Are you spending time chasing high quality Backlinks for your Blog?  You should be!  Earning high quality dofollow backlinks for you website is probably the most powerful and effective way to build traffic for your site.  How come?  Because Google is ‘impressed’ with high quality backlinks, and if Google is impressed with you, Google gives you a High Page Rank.  But what is the link between high Page Rank and building Traffic?

Most website owners want more people to visit their sites.  For most websites, this traffic (people) represents potential customers.  Most website owners want Google to select their articles to show up on Page 1 of a Google Search Engine Result Page (SERP). Why? Because Zillions of people see Page 1 entries in Google searches.  But almost nobody ever clicks through to page 4 or 5.

Why Bloggers Chase Google Page1 SERPs

Many millions of people can see your article (with link) if it is selected by Google on Page 1 of SERPs. If you get this star billing from Google, you are likely to get more people (potential customers) knowing about your article, and then more people will come to your website.  Therefore, the name of the marketing game is to impress Google – by impressing your readers and giving them Quality Content.

Google is your ‘middle man’ in terms of marketing.  When Google is impressed with you, it gives you a high Page Rank. And a high Page Rank increases your chance of being selected for Page 1 SERPS.  And… we convince Google to give us a High Page Rank by giving Google what it wants.  But what does Google want?

Google can be a bit mysterious about what it wants!  But there are some things that Google is very clear about: it is looking for Quality.  But what is Quality?…this post is turning into a Q and A session… but I digress….

Quality = Value + Relevance = Authority

Quality is high Value Content (information) that is highly Relevant to the topic of the article (or website).  Google wants its customers (people who use Google Search) to find exactly what they are looking for when they click on your link.  So what must you avoid if you want Google to ‘think’ that your site is a Quality website, and which therefore has Authority?

Quality websites do NOT fill their pages with fluff, spam or hundreds of ads. Quality websites do NOT have Duplicate Content that’s been copied (stolen) from someone else’s article.  Quality websites do NOT buy backlinks, or use link baiting or linking software to get ‘artificial’ back links on their site.

These types of ‘un-natural’ Backlinks frequently mislead readers into visiting low quality, irrelevant ‘other sites’.  Why? because these Paid For, un-natural backlinks have been ‘manufactured’ by software, not added by satisfied visitors who were genuinely impressed with the Quality they found at your website.

Readers don’t like being duped or mislead, and Google doesn’t like that either.

Also, Quality websites do NOT use ‘Keyword Stuffing’ to try to trick the Google web crawlers into thinking they have Relevance in spades, and therefore, deserve star billing in SERPS. Wrong!  Keyword Stuffing makes Content un-readable.  And that is definitely not the sort of Quality that Google is looking for.

This is a link to a Video by Matt Cutts (head geek at Google) where he discusses Keyword Stuffing.

Google’s Penguin and Panda Updates

In 2012, Google made 2 updates to its algorithms. Algorithms are the software thingies that super-geeks create to make Google’s web crawlers (data collectors) ‘work’.  These Google updates are/were called Penguin and Panda.  These updates started to specifically target websites with dodgy linking practices (a technical term) and keyword stuffing.

Dodgy backlinks are backlinks that have been bought, swapped, or ‘farmed’ using software tools. Dodgy backlinks are backlinks that are engineered in some way, using any ‘un-natural’ method.

All of these ‘un-natural’ methods of engineering ‘artificial’ back links used to be thought of as ‘Grey Hat’ SEO before Panda and Penguin.  Grey Hat SEO techniques are borderline practices that lie between ethical and not ethical SEO. Ethical SEO is called White Hat SEO.  Unethical SEO is called Black Hat SEO.

Since Panda and Penguin, engineering artificial backlinks by any means, is definitely listed in the Black Hat SEO department!  Use them at your peril!

When Penguin and Panda were released, many websites suddenly got their Page Rank downgraded and had a dramatic fall in visitor numbers….because Google had pinged them (another technical term) for including manufactured, un-natural backlinks on their site.

Keyword Stuffing vs Keyword Density

Keyword stuffing is the practice of stuffing your sentences with so many repetitions of your main keywords that the sentences don’t make any sense to any real person reading them. They are sentences that no one would ever say in real life.

Some bloggers have practiced Keyword Stuffing to try to ‘catch the eye’ of the Google web crawlers, so they will be judged ‘highly relevant’ because they have such high Keyword Density.

It is true that having good Keyword Density is one way to use onsite SEO to increase the chance that your article will appear on Page 1 of Google.

But…. now, IF you over-do your Keyword Density and write incomprehensible content which is riddled with your Keywords, you will definitely ‘catch the eye’ of Google…but not in a good way.  You will risk being penalized by Google…and no one wants that.

Deciding on what is ‘keyword stuffing’ and what is legitimate use of Keyword Density SEO could be tricky.  But if you stick to the practice of writing sentences, and articles, that sound ‘natural’ and easily readable, you should be all right.

The Concept of Authority

In the blogging world, having Authority is all about having Quality Content on your website that is also highly Relevant to your topic – no matter what your topic happens to be.  Quality content is information (and links) that readers will find useful, helpful, accurate and informative.

If you can convince Google that your website and articles have ‘Authority’, your website will flourish.  Why? Because Google will reward your blog with a high Google Page Rank…and a high page rank increases your chance of high levels of exposure to readers and potential customers because you get selected to appear on Page 1 of SERPS.

How Can We ‘Tell’ Google That We Have Authority?

We have to be a little bit clever!  First of all we need to know what Google wants, what Google is impressed with – [all of the above] – and then provide high Value, highly Relevant Content for our readers and visitors.   If we do that, we already have ‘Potential Authority’.  But…. then we have to find ways to convince Google that we have Authority!

We have to convince Google that we are in fact a Big Cheese in the online world – when maybe we are really a bit of a minnow…but a minnow with friends in high places!  Yes! [I know… I’m mixing my metaphors]

And we can do that by ‘winning’ votes of approval (getting a dofollow backlink) from website owners whose blogs already have established Authority.  If we can do that, these High Rank website owners become our Friends in High Places.

By the way, you can pretty much be certain that any article that Google selects for Page1 in any Google Search will be coming from a relatively High Rank website.  Other ways to check the Rank of a website is to install the SEObook Toolbar which will tell you the page rank of any site or page you visit.

So….how do we win Votes of Approval from High Page Rank websites with oodles of Authority to share?  We get a back link from them…somehow! Yes!

Authority is like water – it flows down hill.  It flows from High Authority (High Rank) websites to lower Authority (Page Rank) websites – us, in this case.  And the only way it can flow – in a way that Google can ‘see’ it with its web crawlers – is via a backlink that connects the two interlinking websites together.

Google assumes that if a High Ranking, High Authority website, is prepared to allow a backlink that links our site to theirs, we must have Authority as well.  That is a fair assumption too.  No high ranking website is going to allow links to a spammy or worthless website on their website – it would damage their own reputation, and risk getting pinged by Google’s Panda or Penguin themselves.

Therefore, if you want to become a successful blogger, winning quality backlinks from High Ranking websites should be one of your main goals.

The next article will cover the different types of Backlinks, and why some are more valuable to you than others.

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