Back Links – Holy Grail to Web Traffic?

Feb. 9, 2012 - PRLog -- We had a chat with Graham Briar, at Hometipster.com, for his take on Back-Links and how successful this marketing method is at increasing SERP and site traffic.  We asked a number of questions:

Interviewer:  Is it advisable to buy Back-Links rather than spending hours searching for relevant websites to post comments on?

Graham: The golden rule is NEVER buy Back-Links.  Google is smart enough to be able to see where and how a back-link is generated.  If you do buy Back-Links then Google will actually penalize you in their Search Engine Rankings, so you’ll just be defeating the whole objective.

Interviewer: Where should you start looking for appropriate websites?

Graham: Determine your market sector first and then search online for websites that are similar to the keywords you want to promote.  There’s no point in writing a comment  to include the keyword DIY on a website that sell Baking Equipment.  You need to keep things on topic.

Interviewer: Why do other websites allow you to post comments and include a link back to your website?

Graham: It’s all about useful content.  Getting ranked well in Google is achieved by having useful and unique content on your pages.  Allowing people to place comments creates additional, useful and unique content to a webpage, so the website benefits in the SERP from this additional content.

Interviewer: Do you allow people to add comments to your web pages?

Graham: Yes and we do this in two ways.  Firstly we have a comments box, which allows our visitors to post comments that are relevant to the page.  This works well but we decided to take it a step further to make the content really useful.  At the end of each DIY or Gardening Guide we have a ‘Post Tips’ button.  This allows people to post useful tips regarding the particular guide they are reading.  These tips provide extremely useful content which is excellent for our SERP.  With each tip posted we allow a single URL to be included.  This benefits those posting tips by allowing them to have a Back-Link plus receive traffic from us via their web link.

Interviewer:  Can you just write and submit any comment to achieve a Back-Link?

Graham: Yes, but it probably won’t do you any good.  Almost all websites moderate
comments, including Hometipster.com, which prevents Junk or Spam comments from being added to a webpage.  Remember what I said about keeping it on topic and useful, you need to keep it relevant if you want a website to publish you comment or tip and in return create a Back-Link to your website.

Interviewer:  How important are Back-Links in the scheme of web marketing?

Graham: It’s critical to get as many Back-Links as you can but the key is to get relevant Back-Links from high PageRank websites.  If you have engaged the services of an SEO company then it’s likely they will create Back-Links for you but you must ensure these are not simply purchased, because you’ll do more harm to your SERP than good.  Ask your SEO provider for a list of Back-Links they create and ask how they were created.

Interviewer: Are Back-Links the Holy Grail of SERP?

Graham: Getting a healthy SERP is not just about Back-Links.  This is just one element of what makes a website successful in terms of SERP.  It’s important to produce great content because all the Back-Links in the world won’t help your SERP in Google if the content on your website is low quality.  It’s also important to provide ways that will allow your visitors to share your content through their social networks and this is achieved easily enough with a row of Social Network Share Buttons.

Interviewer: Do you have any advice for start-up websites regarding getting a more traffic to their website?

Graham: Work really hard at promoting your website across the social networks.  Most websites are owned by just one or two people and most don’t have an army of employees to do the work, so work systematically.  Create a plan on how you are going to promote your website on a daily basis and stick to that plan every day.  Analyze the results of your marketing efforts and modify or remove elements that don’t work for you.  Hometipster.com is one of the hundreds of thousands of websites out there that are run by just a couple of people.  In fact Hometipster.com has me and Andrew and we both work extremely hard at promoting and developing the content and services we offer.  Don’t be discouraged, it’s not easy to get traffic to your site but providing you do have great content and you work hard then your visitors will show their appreciation by sharing your pages via their social networks, which in turn will boost your SERP.

Finally, if it’s OK for a little shameless promotion (you cannot be shy when it comes to marketing your business), I would ask anyone reading this to visit Hometipster.com and post tips and comments on our site.  Just remember that we do moderate these so trying to sneak in a JUNK or SPAM link will not work.

So there we have it.  Back-Links may not be the Holy Grail to SERP but it certainly is a large part of it.  For your information Graham was not kidding – Hometipster.com is run by just two people although Andrew is responsible for the technical side while Graham takes care of all the content and promoting, which is a huge undertaking for just one person.  Graham also talked about dedication and not being discouraged and I have to say that Graham sits in a small room at home for 12 to 16 hours a day, without time off.  Graham’s dedication shows in the quality of the layout, design and content of his website and our chat was certainly an inspiration to me.  

If you want some really great ‘How To Guides’ on DIY or Gardening then Hometipster.com is the place to visit. Don’t forget you can create a Back-Link on Hometipster.com by posting tips and comments, but do make these relevant and useful.

Visit http://hometipster.com

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Hometipster.com provides an extensive range of DIY and Gardening project guides and videos. We also have an excellent Questions & Answers board that allows visitors to ask other visitors for answers. Hometipster.com is a one-stop resource for DIY and Gardening.