Well, your question is “What is tiered link building?” Let’s discuss it further.
The number of references or links from other websites to a specific website has been one of the important factors in determining the rank of that website. Such links are called backlinks. Search Engines such as Google look at the quality and relevance of backlinks to a website to determine its rankings in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
Initially, the search engines used to count the number of backlinks to give weight to a website’s popularity and credibility in determining its rankings. The focus was more on the number of backlinks rather than on the quality. Since the focus was on quantity rather than the quality and relevance of backlinks or on their being organic, people began to exploit this shortcoming.
Such a shortcoming was exploited easily by creating a series of websites with no valuable content. These websites provided backlinks to the target website in order to make it rank higher. Tiered link building is something like this.
Tiered link building is the process of building multiple tiers of links so that a website could be targeted. Since it is a questionable manipulative practice and violates the norms of search engines, it may be called a black-hat SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) technique.
In the initial days, tiered link building was used intentionally to boost up rankings of certain websites. Since the algorithms of search engines have become more sophisticated and advanced, black-hat practices such as this have been given a huge jolt. Google algorithmic updates have undermined such ways of manipulating links and have made them less effective.
Though the tiered link building has been listed as a black-hat SEO technique, still white-hat SEO techniques could be incorporated such methods. In order to carry out this, contributions to quality content to higher ranking websites in our niche have to be done in the First Tier. In the Second Tier, our content engagement could be increased through public comments. In the Third Tier, profile links could be created so that people could easily find out about our website.
Tiered link building could be in various tiers or levels. Typically, a three-tiered structure is used. It can be seen as:
Tier 1: This tier consists of high-quality links. These links point directly to our Target website. This tier includes high metrics sites and contextual backlinks. The content quality of such websites needs to be very good.
Tier 2: This tier consists of lower-quality websites that have links pointed to our Tier 1 websites. Such websites are easier to build as compared to Tier 1 websites, as their content quality could be slightly above-average.
Some of the techniques which are used here are: Article submission, Blog commenting, forum posting, profile links, social media sharing, etc.
Tier 3: This tier further consists of lower-quality websites that have links pointed to our Tier 2 websites. Such websites are easier to build as compared to tier 2 websites, as their content quality could be average.
Similarly, a number of websites could be added to this tiered arrangement. But, since the number of websites increases with each tier, building websites especially at Tier 3 and onwards could be a laborious and time-consuming task. Therefore, usually, a two-tiered system may be adopted to get the work done. Many tiers could be maintained, but then it comes at the cost of time, money, and effort.
Since Google and its algorithms are getting smarter, it is better to avoid building links that might appear spammy or junky to Google or other search engines. Spam content or links might result in a penalty and turn the whole exercise of tiered link building less effective.
Tiered link building takes advantage of the way Google crawls and structures the web. This could be an effective strategy provided that it is applied properly.
The following figure illustrates this:
[Your Site here refers to the Target website]
Since tiered link building becomes a relatively complex phenomenon (especially if the number of tiers is greater than two), mistakes are likely to creep in the process. Some of the common mistakes in such campaigns are as follows:
- Poor quality content: Poorly or insincerely written content or lower quality content can be one of the common blunders of web owners while creating their tiered link building campaign. Although writing quality content for all the tiers with same sincerity could be a tedious job, but if ignored, this can cost the whole campaign dearly and might cause it to fail.
- Poor target site list: Target sites should be related to topic on our site. They must have a clean and clear content, and have a decent Google ranking. To link with sites solely for the purpose of gaining links is not an effective method anymore. Further, it can cause our site to lose rankings on the search engines.
Once the target sites have been established, ensure that they are regularly maintained. Low-quality sites should be removed from our campaign because such links might cause damage to our cause.
- Not focusing on other methods simultaneously: If the focus is only on tiered link building, then there might be a possibility of ignoring other methods which might have helped us getting better attention for our website. Tiered link building becomes more effective when it is done along with other link building techniques.
- Chalk out unique strategies: There is a chance that tried and tested techniques which might have worked for others might not work for us. Therefore, we would have to make our own choices and strategies or fine-tune existing strategies to make them work for us.
Since search engines evolve their algorithms through various updates, we also would have to evolve our link-building techniques to stay ahead. This is also needed so that our earlier tiered link-building tactics are not penalized by the search engines.
Tiered link-building techniques could still be used, but with each new algorithmic update, such techniques also need to evolve.
Clichéd as it may sound, but here too, quality content matters, especially at Tier 1 and up to a certain extent at Tier 2 and so on. Other link-building techniques must also be considered along with this technique to get the maximum benefit of the whole exercise.
With careful and detailed planning, tiered link building could still work wonders.