How To Use Backlinks Wisely

While you likely guest blog with the intention of building links, be careful just how “optimized” you want those links to be. Google casts a suspicious eye on linking patterns that seem like PageRank sculpting, as opposed to editorial decisions. As such, host blogs are now more careful about how many backlinks they’ll allow in the author byline (many allow just one) as well as how relevant those links are to the content of the article, and their sites in general.

Some guest bloggers have offered great articles to me, but with terrible links, so I couldn’t use the articles. For example, a guest post about content marketing cannot reasonably include a link to a site about “best cell phone calling plans.” Sure, I could post that link. It’s not illegal, but it sure doesn’t add value, and it might even make Google more wary of my site. That guest blogger should be pitching posts to sites that can actually use articles about cell phone calling plans.

Generally speaking, to keep your backlinks appropriate, they should look like the host site gladly shared the links as a part of the post:

1. Keep your links relevant to the content and the host site
2. Limit your use of long tail anchor text, unless it truly fits in the article
3. Avoid sending links to landing pages with thin content
4. Use anchor text like “here” and “click here for more”
5. Vary root domain anchor text, e.g., your url, company name, primary keywords
6. Link to other popular pieces you wrote, not just your own site
7. Link to your Google+ profile and other social media accounts
8. When linking to your own home page, only do so from your author byline

Some blogs don’t care what your links look like, but that’s no reason you shouldn’t. After all, guest blogging is about building a lasting presence, not scoring easy links. And if a blogger is only willing to give you one link, don’t sweat it. Natural links are built at the discretion of the host site, are they not?

Ben Holland explains how to analyse your backlink profile in Prepping Your Backlink Profile for 2013. It’s a fantastic guide for using tools to do some technical SEO, but most importantly for our discussion here, he explains that versions of your brand name and url should outnumber other terms found in your anchor text. Having a high number of links come from one long tail anchor just isn’t natural.

See the original post : http://www.searchenginejournal.com/the-ultimate-guest-bloggers-guide-for-2013/57457/

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