Assignment 1, Bootcamp #5 - Backlinks Basics

[iCraft Admin]

JaJeJems and others,

So what did you learn about Link Building this week? What were your questions that were answered in the article that Kat shared? What surprised you? Did you start thinking how you could use Link Building for promoting your business? Please share your thoughts! Others will benefit from it too. Thanks!

[Jewelry by Kat]

 Here is some of what I learned.  Blog titles are so important because some are retweeted because of an awesome title even without being read.  Checking keywords in a blog with google keyword tool just like our sentences in our product descriptions for popularity.  Comment on others blogs correctly to get a backlink.  I guess you figured out I am working on the blog backlink.

[iCraft Admin]

That's pretty good Kat! 

Choose a couple of Keywords for each blog post and focus on that topic. Use variations of those keywords, but still stay focused. Awesome content is the Key, as the article author suggested. If it's great, it might attract people & backlinks without you doing much work promoting it. So sharpen your blogging (writing skills!). 

It's a good idea to promote all of your web properties (blog, store, social media sites, ass you want all of them to be popular and feed traffic into each other). Variety is good, but monitor where you get most referral traffic and most sales (ask people or notice timing of sales - after twit, pin etc.), and focus more on those sites.

[JaJeJems]

well there was so much in the article that Kat submitted that I want  to read it over and over, however, I did learn today that:
- I need to get backlinks from sites with high PageRanks not just anyone's website (so much for approaching just anyone who has a webpage about jewellery)
-  as Kat said, selecting good blog titles is important, also including keywords in blogs - just finished one before I read that!
- also blog content has to be readable and interesting
- saw what a backlink looks like
-  understand a bit better about nofollow and dofollow
- should have anchor text on my website and not just on the home page
- very important that all of this looks natural to the replacement engines
- still not sure if Click here is desirable or not??

Head is spinning now!  see you all in the morning!

[iCraft Admin]

Hi JaJeJems,

Just wanted to comment on 2 of your points.

Page Rank is important, but not as important, as people think. Even Google recommends not to focus on it, as it's not super accurate how authoritative the site is and it's updated something like once or twice a year. And with the introduction of social media signals into Google scoring, it seems that more comes into play that merely website's Page Rank. I'll try to find video from Matt Cutts where he talks about the importance of Page Rank.

So I would still go by your gut feeling - if you find site's content engaging and relevant to your business - that's the site you want to get backlinks from!

As for the "Click here", I personally don't think its a user-friendly anchor text, as it doesn't tell a person what to expect when they click on such link. However, I saw a few recommendations from SEOs to use "Click here" on the links once in a while to diversify your Link Profile and make them look less optimizes and more natural.

I know, it's a bit confusing, but Google is trying to crack down on overly optimized sites with its latest updates and allow good, but not optimized sites, a chance to rank well too, so we now have to be careful not to overdo it! 

[Fairy Cardmaker]

My best take-away understanding:
- quality over quantity of links
- quality means the right keywords on your backlink and the right contextual content.
- content is key - but needs to be tailored to your target audience (which I have not very sharply narrowed)
- key part of content is the title
- teaching something tends to cause people to refer to your knowledge - I once did an guest article on someone else's blog (which was largely geared towards Etsy shop improvements) on one aspect of an Etsy store where a bunch of guest writers were assigned one aspect. I got a lot of traffic from that article for a long time after it was published.  Good traffic builder, although likely the wrong target audience.  The point is, though, show your expertise.  It builds trust, which is a component of a good backlink.
- spread it out.  I frequently donate cards to charity.  I have gotten links from the charity event organizers.

What it means for my activities:
- Try to define my target audience again.
- Add more tips and tutorials to my blog
- I offer free card verses (read: cheesy poetry!) on my blog to go with my cards from time to time as a "freebie" in a way.  I need to begin doing that again  (If I could promise it to a fixed schedule, that would be even better.)
- keep actively donating.  It's real, in the community, makes me feel good, and spreads my name

[iCraft Admin]

That's a great summary and a take-away, Fairy Cardmaker!
You are absolutely right on all points and thanks for sharing a great example of Guest Blogging that will bring you links for years to come.  

[iCraft Admin]

Delightful Suds & Red Rock Designs,
How did you do this week? Any Questions? Lessons learned? Please try to keep up. I don't want to lose you half way. 

[iCraft Admin]

Just a reminder for everyone - you can also read all our Bootcamp posts (current and 1 previous) in a chronological order on our Sellers' Bootcamp page.

[SilverDawnJewelry]

hehe...if I sound knowledgeable, the kudos go to everyone here...I had honestly never heard of duplicate listings until I began listing items here, and then the AHA experiences began

It all does make sense though, and thank you so much to everyone here!

I am still going over the backlinks though...

[SilverDawnJewelry]

CraftJuice approved me, so I have their short Bio;

Craftjuice gives you a place to save and share your crafts links. Join our community of authors and make use of all of the great features including...

Submit your own stories
Vote on stories that interest you
Join and create interest groups
Share stories with groups and friends
Save stories to your personal profile.
View your voting and comment activity from your profile

 I will let you know more as it unfolds...

[iCraft Admin]

Ha ha, you fooled me, silverdawnjewelry! 
Yes, please, let us know how you are liking Craftjuice.