. Get you those links from this podcast.
I cross post every episode to unscripted SEO.com Jeremy Rivera, SEO.com and SEO Arcade. There's three different versions that go out based off of the transcript. So whatever you put out there, happy to link the heck out of it.
[00:37:31] Speaker B: Perfect. I'm happy to. Yeah, I'm happy to send anything that we've done. Yeah.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: Any particular resources that stand out or an article that you've written that that you want to highlight?
[00:37:45] Speaker B: To be honest, I can't think of any right now.
It's the end of the day. It's been a long day, so I'm not gonna lie to you.
I'll probably close my laptop for a minute here. I'm at the seaside and recharge just for like 15 minutes before I can do anything else.
[00:38:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fine. I'll pick and choose. I'll find a, find an article or two to include in the, in the show notes of the links. I very much appreciate the conversation. Always fun to talk to another SEO that has link building experience if people want to find you.
The site is aboveapex.com, right?
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Exactly, yeah, above apex.com and I'm pretty active on LinkedIn. I post like five or six days a week, so.
[00:38:35] Speaker A: Yeah, that's fantastic. Well, I'll make sure that I ping you on LinkedIn. We'll get the show notes out there. Thanks everybody for listening to this conversation. If you are interested in more interviews I've done on link building, I've got a hub on unscripted SEO for my previous guests.
I know Alejandro Mayerhans of GetMe Links had a fantastic interview. We dug into a lot of the more technical jargon on the algorithm side, so definitely a great listen.
Check it out. Unscripted SEO.com and thanks for stopping by, Jeremy.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: It was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you for taking the time and yeah, hopefully we'll speak soon as well. Yeah, thank you.
