Beware of shady backlink tactics

Search for an SEO checklist in Google and you’ll see recommendations to add backlinks to your site.

Backlinks are a great signal to Google that your Shopify website provides valuable content. They act as a recommendation where one website links to another presumably to say this is good information.

Yet backlinks likely play a small role in your overall SEO success. Otherwise your competitors would send backlinks to your site from crappy sources just to sabotage you.

Buying backlinks

First, let me say that I would never encourage buying links. Period. In general, link buying always hurts in the long term more than the small benefits you MAY get in the short term.

A JSON-LD for SEO customer recently reached out and said they bought links because they are at their wits end and need traffic. However SEMRush and Ahrefs called the links "suspicious" and they weren't sure what to do.

I hear ya! You're taking a chance and that's your right to do so.

Just remember there are no shortcuts!

SEO tools will attempt to "help" by showing your Domain Authority (DA) or Domain Rating (DR) along with the link you're buying.

You may see your Domain Authority is 9, which is low. You need to bring that up, we recommend adding backlinks to your site.

So you go to another tool or SEO Guru to buy backlinks and they say the Domain Rank from this site is 60+ so we recommend buying this link.

You think, great!! That must help me!

But it reality, you need to take these ratings with a grain of salt.

These tools do not have any insider information to Google that you do not.

Domain Rating, Domain Authority, and suspicious links are made up from the tooling as a way for you to measure "success" but who decides that? They are not getting these metrics from Google or any other search engine. They are making it up.

In other words, their Domain Rating or Domain Authority scores are proprietary scores that may have zero impact in your actual search results.

My customer said something that I think fits perfectly when it comes to buying backlinks.

backlinks, it's your risk and your reward or demise

He meant for that to be my title of this article, but it's so spot on!

Email's requesting backlinks

I’d wager that many of you receive emails offering to post a link to your Shopify site if you link to theirs in return.

SWEET!

A free backlink. That’s what we want right?

Well....

If you know the person emailing you, know their content is good, and the link is relevant, go for it!

Generic backlink requests

Here’s a sample email that was sent to a Shopify store owner. I’ve removed all the identifying information because let’s face it, these are all the same and the specifics don’t matter.

Hi,
My name is [NAME] and I am with [SOME RANDOM COMPANY].
I was researching "[INSERT KEYWORD]" posts and came across "[RANDOM PAGE THAT MATCHES SAID KEYWORD]".
I wrote an article "[SEMI-RELATIVE TITLE]" on [RANDOM WEBSITE] and would like to link back to your website as a resource from the article.
[INSERT FACTS TO MAKE YOU THINK I'M LEGIT]
In return, I would highly appreciate it if you could add a link back to my website on "[YOUR WEBSITE]".
Do let me know if you are interested and I will send across a line you can add which will match your content flow.
That way we both rank higher on Google, improve our brand visibility and get more traffic.
Looking forward to your reply.
Regards

On the surface, you may think this is great. You get a link to your site and they get one to theirs. Sounds fair.

I would caution you on these types of emails. In most cases when it’s a cold email like this, the value for you is zero. They usually go into my “special bin” and I never respond.

Here are a few things that would cause me to put it in my special bin.

1. They want to exchange backlinks which means they care more about what’s in it for them than the reader. A high-quality backlink is from someone who does it because it’s a good product, not because they get something in return.
2. When they use a Gmail address instead of the company domain, something is phishy. If you’re with a larger organization that would add value to my site, then where is your email address?
3. There are no links to the company’s website so you have to search for the URL and determine if it’s a legit company. You shouldn’t have to investigate if the company is legit.
4. In the section, they mention a well-recognized website with stats. When I don’t see a link to the article (or any article they’ve written as a reference), they are name-dropping. Verify they actually wrote the article and confirm the domain they link to is the real site.
5. To exchange a backlink means you have to have a place to put their link. Let’s say you agree to this. How would you link back to them in a way that makes sense?
6. Backlinks should be earned, not paid for or traded.

I could go on. In the end, more often than not, these emails are a no from me.

Build Backlinks

The ultimate goal with getting backlinks is to build awareness for your products and company.

We want to tell search engines that these pages that are linked together are relevant and meaningful to customers who click on the links.

So look for ways to build backlinks from other sites that is natural and relevant to your business.

• Continue to create great products and content. People will link to your Shopify site because they want to, not because it benefits them.
• Ask your vendors, suppliers, resellers, and wholesalers for links.
• Ask a professional critic to write a review on your product with a link back to your site.
• Reach out to influencers to partner with them and write reviews of your products.
• Collaborate with another company to do a co-branded thing, sponsor an event, or sponsor a non-profit. 
  
• Consider guest speaking or guest writing content for other sources. Guest posting is an opportunity to use other people’s audiences to get your name out there.