Editorial Links

What Are Editorial Links?

Editorial links are links that are editorially placed by a website owner or publisher.

As opposed to acquired links, they are not paid for, and they are not part of any advertising, marketing, or link-building campaign.

Editorial links can have a significant impact on your SEO because they show that your website is being thought of as an authority on the subject matter.

Editorial Links vs Acquired Links

Editorial links are links that are given by editorial sources, such as news outlets, bloggers, and other similar websites.

These links are generally given because the site thinks that the linked-to content is interesting, informative, or otherwise valuable.

Acquired links, on the other hand, are links that are paid for, either through direct payment or by giving some sort of incentive.

Editorial links are generally seen as more valuable by SEOs because they are seen as more natural and therefore more trustworthy.

They are also often seen as more high-quality, since they are coming from sources that are themselves high-quality.

Acquired links can sometimes be seen as less valuable, because they may be less relevant and because there is a potential for them to be less trustworthy (since they are often paid or traded for).

Editorial Link Example

Here is an example of an editorial link that we have gotten through Help A Reporter Out (now Connectively):

This sits right on the verge of editorial and acquired links, since technically you’re still reaching out to journalists to provide quotes for their articles, but since you’re not paying for them or exchanging any links in return, they can still be considered editorial.

How to Get Editorial Links?

The main way to get editorial links is through publishing great content. However, on its own, content rarely generates a substantial amount of backlinks.

But there are a few additional ways how you can generate editorial links (that aren’t considered acquired):

Participate in Interviews and Podcasts

Interviews and podcasts are excellent ways to build relationships with influencers and secure editorial links.

When you’re interviewed or featured on a podcast, you’re given the opportunity to share your story and your expertise with a captive audience.

This helps to build your credibility and authority, and can make it more likely that influencers will want to link to your content.

One of Respona’s use cases is actually podcast outreach.

Here’s how you can run your own podcast outreach campaign with Respona.

1. Select “Podcasts” search mode at Step 1 – Find Opportunities.

2. Select either “shows” or “episodes” search mode, and type in your keyword.

As the name suggests, the “shows” mode returns entire shows, while the “episodes” mode returns specific episodes.

3. Check the boxes to the left of your desired podcasts to select them for your campaign.

A good strategy would be to find podcasts that other thought leaders within your niche were on, and try to get on them as well.

4. Select “podcasts” > “episodes”

5. Type in your influencer’s name.

6. Select the shows that you would like to reach out to.

You can also use the podcast search automation to speed up the process.

Like the other search automation, you can access it at Step 1 – Find Content by clicking over to “Automation setup”, and “Podcast search”.

The information about podcasts is provided to us by Listen Notes.

Here’s how to use the search automation:

1. Select the search source: podcasts or episodes.

2. Enter your keyword.

3. Set advanced settings:

• How many search results to analyze;
• Search location and language;
• Safety filters.

4. Click “Continue”.

5. You will be taken to the metrics screen. Depending on whether you chose to look for podcasts or episodes, you will get access to different filters.

Podcast filters:

• Total episodes;
• Date of last episode;
• Sort by relevance/date;
• Listen score.
• Episodes filters:
• Episode duration;
• When was the episode published;
• Sort by relevance/date;
• Listen score.

6. Once the desired filters are set, hit “Run automation”.

Once the automation is finished, its results will be added to your campaign.

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Regularly Update Your Content

One of the main reasons why regularly updating your content can help you secure editorial links is because it keeps your content relevant and valuable over time.

If you have a piece of content that is outdated or no longer relevant, it is less likely to be featured by other websites or blogs.

However, if you keep your content fresh and up-to-date, other websites and blogs are more likely to link to it as a valuable resource.

When you are featured in an expert round-up, you are essentially getting a mini-endorsement from the person who included you in their article.

This can help you acquire editorial links because it shows that you are an expert in your field and that other people trust your opinion.

To get featured in expert round-ups, you need to make sure that you are active in your field and that you are creating quality content that is worth reading.

You should also reach out to the people who run these round-ups and let them know that you would like to be featured.

You can also do this with Respona.

Mentioning other companies in your content can help you secure editorial links because it demonstrates that you are knowledgeable about your industry and are willing to share information about other companies in your field.

This can make you a more valuable resource to other companies and websites, which may be more likely to link to your content.

Additionally, by mentioning other companies, you can build relationships with those companies and increase the likelihood that they will link to your content in the future.

Broken links also sit on the verge of acquired and editorial links, since to get them you still technically have to reach out to the site owners and let them know about your page.

However, since you’re just helping the website close a gap created by a broken link, it can still be considered an editorial link.

Here’s how you can run a broken link building campaign with the help of two tools: Ahrefs and Respona.

1. Paste the URL of one of your competitors into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. We’ll use neilpatel.com as an example.

2. Go to “Best By Links”.

3. In the “HTTP code” filter, select “404 not found”.

4. Select an article that’s either relevant to your own content or is on a topic that you’re willing to create custom content for.

The titles of all pages are 404 not found – but you can still guess the content of each by the URL slug. Usually, it includes the article’s focus keyword.

5. Click on the number in the “Dofollow” links column.

6. Enable the following filters:

• One link per domain
• Blogs
• English language

7. Export the sheet into a .CSV file.

8. Download the file and open it in Excel or Google Sheets.

9. Clean up the sheet by removing any opportunities that are irrelevant or don’t fit your SEO criteria.

10. Remove all columns except “Referring Page Title” and “Referring Page URL”. They will be irrelevant for Respona.

11. Save your file as a .CSV.

12. Import the .CSV into Respona by clicking on the import button on the right side of Respona’s search bar.

13. Select your file.

14. Map your .CSV file fields to the according Respona attributes.

15. Finish importing your opportunities.

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Bottom Line

Editorial links can be hard to get, but can massively impact your SEO when coming from highly-authoritative websites.

A steady income of editorial links is also an indicator that you have earned a spot as one of the thought leaders in your niche and people are listening to what you have to say.