Future - Proof Your SEO With Google - Safe Backlinks with Morgan Taylor

Andy Splichal:

Welcome back to the Make Each Click Count podcast where we bring you top minds in E commerce, digital marketing and online growth strategies. I'm your host, Andy Spleko, the author of the make each Click Count book series. And today we have a special guest who's going to take us into deep into the world of SEO link building. Joining me is Morgan Taylor, the co founder of Jolly SEO, an agency that specializes in creating future proof Google safe backlinks and media mentions. Morgan has over eight years of experience in SEO and is dedicated to helping businesses build white hat backlinks that boost their search engine rankings safely and sustainably. Have you ever been frustrated by backlinks that crumble under Google algorithm updates? Then this episode is going to be for you. Morgan's expertise goes beyond just theory. He is in the trenches, helping businesses grow their organic traffic with earned backlinks and smart SEO strategies.

Andy Splichal:

In this episode we are going to unpack how to build high authority backlinks, the importance of white hat SEO, and actionable insights you can implement to future proof your SEO efforts. Welcome to the show, Morgan.

Morgan Taylor:

Hey Andy, thanks for having me on.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, we're excited to have you. Now can you start by telling us how you got your start in SEO and what led you to co found Charlie SEO?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, so I, I mean I suspect like a lot of people that are listening, it's a similar story. Our start, or my start was, is pretty organic. I didn't set out to get into SEO initially. Actually about nine years ago I was still bartending part time. I was doing content work on the side as a freelancer. And so was Jolly's co founder Greg Hylers, who is my friend from high school. And so we kind of connected. We're like, hey, let's make this content thing work a little better for us.

Morgan Taylor:

We'll start an agency. We didn't know anything about SEO at that point. We're just like people like to commission Blog articles. We didn't really understand even why, why they were doing it in terms of like the larger SEO value. But we went into it anyways and through that process we didn't get a, you know, we didn't make a ton of money or anything. We had clients, but we had one client who kind of showed us the ropes in terms of a particular link building technique. And we were like, you know, we can do this, we can leverage our content skills to, to do this. And it kind of took off from there.

Morgan Taylor:

And since then we've been focused on link building and we use our content skills to do the outreach for that. So and that, that, you know, since then we've really leaned into kind of specializing in that aspect of SEO. Although at this point I am familiar with pretty much all of the, you know, facets. So technical, content wise, that kind of stuff as well.

Andy Splichal:

Right. I mean there's, you know, of course most people know, I mean, there's different elements. There's the, you know, the on page elements, your page speed, all that that goes into SEO. But, but link building always seems to be the most difficult piece. I guess you do the link building for your clients. Do you do the other pieces as well?

Morgan Taylor:

Not typically. We, we do content sometimes. That's usually part of a larger strategy where we need them to have certain pieces of content to assist in the link building. We'll do audits for clients, but we don't offer those as other services. It's really a link building agency, although it's something we're interested in trying out in the future, you know, being more of a holistic SEO agency in that sense.

Andy Splichal:

So how do you do it? I mean, how are you getting legitimate? I say legitimate because it used to be when I started and I used to work for E commerce company back in the 2000s. And I mean, any kind of link was fine, right? A directory link, you know, as long as at Linked, Google would say that's great. But now, I mean, for it really to count and to move the needle, it's got to be a solid link. How do you go out and get those for your clients?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, and it's actually something I know you mentioned, link building is a struggle for a lot of people. And I would agree. Traditionally link building is associated with having a team that can do outreach to websites, somebody that can do the content, all this kind of stuff. There are techniques that you can actually do by yourself. And I'll share that in a second. But to your other point, you know, how do we Ensure that a link is high quality. Our first rule is we don't buy backlinks. So generally if a site is offering an editorial fee or something to buy a guest post, that's already a red flag for us.

Morgan Taylor:

We prefer to work with sites that don't make a business of selling links, that have either a business of their own, a product or something like that, you know, that they want to sustain. They want to sustain their own SEO growth and they're incentivized to do that, I think is something to look for if you're doing link building. The other thing we do is use platforms. There's one that used to be very famous. It's now changed names. But a lot of people who are listening might know called Helper, Reporter out and that is. And there's a Harrow. Yeah, Harrow, exactly.

Morgan Taylor:

You might know it as that. Right. So it's now called Connectively. The original founder, Peter Shankman started his own thing called the SOS newsletter. But the principle is the same all around. It's journalists and bloggers who are looking for contributors to their piece. So maybe a business owner or anything like who you know, anyone who's listening, I guarantee you you have a title that some journalist is interested in quoting you in an article about. And that's a way that you can actually easily, well, relatively easily get backlinks to your site from quality websites by contributing even just a single quote.

Morgan Taylor:

So I know people who maybe devote a couple hours a week or a month even to just send some pitches to journalists for free on these platforms and get some links. It's not really scalable by yourself and, but it, it is a way to do it with a much smaller team and a much smaller time commitment than you might think. So I just thought that was something people might find interesting if they are struggling or don't have the budget to go outside for link building.

Andy Splichal:

Yeah, that's. That's a great tip. Now, do you use that for your own clients or using different, different techniques?

Morgan Taylor:

That's one of the techniques we use. We use about. At this point, we aggregate about six. All the opportunities from about six of those platforms. There's Harrow Help, a B2B writer Prof. Net SOS newsletter quoted all of these ones. It's yes, five years ago or so. Even less.

Morgan Taylor:

You used to be able to just use that single newsletter, but it's not really the case anymore if you're trying to do it at scale for like on an agency level. We also submit post ideas directly to websites that meet our Criteria, like I was saying before, if they have a real product or service, they're not selling links. They look like they have healthy SEO growth. That's also what we're looking for, to directly reach out to them. So it's not just journalists replies, but we were really, we use anything that works consistently and can engage with quality websites.

Andy Splichal:

I know with SEO, sometimes people can get frustrated with their website. You know, they hire an SEO agency, but it's hard to track, it's hard to track how much you're paying versus how much you're making on SEO results or your new initiatives. With backlinks. I'm curious, do you see a quicker rise in the organic rankings?

Morgan Taylor:

Well, I always tell people you gotta expect at least three to four months. We can see that pretty quickly with, especially with websites that aren't have a, you know, very well developed backlink profile. So for example, if we're working with a client that already has hundreds of thousands of backlinks and they're, you know, commissioning an order from us, we're not going to see that, that stark contrast of as before, as after, as we might with, with a kind of newer client or middle developed client. The place that we would see the most rapid and noticeable results is when we target specific blog posts of the clients that we're trying to rank that can really hit for a specific keyword. And then at that point it's pretty clear what's moving the needle. Right. So if you have a piece of content that's ranking for a certain keyword and it's been that way for a while, we start building links to it and then we see results. It's, it's a lot easier to track that ROI right at that point because what's the differentiating factor? It would be the links that we're building now.

Andy Splichal:

I went into your website and took a look at Jolly SEO and it looks like you're offering a free backlink for new clients or just as a task. Tell us about that program. When did you start offering it and how can you be so confident that you can get a high quality backlink right away?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, I mean, that's something we're just offering consistently now. So if you sign up for us, we will give you your first backlink free. We also offer a referral program where if you send us somebody, they sign up, they can get two backlinks free and you'll get two backlinks free. So we definitely stand on our quality there. And I'll say this in terms of guarantees if there's a website that we genuinely don't feel like we can build quality backlinks for, we'll tell them that up front. So anybody that we accept in to do this, we will be able to do it. There are certain niches that we will say no to if it's in like the murky or legal areas or things like that. But for the most part, if you have, you know, if you're willing to have some sort of figurehead who can represent your business, if we do journalist outreach and is willing to be quoted and your website is, you know, in the, you know what I would consider the standard 99% of businesses out there, we can do a good job.

Andy Splichal:

So the SEO landscape, I mean, it's always evolving and I'm curious from what you've seen from other agencies or people doing it themselves, I mean, what are some of the common backlink errors in strategy that either won't work or actually might get you penalized by Google?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, I think the one common error is just sourcing your backlinks through either random emails you get into your inbox or through a freelancer you don't know through Fiverr. Most of those people are just basically going to source their domains that they're going to link from through either a backlink category catalog or a private blogging network or something of that nature. At this point I, I would, I would, I think it pays to take at least a good subjective look at any target domain you're going to work with. If you look at the domain and you can see, and if your first impression is there, I don't see how anybody's actually reading this content or engaging with this website in real life to actually get value from it, I would avoid it. So if you see a website that it's like something news daily and you've never heard of it, it has, you know, a category for every single niche. It doesn't seem to actually have a honed, a honed fan base on a specific niche or anything like that. That would be, those would be red flags for me that are easy to avoid at this point. Also I, I would avoid because of the way Google is now trying to force in awkward keyword anchor text into your link building is not going to fly like it used to.

Morgan Taylor:

So if you're working with somebody or if you're trying to, even if they're reputable and you're trying to say, hey, we have to have these exact specific long tail keywords for our anchor text, I, I would steer Away from that at this point, whoever's doing the content to find a more natural fit, those are things that will stand out to Google as being an unnatural backlink. So a couple. So you know, to sum it up, take a look at the domain you're, you're prospecting or somebody's presenting to you to build a link from if, especially if they're not in a reputable network or you've been referred to them or someone like that. And especially if it's guest posting. Right. And then secondly, try to not focus so much on the insertion of awkward anchor text into the content when you do link building. Most people who will allow that kind of thing, I would also be suspect in terms of the quality of the links they're providing as well.

Andy Splichal:

And so people that don't know anchor texting is the actual keywords that you're putting the hyperlink on, correct?

Morgan Taylor:

Exactly. Yeah. So it's whatever the word or phrase that the hyperlink is. I know historically, especially a few years ago and even longer, there has been this emphasis on extremely specific anchor texts or hyperlink word matches for specific keywords. I think Google is more savvy these days in terms of that. I would also try to find, I guess as an add on to that, try to find ways to be more creative with your internal linking. So rather than have a link builder links directly to your service page, which is not a natural place to link to in an article. Right.

Morgan Taylor:

I mean, why would somebody naturally link to a product page or a signup page in their article? Maybe try to find ways to link to an informative blog post on your site and then you can internally within your own site structure, link to that, that service page that you want to would be another way to do it.

Andy Splichal:

Now you had warned what kind of sites to avoid trying to get links from. I'm curious, can getting links from certain sites actually hurt your SEO?

Morgan Taylor:

So there's a few opinions on that and they range from yes, they can hurt your SEO to no, they won't, but you'll just be wasting your money. I, I don't think any of those are good things. I, I do think they're, I do think there are sites that are such low quality they can harm your SEO, but most. I would also caution people about engaging in a massive, what we call disavow campaign. So that means requesting that Google actually ignore a bunch of existing backlinks. I think for most backlinks, unless they are very toxic, the most likely case scenario is that Google actually will just Ignore them. And if you spend money on them, you'll have wasted money on them. But that's obviously not a good outcome either.

Morgan Taylor:

But that's just my opinion. Like I said, it does differ in the community. So.

Andy Splichal:

So let's talk about the content. So Jolly SEO emphasizes high quality copywriting in your link building. Where are you building that content? Is it in blog post? Is it on the website? I guess. Where and how are my questions.

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, so the content, it all relates to the link building work we do. When I mentioned platforms like Harrow or journalist outreach, you need writers who can write good content to write a good pitch to a journalist that will actually get picked up and used in a featured article that journalist does. So that's where the content comes into play. It either either there or when we actually submit guest posts to websites that they will use. You need to be submitting something good, otherwise the editor at the sites will reject it. So if you're offering to a website, hey, we'd love to write this article for you if you'll allow us to leave our links in, which would then link to our clients. Right, but the content needs to be good to be accepted by the website. Our writers undergo a training process in house.

Morgan Taylor:

We have it pretty standardized, especially for journalist outreach, but we also place a high, you know, value on prior writing experience that writers have before they come in. So I wouldn't take the content aspects for granted or, you know, assume that anybody can just plug it, you know, a prompt into a GPT and get.

Andy Splichal:

That, you know, you, you were going, you knew exactly where I was going. What, what about AI? How, how is AI affecting content writing? And do you guys use it?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah. So the way I've viewed AI and when I go to some of the conferences like Mozcon or Brighton SEO, the main emphasis is on adaptation. AI is at the end of the day a tool. It's not a real replacement for a qualified writer. You still need people to proofread, to edit, to do all these things. We've tested it. We still see superior results with a writer essentially doing the majority of the work we do. Allow writers to use it for certain things, especially in terms of helping to get more technical information.

Morgan Taylor:

It's lowered the cost of content creation by a lot. I think it's most impacted low and mid tier writers that, you know, previously might have been able to count on a large volume of content. People aren't willing to pay that same rate. But in general, for, I think for most SEOs, if you come at it with an open mind. It's, it's a tool that you can use. Right. So and, and it goes beyond just the content writing. You can do it to, you know, with web development, you can have it do Google search prompts, all kinds of things.

Morgan Taylor:

So it's helpful across the board.

Andy Splichal:

So what verticals, what type of clients are you guys working with and who typically sees the best results?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, we work with quite people all over the place. Most of our clients are service providers. They have their own services, whether it's you know, legal software, dev, that kind of thing. Financial niche. We work with agencies who then use it our links to help their clients. I'd say the most successful clients have, they have an actual SEO strategy going on right outside of just the backlinking. So they're doing content, they have a well developed site niches that tend to be the easiest to get high end links on. You know I would say marketing, tech, business, finance, legal, but really lifestyle as well.

Morgan Taylor:

But, and then on our end if you have a strong figurehead that helps out a lot. Right. So if we're pitching a journalist and we can quote a CEO or somebody with really strong credentials that, that helps out a lot. But in terms of actual roi, I think clients that have a good content situation in their own website and they are, you know, have a good content calendar and all those things handled, they'll do a lot better.

Andy Splichal:

Now it seems like with these type of backlinks, I mean it's going to be a lot of hands on work for you guys. How do you bill? Is it based on backlink? Is it hours, is it retainer? What's, what's the fee structure look like?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, so we don't work on retainer like a flat retainer, which is appealing to a lot of people. I know when it comes to digital PR and stuff, a lot of times you're just paying a flat retainer, you don't know what you're going to get. So we just bill for the actual links that meet our criteria, criteria that we've agreed on with the client. So if we build a link and the preset agreements like say it doesn't meet them somehow we won't, that will be a free backlink. But we only bill for what is agreed to meet certain metrics that are predefined and that's that. So it's a simple billing format.

Andy Splichal:

And is it the same per client or is it different per industry?

Morgan Taylor:

It's the same. Although we, we have done cut, you know, for certain clients we've created a custom structure with them. You know, some clients want, you know, their enterprise level. They want to review every single pitch we send out. So maybe we will build per pitch with them. We don't have it broken down by industry, although there are different quality tiers of links, we promise. So we have a standard tier, a top tier, and then we have a separate price for if a client wants us to build links to their, you know, internal blog posts and things like that.

Andy Splichal:

And is it just go out and get as many as you can or is it, I can afford five links this month.

Morgan Taylor:

It's more the latter. So we'll have clients set their budget because, I mean, we wouldn't want to just go out and grab 30 links if a client isn't prepared for that, budget wise. Right. So they'll set a monthly budget goal with us typically.

Andy Splichal:

And how can an interested client learn more about working with you guys?

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, you could visit our site@jolieseo.com and book a call. There's a simple call booking form. You'll speak with either me, Greg Hylers or Chris Green, who does some of our calls as well. Or you can reach out directly to morganjalyseo.com shoot me an email, find me on LinkedIn. And we also have a Facebook group as well on White Hat link building. So if you type up jolly SEO Facebook group, the search will probably come up on Facebook.

Andy Splichal:

Well, this has been great. Is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap it up today?

Morgan Taylor:

No, that's, that's it. Again, thanks for having me on. It's been great speaking with you, Andy, and I hope your listeners got something out of this. Again, if you don't have a budget to outsource your link building, I strongly suggest giving some of these journalist outreach platforms a try. A lot of them are free and if you actually sit down to spend a couple hours, you might have some results right off the bat. Right. So I'd highly recommend giving it a try. There's courses out there.

Morgan Taylor:

Greg has a course on it, you know, do a done for you thing as well.

Andy Splichal:

So, yeah, you know, it's, it's been a long time since I used Harrow. I remember it used to be that you would want to check it like first thing in the morning, you know, early, early before they, you know, have another source. Is that still the same kind of same kind of thing or does it matter as much anymore?

Morgan Taylor:

I mean, I, I would kind of have a, an analogy here. Right. If I was told if you're gonna go to the gym. The best thing to do is go first thing in the morning because it's good for, you know, your body's metabolism and this and that. But if you can't, you're still better off going to the gym at some point. Right? So with, with those newsletters, sure it's good to, if you're going to use the like, absolute best practices, sure it's good to hit it right when the newsletter comes out. I wouldn't at all use that as a deterrent to not pitch on it if you can't make that time. But that is one good thing about us having team members, you know, globally, that it's not that we can do it, but I would still rather be out there pitching than not just because I think I can't make it when the newsletter comes out that exact minute.

Andy Splichal:

Right. Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great analogy. All right, well, thanks for joining us today, Morgan.

Morgan Taylor:

Yeah, of course. Thanks, Andy.

Andy Splichal:

For listeners, remember, if you like this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave us an honest review. And if you would like to connect with Morgan or Jolly SEO, you will find the links in the show notes below. In addition, if you're looking for more information on growing your business, check out our Podcast Resource center available at podcast.makeichlickcount.com we have compiled all of our different past guests by show topic and included each of the contact information in case you would like more information. Any services discussed during previous episodes. Well, that's it for today. Remember to stay safe, keep healthy and happy marketing and I'll talk to you in the next episode.