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Digital.Marketing

Digital.Marketing

By: Samuel Edwards
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A podcast covering all aspects of digital marketing including AEO/GEO, SEO, PPC/SEM, CRO and general digital marketing management.2026 Digital.Marketing Economics Management Management & Leadership Marketing Marketing & Sales
Episodes
  • Link Building Strategies That Actually Move Rankings in 2026

    Link Building Strategies That Actually Move Rankings in 2026
    May 30 2026
    Link building remains one of the most critical — and most misunderstood — disciplines in search engine optimization. In this episode, we break down the best link building strategies for SEO, drawing from a comprehensive guide that covers everything from foundational quality principles through advanced tactics for earning, building, and scaling high-authority backlinks.The most important principle in link building is deceptively simple: quality always outweighs quantity. Newcomers are consistently tempted to build as many links as possible without putting thought into where those links come from or how they're constructed. But a small number of high-quality, contextually relevant links from authoritative domains will always outperform a large volume of low-quality placements — and poor-quality links can actively damage your rankings. Before building a single link, you need clarity on your target pages, your keyword strategy, your existing anchor text profile, and what types of links will genuinely move the needle.Relevance is another foundational factor that often gets overshadowed by domain authority metrics. A link embedded in well-written content on a topically relevant site — serving as a genuine citation or resource for readers — carries significantly more weight than a high-DA link that exists out of context. Google evaluates links based on the content surrounding them, the topical relationship between linking and target pages, and whether the link adds real value to the reader. The ideal backlink combines both high authority and high relevance, but when forced to choose, relevance should win.Experienced practitioners also understand the importance of referring domain diversity. The first link from a given domain passes substantial authority, but subsequent links from that same domain deliver diminishing returns. In most cases, earning a first link from a new moderate-authority site is more valuable than securing a second placement on a higher-authority domain that already links to you. This principle should guide how you allocate outreach effort and prioritize new publisher relationships.Passive link earning — creating assets so compelling that other sites link to them organically — is the most sustainable long-term strategy. The most reliable approach is including original, referenceable data in your content: unique statistics, proprietary research, or perspectives that can't be found elsewhere. Authors cite sources that offer something no one else has. If your content contains those elements, incoming links accumulate naturally over time. Influencer engagement and collaborative content creation serve as powerful hybrid tactics that combine relationship building with organic link acquisition.Active outreach remains essential for accelerating results. Guest posting continues to deliver value when treated as genuine contributions to respected publications rather than vehicles for link placement. Featured.com — formerly Help a Reporter Out — provides a direct channel to earn editorial backlinks from major publications by offering expert commentary on journalist queries. The key to both tactics is selectivity and quality: respond only to relevant opportunities, deliver standout insights, and maintain professional attribution standards.The landscape is also shifting in response to AI-driven search. With large language models powering search experiences across ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google's AI Overviews, non-linking brand mentions have become increasingly valuable authority signals. LLMs learn from context, frequency, and credibility of brand references across the web — not just from traditional link graphs. Being reviewed on industry platforms, cited in expert roundups, listed in comparison articles, or referenced by analysts all strengthen your entity signal and improve how AI systems understand and surface your brand. These signals now complement traditional link building and often deliver faster results than lower-tier backlinks.Anchor text strategy requires careful attention. Exact-match keyword anchors — once the gold standard — are now counterproductive and can trigger algorithmic penalties. Modern best practice calls for descriptive anchor text that naturally fits the surrounding content, telling readers what they'll find without feeling forced or over-optimized. Regular monitoring of your anchor text profile helps identify unnatural distributions that may need correction through targeted link building to restore natural patterns.Scaling a link building program without sacrificing quality comes down to process discipline. Document quality criteria, build outreach templates that can be personalized at scale, develop a continuous pipeline of new publisher relationships, and maintain strict editorial standards for every content placement. The organizations that succeed at link building long-term treat it as an ongoing strategic discipline — not a one-time project.For ...
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    8 mins
  • Announcing the Redesign of Digital.Marketing and SEO.co

    Announcing the Redesign of Digital.Marketing and SEO.co
    May 29 2026

    We just redesigned two of our flagship properties — digital.marketing and seo.co. In this episode, we walk through what changed, why it matters, and what it means for the future of both brands.

    Links:

    • https://digital.marketing
    • https://seo.co
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    7 mins
  • Link Cost vs. Link Value: How to Balance the ROI Equation

    Link Cost vs. Link Value: How to Balance the ROI Equation
    May 25 2026
    In this episode, Alex and Molly break down Link.Build's practical guide on link cost versus link value — the equation that separates strategic, ROI-driven link building from simply spending money on backlinks and hoping for the best. Whether you're managing link building in-house, working with an agency, or evaluating whether your current efforts are delivering real returns, this conversation gives you a structured framework for making smarter decisions.Link building should, in theory, provide a solid return on investment. You spend money and time building links. Those links pass authority to your website. That authority increases your rankings. And you end up with more traffic and more sales. But as any experienced link builder knows, that equation does not always flow smoothly. The article published on Link.Build takes an honest look at why, and provides a comprehensive framework for evaluating both sides.The episode walks through eight distinct factors for evaluating the value of any prospective link:Domain authority — the most important single factor, directly influencing how much ranking power a link passes to your site. The article notes that this relationship scales non-linearly, with small differences at the top of the DA scale producing outsized impact.Relevance — links from sources related to your content are more likely to be interpreted by Google as natural and valuable. They also create opportunities to optimize for specific keywords and topics, and tend to be more sustainable over time.Referral traffic — a commonly undervalued benefit. If the referring domain has strong visibility, a well-placed link can generate significant direct traffic independent of any SEO benefit.Internal linking opportunities — different referring sources present different content landscapes. Some are naturally better suited to linking to specific pages or pieces of original research on your site.Relationship benefits — a successful guest post can open doors to repeat placements, introductions to other editors, and ongoing publishing relationships that compound in value over time.Reputational benefits — being featured on a publisher with strong brand recognition can boost your own brand credibility, independent of the link's SEO value.Fit with your link profile — diversity matters. Sometimes a link is worth building simply because it fills a gap in your current backlink profile or covers a category where competitors have presence and you do not.Competitive considerations — links that give you a distinctive advantage your competitors cannot easily replicate carry additional strategic value.On the cost side, the article and episode break down both monetary and time costs in detail. Monetary costs include agency fees, publisher fees, and peripheral tool costs. Time costs — which the episode emphasizes as the most commonly underestimated part of the equation — include research and vetting of prospective publishers, pitching and outreach, content drafting, editing and revisions, follow-up to ensure publication and link placement, and ongoing maintenance to monitor that links remain active over time.The conversation around balancing the link cost and link value equation makes an important point: you will never arrive at exact dollar amounts on either side. But the discipline of estimating both sides, even imperfectly, is what separates strategic link builders from people who are just spending money. Running this equation forces you to make ROI-driven decisions rather than chasing domain authority numbers or link counts without context.Alex and Molly highlight several practical takeaways from the article. First, don't chase domain authority alone — a high-DA link from an irrelevant source may cost more and deliver less than a moderate-DA link from a highly relevant niche site. Second, account for the full cost, especially the time costs of research, pitching, and follow-up that are easy to overlook but add up fast. Third, think about links as investments with compound returns, where a single placement can lead to ongoing relationships and multiple future links. And fourth, factor in sustainability — a link that stays active for years is fundamentally more valuable than one that might disappear in months.The episode also discusses why link outreach can be particularly difficult to cost-estimate. You can invest significant time researching a publisher, tailoring a pitch, and crafting the perfect angle, only to be rejected by an editor who is overwhelmed with queries. That uncertainty makes the pitching phase one of the hardest elements of the cost equation to predict, and one of the most important to account for when evaluating overall ROI.The bottom line: link building is not about getting as many links as possible or chasing the highest domain authority numbers. It is about making smart, ROI-driven decisions about where to invest your time and money. The link cost versus link value framework ...
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    10 mins
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