Building backlinks
Backlinks are links from other websites pointing at your store. Search engines treat each one as a vote for your credibility, and they remain one of the strongest ranking signals. This guide covers how to earn them, plus one method you control yourself.
Why backlinks matter
Pages with quality links behind them consistently outrank pages without. Backlinks also pull new content into the index faster, and they send real people to your store whether or not you rank.
Dofollow links pass ranking value; nofollow links tell search engines not to. Nofollow still sends you visitors and still makes your profile look natural, so don't chase dofollow exclusively.
Earn links with something worth linking to
The most reliable strategy is to publish something other people want to reference: an in-depth buying guide, a genuine comparison, or original research. Your store's Article Writer will draft one, so this starts as an editing job.
From there: guest post on blogs in your niche, ask to be added to relevant resource pages (search "your niche + useful resources"), offer your page as a replacement for a dead link on a niche site, and submit to directories real people use. Sharing on social media, Reddit and niche forums counts too: nofollow links, but real referral traffic.
The article method: backlinks you control
Outreach depends on other people saying yes. This method does not.
Start with topics. Note the questions that keep coming up where your niche gathers (Facebook groups, Reddit, Quora), or use the formats that always work: top ten products, common mistakes, how to maintain them, how to choose as a beginner, buying guides.
Then create them. The Article Writer turns a topic into a finished draft, which is what makes this method practical for one person. You can also write them yourself or outsource on Fiverr.
🔗 Article Writer feature guide
Now publish them somewhere other than your store. Plenty of platforms let you post articles under a profile you own: LinkedIn (its Articles feature, not ordinary posts), Google Sites, HubPages, Tumblr, Quora, LiveJournal, Wattpad and Blogger.
Most links should point at your store, but mix in links to your other published articles and social profiles so the pattern looks natural.
Credibility is what makes them worth having. Give each profile a name, bio and picture (a pseudonym is fine, use the same one everywhere), then comment and reshare so the account reads as a person rather than a link drop.
What not to point at your store
Some tactics get your store penalised:
- Bought links, link farms and PBNs. Paying for links, or joining a network of fake sites that link to each other, breaches Google's guidelines and can remove your store from search.
- Spammy comments and automated tools. Blog-comment links get you flagged, and anything promising hundreds of backlinks quickly is spam.
- Irrelevant links. Worth almost nothing, and they look suspicious to Google.
Focus on strategies that would still make sense if search engines didn't exist.
Using riskier SEO strategies
If you want to try risky SEO strategies (i.e. "Gray Hat" or "Black Hat" strategies), you can use them to build backlinks to your profiles and articles on the platforms above.
This will protect your main store from any negative effects, and if the worst happens, you can close down your accounts there and start a new one.
One or two a month is plenty
This is not a campaign. One good article published somewhere relevant, once or twice a month, and each keeps counting for as long as it stays up.
🔗 Social Signals