The Ultimate Blog Podcast - Backlink Boost: How to Grow Your Blog's Reach with Brittany Herzberg

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

When it comes to growing your blog, we know that SEO – and namely, backlinks – can be a confusing topic. Today on The Ultimate Blog Podcast, we’re so excited to welcome back Brittany Herzberg to talk about everything you need to know about backlinks. Brittany is an SEO expert, and she’s sharing what backlinks are, why they’re essential, and how to use them to boost your blog traffic in 2025. And if you haven’t checked out Episode 143 with Brittany Herzberg on How to Use Case Studies in Your Blogging Business be sure to listen to that episode as well!🔗Check out the show notes for Episode 162!

Hey bloggers, are you serious about turning your blog into a money-making machine? One of the ultimate milestones is getting on an ad network. And let's be honest, figuring out how to get there can feel overwhelming. That's where the ultimate blog roadmap comes in. Our course and membership community are designed to help beginner bloggers like you build a rock- rock solid foundation for success. For just $97 a month, you'll get access to step-by-step training, all the resources you need, and a supportive community to keep you accountable and motivated.

You'll learn exactly how to create content that works, focus on the right steps to reach your goals faster, and also avoid wasting time on the things that don't really matter. Plus, our membership includes ongoing support and cheerleading and also guidance from other bloggers who have been where you are. We have three monthly calls and a forum that's always open for collaboration and help.

The best part, no more overwhelm. With the ultimate blog roadmap, you'll know exactly what to do and when to do it. It's a monthly membership designed to take the guesswork out of blogging and help you reach your goals for just $97 a month. If you're ready to join us, head over to ultimateblogroadmap.com and let's get started. Welcome to the Ultimate Blog Podcast. This podcast is the podcast we wish we had when we started blogging. I'm Amy Reinicke and I'm Jennifer Draper. Our episodes dive deep into how to monetize your blog, sharing unique insights and practical tips.

We bring you in-depth interviews with successful bloggers and experts who offer valuable, actionable advice. Our mission is to educate, support, inspire, and empower you in your blogging business. Welcome to The Ultimate Blog Podcast. We have brought Brittany Herzberg back on the podcast. She was with us back in 2024, episode 143, to talk about how to use case studies for your blogging business. I really enjoyed that episode.

So if you have not had a chance to listen to that, we're going to link that in the show notes. But today we are going to talk about backlinks. And what's funny about this is that she shared a resource about backlinks. I got the resource and I immediately emailed her and was like, I need you to come on our podcast, please. Like you need to come back. Because this is gold, this is what people need to know all about backlinks.

And Brittany is an SEO expert, and so she really understands why backlinks are important. And I think that just helping you guys understand why backlinks are important and how you can build them is going to be really helpful as well, especially, you know, we're in January of a brand new year. How can we add this layer into your business this year and see what it does for you? So welcome back, Brittany.

Hi, I'm happy to be here. I loved like I told you before we were hit record. I loved that episode. So if you haven't listened, please go back. Yeah, it is a great one. We learned a lot on that one. And we're gonna learn a lot today. And like I mentioned, we're going to talk about backlinks. This is something that we get a lot of questions on in our membership, the ultimate blog roadmap, because we are really coaching people in that membership

to grow their blogs and how can they grow their traffic. And backlinks is one of those ways, obviously, but you know, there's kind of this like foggy idea of like, how do you do that? And so for the person listening who's Amy, I have no idea what a backlink is. Brittany, would you like to explain to them what a backlink is and then why they are so important? Yeah, backlinks are really just if we're going high level here, it's any time something else, someone else, another website is linking to your website.

So it's any other place that's driving traffic to your website. So I mean, it's huge because it gives you exposure. It gives you that visibility, it grows your reach. It's something else someone else doing work for you, marketing on your behalf, which is kind of amazing. And it's like one of the top factors that Google is looking at when they're trying to figure out

what your score is in air quotes for SEO. So where do they want to place you in the search results? How much do they trust you? How much should a person trust you? So they're kind of important. Just a little, a little bit. Yeah. And from an SEO perspective, I think it's good that you mentioned that because I know that there are some people who have completely jumped ship with keyword research, with the whole Google update and everything. What's your opinion on that? I mean, I don't want to spend a lot of time here,

but do you think that that's something that people should be doing, is just not focusing on that at all? Or do you think that that's something that people should still be taking into consideration is like your Google ranking and stuff? Yeah, I mean, stick to the basics with SEO. It's just Google changes,

any kind of search engine changes are very similar to, you know, the algorithm basics with SEO. It's just Google changes, any kind of search engine changes are very similar to the algorithm updates with Instagram. If you stick to the basics on Instagram, things are good. If you stick to the basics with SEO, things are good. Don't get caught up in the changes and the tides moving and people saying this, people saying that. Also, none of us know what's gonna happen with any of the SGE, the search generative, whatever,

the AI stuff, we don't know. So just stick to the basics, keep talking to your people, stay very clear on who it is you're helping, how you're helping, what you want to be known for and you will be golden. Yeah. Well, we still want to get that traffic. We want to have a diverse, you know, diverse sources of traffic to our website. And so I think for most of us as bloggers, that's still pretty important is thinking about SEO. So if layering in some kind of a strategy about backlinks could help, I think it's worthwhile to consider. And so could you talk a little bit more about what does that mean? I know creating great content and all of that is the starting point, but then where do you go from there?

How do you find ways to get people to link to you or do you? That is a really good question. So you could go out and actively look for places to link to your website. I find that if you create really good stuff and you do a really good job networking and connecting with some key people, some key groups, or whatever that may look like for you, the backlinks are going to automatically happen. I am just always coming to things from so much of a place of organic, an organic approach,

a relationship marketing type of approach. So I don't personally go out and ask people to link to my site. It just happens. But there are two different types of approaches. So if one feels better to you, go with that. If you want to actively go out and seek people to link to your website, you totally can. And then there's of course, like the typical ways that we think of getting backlinks if you're familiar with them at all, which is something like what I'm doing here today, I'm on a podcast, my website will get links because I made this appearance. So yeah,

we can totally go into like several different rabbit holes there, but it's definitely worth it. It's something that Google is looking at. It's something that's going to give you that traffic and vouch for you really without you even having to do much. But again, you could go out and source those links, but you could also let it happen just naturally. I will say just from a personal standpoint, I'm going to be really honest when I get random emails that are like I think that you should put our link on your website for this. Those are an automatic delete Yes, so I don't know if anybody listening is doing those and you're actually getting people clicking and adding the link in But I personally like with love your body well or spark media

Those are an automatic delete. I can't say I've ever once used one, to be really honest. We've been in business since 2017. I've had my blog since 2017 as well. That's just something to consider. Jennifer, have you ever used one of those? Just out of curiosity. I have not.

Again, I automatically delete them as well just because they don't feel really authentic to me So I think once again in a world of AI and all of that it kind of goes back to what we've been kind of talking About a lot lately is the idea of community and how you can build that and that being a part of it So I know that's not all of what what you're gonna reference today, but I want to talk about the podcast first So going on podcasts and how that can be like an easy quote-unquote backlink for you what you're going to reference today, but I want to talk about the podcast first. So going on podcasts and how that can be like an easy quote unquote backlink for you. So when somebody does that, how does that provide a backlink to a blog or to a website? How does being on a podcast help them?

So it's good when you're a guest to mention your website, to mention, I've learned this recently, to actually say, you should visit me at britneyhirsberg.com. It's actually really good to verbalize that because that gives people, they can go and type that in, they can go and search for your website and get access there. But also when podcasts go live, and I learned this last year too,

and I was like, oh my, I was totally blown away by it. When this episode goes live, I will not just get one link to my website. I will be getting a link from Apple to my website, from Spotify to my website, from pod, I don't know, there's like a bajillion different like podcast hosts. Every single one of those platforms is linking to my website. So when you go out and you talk to someone once, or if you get fortunate enough like I did and I get invited back twice, you're getting linked multiple links from each of those interviews.

So I mean, when you talk about like return on investment, return on your effort, your energy, it like it's the top that I can think of. So I think, you know, that was the biggest thing that I just didn't realize is that you get so many links from one appearance. It's not just one link. So that makes you look really good and trustworthy and the expert that you are to Google and other search engines and even to people, to individuals, to humans. Because if they're going to see you higher up in the ranking, higher up on a Google search page, they're automatically going to think, oh,

this person really knows what they're talking about. This is really cool. And the more your name is going to show up with a subject or with a few subjects, and that just makes you seem more trustworthy. Hopefully you are, most of the time people are. I tend to like, just like you were saying, I delete those emails that I get pitched for the backlinks, but I also scroll past the sponsored on Google search results page. So that's what I'm talking about.

When you actually get to the legit search results options, the different blogs and websites, that's where I start looking and that's where a lot of people start looking. So, yeah. Totally. Kind of keeping in line with this podcast, I have a question on that. So let's say you're a guest on a podcast and they don't have a website. What are the things that as a podcast guest that, okay, so let me just, let me paint it this way. So I went on a podcast

and this is something that actually happened. So I went on a podcast. This is something that actually happened. So I went on a podcast recently, but the podcast doesn't have a website. So does that affect it at all? I know it's probably better for them to have an episode like a website with show notes, but you're saying that they can still get those links from the podcast directly to as well. Correct? I follow you. Yes. And this has happened to me too. So I've gone on another podcast where that host didn't have a website. So the link that I get, I'm still getting links from Apple and Spotify and those other podcast platforms. I'm just not, in addition to that, getting a link from their website to my website. So yes, it's okay. It doesn't hurt you. It's not something that you should be concerned about. But for that podcast host,

they should definitely have the books. I know. That's an episode for another day. It is. It really is. Uh-huh. Okay. So when you go in the show notes on Apple, is there anything that you would, I can say require, but ask that the podcast hosts be including? So should there be a link just to the show notes if they have a website? Or should you ask them to actually put your website in the show notes on Apple or Spotify or whatever? I know that that can be kind of an SEO kind of thing too in regards to show notes We've had we've heard differing opinions. They're having two different editors in the past

So I just be curious to know what your recommendation there is is do you put the links for your guests? You know Instagram and their and their website and things like that Is that something that they should be requiring or do you just? Strictly as the podcast hosts want to send it to your website where then they will get linked to the guests information That is a really good point It does it does and I'm like over here thinking through because I recently changed my strategy a little bit for my own show notes So what I do now is I host my podcast with Buzzsprout and I've only been sending people to, I've been giving them one link to the guest in that show description. And then on my blog post that I make, I link to everything.

The freebies, the somebody has a book they recommend, if they have a podcast of their own, if they have Instagram website, whatever, I put all of those links in the blog post. So here's what I would say, because even you asking that question is getting my wheels turning. What should probably happen is you as a podcast guest should definitely have some kind of website blog, whatever that you're sending people to, that's your own. That's not just Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or who knows whatever else. In that podcast show description, so like the thing I'm typing in Buzzsprout, I would

say definitely link out to the blog post that you're going to have for that podcast episode and dump all of the links there. But in that shorter show description that you're putting in Buzzsprout, have that person's website. That's what I would do. And actually, now that I'm even saying that out loud, I'm like, I want to go back and make sure I'm doing that for people because that's what's going to give you the massive amount of backlinks as the guest. Yeah, because I think it gives them a better opportunity to click on your content when for people because that's what's going to give you the massive amount of backlinks as the guest. Yeah, because I think it gives them a better opportunity to click on your content when it's there.

And I know that there's differing opinions there. You know, we've done it a couple different ways and we've tried out different things having the podcast for three years now. Oh, that's exciting, Jennifer. We passed three years on the podcast. That just came and went and we didn't even mention it. That's really exciting. Yeah, I think it was like January 4th was three years.

So, yay. Yay. Congratulations. Hey, thanks. Gosh, and this is how my brain works. So that's exciting and that's good to know. I think that that's just, I think if you're a blogger who's creating content on a website, I think this idea that we have kind of pushed a little bit more recently, like, hey, try to go on a podcast like we had Christina Lankowski on the podcast talking about how you can get on them as well.

We do find this to be valuable and a really good way to get in front of people. But I think I think, you know, that's the first step. The second step is like, these are the things that need to happen once I get on there and make sure that you're kind of having those systems in place and those processes in place so people have a good understanding. You don't just want to go on a bunch of shows just to go on a bunch of shows and it's not actually helping you or moving the needle forward in the area that you need it to. So I just think it's good for our listeners to get kind of an understanding in podcasts, you know, in the podcast world because it does work a little bit differently than it does with your website. So kind of an understanding in podcasts, you know, in the podcast world, because it does work a little bit differently than it does with your website. So kind of

glad that we tackled that. And I hope that we've encouraged you to at least try to reach out to some podcasts and make maybe make that a goal for 2025. And if you ever like have questions on that, you guys know that you can email us and ask us and we'd be happy to help you, you know, get set up and all that. So, but besides podcasting. Well, can I add one more thing before we go away from it? Because especially it sounds like you're talking to some people who may be newer to podcasting. Please don't feel, if that is you listening, please don't feel like you can't go ask the

podcast host to change something in the show notes or change something in the blog. I've had to ask my name to be changed because I have a complicated name, which I totally get. So I may see that someone added an extra letter and I'll just go and kindly, thanks so much for having me. So my name is this. Could we change that? I'm so sorry. I know I'm like a pain in the... I'll kind of like laugh it off with humor as we all know, but you can go and you can ask for that. If you change a link, especially something like this actually is a good really example for you. If you change like a freebie or if you change an angle of something, let's just stick with

the freebie. Let's say you had a freebie and the freebie is now gone. You had a website page and now the website page is now gone. Go and let them know and say, hey, I had this thing, but I changed it and I just wanted to pass that along. And if you're able to change that in the show notes, that would be amazing. Thanks. They would love you. So like, don't feel like you can't go and talk to them. I just wanted to pass that along. And if you're able to change that in the show notes, that would be amazing, thanks. They would love you. So like, don't feel like you can't go and talk to them.

I just wanted to share that. Yes, and as a podcast host, I 100% agree with you. If we ever make a mistake on like a show note, we've done that, we're human. You know, there's been a link miss, there's been, it just happened yesterday, the one that went out. I was like, that's not all supposed to be one word. And I had to go back and change it and make sure it looked right, you know, because I

think our guest probably looked at it and was like, that's not the way that should look. Thankfully, I noticed it before she did. So but I think that that's really important is when you go on a podcast, I mean, honestly, we yes, we want people who are listening to this episode to learn something. But it's also like free marketing for the person who's coming on. Like we believe in what you're doing, we are in alignment with you, you're a great person to refer people to,

and so that's the goal. And so as a podcast host, you know, that's part of our job is to make sure that we've made you look as good as possible. And part of that starts with, you know, Spawn or Name Right and things like that. And if your links aren't working, that also can negatively impact your blog as well.

Because if they're going to that link and it's broken, that doesn't help your website. So if a podcast guest were to come back and say that link is no longer valid, that is actually helping you as well. So it's worth the time to do that. So excellent, excellent tip. Broken links are just super fun and they can just be something that we're always going to have to deal with as bloggers. So may as well embrace.

So besides podcasts, what are some other ways and tips that people can get more backlinks on their site if they are just like, nope, I have no desire to go on a podcast, that sounds like literal torture. What are some other ways that they could start adding backlinks in a real organic way, like you mentioned? So you can get them from other people for sure. Another example of this would be going and guest blogging.

And especially if you already are blogging and you're listening to this podcast, and you most likely are, you could go and either seek out those opportunities, or again, someone may ask you if you want to do that. Similarly with the links and hey, put this link in your blog for us. You don't want so much that, you want more of something that feels organic. So like example

for me, this is going to get so confusing, but I have a friend, her name is Brittany. She's a website designer and she wanted to talk more about SEO. So she had me on her blog. I wrote a guest blog. I can't even remember what the subject of it was, but I wrote this blog and of course as part of that, she's let me know your bio, share your bio, share a headshot, share any of the links that you want me to include. So of course, one of those links for me is going to be my website link.

So that's how you get a backlink that way. You can, in addition, give yourself back links. And I won't tell you all of the millions of ways that you could do this, that might be an exaggeration. But one key one would be, many of us have Instagram profiles. There is a link in your bio. Make the main one or at least one of the links that you're sharing be a links page on your website. So you don't really want to be doing the link tree and the bit.ly and those are great, but they already have their SEO. They

don't need that. You need the SEO. And that is one really easy way that you can build that for yourself. And the page doesn't have to look super fancy or like anything, you know, that's going to knock someone's socks off. If you want to take a look at an example, you can go to my Instagram profile, britney underscore hersberg and check out that link there and you'll see what I'm talking about. But those are two other ways that you could get backlinks to your site. So building that site, I'm sorry, building that page on your site and then directing people there.

And so what kind of links could they, like, let's just, let's just kind of dive into that a little bit. What kind of links would somebody put on there, for instance? On their links page? Yeah. Yeah. Like what kind of things would you put there? So things that I have there are things that I'm going to talk about a lot.

So I have an SEO blogging workshop coming up. I've been linking to that a whole lot. I've been talking about that and it's like the top thing. It's under featured. I also have, you know, an about page, a link to my about page so they can get to know more about me. Links to services, links to products. If you have affiliate links, I put mine on my links pages at the bottom.

Right now there's a lot going on down there. I need to go through and comb through things, but you could certainly have your affiliate links in there. But I would say anything that you're going to find yourself talking about regularly and anything that's going to help move the needle and move the person in a direction that they can work with you, whatever that looks like, I would have those links. So like Instagram, you have to put the link in your bio, for example, but say you're on a different platform like Facebook that lets you share links within a post.

If you were writing posts and sharing a link to a specific blog post or to your website, does that count as a backlink as well? Is that beneficial in any way? It definitely is. And I would even say there is a way to do that to give yourself that link from your Facebook profile. One thing I used to do is like the header image, like the header banner image thing. I had a link to my website in there in the little like summary I would write up with the picture. So when someone would click on that,

they wouldn't just see like, I don't even know what it would be, but it would actually have a summary of here's me and what I do and who I help and all those kinds of things. And if you wanna connect, here's my website. Don't go check that though, because I'm like very rarely on Facebook. So that example is gonna be a not good one.

Yeah. Okay. So when you're thinking about these different types of links, are any of them quote better than others? Do any of them give you any more juice so to speak with Google? Are some of them high quality? I've heard this like high quality, low quality links. Does that matter? I'm sure that there is some tier rating system that they have of Instagram versus Facebook versus going on a guest blog or a podcast or something like that.

The thing that you want to be mindful of, and sometimes you can't even help this, but you want to get backlinks from reputable places. Instagram is thought of as one. YouTube is thought of as one, the friends websites that you're gonna go on and guest blog or something like that, they may have a good rating or maybe their ratings in the process of becoming better. So that's gonna be good, but it's not as well known as like YouTube. So it's not as highly thought of yet possibly as one of those more well-known sites.

Hopefully this is making sense. But I would say you want to aim for those websites. The thing you can't always control is that sometimes not good websites are going, less reputable websites are going to pick up your link and you just can't help it. You could probably try to fight that. I don't know if you have an attorney in your back pocket and you wanna like pay them to help you out.

You probably could do something. You may be able to just message them and ask them to remove it. But that's kind of a tough one. And that's where it becomes a little bit of a sticky situation. And I haven't had to deal with that myself. So, you know, I don't have like, here are the exact steps to go through for that. But that's something to look out for. And that's something that you can see on Google Analytics, Google Search Console, if you have that set up for yourself with your blog. I was just going to go into that next. We're probably thinking the same thing.

for yourself with your blog. I was just gonna go into that next. We are both thinking the same thing. Brittany, I love this idea. I have no idea how to find where I'm being linked from. So can you kind of just give them an overview of this is where you can find? Like we use KeySearch. That's the keyword research tool that we, you know,

pretty much blanket recommend. And we recommend that in the roadmap. And we just find it to be really easy to use like easier than some of the other ones but Google Analytics is free and so I know that that's an option too. So how do you encourage people to look and see where they're getting backlinks from? Yeah I mean free tools, paid tools, whatever. I love key search. I have fallen in love with that in the last few months with the exception of yesterday when they were like down and I was very irritated because I had to do a lot of keyword research. Oh no.

But I have multiple tools. So like I was covered. I just really enjoy using their interface, their platform. Yeah. So you could definitely check it on Key Search. That is a paid option. You could check it on Google Analytics or Google Search Console. I'm so familiarizing myself with both of these interfaces because I like going to Google

Search Console more than I like going to Google Analytics because Search Console seems cuter and prettier and like easier to use. And so I just find myself drawn more there. But you can poke around like maybe you know spend an hour one day or 30 minutes one day just like going in and seeing what's there and looking at the data. You can see all kinds of things like how much time someone spends on your website on average, where you are getting these links from, and traffic in general, where that's coming from. Maybe it's social media, maybe it's Google or search engine, other search engines.

So those are the types of things you might want to look at there. I also enjoy using another paid tool, Ubersuggest, where I can also see backlinks there as well. And I do see some websites sometimes where I'm like, I have no idea what this is or how they found me, or that can be a good thing, and that can be an also a good thing. But yeah, those are the kind of like the main things I would recommend.

Yeah. And sometimes you can also see them, if you use WordPress for your blog, then you can sometimes see them in your comments. They come in as like ping backs. You can occasionally see other sites that are linking to you that way as well. And again, like you said, sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not so good.

I've even seen people like basically scraping content and somehow you get like a link back to your site from that, but it's not a good thing because they have essentially copied and pasted your content onto their site and then linked back to you. So that's that's probably one of the examples of the not so good ones that you can see out there too. But there are there are remedies that you can take to that in order to get some of that content taken down. But I think the point is it is good to keep an eye whether you're going to dig into a free tool where it may be a little trickier to find or you just go into key search where it's a little easier. But it is important to keep an eye on who is linking to you and in what way they're linking to you.

Yeah. And actually you bring up a really good scenario. I just had this conversation yesterday in my SEO coaching program where someone was like, oh, I've heard from another SEO person that you can source basically what you're talking about, take a chunk of a blog post and source that material. This person was recommending to check with that blog author, which, okay, cool. But it's basically them being able to take what you've written and use that to fill in like a word account for their blog post. So I could see the pros and cons.

I could see where that could be something that would be helpful, like maybe in a more science-backed medical something-something type of blog, I could see that perhaps being like a good practice and someone wanting to give their blog post copy over there and being okay with that. But you don't want to just do it and not talk to the person for sure. Yes. Excellent advice. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to cover your basis there in terms of like using someone else's content and the copyrights and the legal issues and all of that, for sure.

Yeah. Implementing keyword research and competition analysis into your content strategy is a surefire way to improve your chances of people finding your content. And we love how simple KeySearch makes it to find keywords we actually want to use in our posts. KeySearch is a powerful keyword research tool that makes finding relevant, low-competition keywords for your blog simple and easy.

If you think optimizing your blog and doing keyword research has to be hard, think again. Give this powerhouse tool a try and see how much easier it will be to create content for your blog. Not only is it reasonably priced, even for beginning bloggers, but you can use our code for 20% off your subscription. Click the link in our show notes to learn more. If you want to get started on creating your own digital products,

you can get our guide on how to create a digital product in three easy steps by visiting theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash digital products. Creating digital products can sound overwhelming, so we've broken down the basic steps you need to understand first so you can take action today. Go to theultimateblogpodcast.com backslash digital products to get started on generating another stream of revenue in your blogging business today. Another kind of random way that I've gotten a backlink is by commenting on a blog. And so that's just another kind of tip. It's my favorite blogger. I want her on the podcast,

but she's so busy that she isn't going to come on. So I don't want to say it because I don't want to like throw her under the bus. But I read all of her emails. If you have listened to the podcast before, then you know exactly who I'm talking about because I've mentioned her more than once. But I read all of her emails. I go to her website often. It's everyday reading.

I'm just going to share it. Whatever. It's Janssen from Everyday Reading. She's amazing. I just love the way that she shares content. I just do I love her so much. I really just love the content that she puts out. And so I left a comment on her blog and I get links to my blog from that because when I commented, I put my name, my website, and

then that is so if you are able to leave a comment with your blog, that is also another way that people can come back. And I think there's a good and a bad way to do that. I did not mention my blog at all when I left that comment, but somehow people are clicking on it. So that goes to show that people do still kind of look at comments sometimes on blogs. So leave a comment.

If you make a recipe, go leave a nice review. Don't make it about you. I have a recipe that's just as good. That's so amazing. You should try this. I don't like that. That feels a little like salesy in the blogging world. Make it like a genuine comment, like an authentic comment. And you just never know it could get you some click backs as well. I when I left that comment, I had no idea that people were going to be

clicking that. But it has been something that has definitely brought traffic to my site. So think about that. Think about you're a blogger yourself, going to other blogs, engaging with those other blogs in certain ways, that goes back to the community and the networking and all of that. Like, how are we networking with other people

who are in this business, who are doing the same things that we're doing? And I think that that's just another way to think about connecting and networking. And I kind of am going to answer or ask a question now because now my brain is going a different way. So you mentioned earlier the collaboration piece with other bloggers. So like being a guest blogger, how do you do that in a way that isn't seen as spam by

Google? Like, if you are, how do I want that in a way that isn't seen as spam by Google? Like if you are, how do I want to word it? So like, like Brittany, you being a guest blogger on, is that something that you can do more than once? Is that something that you shouldn't overdo? I mean, is this something that you feel like you need to be a little mindful with like how often you're doing it? Because you know,

we obviously don't want to send Google this message that like, you know, you basically are just trying to like feed links off of each other. So do you have any recommendations for like, I guess, what's the word I'm looking for? The frequency maybe. Yeah, it's the frequency. So what would the best practices be with that? Like for collaborating with another blogger in such a way that it's not seen as just like feeding each other links. And I think that goes back to like the link parties.

I think that's kind of what you're thinking of is like, people used to do like the link parties and just go exchange a bunch of links versus like being a guest blogger or somehow linking to each other's sites through a collaboration. Like how do you do that authentically? I didn't even know that that was like a practice

back in the day. That's because we're old Brittany. Well, you're not like, no, I just had, I had a fun blog and then I had a business and there was a big gap in between where I didn't know what was going on. Yeah, it's blah, blah, blah, I sat here sometimes. It really is. Two things. So I want to first go back to how you were talking about the comment, the commenting

on someone else's blog. I wonder if it was giving you a link because did you have your profile filled out? Yeah, so maybe if if anyone's listening and thinking of doing that just make sure you have your profile filled out and your profile Where can you well? I'm thinking back to when I had my WordPress blog and I believe that when I sometimes Would leave comments then and even now if I go and leave a comment It'll ask you like sign in like your gravatar? Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah or give or get give your creative profile or something so that may just be like you said as

simple as your name and then your blog link. So yeah I love that tip I hadn't even thought about doing that and I love that that's giving you links. Yeah me too and it's coming from my favorite blogger. Right. Maybe someday she'll see maybe someday she'll see and she'll be like you you know what, Amy, I do. I am going to make time to come on the Ultimate Blog Podcast. I mean, it's good that she's busy, but we definitely want her over here. She's so good. Okay, that's enough. That's enough about Janssen, my bestie, and she doesn't know it. You're so funny. With the guest blogging and frequency and best practices and all of that, yes, I have done this more than once. So I did a guest blog post for my friend Leah. I did a guest blog post for my friend

Brittany. They were different topics. So that would also be something to think about. Different topics. Both of the times I was able to link to a freebie or to a resource that I had. Both of the times there were links just to my general homepage of my website. I don't think, I don't know of a best practice for frequency, but I would say maybe a good goal would be once a month or once every other month. Also, if you're thinking of just like all the stuff you have to do in your life and for your own business and for your own career, you probably only have the time to do like one extra one a month or every other month. So I think that would be smart.

But you definitely want to make sure you have at least one link in any guest blog that you're doing to yourself, and not to your Instagram, to your website, to your blog. So to kind of, I think, expand on that a little bit further, and we're talking about links, and we're talking about having another blogger or someone else place a link on their site to you, one thing that we haven't talked about is follow links and no follow

links. And I was thinking about that when Amy was talking about the comments, because a lot of bloggers may have those, you know, allow those links, but set them to be like a quote, no follow link. Can you explain a little bit about the difference between those and like what you might want to ask for when you are getting these backlinks? I'm still kind of new to this part of the territory, so take this with a grain of salt. But high level, the no follow links when you give someone a link and let's say you did write a guest blog post and you have this link but it's a no follow link. That's not really helping your SEO because it's saying don't, basically ignore that this

is here. When you have a do follow link, that is saying, yes, I would love for you to like allow people to come follow this and this is helpful for your SEO. So that's high level thinking. If you want to go and explore more about this, there are definitely resources on Google search console. I know that because I was looking that up a few weeks ago because I am so new to this part of things

because it's almost like a next level SEO strategy. So if you're at the level where you're paying attention to this, yay, that's amazing. If you're hearing this for the first time, it's totally okay. It doesn't generally fall under basic SEO. But yeah, the do follow links are going to be more helpful for your SEO and the no follow links are going to be not helpful at all for your SEO. We also talk about it in the roadmap. So you want to make sure that you're like creating your content out of the gate, like the right, correct,

making sure those links are labeled in the ways that they need to be labeled. That is something that we do. We have an entire section on no follow and follow links and how to use those appropriately and if they should open in a new tab or not and all that. So if links are where you're at, we can help too in the roadmap. I love that that was a great segue and I'm totally getting the roadmap.

We can help everything in the roadmap. So if you want to blog at all, you should join the roadmap because we would love to have you in there. So yeah, for sure. Okay. So I love just the tangible ideas that you shared today, Brittany. I think that they're super helpful. I think one of the big takeaways is just notice where you can put your link more. Like notice where you're at on a daily basis and can I put my link here? You know, something as simple as you saying go to your Facebook, you know, photo cover and make sure in the caption, you have your website link in there. You know, make sure that people know that you're a blogger. So if you're on social media and stuff, make sure that that people know that you're a blogger. So if you're on social media and stuff,

make sure that they actually know that you're a blogger. Recently, somebody I've been connected to on Instagram for a while, I finally, I don't know, shared a recipe or something in my stories and I guess I hadn't done that in a while. And she's like, I had no idea that you had a blog. And I'm like, well, thank you for telling me because that means I am failing.

And I need to make sure that the people on Instagram know that you have a blog. That's an important thing. I know that it's a different way of connecting like on social media or on a podcast or things like that, but that your blog should be the first thing that you share. And I know that that does not feel always natural for a lot of us is to share that,

but just get curious with different ways that you can share your backlinks and just kind of I don't know maybe a maybe a thing that you could do is just for the next couple days just make a note like have have a notebook open next to you as you're working and see like where am I at what spaces am I at and are there any of these areas that I can optimize by adding more links back to my website. I think that could be a really good exercise just to kind of get your wheels turning and get collaborating. And if you're looking for ways to collaborate with other bloggers, truly the ultimate blog roadmap is a really great place to do that because there's lots of people in there who

are likely in a similar niche who you could do guest blogging with, you could collaborate with. We've had students on the podcast. We just recently had Corey Morris at the beginning of this year on She's a Student. And so that is just another way for you to collaborate and network with other bloggers. So always know that that resource is open for you. And Brittany, you are just amazing and we love you. And I know that our listeners are going to really get a lot out of this episode and be sure to go back and listen to the case studies episode that we shared at the very beginning. But other than that, can you please share your website with us, Brittany, so they can find you and learn from you? Of course. So it's BrittanyHersberg.com.

We will spell that out for you and give you a link. Don't worry. The correct way. Watch this will be a time where it gets messed up. It's totally fine. Don't even worry. But yeah, if you go over to the website, I have my podcast, The Basic Bee is linked over there. I do add to my blog. I'm actually putting more effort and attention into my blog this year.

Last year, I got really streamlined with making sure my podcast episodes ended up on my blog. And I feel like, you know, at one point I had eight episodes a month. So that felt like a lot. And so now this year I'm like, we're going four episodes a month. And that gives me some breathing room to actually do like more legit blogs in here. Awesome. That's great advice in and of itself is to make sure that we have the time capacity to do what we need to do. So awesome. Well, thank you so much, Brittany. As always, it's just such a joy and a pleasure to be able to talk to you and kind of pick your brain and learn from you. So thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to the Ultimate

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