To do well on Google.co.nz you will have to get inbound links from quality websites. By quality, I mean sites with high Google Page Rank™ (you can check a site’s PR here).

These links are often referred to as “backlinks“. You will need 150+ backlinks coming into your site to get any traction on Google’s search results pages or “SERPs”. This is obviously a major undertaking and this article discusses how to approach inbound links.

You can start at Open Link Profiler. Enter your web address in the search box and this site will give you a report on who links to your site. You may be surprised who is linking to you, and you may even want to request some sites remove links to your site or upload a list of links to “disavow” to Google’s Search Console. Most website owners find they have very few links, and this is a situation you need to reverse, and quickly.

The Open Link Profiler tool will list off who is linking to you, but more importantly, if you search on your competitor’s pages, it will list off their links. This is valuable information as the list will contain websites and pages with high PageRank™ that you may not be aware of. These links may be free and with a little communication, you can get a quality backlinks to your site.

So, you know who is already linking to you, and you have a list of quality sites that don’t link to you but that do link to your competitors, its time to hit the phone or email and request these missing, high PageRank links.

Note that Dynamic Web Solutions can report on backlinks for you and contrast your site with one or two others in a table report. This makes it very easy to spot which links you could be going after.

What about outbound links?

Similarly, you can improve your reputation with Google by linking to quality sites – sites with high PageRank™. This demonstrates that you are a good Internet citizen and are focused on your customer’s experience, not just your own interests.

Backlinks Q&A

Should I touch zero PageRank™ sites?
Only if you have no links. Best left alone otherwise.

Should I pay for inbound links?
Can the site requesting payment prove that they can direct traffic to you, and not just any traffic but people ready to buy? Is their price per click lower than Google Adwords?

Should I get the links all at once, or over time?
Ideally, you would do linking work slowly and consistently over some months and even years as getting too many links too fast indicates to Google an optimiser is at work. If you don’t have the time or inclination to do this work, please contact Dynamic Web Solutions as we are doing linking work all the time.

Who should I request links from?
Try to “theme” your links within an industry. Let’s say you are a book shop owner, links from authors, libraries, book clubs and other bookshops will be most valuable to you.

Should I reciprocate links? (this means, linking out to the site linking to you)
Ideally, no. Unreciprocated links reward your site more. Unreciprocated links from pages with high Google PageRank™, a LOT more.