Finding out Who has high DA\PA and getting a backlink

[petstar]

Hi,

So, like many others I was always in the top 3 for keywords in google for about a year, then 9 months ago we dropped, we now dont even exisit! (Page 10).

One of the actions we are looking at is backlinks, however we have limited budget and want to work with domains that have high DA in order to help us, I assume this is good idea for us to do?

Question, how can I easily identity domains that have high DA relevant to my sector? so I can engage in backlinks conversation

David

[SilverDoor]

Hi David,

I'm assuming that one of the reasons you've dropped so rapidly is because you were previously engaging in black-hat tactics?

Have you done a full SEO audit? If so, what did you find the problem to be?

Did you find that you had a problem with your backlink profile? If so, have you taken action to remove any potentially harmful links (directories, link farms, low-quality unrelated sites)? If you haven't done this, I would advise this is your first step. There's no point in building up good links on an already bad profile.

Let me know where you've got to so far and I can advise you with your next step.

Thanks

SilverDoor

[petstar]

Hey SilverDoor,

Im pretty new to the SEO world, regarding in engaging in black-hat tactics in not sure as this was contracted out work.

I havent done a full SEO report as to honest its a bit of a mine field (if your new to it), however using MOZ I have compared my DA against a competitor who is Ranked No 1 based on our key search term has a DA of 28 and a (Root Domains Linking to the Page of 31) while we only have 22.

The page analysis gave my site a grade A, not to sure what else I need to look at?

David

[SilverDoor]

Hey David,

Firstly, welcome to the world of SEO.

I know that things can seem pretty confusing and daunting, especially when your new to SEO. The key is to not rush into any decisions without having evidence to back the potential benefits. It's very easy to go storming into things and end up making poor decisions. Here is my recommendation for how to proceed from here:

Step 1:

Benchmark your current rankings, traffic etc. (You need to do this so you know if the changes you have made have had a positive or negative impact)

Step 2:

Do a quick health check of your website. Use Google Webmasters to check for any issues or penalties you may have received. Fix any issues as soon as possible.

Step 3:

Do a backlink audit using Open Site Explorer. Export your results to Excel and then analyse them. Look at every single URL and check to make sure that they're not harming your site. If you find any that you think may be harming your site, then get in touch with the webmaster of that site and request them to remove the link. If that doesn't work, use Google Disavow Tool to remove it. This article on Link Audit Guide For Effective Link Removals & Risk Mitigation will guide you through this process.

Step 4:

Use Open Site Explorer to analyse your competitors backlink structure. Look at the places they have obtained high quality links and attempt to target those same sites.

Step 5:

Once you have successfully obtained backlinks, analyse the results against the initial benchmark you did. Then you can see exactly what has improved and other areas that may still need work.

The above is a time consuming process and takes patience. Seriously though, it's worth doing it right as this will help prevent dips in traffic in the future.

Hope this is clear and concise enough.

Let me know if you need anything else explained.

SilverDoor

[petstar]

Hey,

Thanks for taking the time, one question you mention using open site explorer

"export your results to Excel and then analyse them. Look at every single URL and check to make sure that they're not harming your site. "

How do I know if they harm my site?

Thanks

David

[SilverDoor]

This post is deleted!

[SilverDoor]

Hey,

I'm more than happy to take the time. Always happy to help.

Use the list below as a checklist. If it meets one of the points then remove it.

• Low Domain Authority (MOZ Domain Authority and Page Authority)
• Unrelated links from websites that bear no relevance to the content / theme of our website
• Directories
• Pages with hundreds of outbound links on them – the more outbound links the less credible your link becomes
• Overly optimised, keyword rich anchor text
• Any sitewide links (across the whole domain multiple times)
• Any Adult websites
• Anything that just looks plain crap

Also, when your going to start building links, it's worth reading this to get an idea of the things that are seen as acceptable by Google 19 Things Matt Cutts Said in 2013 That Changed the Way We Build Links

Making a bit more sense now?

Thanks

SilverDoor

[KeriMorgret]

Keep in mind that Domain Authority is a Moz metric, and not a metric that the search engines use for ranking. It's correlated with how well things tend to rank, but shouldn't be used as the final judgment for a link. Chapter 7 of the Beginner's Guide to SEO at http://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo deals with links and can give some good ideas of how to get started.