How to increase the value of naturally created low value links
-
My site is starting to generate natural links (hooray!). Basically, as part of my client sign-up process, I encourage my clients (home improvement contractors, plumbers, roofers, electricians) to link back to their own profile page on my site from their own site, either manually or using a badge I've created and made available. I have 2 questions about this.
First of all, the vast majority of these links are from seriously low quality sites with basically no backlink profile whatsoever. Many of these sites aren't even indexed. So I'm starting to feel like I'm doing all this hard work for nothing. Is there anything I can do to increase the value of these incoming links, without spending too much time or money? I'm thinking directory submission and/or link wheel gigs on fiverr (really crappy SEO, I know, but just to get these sites bumped up a notch, and hopefully not do any damage to my site, as they're a step removed.)
Second question, the profile pages that my clients can create on my site includes a nofollowed link to their site. Does the nofollow save me from having all of my incoming links tagged as reciprocal? Is there anything else I should be doing?
-
Well then, I guess my question should be what easy SEO steps for a non-SEO person should go on that PDF?
-
Hello,
Perhaps try and create a brief resource list of easy ways that they can make their websites better then send an email with a link to this resource. This maybe as a PDF download or a webpage.
Give them good tips on adding good content to their websites etc. This will make their sites better and increase the value of their links to you in turn. They'll probably also be grateful for the free advice/tips!
I'm sure it wouldn't take more than a couple of hours to put a list of resources together and email it out to all the websites.
Hope this helps!
Elias
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Domain Transition: Leaving low quality content behind
We're in the initial stages of planning a domain transition / rebrand. We're considering 301'ing our low and high(er) quality content split to two different domains. One for the low quality, one for our high. Best practices normally tell you to not split your content between between multiple domains. However, what if the majority of pages on your site are thin/outdated, and attract low volume/long tail? Does it make sense to bring that low quality/volume content over the new domain, when you know you'll never have the resources (nor would it make sense to) mass improve the quality of these pages? I'm concerned the quality of these pages are affecting our overall domain authority. Some background on our site/business: Current site has 15,000+ pages. 98% of our site is a product directory of professional/enterprise business management software. While a small handful of our product pages have quality original long form content (maybe 50-100), most of the product pages are a combination of: thin, outdated, overly sales-y content provided directly from product developers, and/or catch only very low-volume/long tail organic traffic. 95% of our pages attract fewer than 20 visits/mo, 90% of our pages attract fewer than 10 visits/mo. We have a small business of about 10 employees. Most of which don't maintain our site. It's unrealistic for us to genuinely improve the quality of that many pages. Nor does it make sense to improve most of these pages, as they'll attract only very low volume keywords. Individually these low quality pages don't bring in many customers, but on aggregate they do. 70% of our organic conversions come from pages with less than 20 visits/mo. A few questions: Is this content negatively affecting our domain authority in any way? While I don't believe we've been hit with a penalty, Google knows that on average our pages aren't very helpful to many users, and I'm concerned that affects our ability to rank with pages that matter. None of the content was mass produced in any form of scraping efforts or anything nefarious like that. Would there be any negative/positive affect to offloading these low quality/volume pages to a different domain during the rebrand?
Branding | | dsbud0 -
My question is in regards to possible conflict in creating an additional website under a new domain for our company.
Our companies, Vulcan Information Packaging and ATC both live under the domain “www.binders.com”. This is a great thing as far as us dominating in the binder industry. However, in the next 2-3 years and forward, we want to build our presence as a company who offers packaging products such as boxes, marketing kits, and other forms of packaging. Obviously, the “binders.com” brand/domain does not contribute much to this effort and can be confusing to customers visiting the site. Essentially, we want to build an additional branding for our company in the packaging industry. Keeping this in mind, we own the domain “www.vulcaninformationpackaging.com” and we are considering building a new website using this domain which contains the word “packaging”. This new site would only promote and contain packaging related products. This new website will advertise and direct traffic to our company Vulcan Information Packaging, which is the same company “binders.com” directs traffic to. So my question is to determine whether doing this might be a practice that Google and other search engines might frown upon. I tend to think it will be fine because we will be promoting and driving traffic for non-binder products where as, binders.com is heavily in binder related products. thank you, Dominic Zaidan
Branding | | dzaidan0 -
Really, what are the benefits of creating a Google Brand page for an e-commerce site?
We have a jewellery store client who already have a Google My Business page set up for its store front business. Should we also create a Google Brand page for its e-commerce site (which has a different business name to the jewellery store)? This client already has a pretty robust Facebook profile. Is it worth it maintaining a Brand page then - since it targets Google plus users?
Branding | | Gavo
And what are the chances of a Brand page appearing on search results when you're not a Nike or a Calvin Klein? Thanks heaps in anticipation of your response.0 -
Renaming of Link within Site Links - Brand Issues
Hi, We welcome your thoughts on the current problem we are experiencing: When searching for our client's brand name, their previous sponsors name is shown within the Site Links to a very important page. We are keen to change this reference within the Site Link but keep the link itself. We have untaken the following without any change to the words used within this particular Site Link: 1) Removal of previous-sponsors name sitewide: Title tags Alt attribute Anchors Page names Image names 2) Removal of sponsors name from 200+ sister sites: Title tags Alt attribute Anchors Page names Image names 3) Modification of [previous-sponsor + client] within Wikipedia:
Branding | | PhilYarrow
There were 250+ mentions of the sponsor + client within Wikipedia. References have either been deleted or changed to past tense. (Google has been extremely slow at indexing these changes.) 4) Removal of off-site mentions:
After using Advanced Filters within OSE, we extracted all links that included the previous-sponsors name. We filtered these by DA and approached these sites and requested they update their links/on-site content to include the up-to-date name. This included large news organisations and reference sources. We also used Google operators (inurl, inanchor, intitle) to search for references mentions of [previous-sponsor + client]. We used Buzzstream to collate this data and contacted hundreds of sites sorted by DA. 5) We have twice requested demotion of the Site Link via GWT without success. Google clearly see's the Site Link as too important to remove it. The following is useful background information:
The [client + previous-sponsor] worked together for 5+ years. Our client is known by it's own brand, but it was also called in certain arenas as [client + previous-sponsor].
Fresh mentions of [client + previous-sponsor] are frequent. Examples of this are from collectors merchandise and videos that are posted frequently. The page being shown within the Site Links is essential. It cannot be moved. With a PA of mid-70's.
We have changed the Title of the page multiple times, without any change to the Site Link. Thanks
Phil0 -
External 'Source' link in PPC Ad copy
Afternoon Mozzers, Noticed something today on Google.co.uk that we have never seen / noticed before on PPC adverts. This exampe is a Google UK search for Wonga payday. Within the Ad copy there is a link to a BBC news article about the company. Has anyone else seen these on any PPC Ads? I am assuming this is not an intentional feature from Wonga to link to an external site from within their own PPC advert? i assume they would not get charged for these clicks. If anyone has any further info or insights on this feature it would be appreciated. PqsOoUy.png
Branding | | Sarbs0 -
Could product sample giveaways be seen as 'paying for links'?
One of our main methods of advertising for my startup business is by sending samples to bloggers for review. I've read a lot of good things about this method and many of my competitors use it very well - I've even seen it suggested on the Moz blog several times in the past. The one thing I do worry about is that Google may see this as a form of 'link purchasing', as I'm offering something in exchange for a link and some of the blog posts may reference that fact (or at least most likely use the word "Review" - Which could be some kind of footprint?).
Branding | | azu25
We don't intend to ask for anchor texts, so at the very least that should look natural. What are your opinions? Could this be seen as paid linkbuilding or is it regarded as a natural marketing method? [EDIT]:
One idea we had was to potentially offer bloggers the chance to earn a portion of their purchase back by writing a review on their blog. They'd buy from us and let us know they have a blog, then we'd reimburse them some credit towards their next order for every blog post they write about us. Does this sound like a good idea or is this potentially more dangerous than simply offering free samples?0 -
Links from paid submissions to FWA, awwwards etc.
I'm thinkink about submitting my company website and some of our clients websites to contest sites like FWA and Awwwards. They offer paid submissions and they claim that for 50€, more or less, my site will be manualy submited to 50 web galleries. What do you think?
Branding | | Jbla0 -
What are good paid white hat link building opporunties?
What are some good sites that offer white hat link building opportunies for the Hospitality vertical? I like the guest blogger option but dont know what site(s) are the best options?
Branding | | Melia0