The topic of link building campaign brings us to the next important question – what makes a strong backlink?
We are to believe that…Google believes that prior to everything else, links should be of benefit to the visitor.
Thus, the popularity and strength of a link depends on its usefulness to the reader.
The anchor text (i.e. clickable text) you use should be relevant to the actual information you are linking to.
So many bloggers use ‘click here’ at the anchor text and it is a waste.
For instance, they may say:
Read my last post about making a bead necklace: click here
‘Click here’ is the anchor text which is used which has no relevance to the blog post they are linking to.
A much better link would be:
Click on this link and read my last post about making a bead necklace
Or simply:
Read my last post about making a bead necklace
Link Popularity Definitions
Those well versed with various search engine optimization techniques and the process of link building understand the importance of link popularity in determining the ranking of a site.
Link popularity refers to the quality of links that a particular site has, which in turn decides its link popularity score. This score is included by various search engines in their algorithms to provide a page rank for the site. Thus, page rank or engine rank is a derivative of link popularity that indicates the quality of links that feature on a site.
Though an average site does not need to obsess about link popularity to push up its engine rankings, it should not ignore it either.
A site can have a good link popularity score even with a few highly relevant inbound links that have strong anchor text. This can be done by seeking out links from top rating sites or by creating domains with highly competitive keywords and back linking them to the site.
As link popularity is all about quality, it is important to be selective about the sites from which you request links.
Do not be tempted to use link farms to boost your popularity score as this can be perceived as a black hat SEO and can lead to black listing of your site.
Read my post regarding the back linking campaign I use to boost my inbound links.
The next post in this series will discuss ‘the factors to be aware of in your back linking campaign’
How many backlinks do you have?
Are you using anchor text in the best possible way?
Please share your views in the comments below. Thanks.
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So true Andrew. There are lots of sites out there that have thousands upon thousands of low quality links and they wonder why they cannot rank. Sometimes it is good to just take your time and network with some high profile sites and bloggers to get your name out there.
Regarding link building, a good way is to subscribe to blogs that use CommentLuv and make relevant comments. Not only does it add to the discussion and get you a nice link, but it can really help you become known to other bloggers and readers.
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Aaron,
As you can see I use CommentLuv and it helps build a bloggers community.
I don’t actually know how much link love juice it gives but if you can add a valuable comment…then why not?
Andrew
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Aaron – I partially agree with your link building statement. I think that blog commenting for commentluv is an extremely low quality form of link building. For the hours you would spend getting a hundred of these links your competitor could get one or two decent links from their new content that will be more valuable.
However, I do believe that getting your face out their and participating in blogs is fantastic in the form of brand management. Especially when you have a gravatar next to your statement – people can associate your comments with your image aka your face. This can help build brand equity and future link building opportunities.
Twitter: andrewrondeau
Nick,
Yes, of course there are better ways to build back links than just commenting.
It’s about using all the different options…one of which is commenting on ComLuv blogs.
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Promote Your Blog Using These Ultimate Ways
Andrew,
How right your are. In my early article marketing specifically I used ‘click here’ a lot. It does have a slightly higher response for CTR. But now I have hundreds of articles that do not give me the full power that backlinks from them could.
The occasional “click here” for a site might not be horrible, as long as it is preceded by a link using anchor text to the same site.
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Steve,
I think over the years we have improved our knowledge (and Google their importance) on back linking.
Hence we didn’t know using ‘click here’ was wrong!
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Promote Your Blog Using These Ultimate Ways
Andrew — this seems so obvious on how to write a good link. I write online help and publish it to a web output which is to to say that it an interactive web site, er uh, in most cases, intranet site. I was training a new technical writer the other day and it amazed me that they were not aware that they can call a link whatever they wanted with the url attached to it.
I guess I have been building sites for so long I just assume everyone knows the basics.
I would disagree with Nick’s statement that commenting on CommentLuv blogs are low quality links. I found them invaluable as my a high portion of my readers have come from commenting on CommentLuv enabled blogs. Since no one is quite sure how the search engines rank these links, I think good comments on blogs working hand in hand with content links to good neighborhood sites is a very sound strategy.
And if nothing else, I’ve met some very good bloggers, and my networking skills have improved over the last few months too.
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CJ,
I think we all be amazed about how little people know not just about back linking…but about blogging in general.
Many people are coming on-line everyday for the first time…and know very little.
As you say…commenting on ComLuv blogs is much more than just a back link.
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Promote Your Blog Using These Ultimate Ways
Yes. Andrew. Totally agree with you. I have seen lots of Blogger out there who doesn’t care too much about anchore text. Oh is there any link quality checker? Thanks
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Alamin
By link quality – do you mean Page Rank of the link?
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Link Building Campaign- Factors To Be Aware Of
When I was new to the online world, I often encounter articles with statements such as For more information, “click here” or “click here” to visit our website. I never knew what an anchor text was, but now, I can say I totally agree that anchor texts are one of the factors that make a strong backlink. It also makes a site more professional looking.
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Felicia
I think we all have used ‘click here’ as anchor text before!
No more though, right?
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Link Building Campaign- Factors To Be Aware Of
When it comes to internal link building, I would definitely avoid using “Click here” anchor text for the link. Honestly, I didn’t know about anchor text when I first started blogging, I did use “Click here” in the past, but no more right now.
I don’t actually care about how many backlinks I have, I would more care about the quality of the backlinks I have, the importance of quality is beyond quantity.
Regards,
Lee
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Lee,
You are right – quality is much better than quantity.
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Link Building Campaign- Factors To Be Aware Of
For me a strong backlink is the link which is most valuable for google. While building link people always try to get relevant link with low OBL.
There are so many source of building one way link if we research the backlink of our competitors.
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You easily un-complicate the complicated, thanks man it’s much appreciated.
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Dennis,
You are welcome,
Andrew
Andrew recently posted..Link Building Campaign- Factors To Be Aware Of
Thanks Andrew. I have read and re-read so many articles on this subject and now I think I get it. I don’t really visit many blogs in my niche as they are mainly lavender farms selling their products and not really a place to build relationships. I go more to blogging sites that teach me how to blog better and explain the things I may not know or am having problem with at the time.
So although it is not my niche; does the backlink still hold weight with Google?
I am having so much fun meeting up with other bloggers and getting to learn heaps along the way.
BTW most of my traffic is coming from the blogging community at the moment so that’s working for me.
Patricia Perth Australia
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Patricia
The backlink still holds weight but…comment backlinks don’t hold much weight – as far as we know.
If we think about it, writing a comment can take you 30 seconds…why should Google provide much weight to such an activity.
Having a guest post published elsewhere can take a lot of effort…so Google adds much more weight to it.
I doubt if it is just down to effort but it makes sense to me!
Andrew
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Yeah I agree, most people tend to forget the value of using anchor text on their links. They always use the “click here” instead of their target keywords, though I know that we should diversify our anchor texts but putting more click here texts than keywords are wrong way to build good backlinks.
I wonder how Google knows which is a comment link and which is a guest article…
But seriously, a wide variety of link types seems to have worked for me. My site has gradually risen to PR5, and my link building has included “credit” links on client websites (some high profile, some not), some comments on dofollow sites (though not many because I get bored quickly), and a few “features” on relevant sites and portfolios.
And I always try to use good anchor text if I can control it.
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Andy,
PR5 is great…your back linking strategy is working well.
I like the variety approach…something I also do. I’m PR4 today and aspiring to PR5!
Andrew
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I have seen many blogs waisting so much of what could have been good backlinks. I guess this is just one of the about 200 factors Google talkes into account when it comes to a blog’s rankings. Wow.
Many people focus on putting as much backlinks as they can, but they don’t realise that quality is much better than quantity. Instead of wasting their time on spamming forums, they should better build strong backlinks to their websites.
Thank you, Andrew, for letting us know about how to determine the strength of backlinks.
Regards,
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Agreed, Tho.
Quality much better than quantity.
It’s just finding the quality ones that can be hard!
Andrew
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Anchor text play a big roll in building backlinks no matter what high pr backlinks we create without the right use of anchor text the backlinks will look worth it to Google.