What Is A Niche Edit? (Time to talk Backlinks!)

You may have been hearing more and more about “niche edits” recently, and may also be wondering what they are, whether they actually work, and how to go about getting some.

In truth, niche edits have been around for a long time, but they've only started being called by that name for a year or two.

Previously they were just called “contextual links” and were part of link building strategies like “Link Begging” or similar.

Essentially, a niche edit is where you place a link in an existing article, rather than writing a new article like you would if you were guest posting.

So, you're editing an existing article. Not too bad right?

But how do you get them?

Let's dive in!

How Do Niche Edits Compare To Other Links?

Like all links, it depends very much on context.

Is a niche edit placed on a page with a lot of authority? 

Is it on a site with a lot of authority?

Is the article relevant to your site?

Are there lots of other links on that page already?

These are all things which contribute to how effective your link will be.

However, it's generally believed that contextual links are the most powerful forms of links, and by adding a link to an existing page rather than creating a new post via guest posting, you're going to get more link juice flowing to your site.

This is even more the case if that article already has some internal or external links going to it.

Think of a niche edit as easier than guest posting, but more or less the same in terms of power.

1. You don't have to write a post
2. Website owners are more likely to add a link than accept a post… if done right. This is actually pretty ironic, because guest posting became popular since most bloggers were more likely to accept a post than a link… oh how times change.

Are Niche Edits White Hat?

This really depends on the nature of the link. 

If you've reached out to someone and said “Hey, you're linking to a resource on this page, and I've got a similar resource, can you add a link to mine too?” then that is pretty white hat (although remember Google officially doesn't like any form of link building).

On the other hand, if you said “Hey, can I add a link to my site from this article, how much do I have to pay you?” then that's more grey hat.

Or if you're using dodgy link networks like SAPE to inject niche edits into hacked websites, then that's about as Black Hat as you can get, and we're not going to be friends anymore.

Essentially, it's not so much the link that determines if something is white or grey hat, but more the nature of how you got it.

Did you pay? Then it's grey hat.

Did you earn the link through legitimate means? You're all good.

Neil Patel and Brian Dean both have good guides about “Link Beg” strategies, which are basically asking people for Niche Edits.

Here's one I read years ago which probably still works fairly well today.

Niche Edits – The Fashionable Link

Currently niche edits are going through a renaissance among affiliate marketers.

They're generally safer than PBNs, easier to acquire, and don't involve writing guest posts.

So you can see why they'd be popular.

And as always, SEO's love something with a name that sounds cool, so we have a winning combination already.

There are more and more link providers who offer Niche Edits too, partly because more run of the mill bloggers are waking up to the idea of allowing people to buy links on their sites, and partly because it's harder for Google to penalize niche edits unless it's obvious a site just exists for the sake of adding links to it (like a glorified PBN).

Incidentally, we offer Niche Edits as part of our Monthly SEO packs.

Most of these are achieved through outreach and building a database of sites, and some of them are done in response to a new customer needing us to find links, so we actively go out and look for appropriate opportunities.

So it's well worth checking out our packages if you're interested in having someone do this kind of link building for you.

How To Acquire Niche Edit Links

As mentioned, we'll help you out with this in our services but what if you don't want to pay?

You can still get niche edits without paying.

The best method is to follow something similar to a resource page or skyscraper strategy.

1.) Look for websites that link to similar articles to ones you have on your site.

2.) Reach out and ask those webmasters if they'd be willing to link to your article too.

This is going to have a pretty low conversion rate, but if you take the time to network with the webmasters first, it's much easier.

I remember back in 2014 when growing HPD, I was able to get links from other bloggers just because I had taken the time to befriend them.

“Hey man, I saw you linked to this article here. Can you link to my article from that page too? It's pretty similar”.

That line goes over 1000x better when you know the person, it's almost natural.

Alternatively, if you don't mind paying for links but would prefer to just pay a website owner directly instead of using an agency, you can do normal guest post outreach.

Occasionally, you'll find a blogger who says they will accept a guest post in exchange for payment.

At this point, you can usually just say “Well how about I still pay, but instead of writing a post you just add a link to my site from THIS page?'

This works surprisingly well and saves you the time of writing a guest post and waiting for the blogger to upload it.

You can usually get the link added within 1 day using this method, and some bloggers don't charge much at all.

My record cheapest link is $8 for a high DA link.

Other Considerations

As with all link building strategies, using niche edits needs to be done carefully.

You need to make sure you balance your anchor text diversity, your link velocity, and make sure you're building links on relevant sites.

Niche Edits can work well as part of a strategy, but they shouldn't be your sole tactic.

It's good to use a mixture of guest posts, niche edits, PBNs (if that's your thing) and other links.

As we added earlier, you can take up one of our monthly SEO packages in order to get a mixture of guest posts, niche edits, onpage seo audit, and general seo strategy planning.

We'd like to think it's a win-win and you get someone who really understands growing affiliate sites.