Part of the guide: Blog Traffic
It’s very simple. Before Google+ launched, Google couldn’t know for sure what other social profiles (i.e. Facebook/twitter) belonged to you. Google+ profiles are verified with your Google account and connected + verified with your website. So your site links to your G+ profile and vice versa. Within Google+ you can add your other social profiles.
This tells Google for certain these other profiles belong to you, which enables them to use that data to rank you. They look at metrics like number of followers, presence (shares) on the overall network, your activity on the networks and user interaction with your updates.
If you’re running a local site, this step can barely be implemented. However, setting up authorship and connecting your social profiles to your G+ account is still necessary and useful.
Step 5: Build Domain Authority (via Link Building)
Step 5 is the easiest, yet most effective and powerful for boosting your site’s overall rankings. All of the other steps will build your domain’s authority. But nothing builds authority like powerful backlinks.
Backlinks are still the best and most powerful metric in the world Google uses to work out where a site should rank for a particular keyword. The good news is that backlinks are super easy to build, it’s just a matter of budget.
There are two kinds of links you need to build; conventional links and high PR links.
Conventional links are the kind of links SEOs have been using for decades to rank websites. They include wikis, edu blogs, blog comments, web2.0s, forum profiles, web2.0 profiles, article directories and document sharing links.
All of which are completely free to build and can be mass built automatically with a few tools like Senuke (no longer available, alternatives: GSA Search Engine Ranker, RankerX). In the past, these links were all you’d ever need to dominate the most competitive niches.
They still pass a lot of link juice through to your site and provide targeted backlinks. But that’s not why we really build them, not now anyway. Right now conventional backlinks can be used to: rank for low competition keywords, massively diversify your link profile, diversify your anchor text profile and build link volume.
If you’re targeting low competition keywords, these backlinks are the only thing you need to reach page one. If you’re in the SEO game to take over a market and dominate competitive search terms, you should use them to diversify your link profile. The other linking strategy (high PR links) are the only thing you need to dominate the tough keywords and build massive site authority quickly.
However, if Google looks at your backlink profile and only sees a group of high PR links; they’ll know something is up. A natural link profile has a mix of links, that’s why tools like Senuke are so useful for diversifying your link profile with conventional links.
As well as diversifying your link profile, they are important for diversifying your anchor text profile. Like your link profile, Google scans your anchor text profile. If they see you’re using the exact keyword you’re targeting as anchor text most of the time; you’ll get a penalty.
A natural link profile has a lot of different anchor text. My general rule is:
- 10% exact match
- 40% related exact match (variations)
- 50% relevant niche targeted keywords + naked URL + click here etc
You really don’t need to use your exact keywords as anchor text much whatsoever. You should use exact match anchor text (your most difficult keywords) 10% of the time in your conventional link building. Conventional links are extremely cheap and easy to build; so it makes them the perfect tool for diversifying your link profile.
When it comes to linking strategy 2; you only want to use exact match anchor text for your high PR links. High PR + relevant content = the ultimate backlink. You can go about acquiring high PR backlinks several ways. First, you could rent them on existing high PR sites. Second, you could buy permanent contextual backlinks on existing high PR sites.
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →Third, you could buy high PR links on competitor sites. Fourth, you could build your own network of high PR domains and use them to link to your sites. The fourth strategy is the easiest, cheapest, and fastest way to build rapid site authority and shoot up the rankings. Nothing beats this linking strategy.
Essentially all you have to do is find expired high PR domains, purchase them via auction and set them up on SEO hosting as relevant sites that link to yours. To read a full guide on this strategy on this site.
That just about covers the 5 steps to boosting rankings, increasing traffic, and surviving Google Updates. When it comes down to it, all you have to do is build site authority. Build a great site, publish high-quality content and build a massive variety of backlinks including high PR links.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments and questions below.
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
Patricia Strano, April 19, 2013, 15:20
The ONLY BEST WAY for YOUR SUCCESS – thank you Dave’s – been with/around u guys since 10/31/11 and will never leave. My company name is Feels Right Marketing. So very appropriate – as Empower Network – FEELS RIGHT! Feeling Right is – to me – going with basic, trustable instinct. We are all born with this ability – but it is life that has often caused many to not TRUST this basic instinct – it is a proven, reliable instinct – Empower Network FEELS RIGHT – my WHY I have and will always be with Empower. Great site by the way – glad I found this!
Mustapha Barki, April 19, 2013, 16:05
hi david I want to work.
Emily Johnson, April 20, 2013, 09:15
I appreciate the emphasis on starting with something you’re passionate about. Makes a big difference.
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Sorry if this is a silly question, but the anchor text percentages in here — 10% exact match, 40% variations, 50% generic — is that something you’re supposed to track and hit on purpose, or does it just happen naturally if you’re not trying to game it? I genuinely can’t tell if this is a rule to follow or a symptom to watch for.
Bonnie, I had the same question when I started, and after some research I believe it is meant as an active target — the post says to use exact match anchor text 10% of the time, which is something you plan, not something that simply occurs. This surprised me also, because in my experience if you write naturally you almost never repeat the exact same phrase that often on purpose.
Built out a network of expired-domain sites exactly like step 5 describes, for about two years before I left this world entirely. It does move rankings faster than anything else in the post — that part is true. What nobody selling you on it mentions is the maintenance load: every domain needs its own hosting footprint, its own content, its own believable history, or the whole structure becomes the first thing an update flags.
Buying expired high-PR domains to rebuild rankings — we called it PBN building a decade ago. Several waves of those got wiped out too.
Gus, at sixty-one and rebuilding what a pension fund failed to protect, I confess the idea of a strategy with a maintenance load and a history of being wiped out gives me pause rather than confidence, however fast it is said to move rankings. Samir’s account of the upkeep required only reinforces this. I would rather build something slower that does not depend on staying one step ahead of a company that can, at its discretion, erase years of work in an afternoon. Perhaps that is simply the caution of a man who has already lost one nest egg to forces beyond his control.