Ask An SEO: Should I Point Guest Post Backlinks To Homepages Or Individual Ones? via @sejournal, @rollerblader

8 months ago 90

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This week’s Ask An SEO question comes from Nazim from Islamabad, who asks:

“I person a terms comparison/aggregator website with my country’s domain. I privation to inquire what benignant of backlinks/guests posts should I person (local/international).

Also, I should physique backlinks to my homepage oregon category/individual pages, too? Besides are (name removed) and (name removed) authentic platforms for backlinks building?”

Great question, Nazim, and blessed to help.

I’m breaking the reply into 3 sections: The archetypal is impermanent posting successful general, past the homepage oregon class and idiosyncratic pages, and the past is wherever to get prime links.

The archetypal 2 person a TL;DR if you’re abbreviated connected time. Otherwise, there’s a longer mentation if you privation the thoughts oregon SEO mentation down it.

I’d similar to stress wherever to get backlinks earlier going into the remainder of the post.

Where To Get Backlinks

If you privation backlinks that tin determination the needle and physique stability, it comes down to quality and earthy backlinks. This means the website should:

Not database that they let impermanent posting oregon advertorials anyplace (except successful the lawsuit of wide media arsenic advertorials are intelligibly marked).
Only let vetted and knowledgeable contributors who are invited to constitute columns.
Have prime power policies successful place, including utilizing due nexus attributes similar “sponsored, nofollow, etc.”
Not nexus to topically irrelevant sites externally, and decidedly not the large P’s (porn, payday, pills, idiosyncratic loans, etc.) unless you’re successful those industries.
Make it hard to get an existent nexus (social media, forums, and blog comments let anyone to post, and galore let links, truthful they are not earned oregon hard to get).

You tin get prime links from:

Local media sites and blogs for section businesses.
Industry and commercialized publications.
Niche websites and contented creators.
National media successful straight applicable and non-affiliate sections.
PR stunts and events that person nonstop tie-ins (not scholarships oregon grants) to your existent products and services (don’t bash a surfboarding assistance and expect to fertile long-term).

Guest Posting For Backlinks

TL;DR: Guest posting has its place, but it should not beryllium utilized to physique backlinks due to the fact that impermanent posts are not earned.

Guest posting tin physique trust successful you arsenic an adept oregon marque authorization and thrust an assemblage to your website who is funny successful the contented you produce, the products you sell, oregon the services you offer.

Guest posting should lone beryllium done connected topically applicable websites with an progressive audience, where assemblage acquisition – not backlinks – is the goal.

When Not To Do Guest Posting

The archetypal happening is that impermanent posting and nexus database providers, based connected my experience, are reddish flags SEO-wise and should not beryllium used.

That doesn’t mean bully ones don’t exist. Think astir it this way.

If you’re utilizing the aforesaid systems arsenic everyone else, and it’s the aforesaid sites, oregon there’s a debased outgo to entry, your links are apt going to beryllium portion of a PBN (private blog network, besides known arsenic nexus farms, nexus wheels, nexus speech networks, etc.) oregon easy mapped network.

The hunt engines volition disregard these links, and you volition discarded your clip and money. Other times, they could pb to an enactment against your website due to the fact that they are not natural.

More importantly, if you tin get into oregon spot a database of them, bash you deliberation hunt engines cannot entree them?

There are third-party tools similar Majestic SEO that database and representation these each the time.

If they’re capable to find PBNs and impermanent posting rings arsenic an autarkic company, Google, Bing, and elephantine corporations tin apt bash it astatine a overmuch larger scale.

If these sites let themselves to beryllium listed successful databases and actively let impermanent posting oregon nexus selling due to the fact that they marque wealth from it, they’re apt going to beryllium ignored oregon yet origin a manual action for unnatural nexus building.

Instead, absorption connected links different sites bash not person and that are not portion of these systems oregon platforms.

Getting the links cipher other has from topically applicable websites and genuine non-pay-to-play websites helps determination the needle, particularly if the tract is simply a trusted authorization successful your niche.

When To Guest Post

If you determine impermanent posting is portion of your concern plan, absorption connected websites that are topically applicable to your manufacture and person your users arsenic subscribers.

The website should besides person a readership basal that comes backmost astatine slightest erstwhile a week to work caller contented that has been published.

Search Engine Journal is simply a bully example.

I bash not usage it to physique backlinks to my blog, but I bash lend due to the fact that 1 of the services my selling bureau offers is SEO.

Marketers prosecute with SEJ’s webinars, podcasts, newsletter blasts, societal media, and they cheque backmost for caller content.

By contributing via the columns, I’m reaching an assemblage of marketers, which is my people audience.

Some of you besides constitute and inquire however to subscribe and get entree arsenic I people caller contented (thank you, by the way; I fto the editorial unit know).

Being a columnist allows maine to physique spot with the readership who checks back. I don’t bash it for backlinks, and I don’t deliberation I’ve ever sourced my tract from 1 of my articles.

If determination is simply a link, it was added by its editors due to the fact that they thought my assets was precocious capable quality, and they didn’t person 1 of their own.

Linking To The Homepage Or A Category Page

TL;DR: Link to your homepage and not a class page.

Categories bash not supply much accusation oregon value; class leafage links are utilized to crippled the strategy and enactment against you. Categories volition fertile people erstwhile the remainder of the website is trustworthy.

For impermanent posts and backlinks to consciousness natural, you should beryllium referencing your ain marque and homepage.

The alternate is if you person a resource, and the tract you’re pitching does not person an adjacent one, get the nexus to your assets arsenic it is archetypal and the lone 1 available.

Longer Explanation

I ever urge homepage links disconnected of the marque erstwhile it comes to nexus building, particularly with impermanent posting.

Being a marque that radical hunt sends a precise beardown awesome you’re an authorization to algorithms.

When radical hunt for your tract by name, they’ll apt besides adhd modifiers to the query, specified arsenic colors, sizes, adjectives, brands, etc.

These modifiers awesome wherefore radical spell to your website.

It could beryllium the champion look for brownies for wellness conditions similar diabetes, which colour of overgarment makes consciousness for a modern surviving room, oregon the close marque of servers and racks are needed for a information center.

These modifiers with your marque fto the hunt engines cognize that if they privation the idiosyncratic searching to support utilizing their engine, they request to crawl and scale much of your website to find the circumstantial leafage oregon class their searcher was looking for.

If the hunt motor lone had your homepage indexed, but the idiosyncratic wants a circumstantial merchandise line, the hunt motor makes their idiosyncratic enactment harder than different hunt engines by having users hunt for the pages.

Here’s an example. If you merchantability partition paint, and the hunt engines lone had your homepage, they would springiness that effect arsenic radical hunt for your institution by name.

Suddenly, the colour you developed became the colour of the year; now, radical are searching for your marque positive the sanction of the colour oregon the numeric premix to find it.

By not crawling and indexing your site, it cannot aboveground that circumstantial page, but different hunt engines do.

If different hunt engines aboveground that circumstantial color, they triumph the user. When much users hunt due to the fact that the motor has amended results, the hunt motor tin amusement much ads.

The much ads they show, the much wealth they make. So, physique your marque + modifiers.

When idiosyncratic adds your marque positive “blue,” “washable,” “kitchen,” and different modifiers, the hunt motor volition cognize it needs to research further to support the searcher coming back.

In the supra scenario, winning the grant oregon designation volition people physique backlinks due to the fact that your merchandise oregon work won thing of value. The aforesaid with the photograph of the year, vacation artifact of the year, etc.

There’s a batch much to it, and this is wherever branding comes into play.

Once you’re a known marque oregon destination tract that consumers trust, there’s a amended accidental that bloggers, journalists, and others volition nexus to your category, review, blog posts, and examination pages naturally.

If you bash it from a impermanent post, it whitethorn number for a while, but it volition besides apt backfire, arsenic you are giving yourself a backlink, not thing earned.

Linking disconnected of your marque gets that branded hunt going.

Search engines marque their wealth by selling advertisement space. They tin lone merchantability advertisement abstraction if users are searching. If they springiness atrocious results, less radical volition proceed utilizing their hunt engines, which is wherefore they request to absorption connected quality.

Guest posting for backlinks is simply a atrocious idea.

Yes, it works until you get caught, truthful if you’re doing it for backlinks, ever person a 2nd and 3rd strategy to offset the impermanent posting links.

If you privation to bash a churn and pain tract wherever you turn it to merchantability fast, impermanent posting and PBNs tin beryllium a large strategy for you, but it is astatine the buyer’s disbursal who volition wage the price.

When you privation a website that makes wealth and generates dependable revenue, spell with evergreen and prime links alternatively of gimmicks and easy-to-trace techniques similar impermanent posting.

I anticipation this helps.

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal