If you want search engine traffic, then you want backlinks. You want authority webpages linking to your content. That’s a very basic part of search engine optimization.
But did you know that there is a difference between links from actual well-written content and footer links?
No matter how powerful or how weak the page, Google (and possibly other search engines) places importance on the actual location of backlinks on a page.
Why?
Why does Google do this? To be able to distinguish natural backlinks from artificial blog comments, from useless paid links.
Although Google is open to allowing webmasters to try and rank higher in their ever-changing algorithm, it does want to know what links can be considered “real” and separate those backlinks from quick write-and-go InBound links from techniques such as forum posting.
What This Means For You
Avoid techniques that don’t create in-content backlinks. These techniques aren’t going to mean much to the world’s most powerful search engine, and it won’t bring you the results you’re looking for.
SEO isn’t a science. It’s an art. I really just go with the flow when it comes to SEO myself, and you should too. I don’t think of techniques. I don’t do blog comments for the backlinks, I do it for the discussion with other bloggers. I do however, take the time to guest post on other blogs after I’ve written for my own. Doing this allows me to build powerful in-content backlinks to my website completely naturally.
What Else?
Search engines love content that gives users a reason to use that search engine again. Remember, their end goal is to give the visitor what they are looking for. And content is what people are looking for when they use search engines, not affiliate products or any other marketing garbage you can throw their way. So the best way to build influential links to your website is to use content.
Google’s ranking system is complicated. But as the web develops we hope that we can better explain ourselves and our websites to search engines.
For example, HTML 5 is nearly here. The biggest change from the previous version is that there are now tags that we can use to clean up and organize our code into sections. This can potentially change the way search engines index our websites.
A new tag that is introduced in HTML 5 is <article> – this tag tells search engines (if they choose to take advantage of this) exactly where your content is. It tells them which links should be considered “real”, and which ones should be considered “fake”. This is just one example of how HTML 5 is going to make links from content even more powerful.
That’s it. Links are links. But links from content are the links you want to have pointing at your site.
Thanks for reading!
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Article by Karan Singhal
Karan Singhal is a well-known professional search engine and social media optimizer. He founded the Trafficke SEO Consulting Firm. He also shares more advice at the Trafficke Blog
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I guess you make a lot of guest posts then to get the incontent links to your blog posts. That is a great way to market your blog to other readers and to the search engines. First you have to build your relationships with the bloggers tough.
marissa recently posted..Tieteen Kuvalehti
Twitter: dragonblogger
July 19, 2010 at 3:21 am
First time I have seen the mention of the article tag as well but very easy to have Wordpress encapsulate all of your post content in article tags by updating the index.php and single.php if it is determined that Google will start paying attention to that tag for finding backlinks/content to index.
Justin Germino recently posted..Adding Artificial Noise to Silent Cars
Had no idea about the article tag in HTML5, so thanks for the heads on that one.
SEO really isn’t that hard. It is many of the self-proclaimed experts out there who make it seems more difficult than it is just to make an industry out of it.
Build a solid platform, create good content and the links (and ranking) will come.
It is not a “magic” formula.
Nice post:)
Duane Kinsey recently posted..Help Fix the Feedburner Subscriber Count Problem
In content links are usually more valuable because they are going to be crawled before sidebar and footer links. But one thing to consider when it comes to not getting links just because of their location is their traffic value. While they are not going to help boost your rankings, if the site receives a ton of traffic, your link still might get a lot of clicks depending on how it is placed which is still valuable if you want traffic from a relevant site.
Kristi Hines recently posted..Article Marketing Promotion with Blog Commenting
Yup, in-content links are also better for their content value.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Case Study: What A Single YOUmoz Guest Post Has Gotten Me
While not new news, this is certainly a point that needs to be spread wide.
However, as someone touched on above, one problem we face is a lot of bloggers do not allow contextual links back to ones site within a guest post.
Dennis Edell recently posted..I Figured it Out! Plus – I Need HELP Locating a Plugin
I am happy to hear about the new HTML5 tag, this will hopefully change the way people think of comment links down the road, stopping this nonsense that comment links should be part of any SEO strategy.
Keith recently posted..New Weekly Broadcast: Traffic Jam
Excellent article Karan. I’ve been learning more about link value lately. Optimizing on-page links doesn’t seem like a big deal, but unique, well-placed anchor text on a topic-related post is golden. Especially when that page eventually gains solid page rank. You can eventually own a good-sized chunk of a category having multiple posts supporting a topic.
Those static footer links aren’t as valuable because the wording is always identical and the link isn’t always relevant to the keywords on the page.
I see how Brian does it at Coppyblogger and you’re right on track. Sharing link luv with multiple posts (and sites) gives a lot more depth to the reader’s experience and more credibility to your post.
Dr Joe recently posted..Expressive Personality: Wired for Drama & Drama Manipulation
Great post and very useful for other bloggers.
At the beginning of building my blog, i didn’t know that links can actually “hurt” your site, so, having relevant links is more important that much links which aren’t relevant.
Plus, we should build links naturally too.
Thanks for sharing this Karan.
Kimi recently posted..Got “problems after upgrading to wordpress 30”
Another way to get great in-content links is from blog carnivals. You will usually receive an “in-content” link to both your home page and your particular article.
Richard recently posted..Earn $1000 An Hour With AdSense: Massive AdSense Success!
Twitter: benwaynet
July 18, 2010 at 6:18 pm
Did know people are still using blog carnivals. I hadn’t seen anything about them in over a year.
benwaynet recently posted..First Sharepoint 2010 project
Hi Karan,
This is the first time I heard this. And I did not understand it fully.
Does that mean footer links are useless? (we are talking about guest posting here, right?). How do we make “links from actual well-written content”? Are you talking about linking back to our website within the actual post/article? If yes, then I do not think all blogs allow that?
Thanks,
Nabeel
I’m saying that link within articles carry more importance than other types of links, just because in-content links are like a votes of authority.
Thank you for your thoughts,
Karan
Karan Singhal recently posted..Mini-Post: Why Search Engine Traffic Is The Best Kind Of Traffic
I also trust that’s important on what site you have your back link. If it’s Apple you are likely to also gain a lot of traffic, even if it’s a non-follow.
I agree that Content Back-links are better, especially since these will give you the greatest click-through rate. However, to say that you should avoid techniques that do not give you in-content links is completely false. Think about this…if you had a blog about kitchen appliances and you somehow got a link on the footer of NASA’s website this would still be way better then an in-content link from something like “Joe Shmoes Cooking Blog”.
You should be focusing on getting links from well trusted and high ranking sources. Where the link goes, is something you can think about after.
AJ recently posted..5 Tips To Increase Your Page Views
Twitter: element321
July 11, 2010 at 11:43 pm
Thanks for sharing these tips. I have always considered SEO more an art than a science. An SEO consultant may have the knowledge needed be a killer SEO consultant, but if they do not have the skill, they will never be an SEO artist.
element321 recently posted..Guest Post- Using CommentLuv To Build Traffic
This is one of the big things I preach to e-commerce clients. No matter how good the site’s navigation, only links internal to the actual content (product descriptions, category descriptions, or blog posts) are going to REALLY help with SEO. Very nice explanation Karan.
Susan Petracco recently posted..Rehabbing a Defunct E-Commerce Site
Great article… love the point you made about the end goal of the search engines. I think too many SEOs get overly embroiled in “manipulating” the search engines. If more people spent more time actually carrying out SEO through techniques that give the search engines and users what they want, I imagine there’d be a lot less web spam about!!
Stacey Cavanagh recently posted..The Annoying Things About Facebook
Great tips Karan.. I’ve been meaning to start guest blogging and now I guess it’s time for that initial push. Now I just need to come up with some good guest posts to share with everyone who will have them.
Aaron recently posted..Free Blogs
Karan,
I definitely agree with a lot of this. Especially the “comment for linkbuilding” part. It’s about the conversation. Any SEO value that you gain will probably be filtered out eventually, but the conversations will not.
Thanks,
Chris
Twitter: Ileane
July 11, 2010 at 3:54 pm
Hi Karan, it seems there’s something new to learn about linking and SEO strategies every day. Well at least it’s new to me. LOL! I’m like you, I don’t think of techniques but some things can’t be ignored. I guess the next thing I need to comprehend is the importance of HTML5. Thanks for the insight.
Ileane recently posted..FeedBurner Delicious Links and CommentLuv
Links within content are absolutely ideal, I agree. That’s the ultimate “vote” so any opportunity you get to place links within content is worth taking (legitimately, of course). HTML5 does indeed offer opportunities to help search engines understand the way your page is segmented, so it’s a good idea to start thinking about the use of the new HTML5 elements (like the article element). If you’d like a little help with learning it, I’ve been creating free, open source HTML5 templates for several months now. You can download and use however you like. That’s also a great way to learn more about HTML5 – just study someone’s code! You can grab my templates or even download a quick learning guide from http://freehtml5templates.com .
DazzlinDonna recently posted..Ask And Get Help For Five Bucks – Experiment
Yes this is all great content but why are some bloggers, article directories are unwilling to give you links in their content. If you write good content you should be allowed to place these links where you please.
James King recently posted..Blogging from your iPhone
This is because these people want writers who are confident that their content will help people and perform well, even if it doesn’t give in-content links. It’s a good way to get only the best writers on the job.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Mini-Post: Why Search Engine Traffic Is The Best Kind Of Traffic
If you write good content, people will WANT to link to it. Personally, I think article directories are not time well spent, and that time could be better spent on your own content.
Completely agree, and I’ll add this: it is frustrating getting links from content. Bloggers really don’t look for good content with which to introduce others or promote as much as they should. Guest posting is an excellent way to get links from content, but it is possible to overdo it with guest posting.
The biggest help I’ve seen with “links from content” is time. With time comes authority and people who find you. And you’ll get the links from content that really matter with time: people will be recommending your blog, pointing out specific posts they like, etc. It is possible to pursue links from content in an artificial way, and that’s not always the best thing. The best thing for a blogger is to work on content, or find the best content and highlight it.
ashok recently posted..Emily Dickinson, “It is an honorable Thought” (946)
I agree fully Karan.
Interestingly enough I was thinking about this idea today when I came across a few blogs where people linked to their squeeze page.
Most people won’t notice what you have to offer unless it’s something of real value. That’s why content linking is preferred in the eyes of google. A capture page doesn’t add much value at all.
Ryan Biddulph
Ryan Biddulph recently posted..How Possessing A Hard Work Consciousness Will Eventually Kill You
That’s right, search engines are only there to serve people and will do their best to satisfy them.
Karan Singhal recently posted..Mini-Post: Why Search Engine Traffic Is The Best Kind Of Traffic
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