[TheHat]

Hi All, New to the forum but have been following a few posts and threads for a while.

I would like some advice on back linking and it's importance. Basically I have a site that's been running for a around 6 - 8 months and is currently hovering around lower page 2 and below for most keyword searches. I've had a report done on my site from IBP and was rated at 59%, most things were OK but the back linking let it down. I have managed to sort most of the errors that it showed.

So my questions, would IBP or similar services like Seemoz be worth paying for. Do they include ways to get back links? Would I be best in hiring someone to get me decent articles and links?

I have had a call from Add people in Manchester saying they can offer everything I need to get Page 1, but their aggressive sales approach has put me off. Has anyone had any experience of these people and what were the results like.

I need to do something so where is my money best spent, if there is such an answer.

Many Thanks

TheHat

[dawntwist]

Basically, anyone who says "I/we can get you to number one" as an opening line has something up their sleeve. More often than not, it's not a good thing. A good seo company (or freelancer) will put themselves on your wavelength to better understand you and your business. I would suggest talking to other people either online or in person who have been in your situation and how they dealt with it. Yes, it might be an idea to hire a professional seo. Some seo professionals will work with you to analyse and audit your website traffic to provide you with a short/long term online marketing plan, a DIY package if you will. Link building is only part of increasing your ranking, it's best to talk to a professional - and not one who advertises on Gumtree. Hope this advice helps!

[roothost]

Right, I was talking to another member from here today regarding SEO and backlinking came up. A site in question which I did (design is awful I admit!) sits proudly at #1 for over 80million competing pages for one of its search terms. Now this site has almost no backlinks poiting to it, and certainly doesn't have any, what I or many others would call, top level domains linking back (.eu, .gov etc).
This site ranks #1 purely on '0n-page' SEO; well written content, w3c valid code, semantical markup, correct (and sensible) use of header, title and meta tags, bolded keywords (not every instance!)and just general common sense.

My point being that anybody that tries to tell you that they can get your site ranking higher by crating a tonne of backlinks is talking crap - utter stinking, rotting poo!

Any SEO consultant/experienced designer will tell you it is the quality of these backlinks that count, not the quantity. 100 random sites with 0 pagerank linking to you is no better than just having, say, one pagerank 3 site in the same niche linking to you.

My advice would be to spend your money, if you have a budget that is, or maybe you can do it yourself, on having your site properly reviewed and optimising on-page first. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a regularly active blog and other social media outlets pointing back to you. So get twittering, start sharing your sites content around, don't be shy!

[troyfawkes]

roothost, on 22 September 2011 - 11:15 PM, said:

Right, I was talking to another member from here today regarding SEO and backlinking came up. A site in question which I did (design is awful I admit!) sits proudly at #1 for over 80million competing pages for one of its search terms. Now this site has almost no backlinks poiting to it, and certainly doesn't have any, what I or many others would call, top level domains linking back (.eu, .gov etc).
This site ranks #1 purely on '0n-page' SEO; well written content, w3c valid code, semantical markup, correct (and sensible) use of header, title and meta tags, bolded keywords (not every instance!)and just general common sense.

My point being that anybody that tries to tell you that they can get your site ranking higher by crating a tonne of backlinks is talking crap - utter stinking, rotting poo!

Any SEO consultant/experienced designer will tell you it is the quality of these backlinks that count, not the quantity. 100 random sites with 0 pagerank linking to you is no better than just having, say, one pagerank 3 site in the same niche linking to you.

My advice would be to spend your money, if you have a budget that is, or maybe you can do it yourself, on having your site properly reviewed and optimising on-page first. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have a regularly active blog and other social media outlets pointing back to you. So get twittering, start sharing your sites content around, don't be shy!

I agree with the on-page stuff. I used to review on-page SEO and some of the stuff I saw was obscenely bad and there was always huge room for improvement. Keyword stuffing is the obvious, but anchor text, misuse of tags, page load times, etc. are big pitfalls. Then a lot of people have strange notions about what is "good" for on-page SEO, and they miss out on the great opportunities like just having relevant pictures (with good tagging, e.g. a picture about a fishing boat in leeds with the alt text, "A fishing boat in leeds."), videos, and do-follow links out to relevant but not directly competing authority sites.

But backlinking is powerful and you can't just ignore it. Absolutely some can be spammy, but most people shy away from the legitimate backlink building just because they're lazy. Building backlinks is like getting the word out about a new product - it takes leg work but if you don't do it you just have a lot of products and no customers. Relying on content is sometimes enough, but very very rarely.