SEO Scares me.. Help!

12 replies
  • SEO
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Hi everyone...

I've finally plucked up the courage to post about SEO, as it's been something I have avoided for a long time.

Over the last few months I've been developing a site, and have uploaded around 120 unique articles to it. On-page SEO is good, and not much needs doing regarding that, but it's the offpage I really struggle on.

I'm getting around 300 visitors a day without having done any off-page, so I'm confident with some good SEO I can get good results, but I'm so confused where to start.

Everyone seems to say different things these days, and I'd really like to find out what I should actually be doing to improve rankings.

I know that Google is placing a lot more trust in natural links etc, so I'm scared to do any backlink incase it's going to penalize my site.

Does anyone have any solid advice on where I can begin my SEO campaign? How should I be building backlinks? How much time should I be spending on SEO?

Thanks in advance for the help

Alex
#scares #seo
  • Profile picture of the author kangen333
    As long as the back links look natural and are posted on real websites that are trustworthy in Google
    s eyes you should be fine. Websites you should avoid back linking on are sites that have spam on them, with a poor back link history such as a ton of spammy backlinks.

    I believe Google only penalizes when all of the sudden you have hundreds of back links on spammy websites, or on web pages with spun content, tons of spammy blog comments etc.

    Good ways to get safe white hat back links is by contributing to authoritative forums, sharing posts on social media, guest authoring on authority websites, etc
    Signature

    My goal is to learn SEO, to make Money

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    • Profile picture of the author kangen333
      Here is a list of 100 Google ranking factors I just came by and read.

      Google Ranking Factors: The Complete List

      It's quite comprehensive, but on 94. it says that one sign of webspam in Google's eyes are unnatural link portfolios, i.e most back links from blog comments and forum profiles.

      The safest way is to have a well diversified link portfolio. It may be worth your while reading the factors
      Signature

      My goal is to learn SEO, to make Money

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  • Profile picture of the author Macrodyl
    You don't really need to do any "SEO" as you put it, by all means you can build links but that's up to you. Personally I don't bother building links for any of my personal projects, and I seem to be doing quite well purely based on consistently writing content.

    The most I would suggest if you want to avoid being penalised is blog commenting and forum posting, but only on relevant topics and more for getting your name out there and building a reputation within your niche than anything else.

    If what you're writing is good and people start to recognise your name, the natural links will come with time.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO Power
    If you are already getting 300 visitors per day doing no off-page SEO, I suggest you maintain your current strategy and keep publishing great content. The way you built up your traffic is the way Google wants it and doesn't violate any webmaster guidelines.

    Don't build links, but do things that can attract links such as link outreach and viral marketing.
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  • Profile picture of the author sreejanniyogi
    avoid spamy links like comments. go for contextual links from related high pr and AGED domains. that is extremely beneficial for the site.
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  • Profile picture of the author avalon2013
    Any link shold be "natural" avoid at any cost anchored (with primary keyword) link, if the site is about "dog hairdryer" - do not do any links with this key! Natural links are socialnetwork links. Promote your site via Google+ (first of all) and other social networks, create a community. Not a Google+ community or Facebook community I mean. The community around the site. And keep posting good content. Content+community members+social networks will do the trick!
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    • Profile picture of the author IMCapitalist
      I don't know but it was just me probably, but good content always do good all these times for me.
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  • Check out my signature if you need a seo plan. I can help you out.

    Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author nik0
      Banned
      Maybe give your visitors a reason to link to you, you can do that by producing link worthy content, just search on the topic and you'll find some decent idea's like:

      - lists
      - resource pages
      - video / image collection

      and that kind of things

      Also contact webmasters in your niche and make them aware of some great pieces of content you've created.

      What also might work depending on niche is interviewing experts in your niche, a so called expert round up. People mostly love to be featured if your site looks professional and they might reward you with a link for that, probably due to ego reasons but well a link is a link.
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  • Profile picture of the author SEO-Dave
    I'll second Nik0's advice, create content other webmasters will link to or at least share on social media.

    Although social media link per se appear to pass no direct SEO value, more webmasters that see your content, more likely they'll add a link from their site to yours naturally.

    Note how Kangen333 posted a link to Google Ranking Factors: The Complete List earlier, that's a good example of linkbait. Create something in your niche users want to share.

    Linkbait for the win :-)

    David
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  • Profile picture of the author npoint
    Try to build your own PBN, but the cheaper way (and safest too) based on WEB 2.0, its the safesst available technique these days cos those domains have high authority. Once you provide unique and valuable articles you will be save and improve your ranks a lot.
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  • Profile picture of the author yukon
    Banned
    Unless your social traffic is also active bloggers forget it for anything related to SEO. Social isn't building links, they're following links (from nofollow social links).

    Same niche forum traffic is more likely to build followed organic links on relevant domains. When traffic takes the time to subscribe to a niche, they're dedicated to the niche, unlike social profiles that don't have to commit to anything, they already have a social account that's loaded with completely random niche links (window shoppers).
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