Link Audit Diagnosis Tips

by David Daniels

Most link audits come about after realization of your decrease in traffic relating directly to shrinking conversions.

Like most things in life, action comes out of necessity. The truth of the matter is easy to swallow when your conversion rate drops while you watch competitors rake in the dough.

Auditing a link profile is much more than backlinks and referring domains. If you only scratch the surface, the result will be tragic. There are numerous metrics to account for when researching the reason for declining traffic and unnatural link warnings.

Diagnosing Your Sick and Twisted Link Profile

The first consideration is method of diagnosis.

When you go to a doctor because you aren't feeling well, does the doctor ask questions and then send you on your way with a prescription? If so, get a second opinion.

A good doctor will utilize the tools at his or her disposal to diagnose and treat the illness. Think of your link profile as a sick human and consult a professional to care for the website foundation.

Best Link Profile Audit Tools

Use the best tools available when diagnosing the problem. Some of the useful tools are Majestic SEO and Link Research Tools.

I can't say enough about Link Research Tools and Chris Cemper. The dedication put forth to build and maintain such a wicked toolset is amazing; kudos to Chris and his team as well as many thanks for delivering data by the truckloads.

Recognize the Good Links

There are many different ways to skin this cat but the end result is the same.

You may start with recognizing the quality links with the Link Research Tools QBL if you so choose to do so. Check the:

• Anchor text (matching this metric to keywords you are probably losing traffic is always useful)
• Link status (follow or nofollow)
• Link type (image, text)
• Deep link ratio (index page, interior page, or deep link)
• TLD (com, net, org, info or some obscure and strange one you may have never heard of like ws)
• Country
• IP
• Class C
• etc.

Comparing Link Profiles

Take a look at how your website compares to your competitors for a specific keyword (such as one you are seeing a decline in traffic). Top metrics to notice are IP, Class C, and referring domains.

Word to the wise: the number of referring domains is often overlooked and should be taken into consideration on many levels. It's better to have thousands of referring domains yielding a few links each as opposed to having hundreds of referring domains yielding many links each.

Knee Deep in Dirty Links

Take a gander at the total number of historical links (Majestic SEO) for the same keyword you used to compare and contrast competitors. Take notice of the backlink discovery and referring domains for the previous two years.

Now that you have your surface data, getting into the details is where it’s at. Pull a historical backlink report for your domain in Majestic. Also valuable: taking notice of the backlinks you have lost.

Anchor Text

Go back to your list of keywords declining in traffic and locate them on the anchor text list from Majestic. You'll notice a pattern starting to form in regard to the percentage of certain anchor text and where the anchor text is found on the web linking to your website.

Link Rehab

Now it's time to get dirty and process the toxic link list. Yes, you guessed it, Link Research Tools time again.

Click that detox icon and wait it out. Depending on the number of links pointing to your site, this may take many hours.

Detox a link profile with nearly 2 million links and you'll be waiting a few hours for that report. If you only have a few thousand or tens of thousands, you'll be good to go in 20-30 minutes.

When the report is complete you will probably notice that the links on the list are from domains that have been deindexed by Google. There is a high probability that all of those links are garbage and you don't want backlinks from those sites.

The Link Detox Report is a bit tricky if you're a first time user as the list won't show all bad links from the same domain. You will have to cross reference these links with the historic backlink list to get the total number of bad links per domain. For example, one of my experiences using the tool was seeing five toxic links in the report and finding a total of 39,000 bad links from one domain in particular.

You may also see the suspicious links as well in Link Research Tools. The links designated as SUSP 7 and 9 are the ones you may want to investigate further as these are many times found to be link farms (and Google doesn't look kindly on link farms or networks).

Summary

An article such as this could go on and on, but if you would like to know more about the dirty details regarding what to do next and the disavow tool, leave a comment about which link audit topic you want to learn more about. After successfully detoxing your link profile, try some new link building.

Link Audit Diagnosis Tips

How to Conduct a Link Audit

by Bob Tripathi

On-Page SEO Audit? Done. Technical SEO Audit. Finished. What's next? A link audit completes the SEO audit triumvirate.

Links are the online currency of search engines. If you aren't paying attention or decide the webmaster guidelines are just a suggestion, links can get you on the wrong side of the search engine "law". We're seeing this more now following the recent Panda and Penguin updates.

As you begin your link audit, make sure to check the following areas to ensure you have an optimal link profile.

Google PageRank

Yes, PageRank isn't as important a metric as it used to be and certainly not something to obsess over. However, it is still a decent indicator of the authority of your website.

There are two kinds of PageRank: one that you see on Google’s Toolbar that isn't updated very frequently (if ever) and the other PageRank that Google assigns to every page. Even though the toolbar PageRank is kind of randomly updated by Google it is still the only way you can look at any given site’s PageRank. It is a rough indicator of the authority of your site especially when you're doing a link or site audit.

As an example, all things being equal, a site with a PageRank 7 will generally rank better than site with PageRank of 5 for almost all queries (though PageRank is only one of hundreds of signals Google looks at to determine where sites rank). The easiest way to do that is download Google’s Toolbar and check the PageRank option.

Domain Age

Search engines, especially Google, still view age of domain as an important element in determining the credibility of a site. As a result you want to check your domain age relative to your competition. A great tool for this is domaintools.com, which also provides many other great snapshots about your site.

A site with an older domain can be much easier to optimize and rank than a site with newer domain. Also, do not confuse this with how many years you register a domain name for. This domain age has got more to do with how active your site been over the years with content on it. Matt Cutts has a video on it that talks more about it here.

Number of Links

Number of links from other sites pointing to your site (inbound links) is an important metric that you should be looking at. Along with the quantity of links pointing to your site you should also look at other variables like sites linking to you in your industry, sites with high PageRank, and the relevance of the link.

With all the recent algorithmic updates it is critical that you look for quality of links as opposed to quantity of links. There are a couple of ways to check this metric: manual and using tools. If doing a manual check then use link:www.yourdomain.com –yourdomain.com; or use tools like MajesticSEO or OpenSite Explorer.

Anchor Text Distribution

Anchor text basically means the clickable words that send users to a linked page or website. There are number of ways you can optimize it and make it more descriptive.

So instead of linking the word "Click here", for example, you can use a more descriptive way to describe to users where the link will take them. Bots also use anchor text to help determine relevancy and have over the years placed importance to it. That would not be the only way for you to rank better but definitely helps in the grand scheme of optimization.

While conducting your link audit you can use tools like MajesticSEO and Open Site Explorer, but my favorite has always been Advanced Web Ranking. Their anchor text distribution tool spits out nice charts like this one:

In the above chart also note how they show the percentage of anchor text that has been used.

Link Neighborhood

The old adage comes to mind that you’re known by the company you keep. Nowhere is this more true than in SEO.

If questionable websites are linking to you, then your site may also come under scrutiny. Ideally, you want to play in your industry with safe sites.

We see that links coming from questionable sites including paid links, article directory sites are not devalued as well. While conducting your audit it is important you run a report by using tools like Bad Neighborhood link checker or Majestic SEO tool.

Internal Link Optimization

In any large organization it is fairly common to have multiple sites representing different business units. We have seen two kinds of issues when dealing with multiple web properties, namely:

1. Not linking with other sister properties.
2. Not optimizing their internal links.

When optimizing internal links follow the same anchor text optimization tip as explained above. Internal link optimization is one of those low-hanging tasks that should be audited before you start your SEO program. The other part you should audit for is if your other sister properties link to you and if they do then are they using anchor text that could be useful to your business.

Competitive Link Benchmarks

One of the items high on any SEO professionals list should be competitive link analysis. It is recommended you look at your competitor’s link acquisition strategy over time and also who links to them.

This is not only a great way for you to find potential link targets, but also tells you how you quickly you need to ramp up your program. One of my favorite charts is on Majestic SEO where they plot out cumulative link acquisition of your competitor over time.

Summary

The above were some of my must-have quick link auditing elements that you need to include when starting a new link building campaign. Just like any audit you can go to great lengths and create a comprehensive audit guide.

Your turn now... What other elements of link building would you include in your link audit? Let’s hear it.

How to Conduct a Link Audit

Local SEO Citations – The New Link Building

by David Daniels

Local SEO citations and mobile madness have hit the T-minus mark and are ready for launch. The previous two years have just been test flights. You haven't seen anything yet regarding local search and the real power bestowed upon the people not old enough to vote yet.

Kids Rule the World, Just Ask Any One of the Brats

The consumers are only getting younger as their affinity for pressing “enter” grows. No longer is big business bound by the mercy of parents taking the youngster to the store as it was when you were a kid. In 2013, the kids carry the store and a full size library in their pocket.

Pay attention to the kids. Yes, your kid as well as every other kid on the planet. What do they do every day? Take a look around at the grade school, middle school, and high school kids ... They are the reason we are engaged in the current citation race.

It's no secret that since the beginning of marketing time, watching what the kids do has been at the forefront of business. They have the buying power as they influence their parents and are soon-to-be young-adult consumers. The opportunity at hand here is being in the right place at the right time as well as in the palm of the right person.

If you weren't on planet Earth for the lion's share of 2012, you're excused from not knowing this. Your competitors are crushing you with link building ... not the typical "get a thousand PR1's and watch the rankings go!" links.

This is 2013. One week into the new year and it is time to reflect on the search madness from 2012. Here is a news flash for many who may not grasp the notion of mobile, local search, citations, and why kids rule the world.

Link Building and the 50 Shades of Grey

Link building the old-fashioned way doesn’t work like it did 5 years ago. Blog networks and the links yielded were similar to growing trees in a rainforest, like a champ. Ah, don’t you miss the good ol’ days when a link was a vote for your website and you could stack ‘em up high and watch the link juice flow?

Fast forward from the 1g communication on your favorite (or not-so-favorite, depends if you like apples or … little green men that look like fat alien robots) mobile device to 2013 when all of life’s young influencers stroll about with their finger on the digital trigger. If you haven’t heard about NAP data in your Google+ account profile, you better figure it out because your smiling child beat you to it.

Citations: The New Link Building

Business owners, this is the bottom line: you need to connect with the technologically advanced children and adults in order to make money on the Internet.

Regardless of what your business model is, reaching your target demographic via a mobile device is the way to negotiate the digital waters.

Local search is dependent upon a new kind of link building called citations. This is as simple as it gets.

How to Build a Citation Foundation

1. Answer these three questions:

• Can you get citations?

• Will you get citations?

• When will you get citations?

1. Write down your business name, address, ZIP code, phone number and any supporting data such as hours of operation, discounts, coupons, specials, etc. Have this information readily available.

1. Go to getlisted.org and bask in the glory of knowing that you are about to get connected with the kids and hard working adults that make the world of commerce go ‘round.

1. Type in your business name and ZIP code, then click “check my listings.”

1. The listings with a red mark are the opportunities (wink, wink) you will focus on.

How to Create Local SEO Citation Building

• Press Releases

• Email Signatures

• Company Blog Posts

• Guest Blog Posts

• Article Marketing (the non-spammy way)

• RSS Feeds

• Forum Signatures

• Community Sponsorship

• Banner Ads

• PPC Ads

Summary

Marketing to your target demographic requires connecting with them on a platform that is readily available any place and time and on any device. This citation building process will enable your business to reach out to potential customers and engage them in 2013 and beyond.

How do you get these citations so you can be found on the Internet? Follow this easy five step process for local SEO and building a citation foundation:

For a more advanced method of obtaining authority citations, consider services that leverage data aggregators. Hot tip of the day: Utilize UBL and/or Localeze to situate your NAP data in the bestlocal neighborhoods on the Internet.

Don't stop with just local directories. You can also take advantage of bookmarking, social networking, and business directory sites.

In addition to automating (or manually creating – this is the desired method) the local SEO citation building, which is certainly the new link building, spread your NAP data in as many authoritative web neighborhoods as you can. You may also utilize these techniques as well:

While in the progression of connecting with prospective clients and customers, be mindful of the device(s) they are using and always consider marketing to all age demographics. Even the kids will soon be adult consumers, which make them viable in the commerce ecosystem.

Local search and mobile devices including mobile phones, tablets, laptops and any other future mobile engagement tool (probably invented by a kid whom will thrive and succeed to be the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates) are married together for years to come. Link building, as we know it, is a dying system.

Local SEO Citations – The New Link Building