Have you noticed lately that backlinks just don’t work like they used to?
There was a time when you could just fire a bunch of links at your client’s websites and a couple of weeks later, you’d check your rank tracker and bingo – results were in. Rankings would be up. Your client would be happy and they’d pay you on time.
Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as that anymore. After Google updated their algorithm, many links stopped working. Or worse, they resulted in penalties and angry phone calls from clients.
And all that led many agency owners to believe that they should just give up on building backlinks altogether. But that’s not the solution either. We all know that without a solid backlink strategy, your clients are going nowhere fast.
So, how should you decide what websites to get links from so that you don’t waste your time or money?
Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to be sharing with you today.
Choosing Backlinks That Actually Work
Over the past 5 years, I’ve noticed that backlinks with the following metrics seemed to do well. They more or less always drove rankings higher and I never felt in any doubt that they would be a good investment.
The first metric I want to highlight is domain age. If a website has been around for a long time and consistently been sharing blog posts then there’s a good chance that Google is going to trust it. So, if you get a link from that website then by-proxy, you’ll get a share of Google’s trust too.
Next, let’s talk about referring domains. Some people believe that you should only try and get links from sites that have at least a few hundred links of their own. However, it doesn’t make sense to me to base your decision on quantity alone. Personally, I think it’s much better to look at the quality of the referring domains. I’d much rather get a link from a site with 10 good links of their own than one that has thousands of spammy links and my results over the years have verified that.
Alright, so next up is domain relevancy; I’m talking about the content of the site now. It makes sense that if you’re working on ranking a keyword like ‘pet food’ then a link from a pet related website will be more powerful than one that is talking about ‘DIY resources’ – even if the DIY resources website technically has better links going to it. Focus on relevancy and you’ll be rewarded.
And just on that note, let’s dig a little bit deeper and talk about page relevancy. Say instead of ‘pet food’ we want to get more specific and rank for a search term like ‘dog food’. Well, in which case we want a link from a page talking about ‘dog food’. It sounds like common-sense stuff. And, that’s because it is. But when you’re so caught up thinking about algorithms and what Google wants, it’s easy to get lost. My advice is to keep it simple and make it easy on yourself.
The next one is the most obvious one and the one that everyone talks about. It’s anchor text. You need anchor text to be relevant to your chosen keywords if you want to rank.
Final Tip
And finally, the last thing I’d like to highlight is the website design of the referring domains. I have a feeling that Google realises that websites with better design are more authoritative. It makes sense. Newer, fresher websites are better for their users so they should probably be given more merit. So, my advice is to shoot for links from good looking sites.
So, there you go! That’s the metrics I use. Focus on them and you’ll get better rankings, you’ll save money by avoiding ones that don’t work and your clients will be happier.
If you liked those tips, but are now wondering: where do I get those backlinks?
Then great, I’ve put together a free guide for you.
It’s called ‘How to Get Powerful Links From Real Authority Websites Without Months Of Frustrating Outreach’.
That guide is in the link below so, just click there to get it.