Brooks Digital Marketing

Posts Tagged ‘linking’

Link building is where SEO’s that take their clients reputation seriously earn their money. If you weren’t already aware of this fact it’s probably because you care little or anything about how web sites get ranked or are very new to the online marketing scene.

Well if you fall into the former camp beware, one day soon most businesses are going to come around to the fact that marketing on the internet is going to be about as critical to success as breathing is to us. And guess what, links are the most important factor that Google uses to rank your web site.

Yes, yes you can tweak your html and meta tags and you can stack your site with content but without links your site might as well be under 6 feet of snow in Siberia.

No problem I hear you say, I can get 10,000 directory links, 500 social bookmarks and 1000 articles all linking back to me in 7 days for 5000 Rupiahs, I saw it in my junk mail box.

I hear you (I get those emails too!) but it isn’t 2004 any more (not that it was the answer back then)and the same techniques just don’t cut it any more – and you don’t have a time machine handy so now what?

Click here for an example of the sort of links you are after.

You’ve got to build links that’s for sure so it’s time to get a plan but it’s best to start out with an understanding of what links mean to Google. They are in essence a vote of confidence and trust from another site and also a way of saying to Google “hey I’m in this great neighbourhood, give me some juice”.

Links have varying value from not worth the time they take to click to online gold. Your aim is to get as many high quality links from relevant sources as you can.

However, If you add your site to every measly little directory under the sun just because there is a link to be had then you can’t expect Google to launch your site into the stratospheric heights of page one for your primary keywords.

When you submit emasse to directories etc. you have no control of who you will be sharing a page with. If your site is in proximity of other questionable sites – and I mean sites with dodgy linking practices not necessarily content (although pills, porn and gambling aren’t everyone’s first choice of neighbour) – then you can expect the cold shoulder from the big G.

The art with link building is to look for quality first then quantity.

It is a fact that domains can have considerably lower numbers of links relative to their competition and still do well if the links they have are of a higher calibre than those of their competition.

I will add though in in some markets having tens of thousands of garbage links can get you listings but that is because Google probably doesn’t have much else to go on so uses link volume as it’s primary metric. I’ve found in these types of situations that a few carefully placed high quality links can oust a site with volume.

The reality is that link building takes time and time is money so hunting down links from authority domains is expensive and requires a range of skills.

For companies with small budgets this type of link building is not going to be available as It is just not realistic for them to expect a plot in the prime real estate.

However, all is not lost, there are still keywords out there where more ‘budget’ approaches can still yield dividends.

So where do you start?

To give you some ideas I’ve compiled a list of the most popular link building techniques.

First up are the easier links to get…

1. Internal links – this is the surprise entry! A lot of people overlook these links but they are a fantastic way of highlighting to the search engines that a page is relevant to particular term. Cost: Free if you manage your own site or whatever your web master charges

2. Article marketing – Easy links to get but require time investment in writing and then editing for submission. Good articles will yield better results over time and you should view this as a way to build a reputation for writing good stuff for your target audience.

The trick is to makes sure you keep an eye on what is being published and by whom. If you spot a good site publicising your content contact them with an offer of a unique article – if you do this over time you will make many of these types of relationships and you can ditch the article distribution service altogether. Cost: The price of the subscriptions, the price for a writer and someone to submit on your behalf. Article marketing can be fairly crude and involves giving up – in some cases – good content into the public domain for reprint, however it does get those contextual links that have your keywords in the anchor. If managed properly an article marketing campaign can unearth valuable link partners.

3. RSS  – Don’t glaze over please, RSS is getting more and more prominent as people catch on to setting up news feeds on their iGoogle and Netvibes pages. You can feed your content out to potential link partners but by submitting to RSS feed directories you are also getting a link back to your web site every time you submit a new  article.

4. Directories – To be honest I don’t pay a lot of attention to this and mostly only recommend the big ones like Yahoo Directory, DMOZ, Business.com and Best of The Web. I do have a list of free and cheapies that I submit some sites to in weaker markets and for local SEO I submit to a handful of decent ones including Freeindex and Bizwiki. Cost: The big ones are around £180 per year plus the cost of the submission and your SEO can quote for the free ones (I don’t personally recommend going for bulk directory submissions as they haven’t really worked for me but others have had OK results in other sectors so go with your feelings and best of luck).

5. Online Press Releases – For businesses with a lot of good stuff to say this can be a very lucrative source of links and traffic. PR Web allows you to build a press release that is search engine friendly meaning it can include links and video. Their roster of publishers is massive and if you get a foothold with some good web sites your potential for successful link acquisition is very high. Cost: PR Web do an online SEO visibility release for £110 at last time of looking plus the cost for you to write it and your SEO to submit it.

These next two approaches take more time and creativity but are the ones you want to acquire.

6. Guest blogging or business blogging – This is where the effort taken to build relationships and provide good content can pay off. If you get a good guest blogging spot the links yo get can pay dividends. You should be able to control the page title, anchor text of links and of course the content itself. Cost: For an SEO to dig these out and manage the relationship takes time and skill so expect to pay a top hourly rate. Do it yourself and it is your own time, simple.

7.Relevant industry links – Again, this about hunting down the prospects, crafting an approach and securing the link. You will need someone with an knowledge of the tools required and how to use them. Cost: This sort of link building is at the top end so expect to pay good money but in return you will want to see a evidence of the work taking place (cc in email approaches, acceptance and that sort of thing).

These final 5 techniques are not focused on getting links from the actual sites but more about link baiting and general brand building and exposure.

8. Community/Sector engagement – by this I mean commenting on blogs and posting in forums not social media which is not dissimilar and is next up. Finding relevant blogs used to be a great way of building links to pass PageRank (Google authority juice) but most bloggers add the ‘nofollow’ tag to links which thwarts any chance of getting any juice from their blog, however in the eyes of the search engines you are still linked in a good neighbourhood and some nofollows make your link profile much more natural looking anyway.

If you look more objectively though, commenting intelligently in the right places can generate interest in you and your brand and that is the point isn’t it?

Check out this graphic for the impact it can have on search results.

9. Social Media (Twitter/Facebook/Linkedin etc.) – You have to be careful with this one because of the hype, which is valid depending on which sector you operate in. For many, Twitter and Facebook have been a revolution and for other sectors the benefits are not so obvious. In terms of link building tools again these sites don’t give you links themselves but they can generate links from those that you engage with through them. Tweeting out links to good content (not always your own) can build your reputation as a source of good material. Building a Facebook fan page following can help with testing products and general feedback. Google is just about to launch it’s real time results window so tweets and status updates are going to be featured – expect even heavier use of these tools by the internet marketing crowd.

10. Social Bookmarking (Delicious/Reddit/Mr Wong/A1 Webmarks etc.) – Social bookmarking often refers to a lot of sites but Strictly speaking I’m talking about sites that host your bookmarks or your favourites (if that is what you call them) online. Some of these e.g. Delicious apply the ‘nofollow’ attribute to links so for pure link juice look elsewhere, however if you get a good network of fans you can find that every time you post a new bookmark your traffic can spike.

11. Social hosting – that’s what I call it anyway and I’m referring to webs.com, Squidoo and Hub pages etc. The key here is to provide good unique content (no surprises). Hub pages won’t give you a ‘do follow’ link until you have built up a score with them (which is a good idea to keep spammers out) and Google can be picky about which Squidoo lenses it bothers to index. Cost: A decent SEO can work with you to  create good content and mix it with video and images found online to create some engaging pages and the cost for quality is worth it in the long run.

12. Video – You can create fantastic brand awareness and develop a strong reputation for expertise using video and it does not have to break the bank. I personally use Camtasia which is a screen recorder and great for training purposes. The quality is good and it is not expensive except for your time and there are inexpensive and free video distribution
services like Tube mogul.

All in all this is just a primer and you will have to do your research upfront to decide which approach might work best or you can call on an SEO company to narrow the odds in your favour.

All in info graphics by www.searchengineoptimization.elliance.com