4 builders who never spoke to each other
Write for someone else's audience and link home
Produce something genuinely useful, work a link to your product into it using the phrase you want to rank for as the anchor, and place it on a platform somebody else owns. The article does not need to be about your product at all, which is why writing about your own interests works: one founder's biggest organic pages were on fashion and poker. Where no natural opening exists, the author bio will do.
The method
- 01
Run the backlink play as three steps: write a genuinely useful piece, work a keyword-anchored link to your product into it, then place it on a content platform someone else owns.
- 02
A single keyword-anchored link placed naturally in an early paragraph earns you the backlink without readers feeling sold to, and when the topic gives you no natural opening, put the link in the author bio instead.
- 03
The article carrying your backlink does not need to be about your product at all, so write about whatever you are genuinely interested in, such as your own learning process or the technology you use.
- 04
You can earn backlinks without cold-emailing site owners or trading links, but only if you are willing to produce writing you own, or pay someone to produce it for you.
- 05
Publish the same tutorial on your product's own site and on a large developer education platform at once, so the piece works for both search and reach.
What it returned
- 407
Cross-posted his tabnabbing article to HackerNoon, where it was marked a top story and added 407 views on top of the 1.6K it had on his blog.
Zue links to his product with the anchor text he is targeting in the first section of this very post, and shows a bio link he placed on an unrelated blog
Zue launched his wedding website write-up on Place Card Me and on freeCodeCamp and it drew a lot of positive response
Lidiya's traffic came from search optimisation plus an occasional link from a major site, either earned through a guest post or added by someone who found one of her articles useful.
Sources
- My 2020 Blogging JourneyBhanu Teja · bhanuteja.dev · Aug 18, 2020 - Prevent Reverse Tabnabbing Attacks With Proper noopener, noreferrer, and nofollow Attribution - (6/27) · 2020-12-31
- 2024 Year In Review | Corey HainesCorey Haines · corey.co · Writing · 2025-01-01
- Everything Kind of Clicking into PlaceCory Zue · coryzue.com · The month past · 2019-09-01
- SEO for Developers: Reaching the Front Page of Google without being SpammyCory Zue · coryzue.com · Your SEO Strategy · 2017-10-10
- Week 15 RetrospectiveCory Zue · coryzue.com · Comments · 2017-07-03
- How to Make $2,000/Month with a Personal Development BlogLidiya K · failory.com · Which are your marketing strategies to grow your traffic? · undated
- 2020 Year in ReviewPreetam Nath · preetamnath.com · SEO experimentation to 180,000 monthly impressions on Google · 2020-12-27
the second source
Three plays a week, for the phase you are in
No roundup of links, no news. Three tactics more than one builder arrived at separately, with the numbers each one returned and the disagreements left in.
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