On this episode of Rhodes to Success I interview Lyndsey Anderson who is a web strategy expert and works with business owners to help them grow their businesses. Lyndsey is the founder and CEO of two companies and knows how to utilize web technologies to help business owners find their dreams. If you’ve ever wondered what backlinks are and why they are so important, then this is a must listen episode.
Main Questions Asked
- What are backlinks?
- What are other ways to earn links back to your website?
- How do you leave a comment and link on a website and not look spammy?
- What is the best way to find new places to find high quality backlinks?
- Is there a difference to creating a hyperlink in a blog post and a backlink?
- What is PageRank and what does that have to do with link earning?
- How does PageRank work if the source is a podcast host or app?
- What does effect your PageRank if web traffic doesn’t effect it?
- Can you talk about website conversions?
Key Lessons Learned
- A backlink is a link from another website to your website. The purpose of which is to increase your website in search engine rankings.
- Backlinks are now known as ‘link earning’ (this is the new approach of building links back to your website.)
- Google takes into account more than 200 factors when you type in a keyword to search. One of the main factors is how many links you have back to your website.
- If you are a guest on a podcast the podcaster links to your site in their show notes then that is considered link earning as you provided value to the audience.
- People used to buy links, use link farms, and comment on blogs, however, Google started recognizing these tactics and made changes.
Earning Links
- Make relevant comments on industry specific blogs with a link back to your website.
- Don’t just provide a link back to your website, you need to provide excellent information and answer a question. If you can expound on that information then link back to your website with a specific tool or resource.
- The best way is to build an audience and get other people linking back to your website.
Finding New Backlinks
- The best way is to spy on your competitors by going to Google and typing in your keywords and see what first few websites come up.
- There is a way to search what backlinks your competitors have such as moz.com or majestic.com.
- Take the competitor backlinks list and see where you can offer content or help and reach out to the owner of the website and see if you can also get a linkback.
How Google Views Backlinks
- Google no longer wants links on a resource page or amongst hundreds of others in the footer but now prefers links surrounded by content.
- Google is smart enough to recognize legitimate link backs and see natural links in the middle of a post with your name highlighted and a link.
PageRank
- Google has an algorithm that will grade a page based on how many incoming backlinks there are ranging from a scale of N/A to 10.
- If you are getting a lot of backlinks from websites with a page rank of 1 then Google will think you are spamming as pages with low numbers are easy targets, and don’t have quality content.
- Go to Google and type in ‘what is my page rank’ and Google will show you PageRanks.
- Before you go on a link earning campaign, you need to investigate and not go for all 7s. In the natural realm you will get links from 2s and 3s too.
- PageRank doesn’t necessarily have to do with traffic but is more of a general way of checking if a website is legit or spammy. If it is a 1 or a 2 then don’t aim to put your link on there.
Website Conversions
- Remember that a huge percentage of people will visit your site on a mobile device.
- From April 21, 2015 Google is incorporating whether a website is mobile friendly or not into the algorithm.
- Use the Google mobile friendly test to check if your site is mobile friendly.
- Make sure you have a call to action to get on the list and let visitors know what they will get for opting in on your list.
- Go to an outside source and have them do a full review your site.
- Always know where you are driving people once they open your site.
- Ensure you spend money on professional images and well-written content to make sure they are kept up to date.
- Visitors want to get to know you and see you speaking, which is why video is an essential element. It doesn’t have to be a huge production and can be 30 seconds or less.
The music in today’s episode was written by The Danger Os and produced by Nick Palmer. Check them out at https://www.facebook.com/thedangerosmakemusic
Links to Resources Mentioned
Click to Tweet
