Dear Hivers,
Discussing internal and external links in our earlier SEO guide, we also brushed through backlinks. In this article, we will explore backlinks in detail.
You will see why backlinks matter — and then various ways to create powerful backlinks. It will only take a couple of minutes. So if you are interested in SEO and influencing Hive in your own way? You will enjoy this article.
But before we get started, let us recap what backlinks really are and then discuss further.
Links from the “outside” world pointing to your website are considered backlinks. They link back to you. Hence the term backlinks. In this case, they link to Hive. As you can see from the example below, CoinTelegraph and Facebook are linking back to Hive.
Search engine spider (a bot) loves backlinks. It sees a backlink and gives the website a score. This is how search engine thinks. And really, it tries to think like a human.
Therefore it is important to discuss backlinks in detail.
Check out this tweet from Ellen — it was one of the most retweeted tweet in 2017. Many experts believe the tweet was popular because of one reason:
The photo doesn't have one but many celebrities.
Similarly, backlinks are powerful when there isn’t just one but many backlinks. Thousand is more powerful than one. It captures the attention of search engine. That is why a viral article also ranks higher — as it is shared on social media and linked by hundreds of other websites.
The conclusion is: more backlinks are always good.
When it comes Hive? The first step is to check the number of backlinks we have. Let’s take Hive.blog. I am using this tool to analyse our backlinks.
As you can see from the image below, Hive has a total of 657,000+ backlinks. That's 0.65 million. As per the tool, we also have around 33,000 organic visitors every month. That's pretty good, right? Especially for a four month new blockchain platform.
Let's take another example. Steemit has been around for 4 years now and it has a whopping 60+ million backlinks. Almost 100 times more than Hive.
What about Reddit? Not in millions. It has 2.5 billion backlinks. And Facebook beats everyone with 25 billion backlinks.
Coming back to Hive, we have 0.65 million backlinks. Not a lot compared to others, right? We definitely have a long road ahead of us.
But the good news is:
Backlinks grow with time. We can also grow them naturally and manually.
Note: If you have observed, there is an untold relationship between backlinks and traffic. More backlinks lead to more traffic. And more traffic also leads to more backlinks. They both work together.
The biggest question is: What can we do to increase the number of backlinks on Hive? We have two ways:
Method 1: Building backlinks organically
In this scenario, most of the links are created organically (naturally). Non-Hive platforms link to us. How to make this happen? We have two ways:
Writing kickass content on Hive. When kickass content is created on the Hive.blog platform, people will naturally link to it from the external platforms. Also, by kickass content, it doesn’t mean just text. One can also create infographics, sketches, photos, and so on.
Build dapps / games. This is limited to developers but anytime a dapp is built on Hive blockchain? It receives media attention. For example: Every time people refer to Splinterlands, they may also talk about the Hive blockchain.
Example: Dapp, Dappradar, StateoftheDapps are websites regularly linking to Hive because of the Hive dapps.
These are the two ways Hive organically generates backlinks. Of course, we have little control over it. Just knowing this helps though.
Method 2: Building backlinks manually
This is something we can control.
In fact, because we are a community, we have tremendous power. Manually building backlinks can do wonders. For example: If I told you to share your Hive.blog URL on Twitter, then you are generating one backlink.
Because we are in hundreds and thousands, we can manually generate hundreds and thousands of backlinks. Some of the ways are:
Share your Hive post on social media. Be it Facebook, Twitter, or any social media platform. Moment you publish your article, you can share it on these platforms.
Write a guest post: Here's an example on Hackernoon. The article was published by 3Speak's founder Dan and it links to Hive.io blockchain. Writing a guest post and linking back to Hive is a great way to increase the domain authority score as well. Some free platforms to write on: Medium and Publish0x.
Add Hive profile URL. You can add your Hive profile URL on any platform including Twitter, Steemit, and Medium.
Example: Here's my Twitter account:
You see where we are going with this? From YouTube to forums — you are free to use any active or inactive accounts you own. As long as you are comfortable, add the Hive URL (your post or your profile link).
The bottomline is: Whenever an opportunity presents itself? Add the link. Every backlink counts.
Good backlinks are the key ingredients for long-term growth. With enough time, these backlinks continue to add up — they grow like new plants. Especially on a platform like Hive where we have hundreds and thousands of users.
Some are already sharing and talking about Hive on Twitter. Others on Facebook. And a tiny percentage of them are sharing Hive links on Reddit.
Overtime, these backlinks accumulate and empower the platform. Luckily, as a community, we can also take tiny steps to generate backlinks.
In fact, we already saw the two methods to add backlinks: one organically and the other manually. Let’s explore today’s exercise with the focus on manual backlinks:
This week’s exercise:
Exercise 1: Add Your Hive profile
- Find a platform where you can add links
- Add your Hive profile as the URL
Example: Add Hive URL in the bio of your Twitter, Medium, and Steemit account.
Exercise 2: Share your published post
- After you hit the publish button, share your Hive post on any social media website.
- If you are using Twitter, you can also use the hashtag #Hive #POSH (proof-of-sharing)
Bonus tip: If you are using Reddit, you can share on Hivenetwork (run by @acidyo) or any other relevant subreddit (see the list here).
That’s it for now. 🔥
Most people scale and monitor backlinks but we don’t have to. All we have to do is share as much as possible. It not only helps Hive but also impacts your own profile — and you get to build your audience too.
That is why I created the exercises above. Perhaps give it a try if you haven’t done it already. Like each drop filling the ocean, each link counts. This way, we can truly lock Hive’s growth through our effort.
After all, we are a community. Let's empower each other!
With this thought, I hope and wish this article was useful. Do let me know your thoughts in the comment section. I would love to hear from you. See you in the next guide!
Cheers,
Sid
Liked this article? Feel free to comment and upvote and reblog.
As we are talking about backlinks, I shared this post on Twitter - every bit helps. #POSH
Kickass content, that's always a good idea!
Thank you! Wish to finish it with an exercise so all of us can indulge in activities. :)
Great!
Still studying this, but a few things I'm finding out.
Don't spam comment sections. Google penalizes that behavior, and many comment sections (such as WordPress automatically assign the links as NoFollow. Depending on where you are commenting, if the option is available NoFollow is the way to go, even though it provides no backlink juice in search engines.
Be careful of sites such as the one you use, Ubersuggest. Many of these sites want access (Ubersuggest) to your login credentials with Google. In Neils case, I know he is considered a guru, but the fact he has a recurring annual fee of 1500.00 for his course on how to be a blog success makes me feel he is a bit of a snake.
Never pay to guest post. Many do, and don't realize they are paying to get posted on a PBN, which Google hates. Google will penalize your site if you use one.
Never pay for backlink builders. They are typically spinning stolen content and spamming them everywhere, which will also get you penalized.
If you can make videos, do use sites like Youtube where you can redirect people to your blog. Youtube is a powerful social backlink, as well as possible traffic funnel. If your post isn't considered controversial, once you have enough views and followers you can actually monetize the videos as well.
Thank you!
You are spot on. Glad you also mentioned nofollow links For a community-driven platform like ours, monitonirng and scaling backlinks are really tough. To have a good nofollow/dofollow ration is impossible.
So we let everyone loose — and bring in both kinds of links. I believe Reddit links are nofollow too. And yes, no comment spamming. Very important.
True. I wanted to point to Moz or SEMrush but they are equally limited. Everyone reading this should note about such tools.
Great point.
Overall, solid addition to this post. Thanks for sharing these insights. Appreciate it.
More!!! keep this info coming!!!
Haha! YES! YES. Thanks for the support. Appreciate it.
My Girl does SEO copy writing. @liz.writes She just joined Hive and is getting ready to drop her introducemyself
Noted. Followed. Upvoted. Looking forward to know more. <3
Thanks!
You the man bro!
Ah, cheers for the helpful tip in getting more traffic onto the Hive. So, in summary, backlinks are links to posts on Hive that are shared elsewhere, then. I guess all that #posh on Twitter does help a lot, eh? Given that I #posh my posts on Twitter and LinkedIn, that's two backlinks (not counting profile page URL), right?
Thanks again, and have a lovely day 😁
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Exactly. Glad you said in your own way. Something we do it but not consciously. Backlink is just a labeling.
It does. Note that #posh only tracks Twitter from what I know. If there was a way to track all the links (on social media or anywhere on the Internet) that would be pretty cool.
Thanks for sharing on LinkedIn and Twitter. Why LinkedIn though?
Ah, interesting. It would be pretty neat to track all that data across different social media streams, for sure! Honestly, I only used LinkedIn as a way to connect better with professionals or the more serious business-y folk, if and when that time comes that someone contracts me to write something, or other freelance things.
In reality, I've only single digit followers on LinkedIn, and with very few interactions other than sharing my Hive posts 😁. 99% of all social media stuff with me are on Twitter, but I guess it's good to have a backup. It's still there, just for the heck of it, and there are some Hive folk trying to spread the good word on LinkedIn, as well!
Gosh. Love that you have a single digit follower. What do you do for a living?
Currently, writing and blogging, freelance. I really don't spend any time at all on LinkedIn, almost none, thus explaining why I've not really built much of a following or connection. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing, but I guess I've built more connectivity on Twitter.
great!
Thank you brother for your ongoing support.