SEOs and link builders now have another way of climbing search engines — parasite SEO. But anyone new to this search engine optimization strategy might find the concept hard to execute.
But that couldn't be further from the truth.
Anyone can use parasite SEO to rank on high-authority websites and get their web pages on search results.
In this post, you'll find a step-by-step guide on how you can get backlinks from high-authority sites to be on equal footing with your client's competitors.
By following this guide, you should be able to come up with your own parasite SEO strategies for all your different clients.
With all that said, let's go right ahead and jump right into it.
Find the Best Parasite SEO Platforms
How do you identify a good parasite SEO site? What are the signs to look for?
If a website allows sponsored content, there's a chance that it's a platform that you can work with. However, finding these sites manually will take a long time. Also, you want to narrow down your list by only contacting sites that have already worked with parasite SEO marketers before.
To do this, you'll want to reverse-engineer the search process. First, search for parasite SEO agencies and list them down. You'll then use your list to determine what parasite SEO platforms they use for link building.
A Google search of the company name could reveal publications it made its presence on.
In the example below, a quick search reveals which high-authority websites Originated Media used to get high-quality backlinks.
Other parasite SEO agencies you could try searching for include Ascend Agency, Norcal Marketing, Paradise Media, and Branding by Experts.
Another tactic worth trying is doing a search for your highly competitive keywords and seeing which publications pop up.
For example:
If you're in the CBD market, enter your keywords and see which high-authority sites appear in the results. You're looking for sites that aren't typically associated with that niche.
A Google search for "CBD gummies" might show entries from sites like Healthline and Medical News Today. However, you'll also see parasite SEO articles from sites like Times Union — a news site that you wouldn't typically associate with CBD content.
Once you have your list of parasite SEO publications, find their contact or advertisement page. Talk to them about their sponsored content offering.
Do Your Topic and Keyword Research
You might already be familiar with keyword research — finding words or phrases that people use to search for relevant content. The idea is to add them to your post so that they have a higher chance of ranking for those terms.
But why do you need to perform topic research? What is the goal?
Keep in mind that regular SEO is different from parasite SEO. With the former, you do find your keywords first and then come up with a topic from there.
But with parasite SEO, you want to go through your target site's content first. You want to find a topic that other parasite SEO marketers haven't covered yet. That's because publications might refuse to work with you if the site had already published a ton of articles about you're topic.
You need to come up with a unique spin on the subject. When you do, that's the time to do your keyword research.
Where to Find Keywords
Start with your competitors. Find out which keywords they use in their posts. You can then cross-check those with the ones on your target site.
Ideally, you should look for keywords that your competitors use but your target site doesn't. You'll have to use third-party marketing tools like Ahrefs to do this.
However, keyword research alone isn't enough. You'll need to verify the potential of each one. Using Ahrefs, you can click on a keyword and see the link profiles and DR of its top-ranking pages.
Have a Backup Plan
After all your research, you'll have a better understanding of how many links you'll have to build. More importantly, you'll have an idea of just how much it'll cost you to get backlinks from high-authority websites.
If you don't think you have the resources to build as many links as you initially thought, you'll have to switch to plan B. The same goes for when the target website's articles already contain the keywords you plan on using.
That means reducing the number of keywords or replacing some of them.
Remember:
Even if you're paying to publish content on high-authority sites, it doesn't mean their pages will rank if the pages don't have the right keywords. That's also the case when the site already has pages ranking for the same keywords.
It's better to prepare just in case you run into that scenario.
Sign Up for Affiliate Programs
This is an optional step though it's highly recommended that you do so.
As SEOs, you want to offer different types of services to increase your earning potential. Parasite SEO helps affiliate marketers earn more money.
Not only could their content rank higher because they're working with websites that have high domain authority, but they can also improve their reputation when they associate themselves with news publications.
That means people are less hesitant to click on affiliate links and shop online.
This is something your clients might want. If they do, you can help them sign up for an affiliate program for a price.
Of course, nothing is stopping you from doing the same thing for yourself if you need a side hustle.
A quick Google search will show you just how many affiliate sites there are in the market. But you might want to look for those that cater to a particular niche. For example, there are affiliate networks that focus on gambling.
When choosing an affiliate program, you need to check a couple of things before committing.
You want to make sure that the affiliate program only sells quality products. The company should also have a great reputation. There should also be a section on their website showing how much commission they pay for successful purchases.
It's also important that you go over its payout structure. This will tell you how long it takes for them to pay their members. This should also clarify the eligibility period for every click that potential customers make.
Create a Phantom Brand
One of the problems that parasite SEO marketers face is that they're working on behalf of a client. So when they're contacting publications to work with, they have to decide whether they should use their real identity or create a brand or persona for each project.
The thing is, a lot of parasite SEO marketers don't have an established online presence. And that's exactly because they work for different brands and clients. They could also face liability issues if they're posting on behalf of so many people.
You don't want your past posts coming back to haunt you at some point.
So how do you get around that?
The simplest solution would probably be to create a brand and buy a domain for it. You should also consider using a new email address for every project or client. Remember, the goal is to not have any of your posts and projects link directly back to you.
Use your new domain and email address to build a site. It doesn't have to make it all fancy. Even a simple, one-page site will do.
Aside from creating a new email specifically for registering new domains and other services you might need, you should also get a branded one that you can use when you reach out to publications. This would make you appear more legitimate.
A branded email address refers to one that uses your domain's extension rather than one from an email service provider like Gmail. You want [email protected] and not [email protected].
Get in Touch With Publications
After you create a brand and everything's set, you can now start contacting publications. Those that are new to outreach strategies find the whole process intimidating. But it's not, really.
There are even templates you could use when sending sponsored content requests. Though it would be better if you could personalize some of the details to make parasite SEO work better for you. Nobody wants to receive bland, generic emails.
Here's an example of what you could send to publications.
Subject: Sponsored Content Post
Body:
Hi,
I'm interested in getting sponsored content published on your website. I saw one on your site [link to a sponsored post] and wanted to post one about a different subject.
I was hoping you could help me with this. What do I need to do to get a sponsored post? I'd appreciate it if you could give me details so we could move forward with this.
Thanks!
So what details should you look for in a parasite SEO publisher?
First, you should look at how much it charges for a sponsored post. How much would it cost? And does it offer package prices if you were to order more than one? This might help you lower the cost and give you an opportunity to target other keywords.
You should also look at how long a post should be. While you're talking to their representative, you should ask if it's okay to insert images. And if you can, what type of images can you add? Each site will have a different standard.
Clarify what topics you can cover on the site. And if your topic conflicts with another one they already have, ask if that's going to be a problem.
And make sure you ask about backlinks. Do they allow backlinks? And if they do, are the backlinks do-follow or no-follow? It wouldn't make much sense to pay for sponsored posts if backlinks aren't do-follow.
Use URL Shorteners
Using a URL shortener is a good idea when working with an external authority site. Masking your URLs can help you gain readers' trust, especially if you use your branded domain. As a bonus, they make your client's brand much easier to remember.
You should do this for every project you're running.
There are third-party service providers that can help with this. One example is Rebrandly.
This platform lets you buy the domain directly from the site which makes it so convenient. It's a bit more expensive though compared to buying it off a domain registrar like Namecheap.
However, Namecheap will require you to upgrade your plan if you decide to connect it to Rebrandly. So you're saving money by buying it off Rebrandly directly.
You can use Rebrandlly to organize your domain names from all your parasite SEO projects.
Use the URL shortener when adding links to your content.
Write Your Content
Next is arguably the easiest part of running a parasite SEO strategy — and that's writing your content.
The main thing you should keep in mind is that publications have their own set of standards. They'll send you editorial guidelines as soon as you come to an understanding. Make sure you don't violate them.
You can look at some of the sponsored content that the publication published for reference. Try to stay as close to the format, images, style, and other elements as you can.
You can use an SEO tool to optimize the pages. This will give you the highest chance of ranking your web pages for search engines. There are plenty of options but Frase is a good start.
Not only does it help you optimize your content, but can help with other things too. It can generate keywords for you to use within your post. It lets you know the average word count that a post about your topic typically has.
It will also show you the average number of links, headers, and images for this type of article.
Using SEO writing tools will give you a better idea of how to approach an article. And it cuts down the research time in half. If you're working for several clients at once, this is a lifesaver.
There's even a feature that lets AI build your post's outline for you. Or if you want, you can use AI to generate the content. Just make sure to go over the post and make edits as needed.
Some SEO tools have a scoring system to indicate whether a post is ready for publishing. It will tell you if you managed to optimize it well enough. Take advantage of the feature. Make sure your score is as high as it possibly can be before you send it over to the publication for review.
Link to the Published Post
There are things you can do to boost a sponsored post once published. One of those things is linking back to the host domain.
Ahrefs has a feature where it allows its users to check how many backlinks a page needs to rank higher in the results pages. The name of this tool is Ahrefs Keyword Explorer.
Enter your main keyword and you'll see data as to how many backlinks each top result has. You also get to see how many of these backlinks are from sites with higher domain authority.
You'll want to build backlinks that are of the same quality or higher.
But what if you don't have the time to do that? Well, you could always hire someone to do it for you. That way, you can continue working on some of your other parasite SEO projects.
Hire freelancers to write guest posts for you. Then have them link to the sponsored post. There are also other agencies that specialize in blogger outreach. Even the most seasoned parasite SEO experts can only do so much. Sometimes the smarter choice would be to delegate tasks.
Monitor the Results
The last step would be for you to monitor the results. Again, you can use Ahrefs to monitor the status of your sponsored content. Check the organic ranking and traffic. See what keywords it's ranking for.
If you're providing affiliate marketing services for your client, you'll want to check the affiliate program to see if the brands you're working with decided to change networks. This will impact the value of your backlinks.
Here's a tip:
A publisher might charge you money if you want to change the link in the sponsored content. But if you used a URL shortener, all you need to do is change where the link goes. No need to pay anything. Isn't that convenient?
Conclusion
There you have it. These are the steps you need to take if you want to use parasite SEO to get backlinks from high-authority websites.
As you can see, it's really not that difficult despite being challenging at first. As long as you do your research right, you shouldn't run into major issues.
If you've tried getting high PR links already and want to try something different, you can't go wrong with parasite SEO. There's a whole list of sites that accept parasite SEO so you'll never run out of options.
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