TRAFFIC
THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
OF LINK-BUILDING
Links remain vitally important to Google’s algorithm, and your link-building strategy needs to evolve
accordingly to take account of emerging emphases such as user engagement and social sharing.
Michael Gabriel of Blueclaw explains all in his 10-step explanation of what makes a great link in 2015.
WHAT MAKES A really good back-link?
I’ve been working within the SEO industry
for several years now and am yet to have a
definitive answer to that question. But there
are certainly a number of key considerations
you should take into account.
Gone are the days where we’d asses a
link based solely on its domain authority or
page rank. Instead we find ourselves using
a range of tools to monitor a number of
different metrics. But it shouldn’t stop there.
You should be looking at a wide array of
factors; from the relevancy of the donor
site, to the quality of content that the link is
contained within.
As long as links remain vitally important
to Google’s algorithm, understanding what
makes differentiates a good link from a bad
one remains important to organic search.
With that in mind, below are a number
of different elements I like to assess when
assessing the value of a back-link.
Domain trust and authority
There’s a huge amount number of poor
quality web pages and sites on the Internet.
I’ve seen estimates suggesting that as
much as 60% of all content is ‘spam’. This
content has been created just to manipulate
Google’s algorithm and market aggressively
to or exploit other users online. In order
to filter out the irrelevant content, Google
has systems in place to measure the trust
of a site.
A site that has a link pointing to
it from a highly trusted domain can
result in a significant increase in its
trust and authority. Examples of high-
28
iGB Affiliate Issue 51 JUNE/JULY 2015
trust domains would be university and
government websites, as well as large media
organisations and brands.
There are several metrics I use to
establish the authority of a website.
Domain strength, widely known as domain
authority is the cumulative value of an
entire domain. This is calculated by Moz
and runs on a scale of 0-100, with 100
being the highest.
Trust Flow is another metric that is used
to measure the overall trust of a website.
This is based on a site’s back-link proximity
to trusted domains. Gaining links within
trusted neighborhoods are of course more
donor site; would a link to your site look
natural? The search engine’s algorithm
will take into consideration a range of
factors to determine how appropriate a
link is. Not only will Google monitor the
overall relevance of the donor site, but
the relevance of the specific page and the
content surrounding the link.
Traffic
The original purpose of links was to
add value to a page by directing traffic
to a useful and relevant resource. This
is something that often gets forgotten
about, which is strange considering that
“The original purpose of links was to add value to a page
by directing traffic to a useful and relevant resource. This
is something that often gets forgotten about, which is
strange considering that engagement is considered in
some quarters to be playing an increasingly influential role
in rankings.”
trustworthy than links from spammy
neighborhoods.
Citation Flow is used to reveal how
influential a URL is based on the number
of sites linking to it. You’ll find that the
more links that a site has, the higher the
citation flow.
Relevancy
Google aims to provide relevance in
their search results, so it’s logical that
you should consider this when acquiring
links. Look at the relevancy of the
engagement is considered in some quarters
to be playing an increasingly influential
role in rankings. I suggest using SEMrush
to get an idea of how much traffic is
going to linking domain prospects. The
tool measures a site’s performance using
a range of metrics such as SEMrush rank
(which analyses a website’s popularity
based on organic traffic coming from
Google’s top 20 organic search results)
and SE Traffic (traffic brought to the
website via Google’s top 20 organic
search results).