Assignment 8, Bootcamp #5 - Backlinks Report

[iCraft Admin]

This is our last assignment for this Bootcamp. It will focus on backlinks report.

Unfortunately, there is no one perfect (free) tool that gives you backlinks report in a nice and easy to understand way. You sometimes have to use multiple tools to compare results, and even then, you are not getting all the info. That's why it's always a good idea to keep your own spreadsheet of all backlinks that you built over time and the anchor text associated with those links for your own reference.

One of the best free tools for getting Backlink Reports is Ahrefs.com
When you enter your URL, you will get a report like this one for Fairy Cardmaker.
If you register on ahrefs.com (free), you could actually compare up to 5 different URLs per day.

I also emailed you guys some stats from Google Webmaster tools (Kat, sorry no results for you for some reason) and from BacklinksWatch.

SEOMoz has Open Site Explorer that offers the same information, but unless you have a Pro membership the amount of the information is restricted.

Kat, unfortunately, I can only see results for your store URL using ahrefs.com and Open Site Explorer. None of other services produced any results. Here is your Ahrefs.com report and your Open Site Explorer's report.

So here is your assignment for this week:

• Do rereplacement on how to measure and interpret backlink reports. Share links to good articles you find in this thread.
• Analyze backlink reports for all 4 stores, using various services.
• Tell me what you've learned from all those reports. I am not going to say anything yet, as I want to see how you all are going to interpret those results, and what you think you need to do now to improve those results.
• Ask questions, if you are not sure about something.
• By the end of the week, I want to hear from all of you not only your conclusions on your own store reports, but your thoughts on your fellow Bootcampers' store reports as well.

Good luck!  

[Fairy Cardmaker]

All but one or two of mine on the BacklinkWatch Excel report are from my blog.  On the other, excluding my own blog and iCraft itself, I still have 16 sources on that page, so that's encouraging.  There are some I thought would be there that I don't see.  Interesting.

I was out of town for work the last three days.  Have to catch up on the office but will try to do some reading starting tomorrow.

[Jewelry by Kat]

http://www.vistaprint.com/my-services/websites/site-activity.aspx?alt_id=RWXMW-V1A49-3M1&st=1&nd=1

Are these considered backlinks?   There are a lot from my review on emilys review

this is so confusing to me

[iCraft Admin]

Sorry, what is that URL Kat?

[Jewelry by Kat]

I AM NOT HAVING ANY LUCK GETTING THE URLS TO WORK ON THESE WEBSITES   I can only do 3 tries a day   It says my domain names are inncorrect

[iCraft Admin]

Kat, I assume you are talking about ahrefs.com with 3 tries per day. As I mentioned before, if you register a free account with them, they will increase that to 5 tries per day. However, this is a free service, so they have their limitations.

I am not sure how else I can help you with. You don't provide any details on URLs you have difficulty with.

[Red Rock Designs]

Hi Admin, from the Google reports you emailed us, on my report I received 4 backlinks from bit.ly and 1 from t.co.  I don’t know what these sites are?   Also, I don’t see my other media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr on the report,  which are sites I’m using frequently. 
Should I keep using these sites, or probably more time is needed ?

I’ve registered at Ahrefs.com, and my shop page shows:
URL Rank: 24      Domain Rank: 99.2   Backlinks: 29 K      Referring Domains: 63

I don’t really understand .....29,000 backlinks?  But my shop page views is about 11,500.
Also, what do the terms Text and Redirect mean?  And NoFollow and DoFollow?

[iCraft Admin]

bit.ly and t.co are the a URL shorteners, usually associated with Twitter links.

If you don't see some of the domains listed in one backlinks report, try to compare reports from other services. If none of them show domains that you know you should have backlinks from, that means that replacement engines didn't find those links yet.
Actually, that's strange that you don't see social media sites listed in those reports, as links from those sites are usually the first links Google finds.

Sometimes there are multiple links from the same page to your store, but not all of them will be clicked. That's why there are more backlinks than page views.

Text probably refers to Text links  (which are better) vs. Image links. DoFollow links are better than NoFollow links.

[iCraft Admin]

Both Fairy Cardmaker and Red Rock Designs mentioned that there are some backlinks that they were expecting to see in the reports, but didn't. One thing you can try to do is to promote those links through a couple social media sites, like FB and Twitter, and then run reports again in a few days. Sometimes that's all it takes to get Google to notice your links - to create some buzz in social media.

As an experiment, ask your fellow Bootcampers to share some of those links too, or re-tweet them on their social media sites. Usually, the more buzz you create, the sooner replacement engines crawl your links, as they'll perceive them news-worthy.

[Jewelry by Kat]

I may not understand everything I am seeing but I can see by the  graphs that my backlinks amount went way up after doing the reviews and the guest blogs.

[iCraft Admin]

Yes, exactly, Kat! Those are good backlinks and they count big time, so keep working on those.

[iCraft Admin]

So how's everyone doing with this assignment? Any questions?

[Red Rock Designs]

Well, I can see from the reports you sent us that Fairy Cardmaker obtains the most backlinks through her website/blog; JaJeJems and I get most of our backlinks from icraft.ca.   I'm going to assume these stats are also in relation to how long our stores have been open.  Fairy Cardmaker's store has been open the longest and she's had a more time to build a following to get the backlinks.

I'm thinking with Kat's stores, maybe because she has 2 stores selling jewelry, the backlinks gets kind of "skewed" from one store to the other? That's maybe why there's no report for her?  If she used anchor texts specific for each store, would this generate more reports?  Like "handmade bracelets" or "handmade earrings"....instead of using a broader term like 'handmade jewelry".

I think that the problem I have is that I'm on a lot of media sites, trying to update all of them, but I'm starting to see that I should just focus on the 1 or 2 that I get the most responses from. 

This was a good bootcamp!  Thanks for all the info.

[JaJeJems]

http://ezinearticles.com/?My-First-Website---Analyze-Backlinks&id=4664263
I found a few articles that I found easy to read and understand including this one.  I have to confess that this has been a hectic week in my personal life with moving two households!  I apologize for not putting more effort into this weeks homework.  Having said that I did learn a lot from looking at the a link reports that you sent, also afrehs, majestic SEO and SEOmoz.  I learned from my reading that analyzing these reports regularly is very important and I can see why.  I find that this is a very time consuming process and now realize how I can make the best of my efforts so i can ise these reports to my advantage.  My backlinks certainly increased since we have been doing this bootcamp session!  I also learned why analyzing the reports of competitors is essential to see where they are getting backlinks.  Like Red Rock I see that FairyC had a lot from her website, me mostly from icraft, although I think that some of mine must have come from comments that I made on others sites.  Is that possible?  I also saw a few from sites like Indiepublic where I am not very active.

One question about anchor text.  In one report the listed anchor text was mostly my name or jajejems.  I thought it would be sea glass jewellery or at least jewellery??  Maybe I don't really understand anchor text and keywords well enough.

Since this is the last assignment I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed bootcamp.  You have been a great help Admin and I appreciate the ongoing support of my fellow bootcampers.  By the way I have secured a guest post on Crave Handmade which I have to submit next week and my other possibility for a guest post has firmed up so I will be doing that in about a week.  Let me know if you need more info!

[iCraft Admin]

Yes, Jajejems, backlinks can be from comments from other sites. If you follow URLs where backlinks came from, you should see your own comments there.

Anchor text is the text you use on your links. I agree, your current anchor text is far from the Keywords you used to optimize your store. On this page http://www.jajejems.com/1/archives/04-2013/1.html you use "our jewellery" as anchor text to link to your store. That's a very generic term and it looks like you used it multiple times in your site. Instead, you should try to have more anchor text with variations of "sea glass Jewelry".

I am glad you've learned new things in this Bootcamp. Backlinks is not an easy topic to master. So make sure you keep reading and rereplacementing it later on your own. Just look for articles no older than 1 year, as there is a lot has changed lately in the SEO world - Yahoo Site Explorer doesn't exist anymore and Page Rank is not as important as it was thought of before.

[iCraft Admin]

Kat and Fairy Cardmaker, could you please post your thoughts on backlink reports?

[JaJeJems]

Yes admin I see what you are saying about anchor text!  I thought I knew that!  It's all about applying what you learn I guess and you are right about this not being an easy topic.

[Jewelry by Kat]

Sorry I did not do assignment completely  been in the hospital.  I have noticed that guest blogs and  reviews get a lot of activity

[JaJeJems]

Gosh Kat I hope you are ok!  Take care!

[iCraft Admin]

Hope you are feeling better, Kat! I was wondering why I don't see more posts from you. Take care and don't worry about the assignments.

[iCraft Admin]

Fairy Cardmaker, I am going to wait till end of this week for your report, before I post my recommendations and then a summary for this Bootcamp. Hope you are doing ok and just busy with work.

[JaJeJems]

My first guest blog http://www.cravehandmade.com/featured/lampwork.  They only allowed a link in the bio.  Thought you might see that I have been continuing in with my homework.  I have another guest blog to do for the end of the month.

[JaJeJems]

I know this is a bit late but I was just reviewing one of my reports and noticed that I had 179 backlinks from a site that I didn't remember so I had a look and I had made a comment on one of their blogs!  I guess that was worth the few words that I said.  I can see the value in checking out other people's reports.  Here is the site https://nelsongemstones.com/gemstone-beads

[iCraft Admin]

Hi JaJeJems,

No, it's not too late to post your questions. I still didn't post my summary report on this Bootcamp (hopefully this week!), so pls keep asking questions, if you have more.

As for your last post - If you left 1 comment on the external site, it would create 1 backlink to your page, not 179 backlinks. So I'd look closer at why you see that many backlinks from that domain.

Congrats on the guest blog! ...However, I don't see a link to your store there, only to your personal site/blog. You can promote your blog with backlinks, but only if the page you link to has a direct link to your store. That would indirectly help your store. But if you link to any blog pages, that doesn't help your store.
The whole idea with backlinks is that you create them strategically, always aiming at promoting 1 particular page. Linking to random blog and product pages doesn't hurt, but doesn't really help either.

[JaJeJems]

Thanks admin, maybe I am reading that report wrong.  I really wondered how that was possible!

[JaJeJems]

By the way I ask Crave to change the link to my icraft store which I will try to do from now on.  I was hoping hey would publish both.

[iCraft Admin]

JaJeJems,

If you see URLs of those 179 backlinks, try clicking on them. Are all of them taking you to the same page where you see your comment? Sometimes dynamic URLs counted multiple times because of the parameters they pass in it, though it's still the same page that they are all linking too.

[JaJeJems]

Ahhhh, I see what you mean!

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Sorry I have been MIA.  I am healthy - just tough juggling a duo career as I am half in client services and half in internal education and template building within the firm.  Those two aspects have offseasons that are opposite, so working in both arms means I have no more offseason.  But I like the education and template stuff, and that is the summer work, so I'm not complaining!

I find the Ahref site hard to read.  It gives me a rank but I don't know how that compares to an "optimal" rank.  I suppose the goal is just to keep improving your own rank.

The site I'm surprised I don't see is .... uh it's gone.  It was where I did my first ever guest post and it used to show up in my blog stats.  But it's gone.  Oh well!

By far, I find that guest posting is the best way to build back links.  I think the overall message is to get links in to your store from as many different places as possible while ensuring:
- those are relevant sources - not necessarily *related* but at least relevant
- the anchor text incorporates your keywords, including appears in context with good keywords or your shop name.

Question: Is it okay to guest post on multiple blogger blogs?  Or would it be better to target multiple platforms like Wordpress and Typepad also?

JaJe, I like that your article shows more than one way to solve a problem.  Great thinking!
I do notice, however, at the very bottom, the button that says "website" is linking to iCraft Gifts home page and not your particular shop.

Kat, I hope you are on the mend!

P.S. My second guest post never got published and now it is no longer time relevant.  I have a feeling the other blogger did not quite understand the request.  Oh well, I can keep looking for other avenues.

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Fairy Cardmaker,

Glad to hear you are ok. Thanks for posting your final report. Great questions too!
I'll now summarize my notes and post them shortly.

[JaJeJems]

Hi Fairy C nice to hear from you!  Thanks for pointing out the error in my link - yikes already had to change it once.  Oh well guess that is how we learn.  I have my second blog post done and it is ready to be published today I hope.  I have double checked the links this time!

Admin,  I had another question, really just a review.  Did you tell us that it is better not to do a lot of guest posts from the same site?  I think that I remember that from our earlier assignments.  Just asking because my first guest post host mentioned the opportunity to blog regularly on their site.  If it is not a benefit I would rather spend the time elsewhere.

[JaJeJems]

Second guest blog published today http://www.birtlebeadstudio.com/news/

[iCraft Admin]

Nice post, JaJeJems!
Ideally, URLs should be placed higher on the page, but if not possible, the author section at the bottom is fine too.

[iCraft Admin]

Yes, JaJeJems, it's better to generate links from as many unique domains as possible. So for you there is more benefit doing guest blogging on different sites, than on the same site.
The only benefit of guest blogging on the same site is if that site has a huge readership and you gain a lot of fans there. You'd have to be a pretty good writer for that too.

Admin,  I had another question, really just a review.  Did you tell us that it is better not to do a lot of guest posts from the same site?  I think that I remember that from our earlier assignments.  Just asking because my first guest post host mentioned the opportunity to blog regularly on their site.  If it is not a benefit I would rather spend the time elsewhere.

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Fairy Cardmaker,

Every service has its own ranking system. As you said, just compare it to your previous rank and keep improving it.

I find the Ahref site hard to read.  It gives me a rank but I don't know how that compares to an "optimal" rank.  I suppose the goal is just to keep improving your own rank.

It's ok to guest post on multiple blogger blogs. Google and other replacement engines know how those platforms work, so they will not count those posts as if they are all coming from the same site. However, as with anything that comes to SEO, variety is the key. So try to mix things up and create backlinks from different platforms and domains too.

Question: Is it okay to guest post on multiple blogger blogs?  Or would it be better to target multiple platforms like Wordpress and Typepad also?

[iCraft Admin]

So here are my thoughts on everyone's backlink reports. I'll post them one by one, as I have to review all the data for each store individually.

First review is for Fairy Cardmaker

• You have too many backlinks with the anchor text "Fairy Cardmaker". That looks unnatural and l'd worry about this one.  
  You need to work on adding more backlinks with a variety of anchor text, related to your primary ( "hand made greeting cards") and secondary keywords (can't remember now) that we chose for your store in previous Bootcamps.
  
  Your backlinks profile should be something like this:
  - hand made greeting card
  - hand made greeting cards
  - handmade greeting cards  
  - Handmade Birthday cards and more
  - Fairy Cardmaker (you already have enough backlinks for this one)
  - my iCraft store
  - my cards store
  - click to see my handmade cards
  - https://icraftgifts.com/fairy-cardmaker
  - My latest handmade Xmas cards
  etc
  
  The variety of anchor text is very important. Some more optimized, some less optimized. Overall that looks more natural to Google.
  However, you can always have your primary keywords placed close to the anchor text and repeat them throughout the body of the articles. All that would still give Google a signal that all you do is related to "hand made greeting cards" and you should start seeing a boost in ranking for that and other related terms with each new backlink.
  
  
• You have something like 800 backlinks, but all from a handful of referring domain ~16 . The number of referring domains should be much higher with that many backlinks.
  
  
• You had majority of links to your iCraft store from your own blog. Now the number of referral domains went up, since the beginning of this Bootcamp. That's a good thing. Just keep adding more links regularly from a variety of domains related to "hand made greeting cards", handmade and crafts in general. Variety is the key!
  
  
• I didn't see backlinks from popular social media sites, like Twitter, FB, Google + or Pinterest. Social signals are part of replacement engine's algorithm now, so I'd add a few backlinks from those sites regularly as well. If you have no time to post manually, simply setup auto feeds for your product updates, once a day or so. That should be enough!

[iCraft Admin]

Here is my review for Jewelry by Kat.

Since for some strange reason, we couldn't get any data on Kat's store from Google, I had to use other services, like Majestic SEO and ahrefs.com to get some baklinks data.

• Similar problem here, as with Fairy Cardmaker's backlinks profile. Not enough variety of anchor text in backlinks. Most backlinks have "Jewelry by Kat" anchor text. So you need to add a lot more keywords and phrases in your anchor text related to your primary keyword ("Beaded charm bracelets", if I remember it correctly)
  
  Here are some ideas for the anchor text for you, Kat:
  - Beaded charm bracelets
  - beaded cha cha bracelets
  - beaded handmade bracelets
  - handmade bracelets made of beads
  - beaded earrings & necklaces
  - my handmade store for beaded bracelets
  - my iCraft store for beaded jewelry
  - Beaded charm bracelets, necklaces (and more)
  - https://icraftgifts.com/jewelry-by-kat
  - click to see more of my beaded jewelry
  - click to see my latest beaded creations
  - buy this beaded charm bracelet (in my iCraft store)
  - Jewelry by Kat (stop using this phrase in your anchor text for now until you add more variety to your link profile)
  etc...
  
  Words in brackets can be outside of the anchor text.
  It's important to check how your link profile looks over time to make sure it has enough variety of keywords in anchor text, while at the same time still maintaining all important keywords.
  
  
• You have one backlink with "blog by Jewelry by Kat" anchor text pointing to your iCraft store. That's a wrong anchor text and will only confuse replacement engines. So make sure you link with the Keywords that indicate that this is a store and not a blog. 
  
  
• You have only 5-6 different referring domains right now (those that I can see reported). Try to increase that number and check it again in a couple of months. With 2-3 backlinks from different domains per months, you could double that number in 2 months.
  
  
• The good thing is that all reports indicate the the number of backlinks and referring domains went up dramatically since the beginning of this Bootcamp. This means all the work you've done was counted as positive. Just keep working on adding more backlinks from a variety of domains related to crafts, handmade and beaded jewelry.

[iCraft Admin]

I'll add 2 more reviews for JaJeJems and Red Rock Designs next, as well as Next Steps and a summary of Backlinks Best Practices. So stay tuned!  

[iCraft Admin]

This is a review for JaJeJems

• Only 3 referring domains reported by ahrefs and majesticseo, though Google reports 12. That's still very low. Try to increase that number every month by at least 3. That's only 3 new links from 3 different domains.
  
  
• You have a bit more variety in your anchor text - 5 different Keywords. However, words like "Picture" are not related and you don't use even single time word "Seaglass". You should use it a lot more in your anchor text, as that's what your store is optimized for.
  
  Here are some anchor text suggestions for you:
  - Seaglass Jewellery
  - Our Seaglass Jewellery collection
  - Beach Glass Charms
  - Seaglass pendants and Bracelets
  - Our Seaglass Jewellery Store (on iCraft)
  - Visit our iCraft store (full of Seaglass Jewellery, Beach Glass Charms etc)
  - https://icraftgifts.com/jajejems
  - Click to view my Jewelry store
  - My latest Seaglass creation
  
  Words in brackets can be outside of the anchor text.
  It's important to use "Seaglass Jewelry", as you want to be found in replacement for this term. However, we can't overuse the same term. That's why we mix things up and bit, but still keeping it close to the theme of  "Seaglass Jewelry".
  
  
• Your backlinks went up since the beginning of the Bootcamp, but the overall number of backlinks is still pretty low - 12 reported by 1 service, 73 by another, 124 by Google.

[iCraft Admin]

Here is the review forRed Rock Designs:

• Google reports more links than any other service, however the only variety of anchor text in backlinks is associated with the single frugalmommy's blog post. All other links use "Red Rock Designs" as the anchor text. So you need to diversify anchor text a lot more going forward.
  
  Here are some anchor text suggestions for you:
  - chainmaille jewelry
  - handmade chainmaille jewelry
  - chainmaille bracelets and necklaces
  - chainmaille earrings and keychains
  - my latest chainmaille creations
  - Visit my iCraft store (full of chainmaille bracelets, necklaces etc)
  - https://icraftgifts.com/red-rock-designs
  - Click to view my chainmaille Jewelry store
  - elegant and versatile chainmaille jewelry
  - unisex chainmaille jewelry
  - Byzantine bracelets
  - chainmaille jewelry for Mother's Day
  - Xmas chainmaille collection
  - chainmaille jewelry for casual wear
  etc.
  
  
• One way to diversify your anchor text is to ink to Custom Collections, Product Categories or to Holiday/Occasions list displayed on the left within your store.
  Those links, like this one https://icraftgifts.com/red-rock-designs/by-holiday-2667/#products for Mother's Day Jewelry sends users directly to a sub-set of your products, yet it still counts as part of your store backlink. So when you link to those sections of your store, you can use anchor text like "Mother's Day Chainmaille Jewelry" or "Chainmaille Bridal Jewelry". The variations are endless.
  
  
• Google reports 8 referring domains for your store. Other services report 1 or 2. Either way, that's a very low number. You need to improve it by 2-3 each month to see any difference.

Hope this helps!

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Thanks for this thorough report.

For all of us, it seems, we need more volume, more variety (of both key words and source domains).  I have an idea for us to help each other, but I don't have time to flesh it out right now.  I'll let it percolate.

I'm not sure where I can get more sources.  I was fairly unsuccessful finding sites related to greeting cards with which I would like to be associated.  I'll guess I'll just keep my eyes open.

[JaJeJems]

Thanks again admin for giving us so much information and assistance.  I can see that there is lots to work on!  Good luck fellow bootcampers, and please keep in touch!  Count me in Fairy C if you come up with a plan!

[iCraft Admin]

Glad you guys found this Bootcamp useful and learned something new.

Fairy Cardmaker,
You don't have to choose only cardmaking sites or blogs. Any site related to crafts or handmade will do, and there are millions of those.
Also, I think working as a group to promote each others store is a smart idea, especially when it comes to social media promos. So I hope you all will keep in touch and brainstorm ideas together in the future.

[Red Rock Designs]

I too enjoyed this Bootcamp...learned lots.  I definately do need to improve on my backlinks.  Admin, thanks for the backlinks review and suggestions.  I know I have lots of work to do on building a customer base and gaining /keeping followers. 

Fairy C, I'm in on your plan as well.

[Fairy Cardmaker]

This isn't the plan, but I thought I would share.  I just submitted a guest post here.  You guys can too:

http://www.madebyhandshow.ca/guest-blog-for-mbhs/#more-1047

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Red Rock Designs,

Just wanted to mention that I've noticed a post on the Russian Beading Forum about one of your listings that got 676 views and 14 comments - http://biser.info/node/389528
The site is in Russian, but if you use Google Chrome or any other online translator, it should do an average job of translating the content, so you can make out what they're talking about.
Most of the comments seem to focus on people remaking the listing, so it's probably not your potential buyers. I just wanted to point out that sometimes one single comment or post somewhere can drive quite a bit of traffic. So I hope you guys are still practicing commenting and everything else we've discussed in the last Bootcamp.

[Red Rock Designs]

Huh.  I don't know whether to be flattered or bothered by it!  
Thanks for posting it Admin.

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Uhm well... this was my submitted guest post on the Made by Hand blog:
http://www.madebyhandshow.ca/diy-cake-decorating/

It is only 1/4 of the full post and the link text is not on my keywords.  But - it's a start!!

[Fairy Cardmaker]

Fairy Cardmaker said:

I have an idea for us to help each other, but I don't have time to flesh it out right now.  I'll let it percolate.

Admin said:

I think working as a group to promote each others store is a smart idea, especially when it comes to social media promos. So I hope you all will keep in touch and brainstorm ideas together in the future.

So... here's the idea:
Article Swap

We could each compose a guest blog post.  All the articles will be related to "Hand Made Holidays".  We will develop a list of ideas as a group (to ensure variety) and then assign the ideas out.  Then we will swap articles and ensure we give credit to the author and we can also mention all the other participating blogs so our readers can see all the ideas.  (It's a combination of a guest post and blog hop in one.)

What do you think?  (Admin, please advise if this is not a good backlink building idea.)

[iCraft Admin]

Hi Fairy Cardmaker,

I think it's a good idea, as long as you all focus on producing original content that is of values to blog readers. Also, maybe don't link to the exactly same 5 links in each article. Let's say in one article someone will mention your store (with URL) and in another one they should mention your individual product listings (with URL) or a category, like your Hand Stamped Cards (with URL). Quality of content and variety of anchor texts and URLs is the key.

Working as a group is also good because you all could use your social media accounts to spread the news about those new blog posts, creating more links posting to them and increasing your individual visibility by the number of people participating in this. Feel free to ask any questions if you have more!

[iCraft Admin]

As for the article, it looks fine. Try to have next one with a different anchor text, as I remember you already had a few posts with your store name as anchor text in the past. Its a bit short too. Longer articles are better for seo. But it's better than nothing.