Miscellaneous

Create Backlinks to Your WordPress Blog for Better Search Rankings

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Tips for getting more backlinks and boosting your WordPress SEOAny WordPress blogger with half an SEO brain in their head understands the importance of creating backlinks.

If you want your WordPress site to rank well in SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages), you need to build up a portfolio of high quality links, both to your home page and your individual posts, from a variety of different sources on the web.

Google judges the ‘authority’ of a given web page, in part, by the number of other web pages that link to it. More links means greater perceived authority, which translates to higher rankings.

Common strategies for creating backlinks to your WordPress blog

The best kind of backlinks will always be those that come naturally, because people like your content and want to share it on their own site. But it doesn’t hurt to give yourself a bit of a ‘leg up’, and actively seek out places on the web where you can create some publicity and SEO juice for your blog. These are some common techniques for creating backlinks to your WordPress site:

  • Guest posting on other high profile blogs in your niche – usually gives you the opportunity to link back to your own site in your author bio.
  • Commenting on blog posts and leaving a link, either in the content or your bio.
  • Commenting on forums that are related to the topic of your blog, and leaving a link back to your own site.
  • Submitting your best blog articles to social bookmarking sites.

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Beware the evil wrath of the ‘nofollow’ attribute

By default, many blogs and forums use the ‘nofollow’ attribute in their comment section, which effectively kills the SEO value of any outbound links. If you comment on another blog and leave a link back to your own site, Google won’t count this link toward your overall ranking value if the ‘nofollow’ attribute has been included.

So building up a whole lot of backlinks from sites that use ‘nofollow’ isn’t going to do much for your SEO. Before you invest the time in a guest post, blog comment or article submission, check to see whether the website in question is using the ‘nofollow’ attribute.

You can check this manually be looking at the source code of the web page. You’re looking for links that include the text rel=”nofollow”. Alternatively, there are plenty of SEO extensions for Chrome and Firefox that will automatically alert you to websites that use these links.

How to find relevant websites for your backlinking campaign

How to create more backlinks to your WordPress siteAccording to most SEO theorists, Google gives more ranking weight to backlinks from relevant websites, ie. sites that cover the same topic as your own. So if you write a blog about Formula One motor racing, getting a whole lot of backlinks from blogs about bansai gardening isn’t your ideal strategy. Your backlinks will be worth more if they come from other motorsport-related sites.

Search Ninja is a handy little tool that lets you narrow down a Google search specifically to blogs, forums and directories. Instead of just searching Google for ‘Formula One Motor Racing’ and sifting through the enormous number of results, Search Ninja makes it easier to locate the relevant web communities which offer backlinking potential.

Are you using any kind of backlinking strategy on your own WordPress site? Leave a comment and tell us what works for you.

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Photos courtesy of Kristin McKee and Ramberg Media.

Comments (16)

  2. I’m glad that you’ve pointed out the nofollow attribute.

    For those who are building proper backlinks as part of the SEO, the nofollow thing is definitely a pain.

    But hey, there is still the off hand chance the people might look you up just because your input is well thought out and really helpful.

    Great stuff. Thanks!

  3. Tim,

    I love to comment on blog that use the CommentLuv Premium plugin so I get the easy DoFollow backlinks to my site.

    I agree with Alison, though, you gotta admit it’s a little ironic that your article talks about using comments to create backlinks to your own site, and yet, we absolutely cannot do that on this site. Of course, that is something you really don’t have control over since your a guest blogger, correct?

    Well, thanks for sharing!

    ~ Jupiter Jim
    http://jupiterjimsmarketingteam.com/

    • I’m not sure that CommentLuv is the holygrail of comment-based SEO that it used to be. I’m noticing that nofollow links on well read blogs like this one here are giving my sites instant jolts and I’ve also seen examples of people who have done almost nothing but comment on one or two popular blogs in their niche (i.e. Russel Branson) and get high rankings for ridiculously competitive terms.

      While Tim doesn’t seem to see site promotion of this type as “natural” I don’t see a more natural way to participate in the discussion in your niche receive traffic by giving value to the blogs and readers of others. Does it look natural to Google? If you’re doing it in an honest, consistent fashion, my experience tells me that it must

      Sasha

      dubstep beat maker

  5. Hey Tim, thats a good list of wordpress blog promotion! Like blog commenting strategy the most.

    Would like to suggest social media mentions or updates in Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, GPlus etc., I knw its very common SEO funda but it works

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