In an earlier article, we discussed about some ways to increase the amount of inbound links, or backlinks. To add to that list, we are suggesting that, if you’re a web design/SEO firm, it may be in your best interest to create custom, free HTML templates for people to download and use.
Should you create and publish an attractive HTML theme, people may post it on their website. When you attach your homepage URL to the bottom of that theme, that will count as a viable backlink to your website. Many people today try to set up quick-and-easy websites with little effort. As such they will try to set up a free, off-the-shelf CMS with a ready-made template. A fine example of the theme-based CMS to look out for is WordPress.
WordPress has a reputation of being one of the easiest and fastest blogs, and CMS’s, in the world to install and manage. Many people that set up and install WordPress sites, which number in the millions, are looking for a shortcut method to launch a website in as little time as possible. WordPress allows you to select from a choice of attractive themes, which is more popular than creating a custom one. That’s simply how human nature is – find the simplest, cheapest solution available that works without much creative thought required. When people find your HTML theme to be attractive and also represent their business well, they will choose that and not do much template editing afterward. By adding a link on the bottom saying something like, “WordPress Theme Designed by Company X,” you’re credited with backlinks from those WordPress sites, and for each of the blog posts/pages on those sites.
Inbound Links Case Study: Digital Nature
Digital Nature is a Romanian-based website freelance company that has almost 4 million backlinks and a pagerank of 7. We’ve decided to do a case study on them since their WordPress designs are highly popular and their CMS themes are downloaded en masse.
In searching for the “most popular” WordPress templates, we came across one called “Mystique” made by Digital Nature.
We then went to their main website and performed an “SEO Quake” on them. This software revealed that, not only was the sites’ page rank 7 (which is unusually exceptional), the amount of inbound links (backlinks), according to Yahoo Site Explorer, was 3,718,293, or close to 4 million.
Clicking on this number for more details, we decided to text one of the websites that was linking back to Digital Nature’s website, a site called Pure Essence.
We then went onto the Pure Essence website and scrolled down to the bottom.
On the bottom of the page was “Mystique theme by digitalnature (with link) | Powered By WordPress.” Voila! An instant backlink! What makes it better is that this link will appear on each of the template’s pages. The more pages/blog posts the template user creates, the more inbound links your website will be credited. It’s almost viral.
Conclusion on Inbound Links
In the end of the day, Inbound Linking has proven to give websites higher SERPs (Search Engine Ranking Positions), and this is one of the cleanest ways possible. No link farms, no “guaranteed thousands of backlinks” software, none of that. The method described above, though, is highly effective and works well.