On April 16th – I wrote How to Increase Traffic on Your Website – with Backlinks In that blog, I submitted this website to 10 high quality directories and used a couple of SEO tools and backlink checkers to document the change.

It's May 16th, it's been one month since that post and 2 months since we started this blog – and it's time to check the backlinks and other SEO metrics.

I want to start with the SEO Review Tool – Backlink Checker – it's free to use here.

Here was the screenshot of the number of backlinks FreeTrainingWorkFromHome.com had a month ago.

One of my biggest concerns with these 8 backlinks I had a month ago was that 7 of them came from the same IP address!  That's not good for linking habits.  The search engines want to see diversity – they don't want you fishing for your links in the same pond.

A Lot Happened in One Month

Published 10 posts

Submitted to 10 directories

Commenting on quality blogs in my niche a few times a week.

Sharing on social media daily, until Google told me I was sharing too much – I have slowed down.  Social platforms – sharing bi-weekly: facebook, google+, twitter, pinterest and instagram.  I really need to figure out what is a good number for each site.

I shut down another site of mine that was a web design/wordpress tutorial site.  I had been selling something called the turn key blog – but once I found Wealthy Affiliate on March 12, 2018 – I found out that setting up WordPress for people was not needed anymore because the Site Builder in Wealthy Affiliate does that for you.  I pointed the old domain to my new site with a 301 permanent redirect and a change of address in Google Search Console.

I just fixed and error I was getting after I switched this site from http:// to https:// (I think it's fixed).

I got my first 3 clicks from Google and 11 clicks from Bing in the last month. 

Organic traffic!  WooHoo.  (remember my site is brand new as of March 12 – so a little over 2 months old)

Here is a screenshot May 16, 2018

The external backlinks – pointing to freetrainingworkfromhome.com went from 39 to 174 an increase of 374%

The Follow links went from 22% to 23% an increase of 4.5% (average is 20% – so above average)

The referring domains went from 8 to 42 an increase of 425%

The referring IP's went from 7 to 26 an increase of 271%

Overall, I am happy with these numbers. My link building efforts are heading in the right direction.

Next, let's check our links at the directories

As I look at the blog from April 16 – a month ago – I was on http:// – still had not switched over to https – which has me a little nervous about how this all is going to prove out.  I am one who wants before, after and – oh geez.  Are all those directory listings pointing to the http:// site?  Deep breath.

I asked Site Support what day I switched to SSL – March 19th. 

I just checked all of the links and yes – some of them only accept http.- so there is no avoiding having some http links.  I don't know what people do about this when they add SSL and their address changes to https!!!!

reddit.com – Yes – https:// and I have answered a couple of questions in the reddit community.
hubspot.com No – https://
alltop.com can't find url – resubmitted Yes – https
blogarama.com – pending approval Yes – https
blogs-collection.com can't find url resubmit 5-16-18 Yes – https
blogflux.com pending 5-16-2018 Yes – https
ontoplist.com active 5-16 Yes – https
blogtoplist.com active 5-16 #24 in SEO/Marketing with 48 visits Yes – https
bloghub.com resubmitted site/ says added successfully 5-16 Yes – https
blogville.us says it may take 180 days to review – does not take https

8 are https and 2 are not

4 directories are active backlinks
6 directories are pending approval or not found & resubmitted

Market Samurai

Just a reminder what these abbreviations stand for:
DA = Domain age in years
CF = Citation Flow measure of importance scale 0-100
TF = Trust Flow measure of authority/trustworthiness scale 0-100
IC = Index Count – # of pages indexed by bing
RDD = Referring Domains – unique domains pointing back to the domain
RDP = Referring Domains Page- unique domains pointing back to the page
BLP = Page Back Links – # of links pointing back to the page – does not include links from website itself
BLD = Domain Back Links – # of links pointing back to any page on the domain – does not include links from website itself
BLEG = Page .edu /.gov links – # of links pointing to the page from .edu /.gov
Title/URL/Desc/Head – keyword in Title/URL/Description/Header

So the info I have from Market Samurai is on the http://freetrainingworkfromhome.com and I was not yet putting both http and https into market samurai to check them both.
(these are before and after submitting to the 10 directories)

This one is a day later:

This is what I have been tracking ever since I noticed the numbers were different when I plugged the https site into market Samurai

On April 28th – I pointed my old website to https://freetrainingworkfromhome.com with a 301 redirect – and that may be why I had the Trust Flow drop of 17 points.  Because that old domain was one where I helped hundreds of people start their blogs – a lot of those start up blogs were (and still are) low ranking blogs.  Sometimes people don't put time into their blog – especially if they don't have training like Wealthy Affiliate gives to tell you what you should be doing.

Today, I stopped the 301 redirect.

So today, May 16th, here is the final Market Samurai report:

Conclusion:

I'd say things are heading in the right direction.  The only thing I am deeply disappointed with is the Trust Flow going down so low.

My other numbers are climbing steadily.

I started to get traffic from the search engines.  3 from Google and 11 from Bing.

One more really important metric –  SALES!
2 Wealthy Affiliate referrals went Premium – $16
Other Affiliate Sales (this site only) $37.50
Total sales = $53.50
Not bad for the end of month 2!

I am going to add a screenshot of the last 30 days of Google Analytics so we have one more thing to compare next month.

Aw and why not!  One more free tool to measure our progress. Moz Open Site Explorer

Market Samurai uses the metrics from Majestic – Moz is just another way to measure.  Instead of CF and TF we have DA and PA

Let me know if you learned anything – have anything to add—
– or If you would like a free analysis of your site with Market Samurai!

Yep – free. 

Leave me your domain name and a comment and I will answer with a screenshot.