Day 12 Assignment, Bootcamp #4 - Learning about Backlinks

[iCraft Admin]

Today's assignment is for you to learn about Backlinks. You need to understand what those links are, how to get them and why they are important.

Backlinks are the links that are pointing to your pages from external websites.
Why are they important? Because they are used by search engines as votes for ranking your pages.

There is a lot of info on the web about Backlinks and we've written a few posts on this topic too, so please read as much as you can on Backlinks today and ask questions, if you have any. Tomorrow we'll talk about Blogging and will put some of this knowledge to practice.

Here is some suggested reading:

• Read our post explaining Backlinks.
• Post from SeoMoz on Link Signals, Link Building Basics/url]etc.
• Anchor Text Optimisation Best Practices in 2012
• You can also do search on Google or YouTube for phrase "Link Building", "Anchor Text" or "Backlinks" to see more resources. Just pay attantion to the date of the article. There has been a lot of changes in the past year to how Backlinks counted by search engines.

Kat, it looks like you are the only one without a blog.
I'd like to ask you to setup your iCraft blog, so you'll be ready for assignment tomorrow. Please read this post - Blogging:  How to get Started.

Here are a few good examples of how your Blog page should look like.
https://icraftgifts.com/craft-boutique/blog/
https://icraftgifts.com/felicia/blog//
https://icraftgifts.com/maple-leaf/blog/

[The Earring Express]

Backlinks?  Is that were you are linked to another store  that compliments your products and they to you?  I understand facebook and twitter.......Kat

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Kat,

Backlinks are the inks from other sites to you - your store, your product pages or your blog.
The more Backlinks you have, the more important you are in the eyes of Google.

The trick is in getting the right Backlinks from websites related to you.
So if you sell Jewelry, you want to get Backlinks from other Jewelry or Craft sites.
That's why it's good to network online and be a part of craft groups or forums, as people you meet there have sites related to yours.

[Red Rock Designs]

Is it like when someone re-tweets your post on Twitter, or re-blogs your blog entry...so your entry shows up on their page???

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Ok so... backlinks...

1. Do links I post on my blog to my product page count as a backlink?  (I really need to work on my anchor text.  I will do that today forward!)

2. On the forums I frequent, we are not allowed to link to stores or self promotion.  So, I link to my blog in my forum signature.  Is that a backlink to my blog?

3. When I join a creative challenge on a blog, they use some form of blog link manager and I get to put a link to my specific blog post where I posted my challenge entry.  Is that a backlink to my blog?

Since these three above are posted by me, I'm not sure if search engines know it's me leaving links in other places.

4. The item I donated to the charity online auction (I have done this 3 years running), on the item listing they put a link to my blog too.  That has to be a backlink to my blog!  Ya?

I'm not sure how I could do backlinks to my actual shop better though.

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Red Rock Designs,
Not sure what you mean by re-blogging, but re-tweeting definitely counts.

[Red Rock Designs]

I meant re-posting one of my blog entries.

[iCraft Admin]

Generally, re-posting content on multiple sites is not good. It creates duplicate content issue. Plus, it depends what links you had in your post and what anchor text you use there.... Anyway, Backlinks I am talking about here are the links from other sites to your pages that follow some of the rules that  I outlined in this post.

[Delightful Suds]

I think I now understand backlinks. So do followers on Twitter & "likes" on FB count?

[iCraft Admin]

No, followers on Twitter & "likes" on FB don't count as Backlinks.

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Fairy Cardmaker,

#1. Yes, links from your own blog count. However, they'll be bundled up as links from a single domain. It's important to have links from various domains with diverse anchor text.

#2. Yes, that would be a Backlink to your blog. Make sure you optimize your blog's landing page and use various anchor text to link to it

#3. That would be a Backlink to your individual posts. Still good.

#4. Yes, that would be a Backlinks to your blog.

To answer your question, you'd have to reach out to other bloggers or join more groups and forums, where you could mention your store or products with links back to your product pages.