Over the past 12 months I have done intensive testing on almost every backlinking strategies taught by the gurus. The results? Most of these schemes just plain don’t work. Only a few that really helps with site rankings. None of them works like gang busters as the gurus selling them would have you believe.
My conclusion is that backlinking is really a long term work that requires slow & consistent effort. Any expectation of quick & fast results is just unrealistic.
The conventional wisdom is that SEO is 10% on page (content) and 90% off page (backlinks). Some even goes as far as saying with enough backlinks, you can get any crappy content to rank #1 on Google. While this may be true a few years ago, Google has caught on and it is certainly not true at all from my own test results on over 100 web sites.
Why most backlinking schemes don’t work? Well, what Google really want to see is that backlinks occur naturally, not forced by webmasters. It’s really not that hard for Google to detect if you are participating in any backlinking scheme – profile links, blog commenting, mass article submissions, blog networks, link wheel, link tree, web 2.0 spam, etc. They know all about these.
In theory, Google could very easily de-index anyone that’s using these tactics. But in realty, what usually happens when Google find out? Nothing. That’s right. We all heard about someone got all of his/her web sites mass deindexed overnight. I believe these are the results of human reviews and they don’t occur that often. In most cases, Google don’t like to de-index web sites unless they have concrete proof. So what they would normally do is to disregard the links you build.
Let’s say you have a site that sits on the 5th page. You decided to buy those profile link packages from vendors in the Warrior Forum. You paid someone in the Philippines to build those links for you. You were even smart enough to have them built slowly to “stay under the radar.”
After a few weeks you started to see your site climbing up its ranks. It even got up to the 1st page. Then, all of the sudden, it went right back down to the 5th page – exactly where it was before. Most people would think they got “sandboxed” because they were building the links “too fast.” Actually, Google has devalued your backinks. And what happened to your ranking overall – absolutely nothing – you got back to the same place where Google thought you should belong.
I am now a firm believer that SEO is 90% on page and 10% off page. An example is one of my best performing Christmas theme sites. During last October & November I worked over time putting lots of content on the site to get it ready for the Christmas buying frenzy. I’ve talked about it in my other posts Are You Ready for Christmas? and Results From The First 11 Days of Christmas Marketing.
Most of the content were hand-written by me. Some were re-writen PLR content. A very small percentage were quick copy & paste content with original text added to them. Overall I would say all the pages on the site provide shoppers with valuable information and help them make their Christmas shopping decisions.
I threw up a couple of backlinks in mid October then got busy building the content. My intention was to finish the content first, then work on backlinking. By the time I got done with the content, to my surprise, this site was ranked #1 for its main keyword. At that point, I decided not to “rock the boat,” and did not add any backlinks. The #1 ranking actually held all throughout Christmas season and still at #1 right now.
Here are the best ways I found so far to build backlinks that actually work.
1. Improve the content of your site – It may seem strange that the #1 way to build backlinks is not about getting backlinks, but it’s absolutely the truth. When you have the best quality content, you will find backlinks are coming in automatically. This is what happened to the Christmas site I mentioned above. And trust me, it is much easier to improve the quality of your site than to build backlinks forcefully. You have better control, and it takes much less time and effort. Most importantly, you are giving Google exactly what they want.
2. Article directory submission – This one still works but don’t mass submit articles to thousands of directories. Submit good quality articles to only 2 or 3 best article directories such as Ezine Articles or Article Dashboard. You can disregard low quality article directories all together. Also, remember diversification is the key. Submitting 1000 articles for the same site to Ezine Articles will not be effective because all 1000 links would all be coming from the same place. Just a couple of articles for each site would be sufficient.
3. Guest articles – Most webmasters are hunger for good quality content. You can provide such content to them for free, in exchange of placing 2 or 3 links in the article pointed back to you site. This type of backlinks are great. It takes a lot of time and effort to do but it’s well worth it.
The backlinking tactics that don’t work, in my experience, include social bookmarking, profile links, blog commenting spam, web 2.0 sites spam, mass article directory submissions, rss submissions, and private blog networks. You are better off saving your time and money and using them on the above 3 methods.
Again, SEO is a SLOW process. Don’t expect any overnight results.
Related Posts:
AWeber proves it to thousands of businesses every day.
Learn how email marketing software
can get you more sales, too.
