Should my backlinks point to my home page or to internal article pages?
-
Hi,
I run a fitness blog and I get the majority of my backlinks through guest posts that I write on high quality sites. Sometimes they allow me to put a backlink within the article, and I'll link it to a relevant article of mine. However, in the "author bio" section my backlink anchor text is usually just my brand name. I was wondering if this backlink should point towards my home page or is it more beneficial to point it towards an important article of mine?
Thanks
-
I would view this a a usability matter. Where would someone expect to land after clicking on a link in an author bio? I would likely expect to land on your home page, or a good About me page.
Chances are, if it's a well set up bio section, it will be a nofollow link. So there won't be any benefits other than to the user who clicks on it.
~Caro
-
Jeremy,
The correct answer to your question is that it needs to look natural. I wouldn't necessarily optimize the anchor text and the link so that it's pointing to one particular page or even your home page with certain anchor text.
If it's your author bio, then naturally it should point to your site's home page. An alternative would be to create/write a page specifically for your author bio (where you list your articles that you've written).
-
Hi Jeremy,
There isn't really a "correct" answer to this one.
Links help with your rankings regardless of where they are sent. The fact that these links are coming from high-authority sites is probably the biggest benefit, regardless of anchor text or link pathway.
On the flipside, you probably want to try to create relevancy between the page you are linking from and the page you are linking to. For example, as a fitness expert, if you are providing information on proper stretch technique or diet, then you may want to target pages on your website that feature stretching or diet respectively. Your author bio links might link to an "About" page on your website since people who click on your author bio might be looking to learn more about you (creates UX as well as website traffic since they are finding what they are looking for with 1 click). The Home Page is also an option since it provides greater link juice throughout the site, but your referral traffic drop-off might increase as a result.
As for sites that allow links within the content itself, you can go the Home Page linking route if you want since that helps with general rankings across your site. That being said, Home Pages don't convert people, landing pages do.
My personal opinion is you choose link pages on your site according to keywords you want to rank for and based on their relevancy to your guest post topics. It's better to drive targeted traffic to relevant pages rather than bring general traffic to your home page.
There are a lot of different ways to look at this, but technical SEO is giving way more and more to user experience and relevant link channels, so I would be less worried about pounding your home page with links and more about ensuring your users have a good experience on your site - that's how you get returning traffic and repeat visitors.
Good luck moving forward!
Cheers,
Rob
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
-
Backlink Shows Zero.
My website have a baclinks as shown in other tools but in MOZ backlinks shows zero, WHY?
Link Building | | frank.21
can you check please: https://menscareclinics.com/0 -
Backlink level of domain authority
Hi, we are trying to build on the number of good quality links. One idea we had is to provide testimonials for a number of suppliers websites. Which would include a link from our company name back to our site. Is there a certain level of domain authority we should only do this for? For example if a supplier only has a domain authority of 11 should we not get a back link? Many Thanks
Link Building | | danieldunn100 -
What are the best Article Submission Syndicates?
We are currently trying to ramp up our link building using article submission syndicates. So far I have researched -SeoCosmo -Isnare -SubmitShop What is everyones opinon on these three website for submitting articles. Can anyone recommend any other good Submission websites? Thanks You!
Link Building | | GladdySEO0 -
Will Google penalize for backlinks on non-indexed pages?
Have a client who has a bunch of links from spammy sites that aren't even indexed by Google. Will Google penalize (i.e. Penguin) for backlinks from spammy sites that aren't indexed? I'm guessing "Yes, Google still crawls non-indexed sites and may penalize the sites linked to from the banned site." Anyone have any data or experience with this? Anyone have a non-indexed or banned site? Does Google still crawl it?
Link Building | | AdamThompson0 -
How to Check the Amount of Deep Backlinks?
I'm thinking about checking the amount of deep backlinks on my site because I have a hunch that I don't have enough of them. Now, the problem is that I have no idea what tool (on-line or offline) I need to use. I did some Google research but it did not give me any results.
Link Building | | VinceWicks0 -
Backlinks on Facebook
Has anyone seen the benefits of adding backlinks back to their main site on their facebook page? Also, what about uploading a bunch of pictures of your products onto facebook, and on each picture putting the link directly to that specific product? Anyone know if there is any benefit in doing this? Thanks...
Link Building | | Prime850 -
Backlink advice
Is this backlink http://www.workathomejobsideas.com/links.php spammy or it haves some link juise?
Link Building | | prunarevic0 -
Ezine Articles
How much do other people rate Ezines as a provider of articles and incoming links. What are peoples experiences. It has to be one of the most strict article sites but does this make it the best ?
Link Building | | onlinemediadirect0