Barry Schwartz Asks Jim Boykin About Link Building, Disavow, Domain Authority and More

Barry Schwartz from Search Engine Roundtable and Jim Boykin from Internet Marketing Ninjas have done a series of videos discussing important SEO topics and recent SEO trends.

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You can also watch all these videos on the Ninja Youtube channel!

Barry and Boykin did 9 videos

1. Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO?

Short Answer: Yes! In fact, backlinks may very well be the most important ranking factor. They can boost your rankings (if you do link building right) or they can tank them (if you engage in a low quality link building).

There are of course other important factors into play (you won’t rank without content or good usability) but links definitely play a key role as ranking signals.

To do it right, check our link building service.

Watch the video: Are Backlinks Still Important for SEO?

2. What Are the Most Important On-Page Tips?

Short Answer: The title tag is still the most important ranking signal to Google as Google uses it to understand what the page is about.

Watch the video: On-page Optimization Tips

3. Do you recommend that people do a Google disavow?

Short Answer: Most people, because they don’t know what they’re doing, end up doing more harm to their sites when the do disavows.

You have to understand links very well in order to analyze links properly and use multiple data sources (Search Console, Moz, Majestic, Ahrefs, etc.)

Watch the video: Do you recommend that people do a Google disavow? 

4. How do you analyze links for a disavow?

Short Answer: It depends on what you are facing: A manual penalty (in this case you will need a reconsideration request) or an algorithmic update (which may or may not have anything to do with links).

Not all ranking drops are about links, and in many cases you don’t have to perform a disavow. First you must decide whether you need a disavow in the first place.

In either case, disavowing links requires a lot of analyzing and experience.

Watch the video: How do you analyze links for a disavow? 

5. Is domain authority an accurate measurement?

Short Answer: No.

First thing to understand is that DA is a metric that doesn’t come from Google. These are third-party services that have nothing to do with Google. So Domain Authority cannot indicate what Google thinks about your site.

Watch the video: Is domain authority an accurate measurement? 

6. Should you spend more time writing content or working to get links?

Short Answer: Both content and links are equally important.

You have to have the world’s best content in order to get links. And if you don’t have backlinks, no one will see that great content. 

Watch the video: Should you spend more time writing content or working to get links? 

7. What are your thoughts on guest blog posts for getting backlinks?

Short Answer: I don’t believe in guest posting as a link building tactic.

I believe bloggers who I know but guest blogging for link building is usually about getting links from fake blogs that are part of the network and those links can get your links into trouble.

Watch the video: What are your thoughts on guest blog posts for getting backlinks?

8. What is more important for ranking – content or backlinks?

Short Answer: Without one, the other is worthless, so you need both.

You need content to rank, and there are no rankings without backlinks.

Watch the video: What is more important for ranking – content or backlinks?

9. What tools do you use to measure backlinks?

Short Answer: We are using our own internal tool to analyze the backlinks but we are grabbing the data from Moz, Majestic, Ahrefs, SEOkicks, etc. We also grab your Google Analytics data to find links that actually send you traffic.

Watch: What tools do you use to measure backlinks? 

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