One of the most controversial strategies in online marketing and SEO might be the private blog network.

In a private blog network, you build a network of sites designed to promote a different website and help it succeed. Of course, it is much more complicated than that but we’re going to get into all the details here.

A private blog network can be a lucrative strategy but you absolutely need to understand the amount of effort, money, and risk involved. It is not a simple strategy and not one you can do overnight.

This guide is intended as a comprehensive outline of everything you should consider when investing in a private blog network, including what they are, how to build them, best practices, search engine optimization, important risks, how Google's algorithm applies, and other pitfalls.

There are a lot of considerations to be had. We’re going to outline them here.

What is a Private Blog Network (PBN)?

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that all function to link to another website with the purpose of ranking it higher in Google.

Essentially, the goal is to create high authority websites with different domain names that create links and help the money-making website rank higher on Google.

How Does This Relate to SEO?

This is all based on the SEO strategy of creating authority. Basically, Google tries to return websites that are authoritative and trustworthy.

Google wants you to be happy with your search results and providing trusted websites is a major part of that.

One way that Google decides whether a site is trustworthy is by seeing how many other sites link to it.

The idea is that people link to a site that they trust.

Therefore, with a PBN, you are creating your own network of high authority links,  helping your main site’s Google rankings by linking to it from your other websites.

Is This Okay With Google?

No. This is not what Google intended when ranking websites on authority. Google wants independent links, links to your website that appear because the person running the website has a real interest in your site and wants to share it.

An essential part of a good PBN is hiding the fact that your websites are related and all controlled by you. None of your websites should appear related or affiliated in any way or Google will catch on and potentially blacklist your website.

The extent to which Google punishes you is not clear in every situation.

It depends on whether they devalue the links to your website or de-rank the whole thing.

Remember, Google’s goal is to return websites that people trust. This is really all you need to keep in mind when deciding whether this strategy is legitimate.

If your strategy is artificial or the links aren’t based on real interest and trust in your site, you can bet Google does not want to promote it.

Why Would I Choose This?

So why would you choose this method despite the risks? If there is a chance that Google will flag and penalize the website, why would you choose a PBN?

The short answer is that the alternatives take significantly more time and are more difficult to achieve. It becomes an act of balancing the risk between the relative ease of creating a PBN against the risk that it could backfire on Google.

The alternatives to a PBN are creating links and gathering authority legitimately. This means that you rely on independent websites to see and share your content.

This can be done naturally if your content and articles get enough attention. Alternatively, you can network with other site owners within your niche and set up arrangements where you share each other’s content.

This is a viable strategy and if you can build organic links then it certainly helps your SEO. That said, be prepared for this to be extremely time consuming and often expensive.

While PBNs are a way to avoid some of the difficulties associated with building authority organically, they really need to be weighed against the risks.

Overall, there are many ways to build a website and generate links. Google wants to return links based on real interest and trust but doing this is not so simple, especially given all the competition out there.

Going Forward

As you can see, the PBN strategy becomes complicated and risky the more you understand it as a building strategy.

Not only do you have to independently create high-quality sites and high-quality content, you have to link them in a way that makes them seem independent.

It is a major undertaking and this guide is intended to not only help you understand how to do it successfully but to also decide whether this is the right strategy for you.

How Do I Make One?

How do you go about planning a PBN and implementing PBN sites and an overall strategy?

Now that we have covered what it is and the reasons for implementation, we can start to talk about putting a plan in action.

As you might imagine, it takes a lot of planning and work to make this strategy successful. It’s not something you can do overnight and it’s not always guaranteed to work. You need to keep in mind the risks associated with trying to trick Google like this.

Regardless, any plan has a much better chance of succeeding if you plan well and prepare for each alternative.

Next, we’ll take a look at how to plan your project and give it the best chance of success. Here’s a closer look at the step-by-step process.

1. Make a Plan and Set Goals

The first step of any strategy is a well-formulated plan. This is especially important for a PBN. How you structure it immediately determines your success and the likelihood that you’ll go undetected by Google.

Plan for how many links you need to generate for your PBN to be successful. The answer to this is not the same for every network. It depends on your niche, industry, topic, and website.

The best course of action is to gauge the level of competition in your industry and go from there.

You need to plan what these websites are and more importantly, how you are going to populate these sites with content.

Creating real and valuable content is essential. A link that comes from a site that doesn’t look legitimate is not very useful. We cover this in more detail a bit later.

3. Plan Structure

Of course, you will also need to plan for the overall structure of the PBN.

Since a PBN is essentially a big web of websites, you need an idea of what the overall picture looks like. This includes planning each site and how they relate to each other.

The key is to keep these websites completely independent and eliminate any connection between them.

This means planning the structure of each website, the type of content each provides, and the perspective from which you will be writing content.

We’ll get into specific strategies to do this below.

4. Plan for Cost

Next is to plan for the cost.

This is key to ensuring that you are ready to commit the funds necessary to ensure that your plan is financially feasible. Balance the costs of creating the PBN against the projected revenue from your money website.

Costs include those associated with buying domains, hosting websites, and creating content. Depending on how you create content, you may need to pay writers or revalue your own time.

The first thing to consider is the domain. Domain costs vary widely. (We provide a more detailed guide to buying domains below.)

Additional costs for hosting the domain usually need to be renewed yearly. Consider the cost of buying every single website needed for your PBN.

Next is getting content. If you pay writers, you also need to factor this into your budget.

Depending on the complexity of the writing you need, you should expect to pay at least $1-$20 per article.

5. Get Domains

Once you have your organizational structure planned, you can get going on building your PBN.

You should look at buying expired or expiring domains. Expired domains have the benefit of a pre-established reputation and existing traffic and links.

There’s a traffic base that you can capitalize on to get a headstart on your traffic.

Additionally, since you are using these sites to generate traffic, you can quite easily build your site around the same niche as the previous one to retain a large portion of the existing traffic.

Many websites specialize in expired domains. Below, we give you a more comprehensive guide to buying domains for PBNs and how to sort out which are valuable, and how much to spend.

The next step in building a PBN is dropping links to your money site. While this sounds simple, it is quite a bit of work.

It’s not as easy as simply building a site and adding a link to your money site.

Before you can even think about links, you need to build the website up as an authoritative source. As we keep emphasizing, these sites have to seem real and independent.

A link from a website means nothing if the website holds no weight. Therefore, you need to put together real independent content on your network sites before you can naturally link it to your money site.

The goal is to make the links to your money site seem natural.

It shouldn’t look deliberate or forced. Focus on building content and drop a link only when it seems like it naturally fits on an independent website.

Remember, use these links strategically. It should not be obvious that this website exists to promote your money site.

Mixing in links to other sources as well. Your money site links should be just one among many other relevant links.

You are in reality building a separate, independent website. It is a wholly different site from your money site and built with different content.

It should have a central theme and serve a real purpose.

While it may be frustrating that the answer to when you should link your money site is “it depends”, it is truly the best approach.

Focus on first building your site as an authoritative source and then use the opportunity when it comes.

7. Ongoing Management

To keep your sites up and running, you have to dedicate time and a strategy for ongoing maintenance.

Each site needs a specific plan, not only for generating the content but also for linking to other sites and to the money site. You can go about creating this plan in various ways.

Many people make a content plan and pay writers to create content. If you can have content planned out in advance, populating the sites is a bit easier.

The key is to map out your progress and have benchmarks in place so that you can delegate the work.

Whatever way you plan to manage your sites and create the content, having a strategy in place ahead of time makes things happen much more smoothly.

Strategies to Avoid Penalty

As we have touched on several times, making a PBN is not an accepted process.

This does not make it illegal, it simply means that Google is not looking to promote this sort of activity on its search engine.

They want to promote well-read sites that are accepted by independent evaluators and that doesn’t include a network of sites controlled by you.

If Google suspects that your site is a part of a PBN, it punishes you with deindexing. If your site becomes deindexed by Google, it will not appear in search results.

As you can imagine, this is a major penalty, especially considering that the whole purpose of a PBN is to rank highly on sites such as Google.

Without search results, very few people can find your network.

So, as the owner of a PBN, you want to avoid these penalties. It should be a major part of your strategy.

How can you do this? We’re going to examine the best ways to avoid detection and to operate your PBN without making it obvious that the websites are linked.

Strategy 1: Hosting and Registration

The first and perhaps most crucial way of separating the sites on your PBN has to do with the steps in registering and hosting your site.

First, you should get your domains through different domain registrars.

Buying domains through different registrars is an obvious step to disguise the fact that the same person purchased all the domains.

Additionally, a different registrar hosts each site which makes it less likely that the sites will be determined to be linked together.

Having a “WhoIs Guard” turned on in your sites is a valuable step as well. A WhoIs search is a way for people to identify the owner of a website as well as other details.

Obviously, hiding these details is important so people do not learn that the owner of all the sites in your PBN is the same.

Next up is hosting. Be sure that each site in your PBN has a different IP Address. An IP address can identify that websites are owned by the same owner.

If the IP addresses are different, it is much easier for people to discover that there is a common owner. We have a more detailed section on hosting below.

Next up is disguising your link strategy. As we discussed, the ultimate goal of each of these sites is to link to your money site.

That said, it must not be obvious that this is the point of each one. This can be achieved with some clever linking strategies.

Be sure to link to other sites that are related to your niche while behaving like a normal website.

Build a base of content that involves a solid base of links.

Not only does this make your site appear more natural, but it also makes it more difficult to tell which link is the one to the money site and therefore more difficult to track the motivation behind the link.

Next, don’t link to your money site often. In fact, you should probably only do so once. After you have a solid base of content and outgoing links, you can link to your money site whenever it feels natural.

One link is effective enough if you have created enough authority before you do it.

If you start linking to your money site on multiple occasions, it becomes obvious which site you are trying to promote.

Using different anchor text to link to your money site is a good strategy as well. If all the anchor text is the same, it’s somewhat obvious that each link is written by the same person.

Mixing up the anchor text is important as it gives a diverse range of reasons for websites to link to the money site.

Strategy 3: Website Strategy

You also should consider the range of websites that you include within your PBN. What this means is that the websites should be unique and differentiated.

Of course, this is because it makes it more difficult to tell that the websites are related and part of the same PBN. There are a few key ways to do this.

The first is to ensure that each website covers a different topic or niche. Each website should have a different central focus or interest and can also be differentiated based on the type of website it is, whether a blog, a travel journal, or how-to website.

Additionally, settle on a persona and history for each website. Decide on the perspective from which you are writing it.

For example, are you a travel blogger or a financial expert with a history in the industry?

Once you have settled on the perspective of your content, decide the type of content you will share from each website, whether it’s blog content, guides, or news articles.

Outlining each website from the start helps ensure consistency but also makes it much easier to decide which content to share.

Wrap-up: Privacy Strategies

These are all effective ways to conceal the identity of your PBN and a successful PBNmust utilize them all.

You must put effort into concealing your web identity, website content, and personal identity. These privacy measures must be implemented in your general PBN strategy.

Building a PBN: In-Depth Guide

How Should I Buy Domains For PBN?

We’ve touched on buying domains throughout this guide. Securing domains for a PBN is obviously an important part of your overall strategy.

As you have seen, using the right domains for your websites is important.

In this section, we explain the relevant considerations for buying domains for your PBN including where to buy and how to evaluate quality.

Expired Domains

A PBN is built by buying expired domains. An expired domain is one that was previously owned and operated by a different owner.

Domains are only leased for a certain period of time so once that period expires, the previous person loses ownership if they don’t renew it.

Expired domains are so valuable because they come with pre-existing traffic and backlinks. You are taking ownership of an already established website that may have already built a reputation online.

This saves you the trouble of building each website from scratch.

Of course, there is a wide range of quality when it comes to expired domains. How the past site was used as well as the quality of the backlinks and traffic and its niche all affect the quality of an expired domain.

Evaluating Quality of Domains

So how do you go about choosing which expired domain to buy? It can be difficult to evaluate which is best for your PBN. In this section, we give you some factors to consider.

You, of course, do not want to buy a website that was used to spam people. These websites do not have valuable traffic or backlinks so there is nothing there for you to build on.

Next, make sure you buy an expired domain within the same niche as what you plan to use the website for. You can effortlessly transition the website with your own content.

Additionally, any traffic and backlinks still point users to a relevant area of the Internet. They can still find the content they are looking for on the new website.

You also definitely don’t want a domain that was used in a PBN before this. This will increase your risk factor, and also will not have quality backlinks itself. You want to buy a website that was used legitimately.

Finally, avoid websites that have been deindexed. If your website has already been punished by Google, it defeats the purpose of buying it in the first place.

You want to build an SEO strategy and that requires you to be able to rank on Google.

Monitoring these sites for backlinks and potential spam can be a time consuming and costly process. Not only are there many expired domains to choose from, but also many things to look at to evaluate the value of each site.

Websites like Spamzilla do this filtering process for you. They only offer expired domains that have passed their quality control measures and were not previously used for spamming or for illegitimate purposes.

Where Do I Buy My Domain?

One important thing you should do when populating your PBN with domains is to ensure that you do not buy your domains from the same source.

If you buy all your domains from the same source, you run the risk of leaving common ownership footprints which makes it easier to identify you as a PBN.

That means you need to know multiple ways to buy PBNs. In this section, we take a closer look at some of these methods.

Domain Brokers

The first option for buying expired domains is to buy them from a domain broker such as PBNHQ. A broker is someone who collects a selection of expired domains and sells them to you.

The important part of the work that they do is evaluating the domains for quality. A reputable broker will not offer domains that are spammy or illegitimate.

This also speaks to the importance of finding a trustworthy broker. If you find one that you can trust, you can short-track the process of finding and buying trustworthy domains that you can use to build your PBN.

Of course, a good broker typically charges more because of how much work is involved on their end.

If you consider the time you save by not having to do this diligent research yourself, you will often find it is worth the extra investment for the peace of mind that you’re getting a high-quality domain.

Auction Websites

The most common way for expired domains to be sold is at auction such as GoDaddy Auctions. Once a domain expires or is in the expiration process, it is usually put up for sale at auction. Many auction websites are available.

As with any auction, it is possible to find great bargains and get just what you’re looking for at a cheap price.

That said, you run the risk of having to put in the time and effect of performing diligent research on your own to figure out whether or not a domain has value.

It is often difficult to find and capture the whole value of a domain as auctions are a competitive process.

Domain Privacy

We have spoken a lot to the quality of domains in this section but, as with all aspects of building a PBN, privacy remains paramount.

You need to ensure that your domain buying process doesn’t point to the fact that you are building a PBN.

The best thing you can do to prevent this is to buy your domains from different sources. Each of your websites should have a different registrar.

This makes it seems as if each domain is owned by a different person and the registrar purchase cannot be used to track the domains to a common owner.

Make it a habit to have a list of reputable registrars and buy from each alternatively to avoid detection.

Final Note On Domain Purchasing

As you can see, purchasing PBN domains for sale is not a straightforward process when it comes to building a PBN. Your paramount concerns are privacy and quality of the domain.

Evaluating quality is a large undertaking in itself. That’s why it may be useful to purchase domains from services that have done the heavy work for you.

The more you understand about what makes a website a good choice for PBN purposes, the more you learn how to evaluate the right expired domains to buy.

PBN Hosting Guide

Hosting is one of the most important parts of creating a PBN, if not the most important.

One of the major parts of PBN management is covering your tracks and that is what a hosting strategy is all about.

A hosting service connects your websites to the Internet. They give you space on their servers but this is also behavior that can be tracked.

One of the most obvious ways to detect a PBN is when they use a common host for all of their websites. So, it’s crucial to differentiate your hosts.

There are several methods to differentiate hosting and cover your tracks and we’re going to explore some of them in this section. Generally, the more effective a method is, the more complicated or expensive it will be.

That said, we recommend that you put the effort into mastering these methods at the start. A deindexed PBN is even more expensive down the line.

The best PBN hosting is a method of PBN hosting that is highly effective but needs to be balanced against the high cost.

With this method, you use a popular web host (Monster, GoDaddy, etc.) to host the websites on your PBN.

Basically, because these services host so many websites, it becomes impossible to differentiate the websites on your PBN from other websites.

Because so many people use these services, it doesn’t look at all odd to have so many websites hosted by them.

This method can be quite difficult to manage. Because you need to pay to set up each website separately, you also need to manage each separately.

Instead of managing your PBN from one convenient location, you are sort of all over the map.

Additionally, this is a premium option and you are going to pay for it.

These hosting options are valuable services and come at a high cost, especially considering you need to buy multiple websites.

If you are very serious about maintaining the privacy of your PBN, this is an option you should consider, at least for some of the sites on your network.

Virtual Private Servers

A virtual private server (VPS) is a popular hosting option for PBNs but it’s also quite an expensive one.

A virtual private server is meant to hide the activity on the server. For this method, you buy a virtual private server and host your PBNs on it.

This is a good option but it is also quite complicated and requires an experienced user.

This method gives you the option of managing the IP addresses yourself which may not be possible if you do not have the know-how.

Various online services offer VPS's and range in price from cheaper to more expensive.

This is definitely a valid option to host your PBNs but be ready to learn some more technical details before you master it.

Dedicated Hosting

Dedicated hosting is pretty much a foolproof method of covering your tracks. You purchase a server for each of the sites on your PBN.

This gives each site their own IP Address and leaves you impervious to detection from search engines.

That said, this method tends to be expensive and impractical. Because you are using a new server each time, the costs add up quickly.

It is generally not worth the extra cost but might be something to consider if you are especially serious about covering your tracks and have a big enough budget.

Cloud Hosting

Cloud hosting is a relatively new method of PBN hosting but is quite trusted and effective among the community.

With cloud hosting services, you can register your websites on different virtual services, each with a different IP address.

Because the servers are remote, you can also choose different locations for your websites which helps you to further avoid detection.

This is a solid option and because so many businesses use this method, it makes it much easier for your PBN sites to blend in.

SEO Hosting

SEO hosting was once a very popular method of hosting for PBNs.

As a result, a search probably nets you tons of results advertising SEO hosting as a method of hosting your PBN. That said, we strongly advise against it.

Because it was such a popular method, Google has long since zoned in on it and your site will likely get penalized for using it.

We definitely recommend avoiding this and choosing one of the methods above.

Easy Blog Networks

Easy Blog Networks is a PBN hosting service that installs blogs with 1-click on random servers hosted by big brand hosting providers like Amazon Web Services, Digital Ocean, Softlayer and others.

The system automatically updates WordPress, plugins and themes while maintaining daily blog backups.

EBN has a history of low de-indexation rate, on par with premium cPanel hosts, proved by independent case studies.

Easy Blog Networks is currently the best, easiest and safest way to host your PBNs.

Check Out EasyBlogNetworks

Bulk Buy Hosting

Bulk Buy Hosting provides a PBN hosting solution that is reliable, safe and affordable.

By making use of popular shared hosting providers, we offer a zero-footprint hosting alternative that will give you the opportunity to successfully grow and manage your personal blog network.

Our various hosting plans give you the unique hosting solution you need, with the flexibility of upgrading or downgrading to a different plan as your business grows.

Check Out BulkBuyHosting

LaunchCDN

LaunchCDN use several of the most popular Content Delivery Networks to provide you with premium IP addresses from providers including Amazon CloudFront, Cloudflare, StackPath and Verizon – but without the huge amount of technical knowledge that is usually associated with setting up and deploying those services correctly.

As a customer of LaunchCDN, you get access to deploy your sites on those Content Delivery Networks, with one-click simplicity.

Check Out LaunchCDN

Linking to Money Site: In-Depth Guide

As we have explored throughout this article, the main goal of any website in your PBN is to link to your money site.

Your goal is to build authority on Google so that a link to your money site holds weight and helps the money site to rank.

This sounds ideal but how do you do this? How do you ensure that when you do link to your money site, it’s at the right time and in the right way?

This section explores this question and provides a more detailed guide for how to link to your money site in the right way.

Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all approach and you have to adapt this strategy to the specific needs of your website and your PBN but it can be helpful to look at an overall list of factors to consider so that you can take this knowledge and apply it to your PBN.

Basic Considerations

Before we get started, there are two important pieces of terminology to understand when considering a backlinking strategy for your money site.

These are the target URL and the anchor text. Both of these hold an important place in your overall backlink strategy and it is important to understand them from the start.

Target URL

One of the major considerations with buying PBN backlinks is your linking strategy to your money site is the “target URL”.

The target URL refers to where the link takes you on your money site. This is a major consideration when it comes to your strategy.

The target URL decides which page you want to rank based on your PBN. Obviously, the more links you have to a certain page, the more attention it should receive from Google.

That said, you also need to consider that it becomes more and more obvious that you are building a PBN if every link is pointing to a certain page.

It is good practice to use your target URLs strategically but to also remain aware of the factors that could make it look like a clear PBN.

Anchor Text

The anchor text refers to the actual text that is hyperlinked to your target URL. It is the actual formulation of the link and very important in ranking.

Essentially, you are ranking based on this anchor text and it affects what shows up in search results.

Use anchor text strategically but not in an overt, obvious way. Of course, you should include certain anchor text phrases that you are interested in ranking for; however, you need to be careful to not overdo it.

Too many uses of the same anchor text and it becomes more obvious that you are building a PBN.

As with anything, you need to consider the context, including how many backlinks you already have with certain anchor text and use your own links based on that.

Now that we understand these key terms, let’s look at how to build a solid backlinking strategy.

The basic strategy for linking to your money site is to build authority on your website beforehand.

You do this by creating and sharing content but also by buying a quality domain in the first place. Let’s explore the considerations you should take when building your backlink strategy.

Ensure Quality of Site and Indexing

Before you even think of linking to your money site, be sure that your website contains quality content and is overall trustworthy.

This starts with purchasing an expired domain with quality backlinks that was not used for spamming.

We explored this process above and are mentioning it again because it’s so important. You should be sure of the domain you are building before you purchase it.

Build Content Beforehand

Before you link to your money site, you need to build up the site with your own content.

Not only does this increase the site’s authority but numerous measures need to be taken to disguise your identity as a PBN.

Build up your site with content within the same niche as the expired domain that you took over.

This is crucial as it ensures that you retain as much of the previous traffic as possible. Additionally, it makes it so that existing backlinks are still relevant.

Build up your content with effective SEO strategies but remember to include links to other websites and sources within your niche.

This is important for SEO and also helps disguise your presence as a PBN. It makes it less obvious that you are only promoting one money site and makes your site appear more like a legitimate source.

Link to the Right Article at The Right Time

Choosing the right time to link to your money site is not always easy.

Generally, if you have followed the steps above and verified that your site is ranking and posted several pieces of your own content,  you can begin to explore the possibility of linking to your money site.

Be sure to link to your money site only when it is completely natural to do so.

The link has to come up at an organic time and be completely related to the content where you are placing the link.

Find a common ground between your money site and the content on your other site.

It is very important that you only link to your money site one time. Any more and it becomes more and more obvious that your website is part of a PBN.

If done properly, one link from each site within your PBN is enough to make a significant difference in the ranking of your money site.

This speaks even more to why it is so important to find the proper time to link to your money site and why you should only do so when you the site is ranking properly.

If your money site has no backlinks from any other sources, a link from a site within your PBN automatically looks suspicious.

You always want to remain focused on generating legitimate backlinks.

To do this, remain focused on SEO so that your content ranks naturally and people find and share your content organically.

You can also focus on networking with other websites and blogs within your niche. Trade links or write guest posts for each other.

Then, link to these pages with sites within your PBN. These become one backlink of many and don’t stand out as being suspicious.

It’s much more natural and is unlikely to raise any red flags.

Creating Content for a PBN: A Guide

So far, we have covered the ins-and-outs of building and maintaining your PBN as well as laying out a general strategy and techniques for building toward the link to your money site.

What about creating the content that populates each site within your PBN?

As we have touched on, before you can link to your money site, you need to make your website look legitimate.

To do that, you need to post and build it up as a real website. But what are the best methods of doing so?

In this section, we are going to give you a guide to easily create and update these websites. This gives them that extra sense of legitimacy.

Not only do they look like real websites, but they also rank better and help your PBN even more.

Create an Identity

The first step is to create an identity for your site. This not only means what the site will be focused on but also coming up with an identity for who is behind the website.

First, create a theme. Because PBNs include sites of different types and from different niches, you will be dealing with different themes and areas of interest.

For each site, settle on a simple topic or niche to give you the consistency needed to rank in a certain area.

For example, your site could be about automotive repair, basketball tutorials, video game reviews, etc.

As long as it is consistent and focused, you stand a much better shot at seeming legitimate.

Of course, it helps to pick topics that you know about or that can be easily researched because your articles are going to be informative and worth reading. Not to mention much easier for you to write.

That said, considering that the niche is often based on the availability of a quality expired domain, you might not have full say over every area of focus.

Remember, you definitely want to stay in the same niche as the expired domain you have purchased. But it isn’t enough to simply create a niche for the website, you need to create a writer persona, too.

This persona helps to make the posts on your website appear consistent and like they were written by someone other than you.

This writer persona defines the perspective of the person writing the posts. It includes who that person is, their background in the industry, their specific expertise, and more.

Having these things in mind allows you to write all articles from this perspective and simplifies your writing process.

You can even include the information in an “About Me” section on the site.

Also, remember you’re going to be putting content together for multiple sites in your PBN.

Creating a persona behind each site makes it much easier to keep track of what’s what and maintain a different voice for each one.

Creating the Website

Before you focus on creating posts for your website, you have to nail the details and structure of the website itself.

While you definitely don’t want all websites in your PBN to look the same, it helps to settle on some basic structural elements you can use to ensure consistency.

This means that you need to fill out the basic details of your site, including the About, Contact, Story, Mission, Terms and Conditions, and more.

Once again, do not make the structure the same across all your sites. You will mostly be using the information that you settled on when defining the niche and persona of each site.

This gives your website consistency and helps you create posts, which we explain below.

Creating Posts

Next up is creating content to fill your website. At this point, you can see how it helps to already have a clear area of focus and a detailed writer persona.

You now know the exact topics to write about and how you are going to be writing about them.

This makes your work in choosing a topic and doing the writing so much easier.

So how do you go about creating posts? First, pick a topic within your niche. It doesn’t have to be anything creative or overly unique.

Sometimes, it just helps to answer the major or common questions within that niche. For example, if your website is about golf, you might write an article about common putting problems.

It could even help to do Google searches within your niche and see what types of articles pop up.

Once you have settled on a few topics for your posts, write them using your writer persona. Make each post about 500-1000 words and be sure to include images and videos where possible.

Remember, there are several types of posts you can put together. This includes a basic informative blog post, stories, lists, infographics, etc.

We recommend you settle on the topic of your post first and then decide which is the best format to use.

Eventually, you need to write a post that links to your money site. For this, you need to find a way to link the niche of the specific site within your PBN to your money site.

Find common ground so that the connection is natural.

Try to take the service or products offered by your money site and write an article that specifically mentions how it applies to that niche.

Of course, the approach differs each time but this is a great way to flex your creativity and find that common ground.

Remember, you have been working toward this opportunity to promote your own site. You need to be sure to do it in a way that is natural and organic.

Using Writers

Many PBN managers do not write their content themselves. Writing content is costly and time-consuming and with multiple websites to worry about, it’s not possible to do it without help.

Therefore, it may be worth your while to hire writers to do this content for you. It is still very helpful to approach each blog from the perspective of a different persona as mentioned above.

Provide the writer with a theme and a persona which they can use in each post they make.

Managing a PBN is hard work and creating content is an especially time-consuming process.

Hiring writers is a great way to cut down on this time but you have to be sure that it is worth the additional investment.

PBN Pros & Cons

So far, we have presented a comprehensive guide for building and maintaining a PBN. As you can see, it is a whole lot of work.

So much work that you might be wondering if it is worth it or whether you should try to go about link building in a more legitimate fashion.

Only you can make that decision.

But, to make the decision a bit easier, let’s look at some pros and cons of PBNs as compared to legitimate link building:

Pros

The pros of link building with a PBN are primarily in the speed at which you can generate reliable backlinks and increase the ranking of your money site.

If you build the PBN effectively and safely, you can quickly increase your rankings, especially when compared to other methods.

Another pro is the level of control. Not only are you generating backlinks, but you are also generating quality backlinks.

You have control over the target URL, the anchor text, and more. You can choose which areas you want to rank.

Of course, this is all assuming that you have built the PBN effectively and don’t run the risk of getting de-indexed.

Finally, PBNs bring reliability. Using outreach and quality content to generate real, organic backlinks from independent websites is not guaranteed.

You can put the effort into other strategies but you don’t know if it will pay off. With a PBN, you know that your backlinks are going to be there, pending penalization risks, of course.

Cons

The cons associated with a PBN are, of course, the risks of getting caught and de-indexed. These risks amplify as time goes on.

Google is smart. They want to rank real, legitimate content and they don’t want to rank people who bend these rules.

There’s no guarantee that any strategy that works now will work next year or even next week.

Google catches on quickly and there is always the risk that they will become wise to what you are doing.

While this strategy may seem safe today, there is no guarantee that it will stay that way.

Google wants to catch your PBN and it is only a matter of time until they find a way to identify each method.