SEO question

[Nova]

So nowadays if you are back linking to a site you are supposed to use varied anchor text to make it look more "natural" but if you do so, how do you still insure your site is going to rank for the keywords you are targeting?

 

[AuthorityDomain]

Firstly Onsite SEO such as title and meta description and onsite content will need to be tailored to focus on your primary keyword plus other variants.

Secondly you will still use your primary keyword as anchor text links in your link building. Just since penguin algo update you need to mix it up more than before. You can also use longtail variations of your keyword.

It's about finding the right balance but you can check out your niche search results, place the competition sites in tools like ahrefs, majesticseo or opensiteexplorer to get an idea of the anchor text distribution that works for ranking their sites.

 

[Blossom]

What Gary said, plus you basically need a hell of a lot more links.

 

[Admin]

If it's a WP site, use Yoast SEO - it gives you a score for the on-page SEO for each page based on your primary keyword(s)

Admin

 

[NathanielB]

What Gary said, plus you basically need a hell of a lot more links.

Sorry but that's not strictly true! In fact its highly miss leading and incorrect when working in a competitive market!

Think quality not quantity is something you should and likely will hear a lot when talking about seo to anyone that really know how to get and keep top rankings, because its not the amount of links you can get, but the quality of links you can get!

For example, I could out rank a site with a thousand links by getting just a few high quality links from the right place much easier then I could by getting the same links plus another thousand links of the same quality, plus if you're getting high quality links from the right places, your rankings will last and not fail a few algo updates down the line!

@admin - If you use firefox (not sure about other browsers) you can get an add-on called "seo doctor" which gives you page info in the lower stats bar of your browser.

 

[Retired_member41]

Sorry but that's not strictly true! In fact its highly miss leading and incorrect when working in a competitive market!

Think quality not quantity is something you should and likely will hear a lot when talking about seo to anyone that really know how to get and keep top rankings, because its not the amount of links you can get, but the quality of links you can get!

For example, I could out rank a site with a thousand links by getting just a few high quality links from the right place much easier then I could by getting the same links plus another thousand links of the same quality, plus if you're getting high quality links from the right places, your rankings will last and not fail a few algo updates down the line!

@admin - If you use firefox (not sure about other browsers) you can get an add-on called "seo doctor" which gives you page info in the lower stats bar of your browser.

Its a good job you came along Nathaniel, that Blossom has been right too many times and admin, well don't get me started on him.

Great first post

 

[Blossom]

Sorry but that's not strictly true! In fact its highly miss leading and incorrect when working in a competitive market!

Think quality not quantity is something you should and likely will hear a lot when talking about seo to anyone that really know how to get and keep top rankings, because its not the amount of links you can get, but the quality of links you can get!

For example, I could out rank a site with a thousand links by getting just a few high quality links from the right place much easier then I could by getting the same links plus another thousand links of the same quality, plus if you're getting high quality links from the right places, your rankings will last and not fail a few algo updates down the line!

Lol, thanks for that. You need quality AND quantity for competitive markets. My fault for not specifying.

 

[alex]

Sorry but that's not strictly true! In fact its highly miss leading and incorrect when working in a competitive market!

Think quality not quantity is something you should and likely will hear a lot when talking about seo to anyone that really know how to get and keep top rankings, because its not the amount of links you can get, but the quality of links you can get!

For example, I could out rank a site with a thousand links by getting just a few high quality links from the right place much easier then I could by getting the same links plus another thousand links of the same quality, plus if you're getting high quality links from the right places, your rankings will last and not fail a few algo updates down the line!

While I completely agree with you on the basis that quality is more important than quantity (i.e. not getting loads of poor links for the sake of it), I believe what Blossom said may have been misinterpreted as her reputation as an SEO expert here on AD is highly regarded and she works with many very high authority sites. I'd recommend you have a read of some of her previous posts as many on here will agree her advice has been invaluable.

I think in this day and age when we talk about SEO it’s a given that quality/relevance/authority are essential and therefore a reference to getting lots of links is in fact a reference to getting lots of quality links, something that is essential in a competitive market!

 

[Retired_member41]

While I completely agree with you on the basis that quality is more important than quantity (i.e. not getting loads of poor links for the sake of it), I believe what Blossom said may have been misinterpreted as her reputation as an SEO expert here on AD is highly regarded and she works with many very high authority sites. I'd recommend you have a read of some of her previous posts as many on here will agree her advice has been invaluable.

I think in this day and age when we talk about SEO it’s a given that quality/relevance/authority are essential and therefore a reference to getting lots of links is in fact a reference to getting lots of quality links, something that is essential in a competitive market!

I just said that above

 

[alex]

I just said that above

Sorry Caz, I'm a slow writer

 

[Murray]

Just my general thoughts on what has been said here..

It's very hard giving SEO advice to people because a lot of the time you assume they know what you're talking about.

Even if blossom had said you need quality/relevant/authoritative links and lots of them, if that person doesn't have the knowledge to recognise what a quality link is then it's not much use to them.

All SEO companies now say "we do organic linking techniques, totally natural" then you ask what they do and they say "article directory submission, bookmarking, directories" etc etc

So nowadays if you are back linking to a site you are supposed to use varied anchor text to make it look more "natural" but if you do so, how do you still insure your site is going to rank for the keywords you are targeting?

Link building is dying out as any kind of sustainable ranking method.

Any link you can give yourself probably wont be worth much.

In reality if you're getting the authoritative links being talking about you wont be placing the link anyway, the editor of the site will, therefor you will not get a choice of the anchor text.. usually it will be "brand name" "brandname.com"

Your onpage SEO will let google know what searches it should be returning you for and the relevance and strength of your incoming links will help you get there.

 

[Nova]

Thanks for all the input guys.y follow up question is.. How do the search engines tell the relevancy of the site I am linking from? For example if my site is selling hair straighteners, do I want to be getting links from hair straightening, hair products, hairdressing, beauty, electrical etc sites or all? And how do the search engine determine the relevancy of these sites? Based on the title of my website, meta description or linking to a specific page, my page content?

 

[Nova]

Hi Murray I hadn't read your post when I answered, the Internet is really slow on my phone but if anyone wants to add any info regarding my last question I would be grateful.

 

[Murray]

Thanks for all the input guys.y follow up question is.. How do the search engines tell the relevancy of the site I am linking from? For example if my site is selling hair straighteners, do I want to be getting links from hair straightening, hair products, hairdressing, beauty, electrical etc sites or all? And how do the search engine determine the relevancy of these sites? Based on the title of my website, meta description or linking to a specific page, my page content?

Anything closely related to what you're doing, so pretty much all the examples you gave.

Google works out relevance based on a sites content and who links to them, mainly.

If you had a site about hair straighters ideally you would want links from all the big womens magazines (look, heat etc), prominent beauty & fashion blogs, news papers women/beauty sections.

A link is a vote, if google see's you are getting suggested by such sites as above, and in volume, then they're going to think you're pretty important and return you in search results as such.

meta description has nothing to do with SEO btw.

 

[alex]

It's very hard giving SEO advice to people because a lot of the time you assume they know what you're talking about.

A very good point and one I know many including myself overlook far too often: what do the 'relevent', 'authoritative' and 'quality' buzzwords actually mean to the average site owner?

Backlinks, for now, are still important, but actually ranking in search engines is about incorporating a whole range of marketing activity, not just getting links which is just one of I think around 200 factors Google currently considers.

As Murray quite rightly pointed out, any link you can give yourself probably wont be worth much. However, networking and getting to know the people who can get you the links you can't get yourself is probably the key (that is if you're actively sourcing links yourself as oppose to baiting/PR etc).

How do the search engines tell the relevancy of the site I am linking from?

I think there will be a lot of different opinions on this question. Ultimately we don't know, although we can have a good guess from experience, following Matt Cutts etc.

My thoughts are that if the link is a natural reference within the content of an article, which in turn fits naturally within the context of the wider site, which is established, has a presence in social media and is regularly updated, and as a bonus the article has been written by someone else who is making use of Google authorship, then you have a good relevent and authoritative backlink.

 

[NathanielB]

Don't just ask if a site as a whole is going to offer you a relevant link because you not only want to get links from relevant sources within and around your niche but also from those that might talk about your niche!

For example, lets say I write a blog peace about what I have learnt about buying and selling domains on a blog that I run which has nothing to do with the domain market, a link from it to here would still be authoritative as its a natural link from a natural source where someone has written about this industry of their own back without the goal of giving a link.

You could of course add more factors to that example to make it stronger, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm saying, and learn to look a little more 'out the box' for link opportunities and can come out with some quality link bait to get people (and even big players like Murray mentioned) naturally talking about your site, because those are links which will last and could prove to be some of the most valuable in your link profile.

@alex and blossom - Sorry I meant no offence, I didn't know Blossom was known around here for seo knowledge. I guess I'm just so use to having to just on one line comments like "basically need a hell of a lot more links" to remind people 'quality over quantity'

P.S. No such luck on that blog post coming yet as I only just started to learn about buying and selling domains