Backlinks! Right or wrong way?

[Chris__Chris]

Ever since the Penguin changes there is so much information online about the right way and wrong way to gather high PR good backlinks.

I am starting to notice a number of websites that have over taken me in the serps that display NO BACKLINKS no media interaction but have a PR of 3 and are displaying on page 1 and 2 for major keywords?

SEO is so confusing post penguin, How are we supposed to know whats wrong and right,??

One expert tells me one thing, another says another?

I have been told backlinking is useless now, I have bought numerous books on post penguin SEO and they also contradict each other.

Does anyone actually have an idea of how to go about getting ranked well now adays, or is every one guessing like me.. Trial and error..

websites offering services OLD SCHOOL SEO link building etc?

If SEO is dead how can these businesses still be focusing on 1000's of directory links etc.

I have targets of around 150 backlinks a month and to get good quality post penguin links I am stuck? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

thanks elissa

[littlesthobo]

SEO companies still focussing on this stuff are either scamming people, or just so out of date and it will catch up with them.

Backlinks are still very worthwhile, but they must be earned naturally.  Any backlink that can be bought is not natural.

SEO post penguin is actually REALLY straightforward!  Implementing it is blody hard, but the theory is straightforward.

Really, all you have to do is create good quality content, relevant to your business on a regular basis.  You also need to socialise this, be social on your social networks, publicise your content through your social means, earn backlinks by people coming across your content and deciding to link to it

Ultimately Google wants to know that your site is good quality (and it measures that by deemed good quality sites naturally linking to it because they think it is good).  Social signals, tweet, number of facebook likes, google plus ones, other kinds of shares, people talking about your site etc.

Don't focus on 'SEO'. Focus on building a great website, a great brand and getting the word out and the links should come naturally.

Obviously all the on page and technical seo, ste speed etc best practises still apply.

[donford]

Increasing page rank by gaining back links is still how its done. However, post penguin many link farms, rings, exchanges, paid sites, or anything that is un-natural is not going to give you any credit and some cases such as spamming may hurt you.

It actually is much closer to how I think the world wide web should work. That is, if I as a webmaster find your site beneficial to my users I will link to you, in turn you get some credit for having link worthy content. This system was so abuse-able that it became an SEO strategy to gather links from anywhere. Google, just took a swipe at putting things right.

Now, follow links are harder to get, and social media is starting to play a larger metric on how worth while a site appears to be.

Hope that helps.

[GBC]

Sorry Jo, I completely disagree that 'the links should come naturally'. If you have a boring, functional product that doesn't lend itself to social media, or even if your content is just something that users won't naturally link to, you're stuck.

Elissa - one of the best ways I've found is to put in time to researching the bloggers in your space, crafting unique pitch emails for each one, writing some great content for them and providing a decent guest post, or asking them to include a link in one of their posts that relates to your page.

Blogger Linkup/My Blog Guest etc won't generally serve up decent quality sites any more you need to do this research manually, but you should be able to get some good links out of it!

[littlesthobo]

You have to create content that people will link to.  There is no such thing as boring either.  I manage social media and SEO for nuts and bolts companies, so i understand what you mean but you have to find your market and build the links there.

Also, why would a guest post be any less boring than posting on your own blog (re your advice on this post)?

edit.. added this link about borings companies creating great content.  

Also check out what Ladders online are doing on Google plus.

[Chris.Menke]

In addition to RN1978's comment, which I would agree with 100%, always have your mozbar ready to go and run an open site explorer report on every thematically relevant site you come across. Investigate the top links in each report to see  it's also a link you can obtain.

Building authority is an endless process and you'll get better at it the longer you're at it. The more business-like your approach to it the better off you'll be.  That means be knowledgeable, be persistent, and be creative.

[GregoryTK]

Hi Elissa,

Just checking... the competitors that are outranking you, might they have a local presence in the area your searches relate to?

If there is a local element to the products/services you are promoting then there is a plethora of reasons why a competitor could outrank you...

And, with most search now being "local" this could very well be an argument.

David Mihm's Local Search Ranking Factors (2012), that aggregates data from several experts within the industry, only ranks "Quality/Authority of inbound links to Domain" in 14th position.

Hope this helps a little?

[Chris__Chris]

Yes its very hard for me because my site is probate, so not a very happy subject,

Thanks everyone some very helpful info off you all.

One thing thats curious is I am seeing sites that dont have any backlinks taking over me in the rankings

for example http://www.purelyprobate.co.uk/ they have a site similar to ours and they have a page rank above ours (we lost rank after getting hit by the penguin update)

they have no real linkage,mind boggling when everyone states that linking is the way to go.

Elissa