Quantifying Linking Campaign Value
-
Is there any way to predict if and how Organic traffic would change if we sucesfully added some high-quality links to our website?
Quantifying link value would help to plan how much time/efforts we should spend on quality link-building. I understand that the more good links we get - the better. But beyond that, I am looking for some methodology/data/formulas that would help to decide if links are worth pursing.
Here is an example:
Let's say we acquired 20 high-quality links from PR 0-5 pages of some trusted web sites of PR6-8. Let's say that on these pages would also link to 10-20 other web sites. Would such campaign be of some direct value to our ecommerce website of PR6?
My question is limited to how high-quality links improve overall Google search traffic to the website only. I am not interested in calculating value of individual keywords - most of our search traffic comes from long tail. I am also not interested in how to estimate referral traffic - both seem much easier topics to tackle. But how would I be able to measure the value of lets say 1 link from PR 8 site with a PR3 page, when there are 10 other external links on that page?
-
I agree that PageRank is a weak factor, but how else would I intelligently determine value of individual links from individual high-ranking pages?
Also, I am not looking to estimate referral traffic - that seems an easier problem to tackle. So, the question remains: How 1 link from high-ranking web site would numerically influence organic search traffic. Page Rank of a site, Page Rank of a Page, Number of other external and internal links from that page, PageRank of our website - seems like all are important factors in a model that I am trying to find.
-
First, you are wasting time looking at Pagerank in my opinion. You could look at your backlinks acquisition history and compare that to organic traffic history for your site to come up with a model.
Organic traffic is not just search traffic; so it would be good to look at a websites traffic data instead. Try to calculate a CTR for traffic on sites you have a link already and use that to build a model for future sites you are targeting for a link acquisition.
-
thank you, but again, I am not looking for a way to improve a keyword ranking. I am looking more for a formula which would approximate how strong links influence organic traffic for sites with different PageRank.
At the very least I am looking for some approximation
1) how many links of high PR would it take to increase PageRank from 6 to 7.
- how would this increase influence Organic traffic.
-
I do it in a few steps:
- Determine competitor that's one above.
- Determine competitors for each phrase.
- Measure strength of competitor's site.
- Measure the strength of competitor's page.
- Calculate traffic increase by one position based on current CTR and CTR averages across all phrases.
This process can be applied to multiple ranking scenarios.
-
You can still look at the categorical terms that you base your long tail strategy on for the methods mentioned. A good way to get an indication is looking at competitor links; then use traffic numbers for "phrase match"
You might consider making your link building more strategic in that it focuses less on the link and more on high value traffic potential. Target sites that are a really good match for what you sell.
Lets say you sell paint. Target fan sites then show rooms painted for favorite team themes and link to the paint colors on your site to achieve the same affect.
-
thank you, but I am not looking to improve traffic for select keywords - I am looking for an overall organic traffic lift. Most of our traffic comes from long tail.
-
I wrote a post on creating a link building budget that would probable be of some help: http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/linkbuilding-budget.html
The hard part about this is you do not really know how much an acquired link is going to help your rankings. You basically need to determine:
- How many links are necessary to rank for desired SERP position
- Revenue that traffic has to your business
- Calculate ROI for link building for a year or more
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Link building - still effective ?
Hi, I know 70-80% of the links on Google have no-follow keyword. What I need to know is if link building by using guest posting and a combination of no-follow links through social media is still effective ? What would you suggest in terms of link building. I have read all the articles on moz and everything, but I need a personal touch on this matter. Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kiraftw
Andrei0 -
Are links from pages in other languages ok?
Hey everyone, what are your thoughts on this? If a bunch of links from another language, say the site is in Canada and is in English but we have french links pointing to the site with english keywords...is that ok? Will that harm us? Opinions? Facts?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jhinchcliffe0 -
Links to images on a page diluting page value?
We have been doing some testing with additional images on a page. For example, the page here:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Peter264
http://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/2550/sukhoi-su-27-flanker-package-for-fsx/ Notice the images under the heading Images/Screenshots After adding these images, we noticed a ranking drop for that page (-27 places) in the SERPS. Could the large amount of images - in particular the links on the images (links to the larger versions) be causing it to dilute the value of the actual page? Any suggestions, advice or opinions will be much appreciated.0 -
Competing with Spammy Links
One of my client's leading competitors is well stacked in terms of rank/authority. PA: 61, DA: 53. However, in OSE I estimate that +/- of all links on the first page are from sites such as "http://www.shopp011.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=17", "http://www.shopp002.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=17", "http://www.shopp029.freedownloadhub.com/Link-Exchange/browse.php?id=17". Personally, I would consider this to be a little spammy. However, I admit that I could be wrong. What's the best approach when trying to take on a competitor like this? Wait it out and tell my client to keep blogging/selling as per the schedule until Google pics up on these links?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShippingContainer0 -
Removing Canonical Links
We implemented rel=canonical as we decided to paginate our pages. We then ran some testing and on the whole pagination did not work out so we removed all on-page pagination. Now, internally when I click for example a link for Widgets I get the /widgets.php but searching through Google I get to /widgets.php?page=all . There are not redirects in place at the moment. The '?page=all' page has been rated 'A' by the SEOmoz tool under On Page Optimization reports and performs much better than the exact same page without the '?page=all' (the score dips to a 'D' grade) so need to tread carefully so we don't lose the link value. Can anyone advise us on the best way forward? Thanks in advance.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jannkuzel0 -
Too many links?
I've recently taken over a site from another agency, which has hundreds of linking root domains. These domains are of very low quality and, in my opinion, are being ignored by Google. Is it best to 'clean up' some of these links, or leave them and start building quality links? I just don't want to waste time cleaning link profiles if there's no need.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | A_Q0 -
How should I handle these links?
I recently purchased a site which is in the same niche as my personal blog. MANY of the keywords which I want both sites to rank for, they are already ranking well for (Eg I rank #1 with one site and #5 for the other). I haven't started linking the two sites to each other yet (waiting to announce the acquisition before I do). I have 2 questions for you all... How powerful do you think linking between these sites could be? How do you think I should handle the linking between these two sites?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroAndJobu0 -
Why traffic to my link has dropped suddenly?
Hi I would like to know why the traffic for the website link http://theindustrymeasure.com/2010/07/15/rediffmail-login has dropped suddenly on google.I used to get around 5000 page views on this page and then suddenly dropped to 15-20 . I still get good traffic from yahoo (around 500). Just before the drop I noticed that I started to get spammy trackbacks from Many questionable sources. I have not approved any of these trackbacks. The trackbacks are regular frequency of. 1 per day. is there any action which I can take to ensure that I get back my traffic. Traffic to other links are fine , only this page seems to have dropped off ever since the spam attack. As per seomoz tool I have a grade a for keyword rediffmail
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ShoutOut0