Results of Working with Us
As a result, we were able to close the client’s main link building gaps across various areas over the course of six months of close collaboration. To achieve this, we deployed a large team of specialists: copywriters, link builders, and SEO experts. We diversified the backlink profile and added native mentions on Reddit!
About the Client
Who is our client? It’s an online course portal in the Weiterbildung niche (professional retraining in Germany). They’ve been in the market for several years and have their own marketing team. They decided not to hire an in-house link building team, but instead to entrust this major area of responsibility to the experts at NeedMyLink. What was the client’s main challenge?
- A monotonous backlink profile. Almost all links come from guest posts and there’s nothing else in the backlink profile.
- No proper strategy. Links were purchased sporadically, without consistency or any clear link building plan.
- Weak metrics. For older donor sites, we recorded an average DR below 25, along with minimal traffic.
- Over the course of two years, about 200 links dropped out of Google’s index. Money was spent, but the results vanished without a trace.
What the client was looking for most of all was a partner who could develop a consistent strategy and diversify the profile. Not just buying more backlinks, but using link building as a strategic tool. The client opted for the premium outreach packages right away because there was a need for high-quality donor sites (DR 40-50), since previous purchases on the marketplace had only reached DR 20-25.
Objectives and Starting Point
Before getting started and developing a strategy, we documented the client’s current situation. This is their pre-collaboration status.
Based on this, we identified a set of key objectives and coordinated them with the client’s team. Ultimately, we decided to focus on diversifying the backlink profile (outreach guest posting with high-quality articles and forum links) + testing the native mention format on Reddit. We also needed to restore links that had previously dropped out of the index.
How Did We Achieve Our Goals?
When the client came to us with a monotonous profile and a bunch of broken backlinks, we immediately knew what needed to be done. We focused on diversity (outreach guest posts, link building, and Reddit mentions). The client also wanted SEO-optimized articles for guest posting, and we needed to work on getting the lost backlinks back into the index.
COO · NeedMyLink
The project was carried out as a partnership: the client’s team was responsible for product strategy, finalizing the keyword plan, and setting the tone of communications. We handled all link building, from research to reporting, plus copywriting for outreach articles in German. We agreed on a $18,000 budget for six months, which was sufficient to cover all the tasks at hand.
1. Client Backlink Profile Audit
Any link building project should start with an audit. That’s exactly what we did! We ran the profile through Ahrefs and Moz. Two issues immediately popped up: 18 spam links, which we flagged for the client to disavow, and about 200 links that had dropped out of the index over the past two years. We identified spam manually: based on a Spam Score above 8 from Moz, PBN indicators (shared IP, boilerplate footer), and over-optimized anchor text. Of the 31 links flagged by the Ahrefs auto-filter, only 18 were sent for disavowal after manual review.
At the same time, we conducted a backlink gap analysis, selecting the three closest competitors from the top 10 German search results for the main query cluster. We ran them through the Ahrefs Backlink Gap Tool.
The picture was as expected. The client was lagging behind on two fronts: both in the absolute number of links and in their diversity. The competitors’ profiles looked like those of active projects: guest posts + forums + Reddit + mentions in German business media. The client had only guest posts with weak donors. The 112 common donors found among the competitors were immediately shortlisted, and 67 of them turned out to be relevant for outreach.
2. Reindexing Broken Links
After the audit, we had a list of 200 URLs that had once been indexed but had since disappeared. This is the most underrated part of the process because the client had already paid for these links, and getting them back into the index is cheaper than buying new ones.
We have our own highly effective method for indexing links. This isn’t a one-time submission via the standard Google Indexing API, after which the link drops out of the index with the very first algorithm update. This is exactly what happens with many competitors: the client pays for indexing, and a month later, half the URLs are out of the index again.
3. Finding Domains and Keywords
Together with the client’s SEO team, we developed a keyword strategy for German search results. Three main clusters: brand and navigational keywords for the homepage and /karriere, medium-frequency keywords “Online-Weiterbildung” and “Fernkurse mit Zertifikat” for /weiterbildung, and competitive keywords “Online-Kurse Bildungsgutschein” and “berufliche Umschulung” for /kurse. We defined an anchor type for each keyword.
Next, we selected donor domains at the Premium level. For EdTech in Germany, the domain metrics that matter are actual traffic and audience. Here are the filters we used:
- Topics: Education, Career, Professional Development.
- Organic traffic in Ahrefs 5,000+.
- Average Domain Rating (DR) 40-50.
Out of 67 shortlisted donors, 38 made it to the final placement, plus 2 were added from the extended list. Who was eliminated: 12 domains saw a drop in traffic over the quarter, 9 had “sponsored” labels appear in outreach correspondence, 6 showed signs of PBNs, and 2 requested commercial placements exceeding the package budget. For each donor, the report was reviewed with the client’s team, and they approved every placement before work began.e most suitable: brand-based, diluted, or commercial with direct inclusion. This formed the basis of the anchor text plan.
4. Content and Post Publishing
We wrote a separate article in German for each donor. This was the work of our copywriters with language expertise. Each article was 1,300-1,500 words long, totaling about 60,000 words over several months of work. What was the process? We analyzed the donor’s top 10 articles on similar topics, then created an outline, and finally wrote the text. Each article was run through 1text for uniqueness, Grammarly for grammar, and zerogpt for AI detection.
German editorial policy is quite strict. Of the first 40 drafts, 11 were sent back for revisions by the donor editors and rewritten to meet their standards. This is normal for the German market; we factored this resource into our work from the very beginning.
We posted 6-7 links per month, gradually increasing the number. After each publication, we checked the dofollow attribute, the correctness of the anchor text, and the placement within the article body. As a result, we were able to significantly boost the client’s RD.
5. Forum Backlinks
Alongside guest posting, we launched a forum link building for 100 placements. We worked on German niche forums: Karrierebibel, Wer-weiss-was, Gutefrage, and several industry communities focused on education and careers. The principle is simple: we post a genuinely helpful comment in a relevant discussion and leave a link in the appropriate context.
Why is this necessary? To make the profile look like a real project, not a brand that just buys guest posts. A genuine EdTech portal in Germany always has mentions on forums, discussions, and real users. The client had none of that, and their competitors looked much more organic in comparison. 100 guest posts over 6 months is a moderate pace that looks natural to Google.
6. Native Reddit Mentions
The most unusual part of the case study. The client wanted to test Reddit mentions as a new channel, so we worked without direct links, using native brand mentions within relevant discussions. We avoided links because Reddit strictly moderates promotional content, and a direct link would almost certainly have resulted in a ban.
Which subreddits did you work on? r/de, r/Finanzen, r/germantrans, r/Ausbildung, r/Bewerbung, r/datascience_de, and a couple of other topic-specific ones. We responded in existing threads where people were asking about professional development, online courses, and retraining. In our replies, we naturally mentioned the client’s brand as one of the options.
How did we track effectiveness? We collected internal metrics for each post: comment views, upvotes, and audience engagement. Over 6 months, we received 87,000 total views on mentions and +412 positive reactions. This format doesn’t generate direct links, but it builds organic brand awareness on German-language Reddit. The client was satisfied, so we plan to continue into the next period.
7. Detailed Reporting
The client’s team received a separate report for each service. For guest posts: donor URL, post URL, anchor text, screenshot of the placement, and Ahrefs metrics as of the publication date. For forum posts: forum URL, screenshot of the comment, thread context. For Reddit: post URL, screenshot of the reply, engagement metrics. For indexing: a table of URLs with dates of return to the index. In addition, every two weeks, a general dashboard for the link-building plan with all services on a single page.
Conclusion
For EdTech in Germany, there is only one effective model: comprehensive link building. A single type of link is not enough to achieve profile diversity. Premium outreach builds trust, crowdsourcing ensures profile diversity, and Reddit provides native visibility within the niche. The challenges were standard: strict German editorial policies, Reddit moderation, and the inability to recover some of the older links. All of this is resolved through a hands-on approach, language expertise, and parallel work across multiple services.
Yevhen Humeniuk, CEO of NeedMyLink
