Create The Perfect Backlink Profile

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Create the Perfect Backlink Profile

There has been a lot of talk in recent years in marketing circles and across a wide variety of online blogs about the “death of SEO” or how Google’s Panda and Penguin updates killed certain parts of old school search engine optimization. Probably the single practice that is trashed the most is building backlinks to your website. “Link building is dead,” many so-called experts say. Those experts are also dead wrong.

While the way one website links to another is viewed by search engines like Google may have changed, and many previous links discounted, the truth is that a site’s backlinks are still extremely important when it comes to getting to the top of Google. This is as true with niche keywords as it is with local businesses and especially with high competition keywords. The first step to putting together the perfect backlink profile for search engine optimization (SEO) is avoiding damaging links.

Avoiding Damaging Backlinks

There are good backlinks, there are ineffective backlinks, and then there are outright bad backlinks. Understanding the difference between these three is critical. Good backlinks help make your website look legitimate, gives it good SEO juice, and can even build authority or get you to the first page of Google. Ineffective backlinks waste your time and are more likely to backfire with future updates. Bad backlinks, or even a single bad or questionable link, can sink your entire SEO campaign.

So what is a bad backlink? There are a few basic rules to look for to determine what a bad backlink is:

– Any link from a pornographic website

– Any link from a spam or spammy website

– Keyword anchored backlinks from article directories

– Keyword anchored backlinks from completely unrelated websites

– Any link from a known PBN (Private Blog Network) website

Google is absolutely devoted to hunting down these backlinks and not only taking away any benefit they give, but punish any website receiving them that appears to be trying to manipulate the search engine rankings.  You need to avoid them at all cost.

If you end up with these type of backlinks as a result of someone else trying to sabotage you (Negative SEO), or from an aged domain that just has old links pointing to it, then you will want to look up Google Webmaster’s Disavow Tool. This tool allows you to refuse to acknowledge these backlinks, which removes all effects from them, including any penalties that might have been applied to your website for having them.

Understanding the Anatomy of a Backlink

Understanding the basic anatomy of a backlink will help you quickly identify how to build up a link profile that can truly help you. There are two main things to concentrate on when creating backlinks:

– The anchor text of the link (brand vs. keyword vs. URL vs. none of the above)

– Where the phrase comes from

The anchor text is whatever text is used for the link. In the old days the most valuable backlinks were ones that were your website’s most valuable keyword or most valuable few keywords. So if you were selling left handed smoke shifters (plenty of old Boy Scouts will love that reference), then the best anchor text was “left handed smoke shifter.” Now that direct keyword based anchor text will normally get your website penalized, it should never be used more than 5% of time, at most.

A brand based anchor text would be a company or website name. “John Smith’s Left Handed Smoke Shifters” or “Left Handed Smoke Shifter Review Site.” These were considered the second-best anchor text to have, and even after the Penguin and Panda updates they are still a good way to go. This is especially true for blogs with a specific name or a company brand. The Google algorithm is advanced enough now (and the other major search engines are catching up) that they don’t need keyword based anchor text to know what your website is about. As long as your website or blog has good on-site SEO, they know.

Then there are URL based anchor text, which is just what it sounds like. The backlink is the site or page’s URL (web address). This type of text can have a little bit of a bonus if your brand has a major keyword in it, and it should help with your online branding. This is also a safe type of text to use for a backlink, which makes it a good change up with those brand-based anchor text.

Finally, there is anchor text that is general. These aren’t necessarily to improve any ranking so much as they are there to make your link profile look much more natural and help prevent you from getting penalized by Google. This would be for anchor text like: “This website,” “Click here,” or “Check this out.” They don’t build up any keyword rankings, but It helps to make your website look like it’s naturally getting backlinks (which is the way Google wants to see it happen)

The next step is to get the right array of backlinks. It used to be that pure numbers could get the job done, but trying the quantity strategy nowadays is going to have the opposite effect of what you want. At best it will be ineffective and at worst it will get your website de-indexed as a penalty by Google. You need to get links from good, accepted sources.

Great sources for good backlinks include:

– Social media

– Directories

– Claiming/listing backlinks (for location-based businesses)

– Websites within your niche or in a related niche

– Authority websites within your niche or related niche

Keep in mind that the vast majority of all these backlinks should be brand-based or URL based, with more “click here” or “this website” keyword based anchor text than actual keyword based backlinks. That makes up the type of variety that Google checkers want to see when they are reviewing your overall link profile. The next step is making sure you have a great mix of backlink sources, and Google has come straight out and talked about some of the sources they look for.

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Social Media Links

Google expects healthy and authoritative websites to have a strong social media presence. This means while any single, or even handful, of backlinks won’t make a big difference by themselves, a large body of backlinks from social media websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ will help to legitimize your website in the eyes of Google, show you’re an active authority, and help boost your overall rankings.

While the exact impact of social media backlinks hasn’t been thoroughly studied, there’s no question that a major part of SEO has to be social media. Having varied backlinks from several social media sources is key to getting your website to the top of the rankings and helping them stay there.

Directory Links

Directories aren’t nearly as much of a strong backlink source as they used to be, but they’re still a source of good backlinks. This is especially true for businesses and the many different business directories that are online. The DMOZ directory is an example of a famous directory that is managed and has long been seen as a great indicator of overall website quality.

While throwing up a backlink in hundreds of random directories won’t exactly move the needle, looking for high-quality and managed directories and getting your link can make a huge difference. This is especially important for businesses with a physical address. They need to find directories that publish business info and make sure that information is consistent and correct across the many different directories that can be found online.

Local businesses also need to include claiming and listing backlinks. This is looking at Google Maps, Google Business Directory, and the same equivalent with Yahoo, Bing, and the other minor search engines, as well. While this won’t be a big deal for major websites or blogs, it’s critical for websites focusing on one location or address.

Websites in Your Niche or a Related Niche

These backlinks are by far and away the most powerful links that can be used for SEO purposes. Even just a few basic links from websites in your niche, or in a related niche, can make all the difference from being buried in page 10 or being in the top half of page one. Based on recent Google updates, context matters when it comes to backlinks just as much as the authority of the websites giving you a link.

The simplest way to know if a website in your niche has authority is to see what websites are in the top 10 rankings for your main keywords. The higher the ranking, the more likely that website is considered an authority in the niche. Google’s Page Rank isn’t a huge factor, but it also works as a half way decent rule of thumb. Guest posting is usually the best way to get a quality link from one of these sites, especially if it is one that constantly requires new content. A great article usually allows you to include a little bio at the end with a link back to your main website.

Getting links from websites in your general niche is critical to boosting your website’s authority and profile in order to get the rankings that you deserve.

In Conclusion

While there are many micro niche websites and local business sites that can show up on the first page with just some clean code and basic on-site SEO, a good link profile can speed up that process and help push those websites all the way into one of those vaunted top three spots. When fighting for solid top of first page rankings you need to have a collection of perfect backlinks to not only push you to the top, but keep you there, as well.

Follow these tips to create the perfect backlink profile and you’ll be amazed at the results!