Niche Edits for SEO: The Ultimate Guide

What Are Niche Edits?

Niche edits, also known as “link insertions” or “curated links”, are links inserted to existing pages on other websites. 

The goal is to boost rankings by gaining backlinks from authoritative sources without creating new content. Webmasters are often paid to add the link.

An Example of a Niche Edit

Let’s say you’re selling blogger outreach software. 

You’ve found a high-ranking website with an existing post on the best blogger outreach tools.

This provides a good opportunity for a niche edit linking to your site. 

To build it, you may need to provide the site owners with a short piece of content they could add to the existing post.

For example, adding a link to Respona in our product round-up required writing an entire new section:

If that's the case with your niche edits too, write that section yourself.

At other times, you may find the perfect anchor text you can easily link from without making any changes.

Guest Posts Vs. Niche Edits

Guest posting refers to writing an article for someone else’s site.

Niche editing refers to adding links inside existing content on someone else’s site.

Niche editing has two main advantages over guest posting:

• It is less time-consuming. You don’t need to write content from scratch; just find existing content that could host your links.
• It gives you more control over your results. When going after niche edits, you get to choose the page on which the link appears. You can analyze the authority, traffic, and rankings of a prospect page, check if it’s indexed, and assess potential ROI in advance. Guest posts, on the other hand, can end up unindexed and buried in strange, unexpected parts of the site. 

However, guest posting has several advantages, too: 

• Most webmasters charge for niche edits, but many don't charge for guest posts. Publishing guest posts may not always be free either, but the free option is usually more widely available.
• Also, guest posting gives you more control over content.  You can write a guest post in a way that brings added value to your brand or generates publicity. If you’re doing startup link building, for example, this messaging matters. With a niche edit, you don’t have control over the content. You can build links, but you’re less likely to generate lasting brand value.
• In addition, guest posting also has added SEO benefits that come with crafting relevant content that matches your niche.

Do Niche Edits Work? 

Niche edits work if you build them on quality pages and sites. 

(This is true for all backlinks, not just niche edits.) 

That’s why you should choose your target sites and pages carefully. 

Here’s how we choose them: 

Set Quality Criteria

We first use an extensive 12-Point Quality Check to choose sites with the most potential for real and fast SEO impact. 

During the quality checks, we ask questions like:

• Does the site get real traffic? We check traffic stats to make sure the target site is ranking on Google.
• Does the site have overall strong SEO metrics? We combine data from Ahrefs, Moz, and Semrush to confirm.
• Does the site have a history of taking links down or changing them after publishing? If yes, we don’t use that site.
• Is the site relevant to our link/content? We prefer contextually relevant sites with a strong theme.
• How old is the site? We avoid very new sites because they tend to have less SEO credibility.

You can ask the same questions, or add your own based on business-specific goals. 

If a site doesn’t pass our quality check, we don’t waste time on it — and we suggest you don’t either. 

Do Manual Checks First

Start by doing manual inspections of your prospect sites and pages: 

• Do they publish high-authority content? 
• Does the site have a strong theme? 
• How well-written is the content?, etc. 

This will primarily help you establish the contextual relevance of a site. 

Usually, you want to choose sites strongly related to your niche or industry.

We also stay away from sites that openly advertise guest posts or other contributions. Such sites usually have “write for us” pages. 

Use SEO Tools

SEO tools like Ahrefs are essential in determining the quality of potential target sites and pages. 

Here’s how to use them:

First, enter your desired page’s URL to analyze it. 

Then pay attention to the following metrics: 

• The site’s domain rating (DR) 
• URL rating (UR) 
• Organic keywords
• Organic traffic

A site’s domain rating score tells you how “powerful” your target site is based on its backlink profile. 

• This directly correlates to how much it can impact your site’s SEO. Backlinks from sites with high DR lead to better and faster SEO results. 

URL rating may be even more important, as it reflects the strength of the backlink profile of a specific page you want to build niche edits on.

• You should consider both the DR and the UR scores. The UR scores may be even better predictors of the potential impact of niche edits.

Finally, a page’s organic keywords and traffic help you assess:

• how well a page is ranking, 
• whether it gets real traffic, and 
• if it could send referral traffic to your site.

How To Build Niche Edit Links

The easiest way to build niche edit links is to work with a reputable link building agency (like us). You can contact us to discuss your criteria and how we can help you. 

However, if you’d like to build niche edits yourself, follow this step-by-step guide:

1. Identify The Best Target Sites 

The first step is identifying sites to approach. Here are some things to consider:

• Niche: Niche-relevant backlinks have more SEO value than backlinks from irrelevant sites. So, an ideal site will regularly cover topics in your niche.
• Domain authority/rating: You want links from high-authority domains, not low-quality sites. Use metrics like Moz DA and Ahrefs DR to differentiate between the two. 
• Traffic: In addition to domain authority, the site should have real traffic. You can obtain traffic estimates from tools like Semrush and Ahrefs.

Most SEO tools let you see both paid and organic traffic from other sites. These are just approximations, though.

2. Select Potential Page Candidates

Next, identify which pages on your chosen sites would be suitable for your link. 

There are two main ways to do this: 

1. Using Google search operators

A Google search operator is a combination of words and symbols that help you filter and target your search results.

For example, the following operator can help you identify pages that are associated with a specific keyword:

• site:url “your keyword” → e.g., site:prestigelinks.com purchase backlinks

This method helps you find pages on a specific site that are contextually relevant to:

• your links, 
• existing content, and 
• brand.

However, it doesn’t tell you other things, such as: 

• How well the page ranks
• How much traffic it gets
• What its backlink profile looks like

You can’t make great decisions without this information — especially if you’re on a limited budget and building niche edits on just a few pages. 

So, for best results, combine this method with SEO tools. 

2. Using SEO tools

Alternatively (or additionally), you can find suitable pages for your niche edits using SEO tools like Ahrefs. 

First, enter the URL of the site you like. 

Then, select ‘Top pages’ under ‘Organic search’:

This will show you:

• which pages on a target website get the most organic traffic
• how that page currently ranks
• the value $ of the traffic it gets

Of course, you should choose the pages with the most optimal metrics

Additionally, you can check the URL rating score of individual pages to confirm they’re good candidates. To do so, just enter the URL of your chosen page into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer tool: 

Note that Ahrefs uses URL ratings, while other tools typically call this metric “page authority:”

3. Find The Contact Information

Next, find the email address of authors, site owners, or webmasters responsible for the content. 

You can usually find the contact information on dedicated contact or impressum pages. Sometimes, you’ll find it in the footer, too: 

If that fails, you can use email finder tools like Hunter.io. 

Enter the domain name to launch the search. 

A list of email addresses associated with that domain will appear:

Some search results reveal the name of the individual. You can use LinkedIn to find the position of each person within the organization.

If the domain is owned by a small business or a hobby blogger, it’s usually quite easy to find the webmaster. For larger companies, however, it can be difficult.

4. Create The Content (If Necessary)

Creating content is not always necessary with niche edits. 

In fact, in most cases, you should be able to naturally include a niche edit into existing content. 

However, sometimes you may need to create a small piece of content — or rewrite existing content — to make room for your link insertion. 

If that’s the case, do it. Don’t leave it up to the site owner or webmaster, as this will lower your chances of getting a backlink. 

More work for the webmaster / owner = lower chances of building a niche edit

Make sure that this new content fits the existing one and that you know exactly where to include it.

5. Send Your Pitch

By now, you have everything ready to pitch the link insertion you’d like to make.

The email can be fairly straightforward. Keep it simple—no one likes long emails, especially unsolicited ones.

Here’s a template you can use:

Subject: Your article on [topic]

Hi [name],

My name is [name], and I work as a [position] for [company name and description].

I recently read your article on [blog title + link to the blog]. I particularly liked [something unique about the article].

I would like to discuss a potential collaboration. We recently wrote an article (link this text) about [related topic] that is gaining some traction. I think it would be very useful for your readers, and add more context around [topic mentioned in the article].

Would you be interested in linking to this article from yours? If your website charges a fee for niche edits like this, please share your rates.

Looking forward to your response.

Sincerely,
[name, title, company]

The key points to remember here are:

• Always introduce yourself and the company you work for
• Make clear requests
• Tactfully offer to pay if necessary

For more information about crafting a successful pitch, see our complete guide to pitching to bloggers.

6. Follow Up

If the site you’re targeting is valuable SEO-wise, your recipient will be receiving many emails similar to yours. 

Chances are, they won’t reply to you the first time. But that’s fine! Cold outreach is all about the follow up.

A good rule of thumb is to follow up in a few days, then in a week, and then two weeks after that. You can automate follow-up emails with tools like Woodpecker.

With that said, you should take the hint if you get no reply after your third follow-up. We don’t recommend sending more, as the recipient isn’t likely to perceive it positively.  

When it comes to follow-up emails, it’s best to be short and sweet.

Here’s a quick template:

Hi [name],

I just wanted to quickly follow up on the niche edit opportunity I sent to you last week.

Are you interested in collaborating on this article?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,

[name]

Expect to encounter some rejections—it’s par for the course. However, if you stumble upon an author who accepts your proposal, it can be very valuable.

Where to Build Niche Edits

Niche edits are mostly added to existing blog posts, especially product, site, and company round-ups.

But there are many other ways to build niche edits:

1. Get featured on resource pages.

Resource pages are collections of links to external resources, such as articles, tools, and courses. 

Find resource pages related to your niche or offerings, and ask to be included. 

2. Find broken links and replace them with your own. 

Broken or dead links are links that lead to 404 pages when clicked.

If you find such links on other sites, you can work to replace them with your own. This is called ‘broken link building.’

Of course, make sure you actually have a link that can adequately replace the old one. 

If you don’t have a resource that you could naturally link to, create a new one before contacting the site owners. 

3. Turn unlinked brand mentions into links.

Unlinked brand mentions are mentions of your brand on other websites that don’t link to you. 

Your goal is to find them and ask the site owners to add links to your site.

To do so, you can google your brand name and commonly used variations of your brand name. In our case, this would mean looking up “prestige links” and “prestigelinks:”

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5 Tips for Building Niche Edits

1. Build relationships.

Cold outreach can work, but building relationships with webmasters increases your chances of success. Try engaging with them through social media, forums, or emails before pitching a link insertion.

2. Use SEO- and reader-friendly anchor phrases. 

Good anchor text is descriptive, optimized, and natural:

• ‘descriptive’ means it accurately describes what the reader can expect after following the link
• ‘optimized’ means it uses keywords targeted by the page it’s linking to
• ‘natural’ means it fits the existing context and ‘blends in’ — i.e., doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb or looks overly promotional

Ensure your anchor phrase checks all three boxes to make it both SEO- and reader-friendly.

3. Offer value.

The content you’re suggesting should always be high-quality and, preferably, unique.

4. Adopt a quality-first mindset. 

The more backlinks you have, the better. But if your budget is limited, focus on quality rather than quantity. It’s better to have a handful of high-quality backlinks than dozens of low-quality, spammy links. 

5.  Monitor your niche edits.

Finally, monitor the niche edits you build using SEO or link building tools like Google Analytics, Ahrefs, or Semrush.

• Check your backlink profile to learn when the link goes live. 
• Track your traffic and rankings to analyze how niche edits impact your site. 
• Regularly revisit your backlink profile to ensure that your link wasn’t taken down or your anchor text changed. 

Get Niche Edits In Up to 10 Days, Guaranteed

Build niche edits on high-quality sites in up to 10 days. Our expert link builders will get the link placements you want, or you don’t pay us. 

Our turnaround is just 10 days or less. We also offer a guarantee on all links we build from you — you can get a refund or a replacement link if your links ever go down. 

Get in touch today to start link building with us.

FAQs

Are niche edits white hat?

Like any type of link building, manual niche edits can be considered white hat, grey hat, or black hat, depending on your approach:

• If you reach out to sites and suggest relevant links that add value to their content, this is generally considered acceptable and white hat.

Be aware, however, that link insertions for the sole purpose of manipulating your rankings is forbidden, according to Google’s guidelines:

• Links that are obviously purchased, excessive link exchanges, or blatant guest posting campaigns are all things likely to be flagged under these rules. 
• Niche edits that are too out of place are likely to get noticed, too.

To mitigate these risks, work with a reputable link building agency.

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