Once newbies to SEO figure out how important backlinks are to your site, a lot of them run out and buy links from every end of the web. After the 1000th backlink and no change in the Google SERPs, they will probably start to rethink your strategy. Let’s face it: there is no way to cheat the Google algorithm. If we could, then the sites with the most money and best tricksters would always come out on top and all of our searches would be completely useless. When you buy links, you shouldn’t be thinking of it as a way to cheat but rather as a way to start networking. Since all businesses, including online sites, are about getting powerful friends, buying links is a bit like making campaign contributions to the right politician. If you are going to buy links, you better make sure that you are networking with the right sites with the power to get you results. Here are tips for when you buy links:
1. Relevancy! Buy links only from sites which are relevant to you own.
2. Do not buy links from sites which already have many paid links.
3. Be careful of buying links which will be labeled as “sponsored” or “paid.”
4. Pay attention to where the backlinks you buy will be placed. If you can buy links which will be placed in the middle of content, this is a big plus. Try to avoid buying backlinks which will be in footers or sidebars. Especially avoid links that will be placed on a separate page. These may be interpreted as link farms by Google!
5. Mind your anchor text. You want to make sure that your anchor text looks natural. You should also be varying your anchor text on every single page from which you buy backlinks.
6. Look at the page ranking of the site for its own keywords. If the site cannot do well for its targeted keywords, then it will probably not help your site.
7. Don’t just buy links for your homepage. You should be getting links which are pointed towards all the pages which are in your website.
8. Don’t focus on page rank while deciding where to buy your backlinks. Page rank is usually not up to date. New pages may have a low page rank but can still provide you with great backlinks, assuming that they are pertinent to your targeted industry.