This week, Blog Notes’ journey is not just about blogging; rather, it focuses on one blogger’s quest to acquire backlinks. Khul Anwar is an upcoming blogger and has rolled out a master plan to acquire backlinks the “Google Way.” Here is his story.
In a previous post, I mentioned my experiment to get traffic for my brand-new website using SEO.
But SEO has evolved. These days, SEO doesn’t just mean optimizing your site for Google; it also means optimizing for LLMs like ChatGPT, Perplexity, Grok, etc. Some people are even referring to this new approach as LEO (LLM Engine Optimization).
Here’s my experiment: I built GraffitiVibe, and I’ve been trying to get backlinks as early as possible, even while the product is still in development.
So, let’s dive in.
SEO = Valuable Content + Trust
The core of SEO is simple; no need for fancy buzzwords or complex jargon.
You just need two things:
If your website consistently delivers both, it will grow.
But how do you build backlinks using that?
Start with valuable content. This means your website should solve real problems for users.
I will give you an example:
Say you’re a chef. Most of your content on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram is about cooking. Then, out of nowhere, you post an article about investing in stocks or crypto.
Is that content potentially valuable? Maybe.
But will users trust your advice on investing?
Probably not.
That’s the point. Google and LLMs want users to get valuable information that can also be trusted.
So if you have experience with a specific topic, go all in. Create as much content as possible around it. Over time, Google and LLMs will start to recognize you as an expert in that field.
That’s why Google has a well-known SEO concept called E-E-A-T:
Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness.
What are backlinks, and why do they matter?
Backlinks are links from other websites pointing to yours.
The more relevant and trusted websites that link to your site, the more Google sees your content as trustworthy, too.
But relevance is key.
If your website is about food, then backlinks from other food or culinary-related sites are far more valuable than random ones from unrelated topics.
Let me give you an analogy:
Imagine Mark Zuckerberg mentions your cool SaaS project during a public talk. He shares how great his experience was using your product. I guarantee people would instantly check it out.
Why?
- Zuck is famous; everyone knows him.
- He’s an authority in tech, which is directly relevant to your SaaS.
In real life:
The more well-known and relevant people talk about you, the more people trust you.
In SEO:
The more well-known and relevant websites mention or link to you, the more search engines trust your site. That’s the power of backlinks.
I challenged myself to increase my Domain Rating (DR) from 0 to 20 within 30 days.
Where am I now with my backlinks challenge?
The product is ready to launch, and I’m planning to go live today.
Also, today is Day 7 of this challenge, and I already have about 10+ sites linking to GraffitiVibe.
I checked Ahrefs, and it has detected 1 backlink so far.
I also just checked ChatGPT and Perplexity. It seems that Perplexity has no idea about my brand-new website, while ChatGPT has just discovered it.
Here’s the result from ChatGPT when I asked, Do you know GraffitiVibe?
Same question, different result in Perplexity.
Seems that the backlink strategy is working, despite the progress being slow
So… let me cook?
