We all like to see our website on the first page of Google search results. With SEO rapidly evolving, getting to the first page of Google is more challenging than ever.
Most companies and businesses must work hard to stay on top of their SEO game. Sticking to one SEO practice doesn’t work anymore.
What about parasite SEO? You may have heard of parasite SEO if you are trying to rank your website or online store.
If you are new to parasite SEO, let’s take this opportunity to discover what you need to know.
What Is Parasite SEO?
Parasite SEO is not something new. It has been around for a long time.
The best way to understand parasite SEO is to look at how it works.
If you like, parasite SEO involves publishing quality content on external sites that rank high in search engine results. You have probably heard the term “guest post” mentioned once or twice.
When you publish a guest post, you take advantage of the host site’s traffic volume and search engines’ trust in this particular site. Hence the term parasite SEO.
Just like with anything else, there are pros and cons to parasite SEO.
Pros and Cons of Parasite SEO
Cons of Parasite Content
Let’s look at some of the cons of parasite content before we check out the pros.
1 Platform and Content
Before you go ahead and post your content, you must check out the terms and conditions on the site.
For instance, do you still own the content you published, or have you handed ownership to the site? Can you still use the content somewhere else if the site goes down?
In a perfect world, you should still have the copyright to the content.
Can the site owner remove your content without asking? Once again, ensure the content stays live for a while before you publish.
Spending time creating content that will only be live for a couple of days wastes your time and resources.
2 Legal and Ethical Issues
Before you publish, make sure you check the publishing criteria.
Legal and ethical issues that violate a platform can get you into trouble,
Most sites that offer guest posts don’t affect spam or low-quality content. Still, many content creators, bloggers and even online stores think they can get away with poor-quality content.
If you are serious about making parasite SEO work for you, publishing better-quality content on a genuine site is better.
3 Can You Update Your Content?
This is super important. If you own a store or publish particular content, you may want to update your content occasionally.
For instance, you have put your heart and soul into creating an online cooking show. In your post, you talk about the pots and pans you use.
Your site has an Amazon affiliate link to your pots and pans. One day, you wake up and find Amazon is not selling that particular brand of pots anymore.
Can you then return to the original parasite content and change the name of the pots and pans?
Updating any guest content is just as important as updating content on your site.
This is why many businesses set up a dedicated network of what can only be described as parasite or referral sites. This means they remain in control. In the long run, this is a good investment.
4 Competition Is High
Take a closer look at the site before you publish.
Ideally, you want to ensure you are the only one publishing in your niche.
For instance, if the site offers guest posts for health content, try to see if you can target your niche from a different angle. If other guest posts on the site talk about liquid vitamins, your content can discuss the benefits of gummies instead.
There are ways around this issue. Most importantly, you must do your best to publish unique content within your niche.
Pros of Parasite Content
When Is Parasite Content Useful?
Now that we know more about the cons of parasite content and what you need to watch out for let’s find out about the pros.
5 Ranking For Medium Competitions Keywords
As you probably know, keywords are often referred to by their value. Online advertising programmes ask you to pay more for high-ranking keywords.
Instead of spending your budget buying medium-ranking keywords, you can use parasite SEO for ranking. This practice is often cheaper and faster.
6 Experimenting With a New Niche
Setting up a new website is not cheap and takes time.
When you want to check the demand for a niche, parasite SEO offers you the perfect opportunity.
Find somewhere to publish some articles in your new niche, and see how they go. If the site offers you a summary of results, that’s great.
7 Diversify Your Traffic Sources
It is essential to get traffic from as many sources as possible.
If you already use Social Media platforms as a traffic source, you are probably getting traffic from particular sources.
When you want to capture a new target audience, parasite SEO is a good alternative. Not everybody follows links on Social Media. Finding a larger and broader audience is one of the advantages of parasite SEO.
8 Backlinking
Backlinking is an essential aspect of SEO.
Finding sites where you can place backlinks is not easy. Ideally, the sites where you publish your backlinks should be relevant to your content.
This is where parasite SEO comes in. You can create relevant articles and add backlinks referring back to your site.
When you do this, ensure you comply with the terms and conditions of the site. Otherwise, your content may be removed or not published at all.
Many sites like to charge for content that is too spammy or just placed to gain backlinks.
Final Thoughts
Some say that parasite SEO is dead and not relevant anymore.
But, as long as you use it correctly and publish quality content, parasite SEO is still a helpful tool for driving traffic to your website.
