Ask An SEO: Should I Point Guest Post Backlinks To Homepages Or Individual Ones?

This week’s Ask An SEO question comes from Nazim from Islamabad, who asks:

“I have a price comparison/aggregator website with my country’s domain. I want to ask what type of backlinks/guests posts should I have (local/international).

Also, I should build backlinks to my homepage or category/individual pages, too? Besides are (name removed) and (name removed) authentic platforms for backlinks building?”

Great question, Nazim, and happy to help.

I’m breaking the answer into three sections: The first is guest posting in general, then the homepage or category and individual pages, and the last is where to get quality links.

The first two have a TL;DR if you’re short on time. Otherwise, there’s a longer explanation if you want the thoughts or SEO theory behind it.

I’d like to emphasize where to get backlinks before going into the rest of the post.

Where To Get Backlinks

If you want backlinks that can move the needle and build stability, it comes down to quality and natural backlinks. This means the website should:

• Not list that they allow guest posting or advertorials anywhere (except in the case of mass media as advertorials are clearly marked).
• Only allow vetted and knowledgeable contributors who are invited to write columns.
• Have quality control policies in place, including using proper link attributes like “sponsored, nofollow, etc.”
• Not link to topically irrelevant sites externally, and definitely not the big P’s (****, payday, pills, personal loans, etc.) unless you’re in those industries.
• Make it hard to get an actual link (social media, forums, and blog comments allow anyone to post, and many allow links, so they are not earned or hard to get).

You can get quality links from:

• Local media sites and blogs for local businesses.
• Industry and trade publications.
• Niche websites and content creators.
• National media in directly relevant and non-affiliate sections.
• PR stunts and events that have direct tie-ins (not scholarships or grants) to your actual products and services (don’t do a surfboarding scholarship and expect to rank long-term).

Guest Posting For Backlinks

TL;DR: Guest posting has its place, but it should not be used to build backlinks because guest posts are not earned.

Guest posting can build trust in you as an expert or brand authority and drive an audience to your website who is interested in the content you produce, the products you sell, or the services you offer.

Guest posting should only be done on topically relevant websites with an active audience, where audience acquisition – not backlinks – is the goal.

When Not To Do Guest Posting

The first thing is that guest posting and link database providers, based on my experience, are red flags SEO-wise and should not be used.

That doesn’t mean good ones don’t exist. Think about it this way.

If you’re using the same systems as everyone else, and it’s the same sites, or there’s a low cost to entry, your links are likely going to be part of a PBN (private blog network, also known as link farms, link wheels, link exchange networks, etc.) or easily mapped network.

The search engines will ignore these links, and you will waste your time and money.  Other times, they could lead to an action against your website because they are not natural.

More importantly, if you can get into or see a list of them, do you think search engines cannot access them?

There are third-party tools like Majestic SEO that database and map these all the time.

If they’re able to find PBNs and guest posting rings as an independent company, Google, Bing, and giant corporations can likely do it at a much larger scale.

If these sites allow themselves to be listed in databases and actively allow guest posting or link selling because they make money from it, they’re likely going to be ignored or eventually cause a manual action for unnatural link building.

Instead, focus on links other sites do not have and that are not part of these systems or platforms.

Getting the links nobody else has from topically relevant websites and genuine non-pay-to-play websites helps move the needle, especially if the site is a trusted authority in your niche.

When To Guest Post

If you decide guest posting is part of your business plan, focus on websites that are topically relevant to your industry and have your users as subscribers.

The website should also have a readership base that comes back at least once a week to read new content that has been published.

Search Engine Journal is a good example.

I do not use it to build backlinks to my blog, but I do contribute because one of the services my marketing agency offers is SEO.

Marketers engage with SEJ’s webinars, podcasts, newsletter blasts, social media, and they check back for new content.

By contributing via the columns, I’m reaching an audience of marketers, which is my target audience.

Some of you also write and ask how to subscribe and get access as I publish new content (thank you, by the way; I let the editorial staff know).

Being a columnist allows me to build trust with the readership who checks back. I don’t do it for backlinks, and I don’t think I’ve ever sourced my site from one of my articles.

If there is a link, it was added by its editors because they thought my resource was high enough quality, and they didn’t have one of their own.

Linking To The Homepage Or A Category Page

TL;DR: Link to your homepage and not a category page.

Categories do not provide more information or value; category page links are used to game the system and work against you. Categories will rank naturally when the rest of the website is trustworthy.

For guest posts and backlinks to feel natural, you should be referencing your own brand and homepage.

The alternate is if you have a resource, and the site you’re pitching does not have an equal one, get the link to your resource as it is original and the only one available.

Longer Explanation

I always recommend homepage links off of the brand when it comes to link building, especially with guest posting.

Being a brand that people search sends a very strong signal you’re an authority to algorithms.

When people search for your site by name, they’ll likely also add modifiers to the query, such as colors, sizes, adjectives, brands, etc.

These modifiers signal why people go to your website.

It could be the best recipe for brownies for health conditions like diabetes, which color of paint makes sense for a contemporary living room, or the right brand of servers and racks are needed for a data center.

These modifiers with your brand let the search engines know that if they want the person searching to keep using their engine, they need to crawl and index more of your website to find the specific page or category their searcher was looking for.

If the search engine only had your homepage indexed, but the person wants a specific product line, the search engine makes their user work harder than other search engines by having users search for the pages.

Here’s an example. If you sell wall paint, and the search engines only had your homepage, they would give that result as people search for your company by name.

Suddenly, the color you developed became the color of the year; now, people are searching for your brand plus the name of the color or the numeric mix to find it.

By not crawling and indexing your site, it cannot surface that specific page, but other search engines do.

If other search engines surface that specific color, they win the user. When more users search because the engine has better results, the search engine can show more ads.

The more ads they show, the more money they make. So, build your brand + modifiers.

When someone adds your brand plus “blue,” “washable,” “kitchen,” and other modifiers, the search engine will know it needs to explore further to keep the searcher coming back.

In the above scenario, winning the award or recognition will naturally build backlinks because your product or service won something of value. The same with the photograph of the year, holiday toy of the year, etc.

There’s a lot more to it, and this is where branding comes into play.

Once you’re a known brand or destination site that consumers trust, there’s a better chance that bloggers, journalists, and others will link to your category, review, blog posts, and comparison pages naturally.

If you do it from a guest post, it may count for a while, but it will also likely backfire, as you are giving yourself a backlink, not something earned.

Linking off of your brand gets that branded search going.

Search engines make their money by selling ad space. They can only sell ad space if users are searching. If they give bad results, fewer people will continue using their search engines, which is why they need to focus on quality.

Guest posting for backlinks is a bad idea.

Yes, it works until you get caught, so if you’re doing it for backlinks, always have a second and third strategy to offset the guest posting links.

If you want to do a churn and burn site where you grow it to sell fast, guest posting and PBNs can be a great strategy for you, but it is at the buyer’s expense who will pay the price.

When you want a website that makes money and generates steady revenue, go with evergreen and quality links instead of gimmicks and easy-to-trace techniques like guest posting.

I hope this helps.

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Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal