Let’s get this out of the way. Google is a search engine that processes over 40,000 search queries every second. That’s 3.5 billion searches a DAY. Now, I’ve been in SEO for over 10 years and for the last few years there’s been a lot of talk about SEO being dead.

SEO IS NOT DEAD, it’s just changed. Any business, whether it’s a local start up or a multi-billion dollar empire would be INSANE not to look at optimising for a search engine that has over 1.2 trillion searches a year.

Ethical Link Building With Flypaper

So, clearly SEO is alive and kicking, BUT it has changed. Gone are the days of buying links. Gone are the days of using software to generate links. Gone are the days of targeting one keyword and getting it to the number #1 spot on a Google search. If you want to succeed in SEO for the long term, you need to do thing right.

The Ultimate Ethical Link Building Tutorial

CHAPTERS

Chapter 1

How It Works

There are two things that used together are the most powerful way of doing SEO for any industry. They’ve been around for years, and when used together are the only effective way to practise SEO for the long term. These two things are copywriting and keyword research.

Copywriting and Keyword Research

These two skills are the only skills you’ll need to rank on Google. They aren’t rocket science and can be learned by anyone with a passion for research and writing. I see thousands of bloggers with a passion for writing, so they’re halfway there already. They just need to be pushed in the right direction, which is why I’ve devised the Flypaper Link Building Method.

(Yes, Google still relies on links to determine ranking positions. It always has and always will. In fact they tried a model that didn’t rely on links and the results were disastrous.)

The Flypaper Link Building Method takes the two fundamental skills you need for SEO, and uses them to gain the one major thing you need to rank on Google, links.

So we need links to rank on Google, but we can’t buy, swap, generate or ask for them. So how do we get them? The Flypaper method shows you how, and as I said before, with a passion for writing and research, anyone can do it.

The first thing you need to do is choose a theme. Within this theme you need to choose a specific area that is highly searched on Google and will bring in lots of exciting new visitors. To find out your theme and your specific area you need to do two forms of research, audience research and keyword research.

Chapter 2

Audience Research

Before you do anything you need to research your audience. No matter what industry you’re in you should be well acquainted with the people you’re targeting.

Audience Research

For example. Say you’re a beauty blogger. You should hang around on Facebook, in forums and chat with people who are interested in beauty. Follow other beauty blogs and get involved in commenting. This will give you a picture of the type of things your audience are interested in.

Audience research is a fundamental part of copywriting and has proven immensely effective over the years. Copywriters research their market AND their audience. They build up an avatar of what their typical customer looks like. They factor things such as wage, education, family, hobbies. This provides an excellent opportunity to figure out what they want, or even better, what they need.

What Does Your Audience Need?

Copywriters tell you to discover what pains your customer. What keeps them up at night? What do they fear? When you know this you can work out what they need. When you have an idea of what they need, you can work out how to give it to them, and how to present it in a way that’ll make them take action.

For example, going back to the beauty blogger. I’m not a beauty blogger but I can take a guess that most people interested in beauty are afraid of growing old and losing their looks. This is why the anti-ageing industry is worth over $250 billion dollars. So we know the average reader of a beauty blog will fear losing their looks, and are interested in finding ways to combat the ravages of time. So this would make an excellent theme to start our Flypaper method.

Our Theme: How to look younger.

When you have your theme you can brainstorm ideas within that theme that’ll interest your audience. You might want to Google ‘how to look younger’ and see what else is on the Internet, or you might want to crawl social media and forums. Compile a list of at least 10 different areas of interest within your theme.

Areas of interest within the theme:

Hairstyles to make you look younger
Anti-ageing creams
Makeup tips to look younger
Natural ways to look younger
Exercises to look younger
Food that makes you look younger
Lifestyle choices to look younger
How to make your skin look younger
Cosmetic surgery to look younger
How to look younger without surgery

Now, each one of these areas would make a great article and fulfil a need for a reader interested in beauty. Notice how the theme targets something that pains the reader? Each article within your theme should offer a solution to a specific problem.

This takes research and time, but it’s the rock on which you’ll build your church!

When you’ve researched your audience and found your theme and 10 areas of interest, it’s time to do some good old fashioned keyword research.

Chapter 3

Keyword Research

With the Flypaper method we use keyword research for two purposes. First we want to find the area of interest that’ll generate the most visitors from Google. Then we use discovered keywords improve our content.

Keyword Research

The main area of interest will be the article that we’ll use as our Flypaper. So we head over to the Google keyword tool and search for all the areas of interest in our list. We want to find the one that is the most searched for, and ideally has low competition. This can take some time, but will give us new ideas for areas of interest.

I spent around 10 minutes looking at Ad group ideas. You can go deeper and look at individual keywords, but the main purpose is to find an area of interest that will make the best article to use as your Flypaper.

This is what I found after a brief search:

Younger hairstyles: 940 searches – Low competition
Eye anti-ageing creams: 2960 searches – High competition
Men anti-ageing: 1010 searches – High competition
Top anti-ageing: 270 searches – High competition
Ageing hand: 480 searches – High competition
Ageing face: 660 searches – High competition
Younger makeup: 800 searches – Low competition.
Makeup tricks: 1450 searches – Medium competition.
Ways to look younger: 220 searches – Low competition.
Chin exercises: 2140 searches – Low competition.
Non-surgical facelifts: 3040 searches – High competition.
Thread lift: 1830 searches – High competition.
Face lift: 6850 searches – High competition.
Face yoga: 1240 searches – Low competition.
Healthy meals: 39350 searches – Medium competition.
Food for healthy skin: 1200 searches – Low competition.

Now this was only a brief search but I’ve already discovered things in my theme that I never thought of. For example ‘Face yoga’ is quite popular, and has low competition. Chin exercises are also popular with low competition. I’d never heard of a thread lift?

These are all things I would never have known about if I hadn’t done some keyword research.

So, out of this list we want to pick one main subject to write about, and we’ll use this as our Flypaper. If you have a new website then you’ll want to start relatively small. There’s no point in targeting keywords too difficult to compete with. To rank for highly competitive search terms you need a powerful website with lots of trusted links. You can build this over time, but to start with you want to target things within your reach.

So looking at this list I would probably choose chin exercises. Chin exercises are relevant to beauty, can help you look younger and is something anyone can do. It has a good amount of searches and relatively low competition, so you’ll have a decent chance of being able to rank on Google.

My Flypaper: Chin exercises

Now I know what my flypaper is going to be about, it’s time to get writing!

Chapter 4

Writing Your Flypaper

Now I’ve decided what my main article (Flypaper) is going to be about, I need to do some more research to make my chin exercises article the best you’ll find, anywhere on the Internet.

Research Your Article

For the Flypaper to work it needs to include the most comprehensive list of information found anywhere on the Web. I did quick search for “chin exercises” and found these headlines:

The 10 Best Exercises to Reduce a Double Chin
Get rid of your double chin in 6/8 weeks facial exercise
4 Double Chin Exercises
The Best Exercises For Getting Rid Of That Unwanted Double Chin
How to Lessen a Double Chin: 15 Steps
10 Face Exercises to Tone Double Chin and Chubby Cheeks

We want to compile an ultimate list of chin exercises. There seems to be a lot of “10 best” lists. What if we can do a list of 100 chin exercises?

Think of words like:

The Ultimate
The Definitive Guide
All you ever need to know about

And you’ll get the idea of what your article needs to be.

So, before you start writing your article you need to do some more research. The best place to start is by going back to the Google Keyword Tool and doing some specific keyword research for chin exercises.

Keyword research can find ideas to enhance your article by looking at what people are searching on Google. If you do it right, you’ll not only have a richer, more informative article, but you’ll also have an article tailored towards getting found on Google.

I did a quick search and found these keywords:

double chin exercises
chin exerciser
double chin
double chin exercise machine
double chin removal
face exercises
facial exercises

Already I’ve discovered there is an actual double chin exercise machine. Who knew that? We could incorporate a section in our article about machines. We could also add a section on surgery to remove double chins. So my article could be about chin exercises but also include alternative ways to lose a double chin. This adds rich, helpful information which will make my article a definitive guide to chin exercises, and it includes keywords that people are actively searching for.

After you’ve done your keyword research it’s a good idea to take the information and do some real world research. Try to research as many different chin exercises as possible. You can find this by searching on Google and aggregating all the different chin exercises you find. You can go to the library and look through books related to chin exercises. Maybe go to the gym and ask around. Spend a good amount of time compiling a list of every chin exercise known to man. When you’ve done that you’ll have everything you need to write an AWESOME article.

Writing Your Article

Now you’ve done the research you’re ready to get down and write your article. This is where you need to brush up on your copywriting skills. You need to give it a headline that’ll stand out and entice people to click. There’s a science that goes into writing headlines, but you don’t need to be an expert. You just need to know what works and what doesn’t.

The best headlines pique a reader’s curiosity and entice them to want to read more. You should practise this, and ideally, when you get enough traffic, split test so you’ll see first-hand which headlines get the most attention.

After writing the headline you need to structure your article in a way that’ll keep a reader interested. Start off giving the viewer a reason to read. This is a good time to add an amazing fact, such as: “Did you know chin exercises can make you look 10 years younger?”

This piques the reader’s interest and keeps them reading.

Renowned copywriter Andy Maslen has written a book called Persuasive Copywriting and it’s highly recommended if you want to learn more about the science of words. He’s developed a strategy called TIPS. It’s similar to AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action), but it’s simpler.

TIPS stands for:

Tempt: Tempt your reader by piquing their curiosity. Offer an enticing promise with an opening, such as, ‘I used to look my age but then I discovered this.’ This approach will compel a viewer to become a reader.

Influence: The next stage is to deliver on your promise and explain what it is you’ve discovered. This is the entertaining phase of your article and will hook your reader in. For example, I look 10 years younger because I’ve been doing chin exercises for the last 2 months.

Persuade: This is the meat of your article. This is where you’ll add your list of chin exercises. Your readers will already be primed with your headline and opening, so they’ll read with keen interest to see how they can look younger too.

Sell: Now, this is where your pitch comes in. If you’re not actually selling something, then you might want people to share your article, leave a comment or subscribe to your blog. If you are selling something then this is the time to hit the reader with your pitch.

If you treat every article you write as an exercise in copywriting you’ll get better every time. We’re all writing for something. We might be selling something, or we might just want to boost our profile as a writer. To do that you need people to share and comment, and to do that you need to compel them to take action. And that is the whole point of copywriting.

To Summarise

If you’ve read this far then you’ll know how to use copywriting and keyword research to create an article that’s rich, shareable and discoverable on Google. This is your Flypaper. You also have a list of other ideas for articles and you’re going to use them to attract some flies, or in this case, high quality links.

Chapter 5

Building Links

As you should know by now, to rank on Google for anything that’ll drive high volumes of traffic and make money, you’re going to need links.

How To Use Your Flypaper To Attract Links

But not all links are created equal. You need high quality links from relevant and respected websites. The Flypaper method is designed to attract exactly those kind of links.

Here’s what you do.

You have your Flypaper, which is a definitive resource or ultimate guide to chin exercises. You can now post this on your website, share it on social media and do all the things you’d normally do.

But you also have a list of other ideas for articles. I’ve compiled a list from the information I’ve gained from my theme research. And I’ve given them titles that will entice readers to click and read more.

15 Hairstyles That Make You Look Younger
21 Anti-Ageing Tips For Men
17 Top Tips To Look Younger
14 Ways To Combat An Ageing Face
8 Ways To Look Younger With Makeup
11 Makeup Tricks That Make You Look Younger
The 45 Best Ways To Look Younger
6 Non-surgical Facelifts To Make You Look Younger
13 Face Yoga Exercises To Look Younger
8 Facial Exercises That Make You Look Younger

In this example I’ve made my headlines lists, but you can use any headline as long as it’s designed to attract attention. I have 10 headlines and if I write a decent article for each one I’d have a pretty good chance of getting them published on some high quality beauty blogs.

Why?

Because top quality blogs rely on great content to keep their audience. It’s hard work delivering content on a regular basis, and if they’re offered a great article for free they’ll usually jump at it. If your article targets the pain of their readership and offers a solution, then it’s a perfect fit for their blog.

Notice how all of my articles have a good reason to contain an editorial link to an article about chin exercises? Even an article on hairstyles could have a section about how short hair, coupled with chin exercises can make you look 10 years younger.

Editorial Links

Editorial links, also known as contextual links, are links within an article that link out to other articles that benefit the reader. If you get published on a website as a guest blogger you’ll usually get an author bio where you can add a link to your website. This is great, but it’s not as good as an editorial link within the article itself. Also blogs are encouraged to add nofollow links in author bios, whereas editorial links are encouraged to be dofollow, as those are the kind of links that Google relies on to determine their rankings.

It’ll take some time to write these 10 articles, but it’s well worth the investment for many reasons.

It’ll hone your copywriting skills.
It’ll generate traffic to your blog.
It’ll gain social shares and increase your influence.
It’ll raise your profile as a writer.
It’ll generate valuable, highly trusted editorial links.
It’ll give massive weight to your chin exercises article, helping it rank on Google.

Depending on how quick you are at researching and writing it can take around 3 or 4 hours to write each article. So it might take a week to do, but as you can see it provides the kind of exposure and benefits that money can’t buy.

Finding Guest Blogging Opportunities

Because of the time it takes to research and write your articles, you want to make sure you approach the best blogs to get published on. This also takes time to research and it’s worth spending a few hours building a spreadsheet of potential guest blogging opportunities.

You can find top blogs in your niche simply by searching on Google. Start by searching something like: beauty blogs. I did this and found articles that list the top beauty blogs.

You can also look at top news websites such as Huffington Post, The Daily Mail and The Telegraph. You need to have a high standard of writing to get published on these websites, but when you’re ready it’s worth reaching out because they’re always looking for new material.

You can also do searches on Google such as: beauty tips “write for us”, and this will bring up all the beauty blogs that have a “write for us” section.

You can then copy all the URLs and check them on tools like Ahrefs or Majestic SEO to see how powerful their domains are.

Here’s a few I’ve checked using Majestic SEO’s Trust and Citation metrics:

thefitindian.com: Trust Flow 11 – Citation Flow 46
tipsfornaturalbeauty.com: Trust Flow 11 – Citation Flow 35
lazybeautytips.com: Trust Flow 8 – Citation Flow 14
fleurdeforce.com: Trust Flow 23 – Citation Flow 40
huffingtonpost.co.uk: Trust Flow 60 – Citation Flow 71
telegraph.co.uk: Trust Flow 76 – Citation Flow 72

Remember, the higher the Trust Flow (generally) the better the blog. Your main aim is to find blogs with high traffic, an avid readership and that already rank well on Google. The news type websites are the most powerful, but they’ll be harder to get published on, so make sure you’re ready before approaching them.

Summary

The Flypaper Link Building Method requires two skills. Copywriting and Research. With these two skills you can grow your blog into a world leader and dominate Google without any SEO experience.

If you’re a blogger then this is perfect because you love to write anyway. If you’re a business then you just need to hire a writer to do the work for you. One of the biggest problems in the SEO industry is the lack of transparency. I used to build links using various methods that I couldn’t disclose to my clients. For example they might have had links on a private network that I wasn’t allowed to disclose. Deep down I always felt guilty about this, especially when the client wasn’t seeing any real results in their rankings.

With the Flypaper method it’s all about exposure and influence. You are using a group of articles to infiltrate blogs that have thousands of eager visitors and you’re directing them back to your website. Everything is out in the open to be seen. It’s honest and provides real value to readers, which are the two things the SEO industry has been lacking.

I hope you enjoyed my Flypaper Link Building Method. I’ll be adding lots more information to expand on how to improve in all areas of the process. So feel free to subscribe, and leave a comment.