The Backlinks guide for idiots
Sometimes referred to as inbound links, backlinks are the sledgehammer of search engine positioning and traffic generation. When thinking about backlinks there are three elements you need to consider, the source from which the backlinks come from, the anchor text of the backlinks and the content of the page to which the backlinks sends the visitor to.
The amount of backlinks
The amount of backlinks to a page is one of the elements the search engines take into account when deciding how to position the page in the results displayed to the searcher.
The source of the backlinks
The source of a backlink can pass authority and indeed traffic to the page to which it points. So it follows that pages with backlinks from authoritative pages will receive a much higher value consideration from the search engines. Pages from sources such as educational (.edu) or government (.gov) sites naturally are attributed with more trust and authority.
Google Page Rank
Backlinks from web pages with high page rank (a value given by Google to a page that it considers over a period to have attracted, sustained and continued to accumulate relevant backlinks) pass some of their page rank via the backlink to the target page.
The ‘anchor text’
Similar to a label, the backlink anchor text influences the search engines classification of the backlink. If the content of the page is about ‘parenting’ and the backlink on the page is labeled or given the ‘anchor’ text ‘parenting’ then the search engines consider this to be of more value to the searcher looking for sites related to ‘parenting’ than if the backlink was labeled ‘babycare’.
Common mistakes
A significant number of people mess up their backlinks strategies because they focus on quantity as opposed to quality of backlinks. For instance if the majority of your backlinks to your ‘parenting’ page come from sites not related to ‘parenting’ then whilst you have backlinks they will almost certainly bring you the wrong visitors.
How to manufacture backlinks
So let me tell you my fail safe process for acquiring backlinks that will make the search engines love you and bring the right type and appropriate traffic to your web site.
- Choosing the right keywords from the outset is essential.
- I like to create a keyword ‘cloud’.
- I most often start with a single primary keyword or key phrase which has significant visitor traffic.
- To uncover the volume of visitor traffic is being generated by searches for my top level keyword I use the Google keyword analyzer tool.
- I analyse words and search phrases relative to my primary phrase and build my ‘cloud’.
- Using this cloud I generate a library of content containing articles, videos and blog posts each with backlinks embedded with the related anchor text and then use a portfolio of content distribution tools to send my articles and videos to a group of directories.
- When I write my content I do so with the visitor in mind so as each piece of content attracts backlinks to itself as well as sends backlinks to my target pages.
How not to get backlinks
Hmmmm, this is a immersive concept and I want to emphasise it’s not clear cut. But here is what I know in my work at the Backlinks clinic:
Authority – basics
The more authority your site has the higher you will rank on Google. Authority means that people trust you and your information. The great news is that authorities trusted by people are also trusted by Google. A great example is the .edu and .gov domain extensions. These domains imply they are credible sources of information and it’s a proven fact that in the eyes of Google backlinks from these domains to your web pages will contribute authority to your web pages. Another great example is Wikipedia as the web pages here are almost always authored by by tribes of people as opposed to a single marketer.
So it follows that authority is largely influenced by the source of your backlinks and if authoritative sites link to your web pages then you inherit their influence and in the eyes of Google you become more authoritative and hence the trust in your web pages by Google goes up.
How Google pronounces what is and isn’t authoritative is undisclosed for good reason and aligns with Google’s thinking of “Do no evil”. The last thing the net needs is someone exploiting the formulae that Google untilzes in its efforts to try and regulate probably the most important technological development of our times.
Backlinking methods you should avoid
And on this thought it’s valuable to state some distasteful sources and methods of creating backlinks that Google not only disapproves of but appears to be moving aggressively to ‘classify’ as negative authorities. In no particular order of severity, the common offenders are:
- Paid backlinks – places where people buy and sell backlinks
- Comment spam – entries that have links on blog pages that are just not associated to the main content.
- Low quality and *duplicate content – ‘scraped’ or otherwise
- Fast growth – there are plenty of ways that this is achievable, Google isn’t dumb. Any sudden rise in the number of backlinks is going to register on Google’s radar, specifically if it’s a recently registered domain.
- Backlinks from bad reputation web pages – these are particularly destructive as you are guilty by association – need I say more.
*There is another factor where I may be on dodgy ground, but major news portals appear to get a lot of authority and I have definitely observed significant quantities of the same content over and over again on different portals with no penalties, I am still monitoring this, only as some of the results I am seeing defy the consistent behaviors I usually expect to see. More on this is in a future article….
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