If you were to ask someone who’s been heavily involved with search engine optimization about “the key” to SEO, you’d likely hear that, among many items, one of the key players in the SEO game is link building. They might also mention that SEO is certainly not a “quick fix” for a website’s traffic issues, but rather a ongoing process that’s really never “done.” Those who do SEO for a living or those that optimize their own sites can attest that much of this “ongoing process” is spending time on building links.
It’s interesting, however, that while so much time and effort is put into link building, very few take the little extra time to track any of those links that they’ve worked so hard to get. They email for link exchanges, submiit to countless directories, or use paid link services, and then never think of the link again once they’ve gotten it.
But whether you track your backlinks using software, a spreadsheet, or some other way, you’ll quickly find that there are some great benefits to tracking your link data. Often while link building you may have questions such as “how many links do I already have for this keyword?” or “how often have I been getting links from this source?” By noting some simply data about each link that you acquire you will be able to build a resource to which you can quickly turn to answer these simple, yet very important questions. The following are just three of the benefits that you’ll find by tracking your backlinks.
Verify That Your Links Are Still Live
It probably happens a lot more than you think. You finally get someone in your niche to exchange a link with your website. You post a link and they post a link. Everything’s gravy. But little do you know that a month after you’ve exchanged the link, the other website takes your link off and puts someone else’s in its place. But unless you’ve written down the url where the link resides, you’ll likely never find out.
When you first verify that they’ve posted the link, you can simply copy the url into a spreadsheet that you’ve created to track such things. You might include the date, anchor text, contact info, etc. Now, with the low value that only one links brings, you may ask yourself if tracking each link (and verifying that it’s still live) is even worth it. It’s debatable, but I would suggest only tracking some if the more valuable links if you’re going to do it manually. Of course, BacklinkReporter will automatically track all of this for you, but it’s up to you.
Variability of Anchor Text
One thing that I rely upon heavily in my link building efforts is my list of anchor text (keywords) that I’ve received links for. By each keyword I have a number of links that I’ve received for that keyword. That way, I can quickly see a rundown of what I have received and hence, know which links are should be focusing on next. Again, a simple spreadsheet accomplishes this, or you can use an automated tool to do it for you.
The PR of Linking Pages
While the true value of the PR of pages that are linking to your website is debatable, all things equal, I’d rather have a higher PR page link to me than a lower one. Tracking the PR of your links can add another dimension to how you go about your link building efforts. If you go about it blindly, it’s possible that you end up giving your keywords uneven emphasis in the links that you get for them.
While not essential, I’ve always found it very useful to track the PR of the linking pages with the keyword so I know what kind of links to go after for my next keywords.
Tracking your backlinks, whether you do it manually with a spreadsheet or using BacklinkReporter, can pay big dividends down the road in your SEO and link building efforts. It doesn’t take much time, but can provide you with quick answers to questions that you’re sure to ask the next time you’re asking for specific anchor text in a link.