Advanced Backlinks for Web Designers

If I had a penny everytime a web developer/web designer told me they knew SEO due to the fact that they are web people, I would be a millionaire. It would be nice if it was true, but I see a lot of web design companies who can’t even rank for their own company page. Just because someone is a web developer or designer does not make them a SEO expert.

Web designers are like artists who come up with a beautiful page, and love to leave their signature at the bottom of their work. Their signature is usually a backlink to their company page which is normally located at the footer. They use their ‘company name’ as the anchor text which isn’t going to give them the full potential of that backlink. Instead of using an anchor text Charlotte SEO they will use their company name like Century House. The point is who searches for Century House? Those who are searching the company name are searching for it specifically because they already heard about the company. Those who search on any search engine will search for KEYWORDS not a company name unless they’re looking for more information on the company.

It’s very important to place a link on the footer of the page. The reason is that the footer appears on every page of the website. This helps to generate more juice from that link. A spiderbot may not find the page you have your link on, but if it’s in the footer then it will appear on every single page of the website. If Google likes one page better than the other it will not matter as your link will always appear at the bottom. Any new page or post that is created on that domain will remind the spiderbots of your footer link.

Another issue I’m seeing is that webmasters don’t use the bold tag on their backlinks. Imagine a spiderbot going through this new page you developed for your client. The whole page is using regular text but at the bottom of the page there is something that is SCREAMING FOR ATTENTION! It reads “Look at me I’m different from the rest because I have a bold tag!” The bold tag shows emphasis, so using an anchor text with the bold tag is telling the spiderbot that the link is very important.

The last point can be considered greyhat or blackhat. Those who understand the concept will understand the potential it has for search engine manipulation which is against Search Engine TOS/Guidelines. I have seen a lot of web designers who have a whole collage of websites that they have developed/created. One thing I notice with most webmasters is that they use the same hosting provider for all of their websites. Most don’t see that as a big deal, but if you look at the IP addresses on the websites they’re all the same. There is this ‘rumor’ going around that Google doesn’t give much ‘juice’ for websites pointing to each other that are on the same IP address. It makes sense because these sites are somehow related with each other. They all have something in common, and that’s sharing the same webmaster.

Still don’t get it?

Imagine looking for references for a company that you’re about to hire. Would it matter if the company’s reference is the owner’s brother or a close friend of the owner? I’m sure you’re going to want ‘more references’ from other places unless you’re very well acquainted with the owner’s brother or his close friend. I would look at this as an affiliation more than a reference.

abc.com IP 123  points to xyz.com IP 123 (looks like the same person) Client is a nobody so this is probably an affiliation

Google IP 123 points to youtube IP 123 (same person but Major website involved) Huge affiliation pointing to another huge affiliation

abc.com IP 789 points to xyz.com IP 123 (different IP address, not the same person) This is more of a reference link than an affiliated link.

Now imagine having done 20 websites for 20 different clients, and using different hosting providers.

The links will now be references instead of affiliations.

Recap

1. Use keywords for anchor text not company name

2. Place link in the footer

3. Use bold tags with anchor text

4. Use different hosting providers for each client for more SEO reference links instead of affiliated links