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Advice on link building approach

Discussion in 'Link Development' started by Spacechimp, Mar 30, 2016.

  1. #1
    Hi All,
    Thanks for viewing my post.

    I'm primarily a web designer but I try to keep things SEO friendly and read up as much as I can around the subject, but for this one I really feel I could do with the advice of some full time pro SEO's.

    I found myself in a somewhat unexpected situation. I specialise in bespoke build websites on average a bespoke build costs in excess of £2k and normally takes me around a month to complete.
    Recently one of my friends who works with a lot of startup companies has asked me if I could build websites for these startups.

    Numbers wise there is the potential for me to build a lot of websites month to month and make a fair bit of money which is great but because these companies are small startups it's unlikely that they would have the money to warrant my normal bespoke package. So my best option would be to create a specific package tailored to startups which perhaps rely on customised templates and therefor cost less and would better suite the budget of a startup company.

    The issue I have is that adding a cheaper package could be detrimental to my brand and it's not something I had previously wanted to do. But opportunity is knocking and I'd be stupid not to at least consider my options. So while I'm wrestling with the brand direction for my company I though I'd consider things from a different angle to help me decide. Which is where you SEO's can help.

    Every website I create I add a keyword rich back link to my own site page in the footer. If I were to take these startup websites on I would inevitably increase the amount of backlinks to my own website. However another approach which would help protect my brand would be to create a 2nd website of my own dedicated to selling packages to startups. I'd link all startup websites to the 2nd website and the 2nd website to the first. Purely from an SEO perspective which approach would be better?

    I've seen and read - Whats Better Strong Links vs Multiple Weak Links - https://forums.digitalpoint.com/forums/link-development.13/ but since the sites i'm talking about don't have a pr rank or have an unknown pr rank it's not quite the same.

    TLDR;
    I make bespoke websites
    I'm thinking of selling customised template websites too
    I get backlinks from all new websites I create
    Should I link both bespoke and customised websites to my primary site, or can I get just as much SEO juice to the primary site by creating a second site linking it to the primary and pointing all the new backlinks to that?

    Thanks in advance
     
    Spacechimp, Mar 30, 2016 IP
  2. sikandar

    sikandar Active Member

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    #2
    What you are thinking is an outdated strategy which worked when search engines gave more importance to the number of links than the quality of links. Things have changed in 2016. Footer links are considered very weak by search engines like Google. Moreover, if you are getting sitewide links from all pages of your client websites, it would be detrimental to your website, as search engines consider such links as highly unnatural. If you really want to improve your brand and authority, you should consider other methods of link building - such as Web 2.0, guest posting, tiered links and PBNs.
     
    sikandar, Apr 4, 2016 IP
  3. bimasena25

    bimasena25 Member

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    #3
    use PBN as aged domain, high PA expired web2.0 is giving you better results. dont forget to send alot of backlink to your tier1. so, more power to your money site. maybe GSa can used to give authority for tier1 linking
     
    bimasena25, Apr 4, 2016 IP
  4. uca

    uca Well-Known Member

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    #4
    Footer links aren't that big of a deal in terms of SEO nowadays, however, that shouldn't discourage you from having them, simply because, as it appears you do quality work, many who get on the websites may be interested in finding out who designed the website.
    I don't know how many leads you get from these links, but I wouldn't discount them just because of limited SEO juice. Having said that, the process of setting up a secondary website would give less benefits in the short term, just because it has to be indexed and ranked, but more in the long term, while the opposite is true for your primary, which is established, from what I understand. I do fancy the idea of a secondary website though, because it would allow you a different approach to your online presence, more geared towards search engine visitors, while the primary would be your main way of expressing your art and your message to the whole internet. In conclusion, it's not about getting more "SEO juice", it's more than just that, it's about a whole different strategy which may or may not work, I have no idea because I don't know enough about you and your work. I just suggest thinking in broader terms and SEO comes into play only to make sure you don't lose anything should you have one approach or another...I made it complicated, haven't I? Sorry about that,but good luck!
     
    uca, Apr 5, 2016 IP
  5. Malika.Sharma

    Malika.Sharma Active Member

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    #5
    I wouldn't probably stress over the footer links. These are not really going to give you a lot of benefit, if anything it would be very tiny or you end up receiving a negative penalty (if the anchor text is some keyword you are going for.

    As long as you keep it your brand name, it should be fine with the link.

    What I would suggest doing is, gain backlinks for your business website that focus on other anchor text/keywords. This way, you are not only get one type of links/anchor texts but you are having a variety of links with anchor texts coming to your website. This will help you keep your backlinks profile look natural and your website should be safe from any penalties and plus you can get some ranking boost or authority buildup over time :)

    Just ensure you get links from other sources too! :)
     
    Malika.Sharma, Apr 5, 2016 IP
  6. Spacechimp

    Spacechimp Peon

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    #6
    Thanks Guys, It's clear I have a lot to read about regarding quality back links. I knew that links below the fold aren't as powerful but I didn't realise footer links carried so little weight. I checked the backlinks of many of my competitors and as far as I could see everyone who is ranked above our site has the same keyword rich backlink text in the footer of the websites they have created which was my initial reason for doing it.

    Malika Can using a keyword-ed footer backlink really cause negative penalties? I do have backlinks from various other places (not including my Social media nofollow links) but I had been concentrating on 3 or 4 keywords throughout these links, heavily focusing on my main. Onsite I have about 25 keywords I'm competing for in total with pages created for each of them.

    Moving forward regarding this particular post topic I think the best strategy for me will be to create the second website regardless of SEO. That way, As Uca rightly pointed out, I can market it differently and let it gain weight on it's own and if it fails to preform as well as I'd like I can simply kill it off.
     
    Spacechimp, Apr 6, 2016 IP
  7. Malika.Sharma

    Malika.Sharma Active Member

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    #7
    Hi Spacechimp,

    I wouldnt necessarily suggest you to create a new website for this purpose. If you have nofollow tag implemented for your keywords then you wont reap any negative penalty. Yes, you can get negative penalties if you are heavily focussing on a keyword and when site themes are made it usually focusses on a keyword or two keywords. This actually used to be a strategy for a lot of people to rank their website and then one day Google gave them a whip! I wouldnt worry too much about Footer links and getting benefits out of there.
    Implement nofollow if you think have a lot of keyword-ed links. If its all brand then I guess it should be fine!

    You can subscribe (in my signature) for a free course that I am launching. It will talk about links and some advanced strategies that you can use for your website. The content will be targeted so you will learn a lot of about links plus its for FREE!
     
    Malika.Sharma, Apr 6, 2016 IP
  8. Spacechimp

    Spacechimp Peon

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    #8
    I'm In! - Thanks
     
    Spacechimp, Apr 7, 2016 IP
  9. Malika.Sharma

    Malika.Sharma Active Member

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    #9
    Cheers!
     
    Malika.Sharma, Apr 7, 2016 IP
  10. JudySlean

    JudySlean Greenhorn

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    #10
    Hi, thank you very much for this advice! SEO process is very interesting, becouse it can change their strategy everytime! That is why, very important to follow in it!
     
    JudySlean, Apr 12, 2016 IP
  11. David Camp

    David Camp Peon

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    #11
    In my opinion, you should link to your main site if these sites have relevant contents with your main site.
     
    David Camp, Apr 13, 2016 IP