Backlinks are at the heart of good SEO, after solid content. Without original, appealing, relevant content, who would want to link back to your site? Well, a lot of folks actually, which is precisely why we’re writing this blog. But beware, those who link back to poor content, or without qualifying might as well be turning their back to you.
A quick story to demonstrate:
There were two websites, one with 5000 backlinks, and the other with around five. We’ll call the one with 5000, The Titanic, and the one with five, Mighty Mouse. Naturally, one would think that the Titanic, with 5000 backlinks, would crush Mighty Mouse in terms of such matters as Google Pagerank, right? Yes, you see where we’re going, but it’s not quite what you think, so keep reading.
The Titanic with 5000 backlinks only had a Google Pagerank of 2/10. And Mighty Mouse with about five backlinks had a three. How did that happen? The 5000 were mostly legitimate links too, which is not always the case. What most likely happened is that most of the backlinks were low quality ones or rather aggregate sites populating their own low Pageranked sites with this site’s blog content.
*Note that many sites buy backlinks or packages that guarantee X amount of backlinks, but the aftermath of hundreds or thousands of dollars spent on such black hat methods result in the same or worse Google ranking results (When those backlink sites aren’t relevant, etc. Google blacklists your site and treats it like it doesn’t even exist).
Mighty Mouse took the time to write high quality blogs on a handful of sites that had lofty Pageranks (4,5,6, etc.), and benefited with a higher Pagerank than the Titanic, but here’s the twist in our tale, and one that goes to show that sometimes big and clunky can be better.
The Titanic is bringing in twice the relevant traffic from all those links, and Mighty Mouse has tired of writing high quality guest blog articles. So on the long voyage, as long as the Titanic doesn’t get hit with the Google black list iceberg, it is besting the little Mighty Mouse. But, like most things, there is something to learn from both: Get as many backlinks as possible, as long as they are legit, AND take the time to develop high quality sources (from high Pagerank sites) when you have the energy to do it right.
Once the traffic is flowing, then it’s time to think about conversions. But that’s more about good design and development practices, which is exactly what we at FastPivot do well. Contact us today to learn more.
Your thoughts?
