Create backlink to category, not article

Hi

What is your opinion on making powerufull backlink to the category instead of only one article? So that ranking will flow to all the articles in that category?

Or its better to link to the pilar, that have internal links to the other articles?

Or, option 3, backlink to low fruit that will be more easy to rank? But how to use that link authority to push the rest of the articles?

All opinions welkome

Thanks

Homepage , pillar posts, posts and pages. Don't put links on categories it's not natural to have links to categories.

IM Dude said:

Homepage , pillar posts, posts and pages. Don't put links on categories it's not natural to have links to categories.

Click to expand...

What would you do in this scenario...

In my country/niche (not English) top 10 main keywords with the most searches/month are categories on first 1, 2 sometimes even top 3 pages!

Your site, in this case mine Start doing the same thing, no backlinks, nothing done, categories start going up and up and up and up...

So, what would you do?

I know what is the "problem" here, but I'm asking you, what would you do?

When I started I was thinking I'm going crazy.

MrDenz said:

What would you do in this scenario...

In my country/niche (not English) top 10 main keywords with the most searches/month are categories on first 1, 2 sometimes even top 3 pages!

Your site, in this case mine Start doing the same thing, no backlinks, nothing done.

So, what would you do?

I know what is the "problem" here, but I'm asking you, what would you do?

When I started I was thinking I'm going crazy.

Click to expand...

I dont know, this is blogging section I talk about blogging here you know I am saying.

No. Anything past one link isn’t doing anything for your sites authority. It’s not a bad thing either, more just a waste of your time. If you’re currently focusing on a backlink strategy, your energy is best spent on getting links from different sites. The higher the DA the better.

Thank you all for the answers.
@IM Dude @MrDenz @robe50203
Cheers

Try giving backlinks to your individual posts or pages instead of category. Then, from those posts or pages, create internal links to your pillar content.

MrDenz said:

What would you do in this scenario...

In my country/niche (not English) top 10 main keywords with the most searches/month are categories on first 1, 2 sometimes even top 3 pages!

Your site, in this case mine Start doing the same thing, no backlinks, nothing done, categories start going up and up and up and up...

So, what would you do?

I know what is the "problem" here, but I'm asking you, what would you do?

When I started I was thinking I'm going crazy.

Click to expand...

that's interesting...

Do those category pages address the intent of the keywords they rank for? Because if they do, it would partially explain the success, but if they don't... most certainly the websites are strong and probably have good silo and internal links, too...

tazarbm said:

that's interesting...

Do those category pages address the intent of the keywords they rank for? Because if they do, it would partially explain the success, but if they don't... most certainly the websites are strong and probably have good silo and internal links, too...

Click to expand...

The strong SILO is one of the reasons that I actualy asked if its a good idea to link to the category. I am not noob, but not expert, learning from our great BHW forum, and I think I follow good SILO structure guidelines for my niche sites

In the end, it comes down to try and test. Will try go get some power link to the category and see of get any result comparing to normal one backlink - one url approach

tazarbm said:

that's interesting...

Do those category pages address the intent of the keywords they rank for? Because if they do, it would partially explain the success, but if they don't... most certainly the websites are strong and probably have good silo and internal links, too...

Click to expand...

In short, the niche is about cakes, cookies, and recipes [non-English].

One day I just typed a word in my language into ahrefs and I saw a 30k volume and a keyword difficulty of 1

Below that keyword, another 10k words with difficulty from 0 to 3 maximum!

At first, I thought that ahrefs was honestly screwing me, then I started typing some even stronger words and I was amazed

For example, I come across 1.9M searches with 10 difficulty and, of course, tons of it after that first one, crazy

It draws my attention and literally in the same second I go into testing action.

Because, ok, it's all nice, but until I test it all and don't see it myself, it's different...

In less than 2 weeks, I already received answers to all the questions I had in my mind

With further investigation, I found out that in that niche there are mostly older women who don't know what SEO is, women who learned how to use WordPress online and just posted recipes every day, took pictures, filmed, and now of course when you do that for 10/15 years, you have a YT channel with half a million followers, Instagram as well, sponsors all over place, a few million visits per month on the site, but as far as the structure of the pages and SEO in general, let's say that for maybe 1 out of 5 sites we can say "ok, this looks solid", everything else is scattered in all directions.

In my opinion, the competition "exists", but I blew that competition away (the test I did), in just 2 weeks.

In this case, Google does not have enough quality to be able to sort, for example, from the first to the tenth position, but I guess in my opinion, Google looks at who has more organic views, who is more active, and so on, and ranks them accordingly.

I have no other explanation...

I neglected the website a bit, I don't have time, but the hole is so big that 5 to 10 websites can be created here, earning you a solid sum passively, it just takes a damn time to sort everything out, and that's getting less and less.

Maybe I'll start a JV soon, I'll see, something has to be done there

Praetorian007 said:

The strong SILO is one of the reasons that I actualy asked if its a good idea to link to the category. I am not noob, but not expert, learning from our great BHW forum, and I think I follow good SILO structure guidelines for my niche sites

In the end, it comes down to try and test. Will try go get some power link to the category and see of get any result comparing to normal one backlink - one url approach

Click to expand...

um, I was replying to someone else...

But since we're at it...

Praetorian007 said:

What is your opinion on making powerufull backlink to the category instead of only one article? So that ranking will flow to all the articles in that category?

Click to expand...

I never dismissed the idea, and I even linked to category pages on my own sites. I know that most SEOs don't entertain the idea of wasting their links on category pages, but for me it made sense to do it.

Praetorian007 said:

Or its better to link to the pilar, that have internal links to the other articles?

Click to expand...

yeah, it's better to link to pillar pages, especially if they're hard to rank.

Praetorian007 said:

Or, option 3, backlink to low fruit that will be more easy to rank? But how to use that link authority to push the rest of the articles?

Click to expand...

personally, I wouldn't waste a powerful link on long tail keywords. If your silos are good and free-flowing you can benefit from building up the authority of your most important pages (the homepage and the category / pillar pages). And for the "low hanging fruit" you can use web 2.0s, article directories, etc...

MrDenz said:

One day I just typed a word in my language into ahrefs and I saw a 30k volume and a keyword difficulty of 1

Below that keyword, another 10k words with difficulty from 0 to 3 maximum!

At first, I thought that ahrefs was honestly screwing me, then I started typing some even stronger words and I was amazed

For example, I come across 1.9M searches with 10 difficulty and, of course, tons of it after that first one, crazy

Click to expand...

I think there's something wrong with Ahrefs, I rarely see keywords with so much volume having zero difficulty. There are some, but not as many in one niche as you found

So yeah, I wouldn't trust Ahrefs' assessment on those keywords, especially if you see strong sites ranking in top 5 for most of those keywords...

MrDenz said:

It draws my attention and literally in the same second I go into testing action.

Because, ok, it's all nice, but until I test it all and don't see it myself, it's different...

Click to expand...

that's the way to go about it, kudos to you!

MrDenz said:

In less than 2 weeks, I already received answers to all the questions I had in my mind

With further investigation, I found out that in that niche there are mostly older women who don't know what SEO is, women who learned how to use WordPress online and just posted recipes every day, took pictures, filmed, and now of course when you do that for 10/15 years, you have a YT channel with half a million followers, Instagram as well, sponsors all over place, a few million visits per month on the site, but as far as the structure of the pages and SEO in general, let's say that for maybe 1 out of 5 sites we can say "ok, this looks solid", everything else is scattered in all directions.

Click to expand...

so traffic is the name of the game in this niche...

MrDenz said:

In my opinion, the competition "exists", but I blew that competition away (the test I did), in just 2 weeks.

Click to expand...

understandable

MrDenz said:

In this case, Google does not have enough quality to be able to sort, for example, from the first to the tenth position, but I guess in my opinion, Google looks at who has more organic views, who is more active, and so on, and ranks them accordingly.

Click to expand...

yeah, google have been having a hardon for community sites for years. I think that's why we see Reddit rank so well nowadays...

MrDenz said:

I have no other explanation...

Click to expand...

since you've managed to outrank them you already have the right explanation

MrDenz said:

I neglected the website a bit, I don't have time, but the hole is so big that 5 to 10 websites can be created here, earning you a solid sum passively, it just takes a damn time to sort everything out, and that's getting less and less.

Maybe I'll start a JV soon, I'll see, something has to be done there

Click to expand...

had I still had interest in SEO I would have partnered up with you. I'm envious now

But anyway, good luck with it! If it's so profitable (and easy apparently), I wouldn't postpone this!

This will not look normal to Google and look like you are attempting to create these links yourself. You should always create backlinks which look organic and natural to Google. Otherwise they will issue you a penalty.

Ignore the neigh-sayers. There is nothing wrong with building links to and ranking category pages.