April 1, 2024 • 35 mins
Ever wonder what it really takes to boost a client from 300K to over 10 million monthly visitors through link building?
In this episode of Link Masters podcast, we go behind the scenes with Amit Raj, founder of The Links Guy agency based in Glasgow, Scotland. He reveals the strategic link building campaigns that drove such massive traffic growth for his clients.
You'll hear first-hand how Amit and his team secure those coveted authoritative links from sources like Ivy League universities and government sites. He opens up about their link building processes, favorite tactics, team structure, hiring practices, and more.
Video: https://youtu.be/Nn5qJ3y_5Kk
Full show notes:
https://pitchbox.com/link-masters/how-to-skyrocket-a-clients-traffic-from-300k-to-10m-monthly-visitors/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amit Raj (00:00):
Sometimes the scale of the results, and I know not
every client needs millionsof visitors every month, but
we had for instance like aclient where we eventually
Helped take them to like over10 million visitors a month Um,
and and when we started we wereonly like 000 a month So they
were already getting a lot ofvisitors every month They had a
(00:21):
lot of traffic But we took themto that kind of scale and we
had another client that we tookto like 4 million visitors a
month, I think it was somethinglike that, from 1 million.
Now, it took a bit of time,it took like over a year,
a year and a half to get tothat stage, but That's when I
kind of sat back and thought,hang on, wait, that's a
big, that's a big increase.
All
Sarah Nuttyco (00:40):
right, everybody.
Well, welcome back.
Um, I am really excited tobe joined by Amit Raj today.
Uh, Amit has founded hisown agency, The Lynx Guy.
He's based in Glasgow,Scotland, and joining in
this call today from Glasgow.
So, um, Amit, thank you so muchfor giving me some of your time
today, and I'm, cannot wait tohear some of your story, and,
um, How you got started and howyou found your way to Pitchbox.
(01:02):
So, uh, thanks again for coming
Amit Raj (01:04):
on.
Yeah, no problem.
Say thanks for havingme and for Pitchbox for
inviting me as well.
Sarah Nuttyco (01:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you know, I got alittle bit of a backstory
here that you've donesome really cool things in
the past couple of years.
So, um, I won't spoil the story.
Let's get into it.
Um, kick me off, start meoff with, um, how, how'd
you find your way into SEO?
Amit Raj (01:28):
Yeah, so it is strange because, um, my
background isn't even SEO.
I'm originally a pharmacist.
So, um, well, in fact, if Igo further back, my family's
kind of always had businesses.
So I guess entrepreneurship waskind of in the family anyway.
Um, but I was a pharmacistoriginally, and then I kind
of, I think I kind of landedup in, Digital marketing,
(01:51):
probably around 2013, and thenwent, you know, further into
like SEO, probably around 2015,2016, and then from, you know,
into link building from there.
It was originally just more ofa side hustle, and, you know,
I don't regret doing pharmacy.
I learned a lot of things aswell, but, um, I just found
I enjoyed this industry,I enjoyed it a lot more.
Sarah Nuttycombe (02:13):
Yeah.
Well, I mean,that's really cool.
Like amazing one that you weredoing this as a, as a side
hustle, then all of a suddenit just seemed to, uh, you
seem to gravitate towards it.
So talk to meabout that journey.
How did you find your wayinto starting your own agency?
Amit Raj (02:29):
Yeah, so it was kind of gradual cause I think with,
um, doing this as a, as a sidehustle, the idea really is
just to kind of get more casualwork or you get one client
or maybe two clients and, youknow, that's kind of an off.
Yeah.
for a while.
Um, but then I realized like I'mpretty good at it at that point.
And then I thought, well, Ican only, there's only so many
(02:50):
hours in the day and I couldn'treally scale up by myself.
You know, I could onlyhandle a couple of clients.
Um, and then at that point,when it came to the stage of
like, Trying to take on a thirdclient, I was like, I need help
with this and it was, it's notlike I originally planned that,
but I kind of just ended upat that stage, you know, where
(03:10):
you have one person helping youout part time and then kind of
gradually realized that look,I can actually turn this into
an agency and scale up further.
Sarah Nuttycombe (03:19):
Okay, how did you make the jump from,
you're gradually buildingthis thing to where you are
today with the Lynx guy?
So who are you andwho do you help?
Amit Raj (03:30):
Yeah, so the Links Guy essentially is a
boutique link building agency.
Um, we, over the years, Iwould say we've worked with
many different industries.
Um, we mainly focus now onSaaS and B2B tech and some e
commerce companies as well.
Um, just because we findthey tend to need link
(03:51):
building a bit more, orthey're more aware of it.
Um, yeah.
But we, yeah, we essentially,we're a specialist
agency in that we onlyoffer link building.
Um, and that's been the caseever since about 2016, you know,
since, um, we've always kindof specialised in that area.
I think because we specialisein link building, we're
probably able to do thingsthat a generalist SEO agency
(04:14):
probably can't, they can'tdo it, but it's, it's just
because of the fact it's quitedifficult to do link building.
And I think where we'redifferent is like, we can.
We can look at a client andwe can build custom campaigns
based on the industry.
I think that's one of the thingsthat sets us apart because we,
we've worked with clients inlike real estate or logistics
(04:35):
or very specific areas andwe're able to get them links
and And things that are likevery related to the sector.
And I know it's really, it'sactually really difficult.
And that's kind of one of thereasons they come to us is
because we're able to do that.
We, I guess it's becauseit's custom and it's,
and it's been createdspecifically for the company.
So deep.
Sarah Nuttycombe (04:56):
into link building and I wanted
to just ask you a fewquestions on the subject.
So, you know, startme off, how do you get
links for your clients?
Amit Raj (05:07):
We, we use a range of strategies that I think are,
because we create them customfor every client, we'll Look
at what we're currently workingwith and then we'll develop
something based on that So Iwould say things ranging from
what you'd call guest postoutreach where we'll try to you
know Go into certain sectorsand build links in those sectors
(05:29):
or industries We like to do alot of kind of resource link
Outreach, which is if you'retrying to get links in articles
that are related to the contentI think that can be really good
because you can look at thecontent and think right who
would find this valuable andthen we Build campaigns based
off that so resource links isa good one because you don't
(05:50):
have to write content each timeThe content is written, but
we're trying to see where thecrossover is And we'll even do
things like Harrow and theseother kind of PR platforms.
So sometimes we'll get linksin like this kind of bigger
publications or media.
Um, again, as long as it'sthe client is suitable
for it, we kind of usea mixture of strategies.
(06:12):
Do you have a favorite link
Sarah Nuttyc (06:12):
building strategy?
Amit Raj (06:15):
I would say, um, resource pages.
We quite, um, we do quite a lotof that with resource pages.
Again, we, I mean, it's noteasy, but we, we do sometimes
for some clients reach outto like local government,
even state government orlike universities, um,
and things like schools.
(06:35):
And it's really goodbecause you're able to
get links and they'revery hard to attain links.
But when you do get them,it's like, You know, a DA
90 plus link or something.
Like sometimes we'll get linksfrom like an Ivy League or
from a school district andit's a very authoritative link.
And you kind of have togo through some hoops
to get those links.
(06:56):
So it's challenging but me andthe team are really, they're
really excited when they geta link like that because it's
not easy to get them as well.
Sarah Nuttycombe (07:04):
Yeah.
Oh man.
I, I'm going to circle back tothat thought later because I
would love to know what the,the feeling and celebration is
like when you're able to securethose, but, um, I think this
is going back to, to somethingwe were talking about before
that, that, um, how do you findthe balance when you're trying
to, um, scale your outreach?
(07:25):
So, um, talk to me about what doyou think is the most effective
way to, to pick up links inlarger numbers or at scale?
Amit Raj (07:34):
If the client, um, has a lot of useful content,
any, you know, they alreadyhave existing content that's
valuable, um, That's ultimatelygoing to be the, I think,
the most efficient way of, ofacquiring more links, because,
um, it's more streamlined,the content's there, and it's
only about trying to reachthose linkable audiences.
(07:59):
Basically, it's like, Lookingat the audiences that you
know, it will be easier toacquire links from and then
creating content that fills thatcrossover between yourself and
the business that you've got.
The prospecting process isactually quite important
here and it actually cameup there was like a When we
(08:20):
were recruiting, we did aninterview not long ago and
it kind of sparked somethingwhen I was talking to him, um,
because it was, um, somebodywe interviewed who'd done
both parts of the process.
So he'd, he had a dual role andhe did prospecting and outreach.
So he did the wholeend-to-end process.
And one of the things hesaid resonated with me
and I was like, right.
Kind of makes sense when hesaid, um, as long as I do a
(08:42):
good job at prospecting, I knowoutreach will be successful.
What he meant was, basically,if he collected a list of
people that he knew he had ahigh chance of getting a link
from, he knew ultimately theoutreach was gonna be easier
because they could see the valueproposition and it's kind of
like that mindset thing and ifthat's something you can do in
(09:03):
your prospecting process andyou can make your list more,
more tight and more relevantto Whatever goal you've got
at the end of it, the tighteryour prospecting lists and
the, the more logical it is forthat group of people to link
to you, um, that ultimatelymake the link building process
(09:25):
more streamlined and you'llhave a higher success rate.
I love
Sarah Nuttycombe (09:29):
that.
You kind of learn thingsfrom like the most
unexpected places, right?
You're in your owninterview and going.
That's right, yeah.
Oh, wait a minute.
That one, that onekind of hit me today.
Um, that's cool.
Well, I like this question.
I think this is, it'sa good way to determine
your stance on things.
Um, what do you thinkis the most important
(09:50):
quality of a good link?
Amit Raj (09:53):
It's kind of subjective, but I think
relevance, um, is, and Iguess that ties in with the
reason we kind of get clientsinvolved and, and process a
lot and we want them to, um,We like to get their feedback
and get their input becausethen you are able to get
links that are more relevant.
(10:15):
At the same time, it's likeif you get a link in a sector
that's not as relevant, I mean,it's probably still going to
have an impact, even if it'snot your target consumer.
But at the same time, Ithink you really get an
edge when you can get linksthat are more relevant.
Um, and, and things like trafficand, and metrics to some extent
(10:37):
do help, but they're very kindof, I find with metrics, it's
more of like a, it's an SEOmetric that sometimes doesn't
mean anything by itself.
And actually you have to,you do have to look at things
that can't be quantified as anumber, but when you look at
relevance, you kind of just haveto understand the target market
or the kind of target audience.
(11:00):
So yeah, I would sayrelevant still, we kind
of tie everything to that.
Sarah Nuttycombe (11:06):
Um, this is, this is, uh, I think another
question that kind of weighsyour stance on things, right?
Um, do you think linkbuilding is overrated,
underrated, or fairly rated?
Amit Raj (11:22):
I would say underrated, um, overall, you
know, obviously there's a lotof people that see value in
it, but underrate link buildingbecause they may have had a
bad experience and they think,well, everybody's like that.
Um, so I think for that reasonit is kind of underrated.
Okay.
Sarah Nuttycombe (11:38):
I think tying back to, you know,
what you specialize, youobviously specialize in link.
Building as a service.
Um, how do
Amit Raj (11:45):
you charge for it?
It's mostly monthly retainers,so we'll do a guarantee, we'll
aim to build this many links,um, with it every month, or,
um, or sometimes we'll do it asa block, so we'll kind of bill
up front and then we'll, youknow, Build a certain number
of links over a certain timeperiod so the deadline or the
(12:06):
target deadline is like a bitmore open But it's kind of
like a larger Target numberso basically a monthly routine
or usually like a block.
Sarah Nuttycombe (12:16):
That's cool.
I think um It's really niceto get a bit of perspective.
Everybody does things a littlebit differently and probably
wondering how someone like youwho specializes in links manages
to create those packages.
Now I really like to talk topeople who are in SEO about
strategies, tactics thatpeople are using that you
(12:40):
just kind of wish that theywould either stop touting as
a solution to link buildingor within SEO in general.
Amit Raj (12:47):
I think when it comes to things like what people
call black hat SEO links andthings like that, I don't
personally have a problem withit, as long as it's not sold
as something that it's not.
I'm hoping people aren'tusing PBN links or something
and trying to say that it'swhite hat link building.
You know, that's one ofthe things that I would
hope doesn't happen.
(13:07):
Um, but other than that, interms of like strategies,
I don't really knockspecific strategies because
I know sometimes peoplemight recommend like.
You should do linkbuilding this way.
And, and, and, you know,and that's not to say that
it doesn't work, but it'slike, sometimes it works
for one client or onetype of business, but it
(13:28):
doesn't work for the other.
So I see a lot of people say,I know this is kind of like the
opposite to what you asked, butsometimes I see a lot of people
saying, um, don't do broken linkbuilding doesn't work anymore.
But actually we've seen itwork, but it works when.
You've got a client in a verybroad sector, um, we've seen
it work, and it's, it's mainlybecause the content is broad
(13:51):
and there's a higher chance thatthere's like dead content out
there that has a lot of links.
I think the reason people sayit doesn't work is because
it, it was done so much thatpeople think that all the
broken links have been fixed.
because it got overdone so much,but actually there's always
content out there that's dead.
Like, there's always going tobe some content out there that
(14:12):
has a load of links and thelinks are leading to nowhere.
So broken link building, Ithink still works, depends on
the client and the project.
Sarah Nuttycombe (14:22):
Okay.
That's really interesting.
I love that you can stillsee and sense a bit of
opportunity out therewhere people are going, you
know, it's, it's not there.
Um, you were talking a lotabout, you went from sort
of doing Uh, your agency onyour own to over time having
to bring people on in scale.
I think it seems like one ofthe shared pain points of a
lot of agency owners is howdo you structure your team?
(14:45):
How do you, how do you createthis machine that's running?
Right?
So, um, in your eyes,what team structure do you
find works best for, uh,high quality link building
Amit Raj (14:54):
services?
Yeah, so we've actually split,and like you said, there's,
there's different approachesto it But the way that we've
done it is we've split itinto strategy, prospecting,
and outreach So we've, mostthe team is either doing
data prospecting, so actuallycollecting targets and email
contacts Whereas somebody elsewill do outreach and I feel
(15:18):
from a focus point of view and,and, and things like that that
helps because Doing outreach isvery creative and it sometimes
takes a different type ofperson to do that kind of work.
Whereas with prospecting, it'sabout, um, it's different.
It's, it's also aboutattention to detail.
I mean, you do want peoplegenerally a team that have
(15:39):
good attention to detail,but I feel it's especially
important with prospecting.
You may want somebody that'sgot really good research skills
doing that kind of thing.
So again, it's like you lookfor a different kind of quality
when you're hiring for that.
and strategy is likeanother part of it.
We are a smaller number ofthe team involved in that.
It's mainly myself and a coupleof others and that's, um, that
(16:02):
needs to be somebody that'smaybe a bit more experienced
because everything kind ofstarts with a strategy because
whatever happens there carriesthrough to prospecting and
then it affects outreach.
So, um, we've kind of splitit into like those three
phases of link building.
Sarah Nuttycombe (16:18):
But how do you find the right people for that?
Like, what does yourhiring process look like?
To find out, because itsounds like you need talent
in like very specific areas.
Amit Raj (16:28):
Yeah, exactly.
And I think like any kindof a lot of recruiters will
probably know this as well,but it's not suitable for
everybody and you do needenough candidates coming in.
And our team is, is remote.
Um, so we've kind of hiredfrom a number of job platforms.
So, um, I know there'speople using things like
Upwork, um, but we kindof want to hire from.
(16:52):
Longer term like we want peoplestaying with us and we've got
people on the team that havebeen with us for like Like
two years, three years more.
So they've been with us forquite a while and For that
reason we've hired from multipledifferent places and we've
got people on the team fromdifferent countries as well
It's a case of almost treatingit like a funnel like I guess
(17:13):
with the recruitment It is abit like that where you do have
enough Candidates coming in,we screen CVs as normal, um,
we do have a technical partto the application where we'll
ask them a few questions tojust see, um, um, basic things
like, you know, this, here's awebsite and is this a competitor
of this other website?
(17:34):
Kind of small things likethat, that you can do, that are
really going to test if they'rereally cut out for that job,
be it prospecting or outreach.
And I think that part'simportant because you can look
at background and sometimessomebody's work experience
can help, um, if they've gotsomething that crosses over,
but at the same time, I wouldsay don't focus too much on
(17:55):
the background and look at theperson and depending on how
they did in the applicationprocess or in the technical
round, um, look at whattheir thought process was.
So if they got something wrong,doesn't mean that they're
not, they're a bad hire.
There's probably areason why they did that.
And actually it's a goodthing because it probably
means that's an area thatyou can train them on.
(18:17):
Um, and I mean, it's kind ofcliche, but a lot of it is
about attitude and, and, andif somebody is willing to put
in the work and so those kindsof things are very important.
That's something you doneed to look for as well.
Um, cause Again, we don'tnecessarily just hire
people based on them havingworked in link building.
In fact, most of the team Iwould say probably had never
(18:39):
done link building before,when, before they joined us.
Sarah Nuttycombe (18:44):
Okay.
Yeah.
I, I'm, I'm very interestedin the fact that you brought
that up because you were sayingsomething about training and
I thought to myself, like,Oh, what are, what are those
indicators that you kindof look for that you go,
okay, this person is, is.
They're trainable.
They've got this.
It sounds like you're almostmixing a little bit of
you're looking for the rightskills, but almost a little
bit of intuition, right?
(19:04):
Where it's like, I thinkthey have the right attitude.
I think they're going tobe a good culture fit.
And yet they somehow havethis propensity to learn.
So I don't know if there'sa secret sauce to that.
I'm just kind of.
Making that up off the topof my head, but curious if
you have any thoughts on it.
Amit Raj (19:20):
Yeah, I think, um, some of this comes in an
interview as well and perhapshow they answer certain
questions or when somebodyfirst joins the team as well,
it's like kind of like theirapproach to things and, you
know, um, and things likewhen the training, like we
always tell people don't,um, Don't feel that asking
(19:42):
questions is a sign of weakness.
Actually, it's a goodthing and ask as many
questions as you want.
Um, please learn from them.
Like if somebody answersthe question, like remember
it and understand howit's done, but ask as many
questions as you want.
And, you know, if you make amistake, okay, that's fine.
You know, likejust learn from it.
Um, and you can make it, Imean, it's a bit extreme,
(20:05):
but it's almost like make asmany mistakes as you want,
but let's not make the sameone over and over again.
Sarah Nuttycombe (20:12):
I like that.
No, I think that's avery good perspective.
Well, and you know, I thinkback to your point when
you're talking about hiring,um, a lot of these people
haven't done link building.
And I, I think I.
Generally pick that upfrom the, the industry
at large is like, um, noteveryone has a background
in link building and SEO.
They might be doingother things on the side.
(20:34):
They might be a pharmacist andyet their, their side hustle
is, is digital marketing.
And so you kind ofget that overlap.
Um, I did want to talk a littlebit more about just kind of
like the story of your agency.
Cause it sounds like youguys have, have changed a
lot since adopting Pitchbox.
So I'm, I'm, would loveto hear a little bit
more about that journey.
(20:55):
Um, can you walk me through?
Pay me a picture of whowere you as an agency?
How big were you?
How were your processes running?
Amit Raj (21:02):
Yeah, so I think, um, we probably reached a
stage about two, three yearsago where, um, I think it
was probably the last couple,two to three years, where
we scaled up the quickest.
Um, that's where we had thefastest growth, but, um,
and, and yeah, we weren'talways using Pitchbox.
We'd used a couple of solutionsbefore, um, for outreach
especially, um, and we, Iwould say before Pitchbox,
(21:26):
we were, we had that in thatyear, um, we were probably
like, 75 percent of the sizein terms of the team So not,
you know, too much smaller.
However, I know Definitely,we didn't build as many links
and so we were actually quiteinefficient So it took more
manpower and more man hours tobuild that same number of or
(21:48):
less number of links So we weredefinitely less efficient and
There's only so much you coulddo and the team was not too big
but um, it was inefficient and,and it's not down to, it wasn't
just down to like the people, itwas kind of just the processes.
We're kind of losing timebecause there was so much
(22:08):
manual input into things.
Um, so that was like thechallenges we had previously
as we had other solutionswe were using for outreach.
It didn't solve every issueand there was a lot of going
manually into Gmail AttachingGmail labels to conversations
and trying to keep track ofit and it was time consuming
Basically, you know that thatwas um, that was kind of the
(22:30):
main issue that we had thenI bring mostly outreach into
it but prospecting, you know,it would be it would be the
same thing Um, I think becauseof the manual input and there
was a lot of things thatweren't really streamlined.
So for instance, um Withoutreach an important thing
with link building andoutreach is you're having
so many conversations withpeople You that you can't
(22:52):
keep track of no matter howorganized the person is.
You're going to lose your placesomewhere or you're going to
forget to chase somebody upor, for instance, somebody
goes out of office and youneed to remind them about an
article going live or something.
But, um, if you don't havea process or some kind of
solution or software to, toremind you and things like
(23:15):
that, um, it becomes hard tokeep on top of everything.
And it's kind of like that,is a saying that I think
one of our clients used touse in their own business.
They called it deathby a thousand cuts.
Um, not a nice thing, butbasically what he was saying
was, you know, it's like you,you lose a lot of time in
all of these small places.
(23:36):
Um, so for instance, like these,um, these conversations that
go dead, you know, becauseyou've got to chase them up,
you might forget to followup with a bunch of people.
Some of the things that we hadpreviously that were a challenge
and With the solutions, thetools that we had, we didn't
have a way of solving it.
It was just a case of we justneed to remember to do it.
(23:56):
You don't always remembereverything, and people
can burn out a little bitwhen They're trying to
keep on top of so much.
We went through, I wouldsay in the space of like
two years or so, we used twodifferent outreach softwares.
Um, um, so the first onewas kind of, it was okay.
Um, I won't mention the namesas well, but, um, it was okay.
(24:19):
It kind of served itspurpose and, and it was okay.
But when we wanted to scale,it just wasn't, um, it
wasn't really built for that.
So Pitchbox, um, I'd, I'd knownabout for a while, so I'd,
I'd, I'd, Quite a few yearsI'd heard of it and people
had talked about it and theysaid it's really good and
Um, and others knew about it.
(24:39):
Everybody kind ofknew at the time.
We thought we don't reallyhave a solution We don't
have anything that'ssolved these issues.
I think we need totalk to Pitchbox.
Um, and I think what wasinteresting was I mean, it
was, it was designed forlink builders and it's like
they'd thought, to me, italmost sounded like they'd
thought of everything.
So everything that youwould, you would have an
(25:01):
issue with or anything youwanted to streamline, they'd
kind of taken care of it.
So I think that was part of it.
You know, the fact that it wasvery specific to link building,
um, and it had a lot of thefeatures that we wanted as well.
Um, with the good thingis with these Pitchbox
features, we've streamlinedcertain parts of the process.
So, um, I think especially with,like a lot of stuff we've worked
(25:25):
on in the background aside fromPitchbox is just improving the
way we do outreach or improvingthe way we do prospecting
and things like that.
Um, so that's also helped,but I think having a tool like
Pitchbox that you can relyon has also been really good
because people from the teamhave said that they do, they can
really see in terms of resultsthat they can acquire links.
(25:46):
quicker that they do see,you know, um, things like
better response rates.
But, but again, it's, Ithink it's part of it, um,
of being able to acquiremore links with less manners.
Um, I think definitely Pitchboxhas helped with that as well
because of its ability tostreamline certain things or
to automate certain things.
Let's say you want to sendfollow ups, We can, we can rely
(26:10):
on Pitchbox because we knowit's a reliable system for that
kind of thing, and even smallthings like, um, if you want to
schedule a chase up to somebody,like, you don't have to remember
it, you can literally plug itinto the Pitchbox system and it
will send it by a specific dayor you can put in the date that
you know they'll come back fromoffice and things like that.
(26:31):
Like there's all these reallysmall things that the team
really like, they're like, butwe, we didn't have that in the
previous system and we've gotit here, which is really good.
And I think that helps,that also helps with link
building because it's, again,it's all these very small
things that add up over time.
Yeah, we
Sarah Nuttycombe (26:46):
were talking about that before.
Small things can bedeath by a thousand cuts.
And I mean, I, I don't know ifit's fair to call it maybe just
a thousand different little bandaids for those cuts, but you
know, the small things add up.
Now these small things areamplifying into all of a sudden
you're, you're looking at adrastically different way.
(27:08):
of link building, of deliveringservices, um, to your clients.
And I, I'd imagine thathas to be a powerful thing.
Um, walk me through what's theoutcome, you know, have you
witnessed any growth becauseeverything has now changed
since you've brought Pitchbox
Amit Raj (27:24):
on?
We've been able to take onmore clients and I think
We can more confidentlytake on a client now.
We don't have to worry about,is the team big enough?
And because we're thinkingabout all this manual stuff
we're having to do, um, weare able to acquire links,
um, uh, more links withthe same size of team.
Definitely.
And it's sometimeshard to put together.
(27:45):
quantify because you've changedso many different parts of the
process over the past year,but um, I think definitely
in terms of response rates,we've seen a big increase,
um, uh, partly because we'vechanged parts of the process,
but also in terms of Pitchbox,it takes so much load off the
team that they can then focuson the creative parts that
(28:06):
perhaps they couldn't before.
And because of that, like smallthings like You can write a
subject line that's just alittle bit better and then
you'll get a better responserate and things like that.
So I've seen that kindof across the board.
Response rates havegone up which ultimately
leads to, to more links.
Um, and even the good thing isabout Pitchbox has like really
(28:26):
good reporting functions.
So, um, we can see things likehow long or How many days or
how many emails did it taketo get a link in that project?
And then the team get insightsbecause they can say right,
it's taking too long Maybewe're dragging the conversations
out too long Or maybe we needto chase people up more and
(28:48):
and that will help bring thatnumber down and then therefore
you can get more Links ina shorter space of time.
I think one of the great thingsI think when is seeing I guess
the, the satisfaction fromclients and knowing that you've
done a good job for them andActually seeing especially
with links, you know, whenyou eventually you do see
(29:09):
traffic or revenue increasesYou can actually see it.
It's tangible results.
So, you know, you've made animpact for the client I think
that's that's really good tosee and we always report that
back to the team So it motivatesthem because they can see
that look You know, I'm, I'mnot, I'm not just doing link
building, I'm actually makinga real impact on a business
(29:30):
and, and things like that.
So that's really good forme and as well as the team.
Another thing is also peopleon the team knowing that, um,
seeing them upscale from beinglike somebody that never done
link building before Probablywere very unsure of it and not
really that confident to write,I can build this many links and
I'm having that kind of impact.
(29:50):
I think that's reallygood to see as well.
And I can quite, quiteconfidently say that a lot of
them are probably better thanme at link building, which
was actually my goal anyway.
And I'm actually allkey with that as well.
You just hinted at
Sarah Nuttycombe (30:04):
this a little bit, but I want to
dig into a little bit more.
You're talking about the impact.
You are seeing tangibleresults for your clients.
You're seeing tangibleresults for your team.
They're growing,they're changing.
Um, I guess when I think ofthat, I would maybe call that,
it sounds like an aha momentabout what you're doing.
Um, and so I was wonderingif you could walk me through,
(30:26):
you know, have you, Maybeexperienced other aha moments
in what you're doing as anagency, whether that's for
your clients or in some otherrealm of what you're doing.
Um, and what does it mean to youto, to have those aha moments?
every single dayas an agency owner?
Amit Raj (30:45):
I think, um, well, there's probably been a few,
but some of the ones that we'veprobably had and realized that
I think is like the sometimesthe scale of the results.
And I know not every clientneeds millions of visitors
every month, but we've had,for instance, like a client
where we eventually helpedtake them to like over 10
million visitors a month.
(31:05):
Um, and, and when westarted, we were only like
less than 300, 000 a month.
So they were already getting alot of Visitors every month, it
had a lot of traffic But we tookthem to that kind of scale and
we had another client that wetook to like 4 million visitors
a month I think it was somethinglike that from 1 million Now
it took a bit of time It tooklike over a year, year and a
(31:26):
half to get to that stage Butthat's when I kind of sat back
and thought hang on we That's abig, that's a big increase and
you could actually and I thinkit's important because it kind
of that We already know it hasan impact and it's valuable
and and you know, the servicewe're doing is good quality
But when you have results likethat, that's when you can really
(31:46):
say yeah this there's validityin this This really does work
and you can then show that toother potential clients as well.
I want to
Sarah Nuttycombe (31:55):
think forward I want to look forward a little
bit But kind of going back toa little bit of your take on,
um, SEO and your perspective.
I know there's such a wideconversation right now
going on about, like, whatthe future is going to look
like for SEO and maybe howthings like AI are going to
come in and impact things.
(32:16):
Um.
Nobody's got a crystal ball,but what do you think the future
of SEO is gonna look like?
And what do you think it'sgonna take to stay ahead?
Amit Raj (32:25):
Yeah, I think from a link building point of view
I think quality and relevanceand things that tie in with
that are gonna be paramountEspecially with the amount of
algorithm changes that havebeen happening with Google I
think, you know, before maybelow quality links They probably
to some extent did work, somepeople would argue that, but
I think going forward it'sprobably going to be less likely
(32:47):
to, as always happens withevery algorithm change, what
used to work didn't anymore, soI think that's something that
where quality of link buildingis going to be paramount, and
things like AI as well, I thinkthey'll have their place, I
don't think it's going to like,completely make link building
easy that anybody could do it.
You know, it's something thatmight help with certain things
(33:08):
in terms of, um, helping usbeing creative and outreach, you
know, it can help with thingslike writing a pun or writing
a subject line that's reallysnappy or things like that.
Um, so I think it willhelp, but not like solve
everything, you know, as well.
So, um, yeah, but I think,yeah, algorithm changes
are one to watch, I think.
(33:29):
Okay.
Sarah Nuttycombe (33:30):
Yeah.
I.
I think that's pretty valuableperspective, um, especially
in, in doing what you're doing.
Um, what about you?
Uh, personally, what's next foryou and what are your biggest
goals and dreams for the future?
Amit Raj (33:45):
So I think with our agency scale is obviously
something important whenyou're running a business.
I think because of, you know,we've got the processes,
we've got the tools in placeand now it's just how do we
take it to the next level?
Basically we're kindof at that stage.
How do we take it to the
Sarah Nuttycombe (34:00):
next level?
I love it.
Um, well, it sounds like you.
are pretty well supportedin your path for, uh, making
some of these things happen.
And you've really kind ofworked at those processes.
Like we've talked about, you've,um, built the right team.
You kind of have your,I think it's the right.
right hat on, right headon, uh, for being able
(34:21):
to go down this path.
So, uh, I'm excited tohear what you guys get
up to in the future.
Um, it sounds like you'rebuilding some really cool stuff
over there at the Lynx guy.
So, um, really, reallyappreciate your time and
that it's been a lot of funbeing able to talk to you
and hear some of your story
Amit Raj (34:36):
today.
No problem, thanks forhaving me on as well.
And
Sarah Nuttycombe (34:42):
if anybody wants to get a hold of you,
uh, where can they find
Amit Raj (34:44):
you?
Yeah, so you can get us on, uh,well, websites, thelinksguy.
com, um, and then youcan always email us.
Our email contact form ison the website as well.
So everything, we're quitetransparent about pricing
and things like that.
You can get a hold of us there.
And if you want to learn moreabout a service or case studies
(35:04):
are all on the website as well.
Sarah Nuttycombe (35:06):
Thanks again for coming on and
giving me some of your time.
Sometimes the scale of the results, and I know not
every client needs millionsof visitors every month, but
we had for instance like aclient where we eventually
Helped take them to like over10 million visitors a month Um,
and and when we started we wereonly like 000 a month So they
were already getting a lot ofvisitors every month They had a
(00:21):
lot of traffic But we took themto that kind of scale and we
had another client that we tookto like 4 million visitors a
month, I think it was somethinglike that, from 1 million.
Now, it took a bit of time,it took like over a year,
a year and a half to get tothat stage, but That's when I
kind of sat back and thought,hang on, wait, that's a
big, that's a big increase.
All
Sarah Nuttyco (00:40):
right, everybody.
Well, welcome back.
Um, I am really excited tobe joined by Amit Raj today.
Uh, Amit has founded hisown agency, The Lynx Guy.
He's based in Glasgow,Scotland, and joining in
this call today from Glasgow.
So, um, Amit, thank you so muchfor giving me some of your time
today, and I'm, cannot wait tohear some of your story, and,
um, How you got started and howyou found your way to Pitchbox.
(01:02):
So, uh, thanks again for coming
Amit Raj (01:04):
on.
Yeah, no problem.
Say thanks for havingme and for Pitchbox for
inviting me as well.
Sarah Nuttyco (01:10):
Yeah, absolutely.
Well, you know, I got alittle bit of a backstory
here that you've donesome really cool things in
the past couple of years.
So, um, I won't spoil the story.
Let's get into it.
Um, kick me off, start meoff with, um, how, how'd
you find your way into SEO?
Amit Raj (01:28):
Yeah, so it is strange because, um, my
background isn't even SEO.
I'm originally a pharmacist.
So, um, well, in fact, if Igo further back, my family's
kind of always had businesses.
So I guess entrepreneurship waskind of in the family anyway.
Um, but I was a pharmacistoriginally, and then I kind
of, I think I kind of landedup in, Digital marketing,
(01:51):
probably around 2013, and thenwent, you know, further into
like SEO, probably around 2015,2016, and then from, you know,
into link building from there.
It was originally just more ofa side hustle, and, you know,
I don't regret doing pharmacy.
I learned a lot of things aswell, but, um, I just found
I enjoyed this industry,I enjoyed it a lot more.
Sarah Nuttycombe (02:13):
Yeah.
Well, I mean,that's really cool.
Like amazing one that you weredoing this as a, as a side
hustle, then all of a suddenit just seemed to, uh, you
seem to gravitate towards it.
So talk to meabout that journey.
How did you find your wayinto starting your own agency?
Amit Raj (02:29):
Yeah, so it was kind of gradual cause I think with,
um, doing this as a, as a sidehustle, the idea really is
just to kind of get more casualwork or you get one client
or maybe two clients and, youknow, that's kind of an off.
Yeah.
for a while.
Um, but then I realized like I'mpretty good at it at that point.
And then I thought, well, Ican only, there's only so many
(02:50):
hours in the day and I couldn'treally scale up by myself.
You know, I could onlyhandle a couple of clients.
Um, and then at that point,when it came to the stage of
like, Trying to take on a thirdclient, I was like, I need help
with this and it was, it's notlike I originally planned that,
but I kind of just ended upat that stage, you know, where
(03:10):
you have one person helping youout part time and then kind of
gradually realized that look,I can actually turn this into
an agency and scale up further.
Sarah Nuttycombe (03:19):
Okay, how did you make the jump from,
you're gradually buildingthis thing to where you are
today with the Lynx guy?
So who are you andwho do you help?
Amit Raj (03:30):
Yeah, so the Links Guy essentially is a
boutique link building agency.
Um, we, over the years, Iwould say we've worked with
many different industries.
Um, we mainly focus now onSaaS and B2B tech and some e
commerce companies as well.
Um, just because we findthey tend to need link
(03:51):
building a bit more, orthey're more aware of it.
Um, yeah.
But we, yeah, we essentially,we're a specialist
agency in that we onlyoffer link building.
Um, and that's been the caseever since about 2016, you know,
since, um, we've always kindof specialised in that area.
I think because we specialisein link building, we're
probably able to do thingsthat a generalist SEO agency
(04:14):
probably can't, they can'tdo it, but it's, it's just
because of the fact it's quitedifficult to do link building.
And I think where we'redifferent is like, we can.
We can look at a client andwe can build custom campaigns
based on the industry.
I think that's one of the thingsthat sets us apart because we,
we've worked with clients inlike real estate or logistics
(04:35):
or very specific areas andwe're able to get them links
and And things that are likevery related to the sector.
And I know it's really, it'sactually really difficult.
And that's kind of one of thereasons they come to us is
because we're able to do that.
We, I guess it's becauseit's custom and it's,
and it's been createdspecifically for the company.
So deep.
Sarah Nuttycombe (04:56):
into link building and I wanted
to just ask you a fewquestions on the subject.
So, you know, startme off, how do you get
links for your clients?
Amit Raj (05:07):
We, we use a range of strategies that I think are,
because we create them customfor every client, we'll Look
at what we're currently workingwith and then we'll develop
something based on that So Iwould say things ranging from
what you'd call guest postoutreach where we'll try to you
know Go into certain sectorsand build links in those sectors
(05:29):
or industries We like to do alot of kind of resource link
Outreach, which is if you'retrying to get links in articles
that are related to the contentI think that can be really good
because you can look at thecontent and think right who
would find this valuable andthen we Build campaigns based
off that so resource links isa good one because you don't
(05:50):
have to write content each timeThe content is written, but
we're trying to see where thecrossover is And we'll even do
things like Harrow and theseother kind of PR platforms.
So sometimes we'll get linksin like this kind of bigger
publications or media.
Um, again, as long as it'sthe client is suitable
for it, we kind of usea mixture of strategies.
(06:12):
Do you have a favorite link
Sarah Nuttyc (06:12):
building strategy?
Amit Raj (06:15):
I would say, um, resource pages.
We quite, um, we do quite a lotof that with resource pages.
Again, we, I mean, it's noteasy, but we, we do sometimes
for some clients reach outto like local government,
even state government orlike universities, um,
and things like schools.
(06:35):
And it's really goodbecause you're able to
get links and they'revery hard to attain links.
But when you do get them,it's like, You know, a DA
90 plus link or something.
Like sometimes we'll get linksfrom like an Ivy League or
from a school district andit's a very authoritative link.
And you kind of have togo through some hoops
to get those links.
(06:56):
So it's challenging but me andthe team are really, they're
really excited when they geta link like that because it's
not easy to get them as well.
Sarah Nuttycombe (07:04):
Yeah.
Oh man.
I, I'm going to circle back tothat thought later because I
would love to know what the,the feeling and celebration is
like when you're able to securethose, but, um, I think this
is going back to, to somethingwe were talking about before
that, that, um, how do you findthe balance when you're trying
to, um, scale your outreach?
(07:25):
So, um, talk to me about what doyou think is the most effective
way to, to pick up links inlarger numbers or at scale?
Amit Raj (07:34):
If the client, um, has a lot of useful content,
any, you know, they alreadyhave existing content that's
valuable, um, That's ultimatelygoing to be the, I think,
the most efficient way of, ofacquiring more links, because,
um, it's more streamlined,the content's there, and it's
only about trying to reachthose linkable audiences.
(07:59):
Basically, it's like, Lookingat the audiences that you
know, it will be easier toacquire links from and then
creating content that fills thatcrossover between yourself and
the business that you've got.
The prospecting process isactually quite important
here and it actually cameup there was like a When we
(08:20):
were recruiting, we did aninterview not long ago and
it kind of sparked somethingwhen I was talking to him, um,
because it was, um, somebodywe interviewed who'd done
both parts of the process.
So he'd, he had a dual role andhe did prospecting and outreach.
So he did the wholeend-to-end process.
And one of the things hesaid resonated with me
and I was like, right.
Kind of makes sense when hesaid, um, as long as I do a
(08:42):
good job at prospecting, I knowoutreach will be successful.
What he meant was, basically,if he collected a list of
people that he knew he had ahigh chance of getting a link
from, he knew ultimately theoutreach was gonna be easier
because they could see the valueproposition and it's kind of
like that mindset thing and ifthat's something you can do in
(09:03):
your prospecting process andyou can make your list more,
more tight and more relevantto Whatever goal you've got
at the end of it, the tighteryour prospecting lists and
the, the more logical it is forthat group of people to link
to you, um, that ultimatelymake the link building process
(09:25):
more streamlined and you'llhave a higher success rate.
I love
Sarah Nuttycombe (09:29):
that.
You kind of learn thingsfrom like the most
unexpected places, right?
You're in your owninterview and going.
That's right, yeah.
Oh, wait a minute.
That one, that onekind of hit me today.
Um, that's cool.
Well, I like this question.
I think this is, it'sa good way to determine
your stance on things.
Um, what do you thinkis the most important
(09:50):
quality of a good link?
Amit Raj (09:53):
It's kind of subjective, but I think
relevance, um, is, and Iguess that ties in with the
reason we kind of get clientsinvolved and, and process a
lot and we want them to, um,We like to get their feedback
and get their input becausethen you are able to get
links that are more relevant.
(10:15):
At the same time, it's likeif you get a link in a sector
that's not as relevant, I mean,it's probably still going to
have an impact, even if it'snot your target consumer.
But at the same time, Ithink you really get an
edge when you can get linksthat are more relevant.
Um, and, and things like trafficand, and metrics to some extent
(10:37):
do help, but they're very kindof, I find with metrics, it's
more of like a, it's an SEOmetric that sometimes doesn't
mean anything by itself.
And actually you have to,you do have to look at things
that can't be quantified as anumber, but when you look at
relevance, you kind of just haveto understand the target market
or the kind of target audience.
(11:00):
So yeah, I would sayrelevant still, we kind
of tie everything to that.
Sarah Nuttycombe (11:06):
Um, this is, this is, uh, I think another
question that kind of weighsyour stance on things, right?
Um, do you think linkbuilding is overrated,
underrated, or fairly rated?
Amit Raj (11:22):
I would say underrated, um, overall, you
know, obviously there's a lotof people that see value in
it, but underrate link buildingbecause they may have had a
bad experience and they think,well, everybody's like that.
Um, so I think for that reasonit is kind of underrated.
Okay.
Sarah Nuttycombe (11:38):
I think tying back to, you know,
what you specialize, youobviously specialize in link.
Building as a service.
Um, how do
Amit Raj (11:45):
you charge for it?
It's mostly monthly retainers,so we'll do a guarantee, we'll
aim to build this many links,um, with it every month, or,
um, or sometimes we'll do it asa block, so we'll kind of bill
up front and then we'll, youknow, Build a certain number
of links over a certain timeperiod so the deadline or the
(12:06):
target deadline is like a bitmore open But it's kind of
like a larger Target numberso basically a monthly routine
or usually like a block.
Sarah Nuttycombe (12:16):
That's cool.
I think um It's really niceto get a bit of perspective.
Everybody does things a littlebit differently and probably
wondering how someone like youwho specializes in links manages
to create those packages.
Now I really like to talk topeople who are in SEO about
strategies, tactics thatpeople are using that you
(12:40):
just kind of wish that theywould either stop touting as
a solution to link buildingor within SEO in general.
Amit Raj (12:47):
I think when it comes to things like what people
call black hat SEO links andthings like that, I don't
personally have a problem withit, as long as it's not sold
as something that it's not.
I'm hoping people aren'tusing PBN links or something
and trying to say that it'swhite hat link building.
You know, that's one ofthe things that I would
hope doesn't happen.
(13:07):
Um, but other than that, interms of like strategies,
I don't really knockspecific strategies because
I know sometimes peoplemight recommend like.
You should do linkbuilding this way.
And, and, and, you know,and that's not to say that
it doesn't work, but it'slike, sometimes it works
for one client or onetype of business, but it
(13:28):
doesn't work for the other.
So I see a lot of people say,I know this is kind of like the
opposite to what you asked, butsometimes I see a lot of people
saying, um, don't do broken linkbuilding doesn't work anymore.
But actually we've seen itwork, but it works when.
You've got a client in a verybroad sector, um, we've seen
it work, and it's, it's mainlybecause the content is broad
(13:51):
and there's a higher chance thatthere's like dead content out
there that has a lot of links.
I think the reason people sayit doesn't work is because
it, it was done so much thatpeople think that all the
broken links have been fixed.
because it got overdone so much,but actually there's always
content out there that's dead.
Like, there's always going tobe some content out there that
(14:12):
has a load of links and thelinks are leading to nowhere.
So broken link building, Ithink still works, depends on
the client and the project.
Sarah Nuttycombe (14:22):
Okay.
That's really interesting.
I love that you can stillsee and sense a bit of
opportunity out therewhere people are going, you
know, it's, it's not there.
Um, you were talking a lotabout, you went from sort
of doing Uh, your agency onyour own to over time having
to bring people on in scale.
I think it seems like one ofthe shared pain points of a
lot of agency owners is howdo you structure your team?
(14:45):
How do you, how do you createthis machine that's running?
Right?
So, um, in your eyes,what team structure do you
find works best for, uh,high quality link building
Amit Raj (14:54):
services?
Yeah, so we've actually split,and like you said, there's,
there's different approachesto it But the way that we've
done it is we've split itinto strategy, prospecting,
and outreach So we've, mostthe team is either doing
data prospecting, so actuallycollecting targets and email
contacts Whereas somebody elsewill do outreach and I feel
(15:18):
from a focus point of view and,and, and things like that that
helps because Doing outreach isvery creative and it sometimes
takes a different type ofperson to do that kind of work.
Whereas with prospecting, it'sabout, um, it's different.
It's, it's also aboutattention to detail.
I mean, you do want peoplegenerally a team that have
(15:39):
good attention to detail,but I feel it's especially
important with prospecting.
You may want somebody that'sgot really good research skills
doing that kind of thing.
So again, it's like you lookfor a different kind of quality
when you're hiring for that.
and strategy is likeanother part of it.
We are a smaller number ofthe team involved in that.
It's mainly myself and a coupleof others and that's, um, that
(16:02):
needs to be somebody that'smaybe a bit more experienced
because everything kind ofstarts with a strategy because
whatever happens there carriesthrough to prospecting and
then it affects outreach.
So, um, we've kind of splitit into like those three
phases of link building.
Sarah Nuttycombe (16:18):
But how do you find the right people for that?
Like, what does yourhiring process look like?
To find out, because itsounds like you need talent
in like very specific areas.
Amit Raj (16:28):
Yeah, exactly.
And I think like any kindof a lot of recruiters will
probably know this as well,but it's not suitable for
everybody and you do needenough candidates coming in.
And our team is, is remote.
Um, so we've kind of hiredfrom a number of job platforms.
So, um, I know there'speople using things like
Upwork, um, but we kindof want to hire from.
(16:52):
Longer term like we want peoplestaying with us and we've got
people on the team that havebeen with us for like Like
two years, three years more.
So they've been with us forquite a while and For that
reason we've hired from multipledifferent places and we've
got people on the team fromdifferent countries as well
It's a case of almost treatingit like a funnel like I guess
(17:13):
with the recruitment It is abit like that where you do have
enough Candidates coming in,we screen CVs as normal, um,
we do have a technical partto the application where we'll
ask them a few questions tojust see, um, um, basic things
like, you know, this, here's awebsite and is this a competitor
of this other website?
(17:34):
Kind of small things likethat, that you can do, that are
really going to test if they'rereally cut out for that job,
be it prospecting or outreach.
And I think that part'simportant because you can look
at background and sometimessomebody's work experience
can help, um, if they've gotsomething that crosses over,
but at the same time, I wouldsay don't focus too much on
(17:55):
the background and look at theperson and depending on how
they did in the applicationprocess or in the technical
round, um, look at whattheir thought process was.
So if they got something wrong,doesn't mean that they're
not, they're a bad hire.
There's probably areason why they did that.
And actually it's a goodthing because it probably
means that's an area thatyou can train them on.
(18:17):
Um, and I mean, it's kind ofcliche, but a lot of it is
about attitude and, and, andif somebody is willing to put
in the work and so those kindsof things are very important.
That's something you doneed to look for as well.
Um, cause Again, we don'tnecessarily just hire
people based on them havingworked in link building.
In fact, most of the team Iwould say probably had never
(18:39):
done link building before,when, before they joined us.
Sarah Nuttycombe (18:44):
Okay.
Yeah.
I, I'm, I'm very interestedin the fact that you brought
that up because you were sayingsomething about training and
I thought to myself, like,Oh, what are, what are those
indicators that you kindof look for that you go,
okay, this person is, is.
They're trainable.
They've got this.
It sounds like you're almostmixing a little bit of
you're looking for the rightskills, but almost a little
bit of intuition, right?
(19:04):
Where it's like, I thinkthey have the right attitude.
I think they're going tobe a good culture fit.
And yet they somehow havethis propensity to learn.
So I don't know if there'sa secret sauce to that.
I'm just kind of.
Making that up off the topof my head, but curious if
you have any thoughts on it.
Amit Raj (19:20):
Yeah, I think, um, some of this comes in an
interview as well and perhapshow they answer certain
questions or when somebodyfirst joins the team as well,
it's like kind of like theirapproach to things and, you
know, um, and things likewhen the training, like we
always tell people don't,um, Don't feel that asking
(19:42):
questions is a sign of weakness.
Actually, it's a goodthing and ask as many
questions as you want.
Um, please learn from them.
Like if somebody answersthe question, like remember
it and understand howit's done, but ask as many
questions as you want.
And, you know, if you make amistake, okay, that's fine.
You know, likejust learn from it.
Um, and you can make it, Imean, it's a bit extreme,
(20:05):
but it's almost like make asmany mistakes as you want,
but let's not make the sameone over and over again.
Sarah Nuttycombe (20:12):
I like that.
No, I think that's avery good perspective.
Well, and you know, I thinkback to your point when
you're talking about hiring,um, a lot of these people
haven't done link building.
And I, I think I.
Generally pick that upfrom the, the industry
at large is like, um, noteveryone has a background
in link building and SEO.
They might be doingother things on the side.
(20:34):
They might be a pharmacist andyet their, their side hustle
is, is digital marketing.
And so you kind ofget that overlap.
Um, I did want to talk a littlebit more about just kind of
like the story of your agency.
Cause it sounds like youguys have, have changed a
lot since adopting Pitchbox.
So I'm, I'm, would loveto hear a little bit
more about that journey.
(20:55):
Um, can you walk me through?
Pay me a picture of whowere you as an agency?
How big were you?
How were your processes running?
Amit Raj (21:02):
Yeah, so I think, um, we probably reached a
stage about two, three yearsago where, um, I think it
was probably the last couple,two to three years, where
we scaled up the quickest.
Um, that's where we had thefastest growth, but, um,
and, and yeah, we weren'talways using Pitchbox.
We'd used a couple of solutionsbefore, um, for outreach
especially, um, and we, Iwould say before Pitchbox,
(21:26):
we were, we had that in thatyear, um, we were probably
like, 75 percent of the sizein terms of the team So not,
you know, too much smaller.
However, I know Definitely,we didn't build as many links
and so we were actually quiteinefficient So it took more
manpower and more man hours tobuild that same number of or
(21:48):
less number of links So we weredefinitely less efficient and
There's only so much you coulddo and the team was not too big
but um, it was inefficient and,and it's not down to, it wasn't
just down to like the people, itwas kind of just the processes.
We're kind of losing timebecause there was so much
(22:08):
manual input into things.
Um, so that was like thechallenges we had previously
as we had other solutionswe were using for outreach.
It didn't solve every issueand there was a lot of going
manually into Gmail AttachingGmail labels to conversations
and trying to keep track ofit and it was time consuming
Basically, you know that thatwas um, that was kind of the
(22:30):
main issue that we had thenI bring mostly outreach into
it but prospecting, you know,it would be it would be the
same thing Um, I think becauseof the manual input and there
was a lot of things thatweren't really streamlined.
So for instance, um Withoutreach an important thing
with link building andoutreach is you're having
so many conversations withpeople You that you can't
(22:52):
keep track of no matter howorganized the person is.
You're going to lose your placesomewhere or you're going to
forget to chase somebody upor, for instance, somebody
goes out of office and youneed to remind them about an
article going live or something.
But, um, if you don't havea process or some kind of
solution or software to, toremind you and things like
(23:15):
that, um, it becomes hard tokeep on top of everything.
And it's kind of like that,is a saying that I think
one of our clients used touse in their own business.
They called it deathby a thousand cuts.
Um, not a nice thing, butbasically what he was saying
was, you know, it's like you,you lose a lot of time in
all of these small places.
(23:36):
Um, so for instance, like these,um, these conversations that
go dead, you know, becauseyou've got to chase them up,
you might forget to followup with a bunch of people.
Some of the things that we hadpreviously that were a challenge
and With the solutions, thetools that we had, we didn't
have a way of solving it.
It was just a case of we justneed to remember to do it.
(23:56):
You don't always remembereverything, and people
can burn out a little bitwhen They're trying to
keep on top of so much.
We went through, I wouldsay in the space of like
two years or so, we used twodifferent outreach softwares.
Um, um, so the first onewas kind of, it was okay.
Um, I won't mention the namesas well, but, um, it was okay.
(24:19):
It kind of served itspurpose and, and it was okay.
But when we wanted to scale,it just wasn't, um, it
wasn't really built for that.
So Pitchbox, um, I'd, I'd knownabout for a while, so I'd,
I'd, I'd, Quite a few yearsI'd heard of it and people
had talked about it and theysaid it's really good and
Um, and others knew about it.
(24:39):
Everybody kind ofknew at the time.
We thought we don't reallyhave a solution We don't
have anything that'ssolved these issues.
I think we need totalk to Pitchbox.
Um, and I think what wasinteresting was I mean, it
was, it was designed forlink builders and it's like
they'd thought, to me, italmost sounded like they'd
thought of everything.
So everything that youwould, you would have an
(25:01):
issue with or anything youwanted to streamline, they'd
kind of taken care of it.
So I think that was part of it.
You know, the fact that it wasvery specific to link building,
um, and it had a lot of thefeatures that we wanted as well.
Um, with the good thingis with these Pitchbox
features, we've streamlinedcertain parts of the process.
So, um, I think especially with,like a lot of stuff we've worked
(25:25):
on in the background aside fromPitchbox is just improving the
way we do outreach or improvingthe way we do prospecting
and things like that.
Um, so that's also helped,but I think having a tool like
Pitchbox that you can relyon has also been really good
because people from the teamhave said that they do, they can
really see in terms of resultsthat they can acquire links.
(25:46):
quicker that they do see,you know, um, things like
better response rates.
But, but again, it's, Ithink it's part of it, um,
of being able to acquiremore links with less manners.
Um, I think definitely Pitchboxhas helped with that as well
because of its ability tostreamline certain things or
to automate certain things.
Let's say you want to sendfollow ups, We can, we can rely
(26:10):
on Pitchbox because we knowit's a reliable system for that
kind of thing, and even smallthings like, um, if you want to
schedule a chase up to somebody,like, you don't have to remember
it, you can literally plug itinto the Pitchbox system and it
will send it by a specific dayor you can put in the date that
you know they'll come back fromoffice and things like that.
(26:31):
Like there's all these reallysmall things that the team
really like, they're like, butwe, we didn't have that in the
previous system and we've gotit here, which is really good.
And I think that helps,that also helps with link
building because it's, again,it's all these very small
things that add up over time.
Yeah, we
Sarah Nuttycombe (26:46):
were talking about that before.
Small things can bedeath by a thousand cuts.
And I mean, I, I don't know ifit's fair to call it maybe just
a thousand different little bandaids for those cuts, but you
know, the small things add up.
Now these small things areamplifying into all of a sudden
you're, you're looking at adrastically different way.
(27:08):
of link building, of deliveringservices, um, to your clients.
And I, I'd imagine thathas to be a powerful thing.
Um, walk me through what's theoutcome, you know, have you
witnessed any growth becauseeverything has now changed
since you've brought Pitchbox
Amit Raj (27:24):
on?
We've been able to take onmore clients and I think
We can more confidentlytake on a client now.
We don't have to worry about,is the team big enough?
And because we're thinkingabout all this manual stuff
we're having to do, um, weare able to acquire links,
um, uh, more links withthe same size of team.
Definitely.
And it's sometimeshard to put together.
(27:45):
quantify because you've changedso many different parts of the
process over the past year,but um, I think definitely
in terms of response rates,we've seen a big increase,
um, uh, partly because we'vechanged parts of the process,
but also in terms of Pitchbox,it takes so much load off the
team that they can then focuson the creative parts that
(28:06):
perhaps they couldn't before.
And because of that, like smallthings like You can write a
subject line that's just alittle bit better and then
you'll get a better responserate and things like that.
So I've seen that kindof across the board.
Response rates havegone up which ultimately
leads to, to more links.
Um, and even the good thing isabout Pitchbox has like really
(28:26):
good reporting functions.
So, um, we can see things likehow long or How many days or
how many emails did it taketo get a link in that project?
And then the team get insightsbecause they can say right,
it's taking too long Maybewe're dragging the conversations
out too long Or maybe we needto chase people up more and
(28:48):
and that will help bring thatnumber down and then therefore
you can get more Links ina shorter space of time.
I think one of the great thingsI think when is seeing I guess
the, the satisfaction fromclients and knowing that you've
done a good job for them andActually seeing especially
with links, you know, whenyou eventually you do see
(29:09):
traffic or revenue increasesYou can actually see it.
It's tangible results.
So, you know, you've made animpact for the client I think
that's that's really good tosee and we always report that
back to the team So it motivatesthem because they can see
that look You know, I'm, I'mnot, I'm not just doing link
building, I'm actually makinga real impact on a business
(29:30):
and, and things like that.
So that's really good forme and as well as the team.
Another thing is also peopleon the team knowing that, um,
seeing them upscale from beinglike somebody that never done
link building before Probablywere very unsure of it and not
really that confident to write,I can build this many links and
I'm having that kind of impact.
(29:50):
I think that's reallygood to see as well.
And I can quite, quiteconfidently say that a lot of
them are probably better thanme at link building, which
was actually my goal anyway.
And I'm actually allkey with that as well.
You just hinted at
Sarah Nuttycombe (30:04):
this a little bit, but I want to
dig into a little bit more.
You're talking about the impact.
You are seeing tangibleresults for your clients.
You're seeing tangibleresults for your team.
They're growing,they're changing.
Um, I guess when I think ofthat, I would maybe call that,
it sounds like an aha momentabout what you're doing.
Um, and so I was wonderingif you could walk me through,
(30:26):
you know, have you, Maybeexperienced other aha moments
in what you're doing as anagency, whether that's for
your clients or in some otherrealm of what you're doing.
Um, and what does it mean to youto, to have those aha moments?
every single dayas an agency owner?
Amit Raj (30:45):
I think, um, well, there's probably been a few,
but some of the ones that we'veprobably had and realized that
I think is like the sometimesthe scale of the results.
And I know not every clientneeds millions of visitors
every month, but we've had,for instance, like a client
where we eventually helpedtake them to like over 10
million visitors a month.
(31:05):
Um, and, and when westarted, we were only like
less than 300, 000 a month.
So they were already getting alot of Visitors every month, it
had a lot of traffic But we tookthem to that kind of scale and
we had another client that wetook to like 4 million visitors
a month I think it was somethinglike that from 1 million Now
it took a bit of time It tooklike over a year, year and a
(31:26):
half to get to that stage Butthat's when I kind of sat back
and thought hang on we That's abig, that's a big increase and
you could actually and I thinkit's important because it kind
of that We already know it hasan impact and it's valuable
and and you know, the servicewe're doing is good quality
But when you have results likethat, that's when you can really
(31:46):
say yeah this there's validityin this This really does work
and you can then show that toother potential clients as well.
I want to
Sarah Nuttycombe (31:55):
think forward I want to look forward a little
bit But kind of going back toa little bit of your take on,
um, SEO and your perspective.
I know there's such a wideconversation right now
going on about, like, whatthe future is going to look
like for SEO and maybe howthings like AI are going to
come in and impact things.
(32:16):
Um.
Nobody's got a crystal ball,but what do you think the future
of SEO is gonna look like?
And what do you think it'sgonna take to stay ahead?
Amit Raj (32:25):
Yeah, I think from a link building point of view
I think quality and relevanceand things that tie in with
that are gonna be paramountEspecially with the amount of
algorithm changes that havebeen happening with Google I
think, you know, before maybelow quality links They probably
to some extent did work, somepeople would argue that, but
I think going forward it'sprobably going to be less likely
(32:47):
to, as always happens withevery algorithm change, what
used to work didn't anymore, soI think that's something that
where quality of link buildingis going to be paramount, and
things like AI as well, I thinkthey'll have their place, I
don't think it's going to like,completely make link building
easy that anybody could do it.
You know, it's something thatmight help with certain things
(33:08):
in terms of, um, helping usbeing creative and outreach, you
know, it can help with thingslike writing a pun or writing
a subject line that's reallysnappy or things like that.
Um, so I think it willhelp, but not like solve
everything, you know, as well.
So, um, yeah, but I think,yeah, algorithm changes
are one to watch, I think.
(33:29):
Okay.
Sarah Nuttycombe (33:30):
Yeah.
I.
I think that's pretty valuableperspective, um, especially
in, in doing what you're doing.
Um, what about you?
Uh, personally, what's next foryou and what are your biggest
goals and dreams for the future?
Amit Raj (33:45):
So I think with our agency scale is obviously
something important whenyou're running a business.
I think because of, you know,we've got the processes,
we've got the tools in placeand now it's just how do we
take it to the next level?
Basically we're kindof at that stage.
How do we take it to the
Sarah Nuttycombe (34:00):
next level?
I love it.
Um, well, it sounds like you.
are pretty well supportedin your path for, uh, making
some of these things happen.
And you've really kind ofworked at those processes.
Like we've talked about, you've,um, built the right team.
You kind of have your,I think it's the right.
right hat on, right headon, uh, for being able
(34:21):
to go down this path.
So, uh, I'm excited tohear what you guys get
up to in the future.
Um, it sounds like you'rebuilding some really cool stuff
over there at the Lynx guy.
So, um, really, reallyappreciate your time and
that it's been a lot of funbeing able to talk to you
and hear some of your story
Amit Raj (34:36):
today.
No problem, thanks forhaving me on as well.
And
Sarah Nuttycombe (34:42):
if anybody wants to get a hold of you,
uh, where can they find
Amit Raj (34:44):
you?
Yeah, so you can get us on, uh,well, websites, thelinksguy.
com, um, and then youcan always email us.
Our email contact form ison the website as well.
So everything, we're quitetransparent about pricing
and things like that.
You can get a hold of us there.
And if you want to learn moreabout a service or case studies
(35:04):
are all on the website as well.
Sarah Nuttycombe (35:06):
Thanks again for coming on and
giving me some of your time.
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