14 ways to get links for an online store – link building SEO part 1
2018.12.21
Link building, or getting links for a website, is one of the key SEO activities. Links located in different places on the network not only generate more traffic on the site they lead to, but also have a significant impact on its position in the search engine. What are the best ways to build a network of links for online stores and what in particular you should pay attention to when dealing with link building?
Building a link profile
Before getting any links, it’s worth learning a few terms that will give you an idea of how to build a strong link profile that will positively influence website SEO. The most important of them are:
– Domain Authority – this is an indicator, measured on a scale from 1 to 100, which is calculated by search engine algorithms for each domain based on its backlinks. The quality of the links is evaluated, as well as their placement – the highest numbers of the high-value topics are given the highest score. It is not without significance whether the links lead only to the main page or to the subpages of the site – the latter type of links is even better rated.
– Page Authority – another indicator with a scale from 1 to 100 that depends on the quality and number of links. It is calculated only for specific subpages, not the entire website.
– Link Popularity – an indicator that determines the popularity of the website in the search engine, taking into account backlinks, both in terms of their quantity and quality. Top-rated pages have links from domains with the highest domain authority parameter, especially domains with .edu or gov. extensions. Link diversity is also important for link popularity.
The Domain Authority and Page Authority indicator for a given site can be checked using special tools. It is worth controlling these parameters not only for your website but also for the websites from which your backlinks come from.
Useful tools for testing Domain Authority and Page Authority values are:
– SEO Toolbar, a Chrome browser plugin from Moz.com – after its installation when entering any site, we see an additional bar, which contains the DA (Domain Authority) and PA (Page Authority) parameters of the page.
How the SEO Toolbar works using the example of spacex.com
SEO Toolbar also allows you to check the number of backlinks for a given website. It also has a few other useful parameters that can help you track the development of your website or check out the websites of the competition.
– Link Explorer – a new tool from Moz.com, allowing you to get a lot of useful information about links on the selected site. You can enter any internet address to check, among others, its DA and PA parameters or the number of backlinks.
Link Explorer also offers charts with the DA and PA parameters that help you see how they have changed over the past months. This can be useful especially to determine what actions could have caused the increase or decrease of DA and PA on our site.
Link building – other important parameters
When building a network of links, you must also pay attention to several other factors that are relevant to the website SEO. We’re talking about anchor text and link attributes.
Anchor text – words with a hyperlink inserted. Technically, it means content that is placed in the page HTML code between the <a> and <a/> tags that open and close the link’s anchor code. Its importance in SEO activities is based on how Google treats it: for the search engine, an anchor text is the indicator of the topic of the site. If backlinks are “hidden” under similar anchor texts, the search engine will more easily associate the website with the selected keywords and will display it when the keywords are entered by the network users.
Link attributes are special link marks directed to search engine bots. Their task is to give the bots information on how they should act when they encounter a link. There are two attributes: dofollow and nofollow. Dofollow causes the search engine to move to the website that the link with such attribute leads to, while nofollow does not make such a request. Both types of links are important for the website SEO.
A few words more about the anchor text
Let’s focus on the importance of anchor text for website optimization in terms of SEO. As it was mentioned, anchor texts are a determinant for Google regarding the subject of the page to which the hidden links lead. An example is a link to a natural cosmetics store – if you add a hyperlink to the text “natural cosmetics”, “natural hair shampoos” or similar phrases, Google will consider this as confirmation of the theme of the site. The more anchor texts that use the given keywords, the more confident the search engine is that the website is about a particular issue. It is worth remembering that the most important thing for search engine algorithms is not the quantity, but the quality of the links. It’s better to have one link from many different sources than to have many links from one site.
What should anchor text look to be SEO-friendly?
– It should use various keywords, also in the form of long tail, e.g. “natural cosmetics offer”,
– it should not be too long – Google better ranks anchor texts up to approx. 60 characters long,
– it should be natural – it is best to transfer users to the subpage they expect after clicking the link, e.g. if anchor text is “natural hair shampoo”, the link should lead to the subpage of the store with this particular product category.
More about link attributes
As mentioned, the dofollow and nofollow attributes affect the website SEO. But what are they and how can we check what attribute is assigned to a link?
The dofollow attribute passes a part of the value of the page on which it is placed to the site to which the link leads. Links obtained from high-value websites are therefore very beneficial for our website. Its task is also to transfer the trustworthiness of the site – or lack of it, in the case of sites that are considered suspicious by search engine algorithms. The dofollow attribute also passes the value of the anchor text, helping to link the website to the selected keywords.
The nofollow attribute does not contribute to such important SEO aspects, but it does fulfill other tasks that also have an impact on the effects of optimization. It transmits part of the website’s trustworthiness, and at the same time has a positive impact on the structure of links for a given website. Links with this attribute are natural, which makes the entire link profile more favorable to the search engine.
| Dofollow attribute | Nofollow attribute |
| Passes on a part of the site’s valuePasses on the site’s trustworthiness or its lackPasses on the value of the anchor text | Does not pass on the value of the sitePasses on a part of the site’s trustworthinessHas a good impact on the structure of links |
How do you know what attribute the link has? You can check it with the help of professional tools for link analysis, which allows you to check multiple backlinks simultaneously or using a simple method of viewing the source code of the page. All you have to do is find the “show page source” option in your browser that will display the source code for the site. If rel = “nofollow” is present, it means that the nofollow attribute has been assigned to the link.
That’s not all
In this part of the guide, we focused on the basic concepts of obtaining links for your website that can be used for online stores and other types of websites. In the second part, we will present specific ways of obtaining backlinks, intended mainly for e-commerce platforms.