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Expert Link Building Strategies
This in-depth article provides valuable link building tips and techniques and outlines proven SEO strategies for effective search engine marketing (SEM).
Read on for more information on setting up and managing a low cost link building service. We also identify some of the best ways of encouraging natural backlink acquisition, such as the use of 'link bait' to boost the Google ranking of your website. We also uncover the hidden risks behind artificial link building and provide recommendations to avoid Google backlink over optimization penalty (BLOOD) which can cause link devaluation and poor website ranking.
How & Why Inbound Links Boost Ranking
Search engine algorithm evolution has been significant over the last few years and one of the most major changes in leading search engines have resulted in a move away from page ranking based on on-page factors such as keyword density and prominence, to assigning ranking based largely on the quality and quantity of inbound links (backlinks) acquired.
For this reason, a website will no longer achieve high Google ranking by just search engine optimizing its content alone. To achieve a top search engine ranking in Google and Yahoo! requires a diverse number of relevant links from other unrelated Worldwide Web sites of a similar theme and significant search engine marketing (SEM) effort.
The principle works like this - When other WWW sites link to another website, they effectively "vote for it". Search engines consider a link as an endorsement for the recipient site and an indicator of content quality. This helps weed out poor quality spam sites, which will normally acquire less backlinks as a result of them offering little useful content.
Subsequently, in order to compete on the worldwide web of today many websites need to consider link building campaigns to artificially boost the number of backlinks to raise their SERPS prominence in Google and other leading search engines. But, as we demonstrate in this article, link building needs to be carefully managed so as not to attract a search engine penalty, particularly from Google.
Low Cost Link Building Campaigns
Generally, the greater the number of inbound links (backlinks) a website attracts through natural rather than artificial means, the higher it will rank in the search engine results (SERPS). This emphasizes the need to build provide valuable information or a knowledge base within a website to keep visitors coming back and to attract natural backlinks to assist in search engine marketing and website promotion.
Of course, there will always be websites that due to the nature of their business will struggle to attract enough backlinks to achieve a high Google ranking. For these sites, a low cost artificial link building service can offer a partial solution, but as with all artificial attempts to imitate natural backlink acquisition, extreme care must be exercised. Various SEO companies offer one way link building services and do all the hard work for you, by contacting webmasters to request link exchange offering (in return) a directory link. The success of these link building campaigns depends on how successful the SEO company is in acquiring trusted backlinks from related theme sites with a good existing Google ranking. Contact us for more details of our natural link building program.
When considering a low cost link building service, it's worth noting that search engines like Google assess link acquisition trends over time. Thus, if a particular website has acquired few backlinks over the last year or two and then suddenly acquires hundreds of backlinks in a short space of time, suspicion can be raised. In particular, if a large percentage of the newly acquired backlinks have similar anchor text, Google may identify the links as an attempt to artificially manipulate the search results and issue a link devaluation penalty to the recipient website for backlink over optimization (BLOOD). A Google penalty is even more likely if a large percentage of the added backlinks are reciprocal links, as this implies collusion on behalf of the webmaster. So, to expect large numbers of reciprocal links from unrelated theme sites to provide ranking benefit in Google is very misguided as such practice is a blatant example of poor SEO.
Check Link Acquisition Rates
When planning a link building campaign, you should check the current number of backlinks pointing to your domain using Yahoo! Site Explorer and if there are a very small number, our recommendation is to adopt a slower rate of backlink acquisition during any link building campaign and to work on acquiring links to important internal pages promoting your main products and services, not just to your homepage. This is known as "deep linking", a technique which (if done properly) will appear more natural to any clever search engine algorithm.
Tips for Picking the Best Link Partners
When choosing potential link partners, choose websites of similar theme to your own website that have decent Google ranking. Start by doing a search in Google for relevant keywords related to your business and try to pick websites from the top 20 organic SERPS that closely relate to your business theme and display links to some of your competitors. To research who links to your competitors to help in this process, use the link:www. mycompetitor command in an MSN.com or Yahoo Site Explorer search window. This will display all websites which link to your competitors, websites that may provide you with a free promotional backlink if approached in a courteous way. If your website has sufficient high quality content then other webmasters may be prepared to offer you a free one way promotional link. This is far more beneficial than a reciprocal link for search engine ranking improvement purposes.
Concentrate on adding fewer high quality links to achieve the greatest Google ranking improvement, rather than hundreds of links on low quality pages. To help find high quality link partners, we recommend you visit each potential partner website and make a note of its HTML Title (displayed at the very top of an Internet Explorer window).
Then search for the first four words of the HTML Title in Google. If the site has top 10 ranking, then it is indicative that Google has assigned the website reasonable trust status. Even a top 20 ranking for a highly competitive keyword provides reassurance that the website is not under Google penalty or in its probationary period and is well trusted by Google.
Choosing a potential new link partner in this way will help to avoid linking to bad neighbourhoods or websites that have high PR, but poor trust. As we said earlier, it's getting one way backlinks from trusted sites which is the most important factor to improve website ranking, much more important in fact than the Google Toolbar Page Rank value of the website. Nowadays, a high Page Rank doesn't necessarily mean a decent Google ranking, so the value of checking SERPS ranking as part of choosing link partners is particularly useful.
Web Directory Listings
Links from High Page Rank Web Directories can improve Google ranking, particularly when the directory is reputable and itself has good Google prominence. In particular, links from DMOZ (The Open Directory Project), Google's own web directory can really help to boost website visibility, but it can take years to get a listing in DMOZ and many good quality websites fail to meet DMOZ quality guidelines (they don't like affiliate sites for example).
Incidentally, KSL Consulting discourage our clients from submitting to web directories, which demand a reciprocal link in return, particularly where the directory is obviously of low quality resembling a link farm.
When submitting to a web directory, start by submitting to directories with high PR which do not require a mandatory reciprocal link in return for a listing. The reason PR is more important for a web directory is that most web directories have thousands of websites listed and each page of listings may be incrementally further away (in number of clicks) from the homepage. Popular categories may contain thousands of website listings, resulting in your link (if added) being at the bottom of the pile.
Google is often reluctant to index web pages that are significant number of clicks away from the homepage and such pages often end up in the Supplemental Page index or not indexed at all. Thus, to get your link on a web directory page which will count in Google, you will need a link on a Google indexed and cached webpage, preferably one with some Page Rank showing and with just a small number of other links present. If your chosen submission category is too full, consider an alternative category that is still relevant, but may have fewer other competing websites.
Links from Article Submission Sites
Article submission sites like Ezine (one of our favourites) are one of the best methods of website promotion and search engine marketing. Not only do many of them give a free backlink to article authors, but they also help to raise awareness of your business and website, particularly if you write an article which has sufficient merit.
The secret with article submission is to do careful research and decide upon a relevant, niche topic for your article which will make it stand out from the crowd. Then make the article title keyword rich and informative as this will become the HTML page title and help your article acquire high Google ranking. Refer to our list of article submission sites for more information about where to submit articles.
Common Link Building Mistakes
One of the most common SEO mistakes is to concentrate on building links solely to a homepage and to ignore the need to acquire links for your site's important internal pages (deep linking). Without external links from other web domains to provide endorsement, internal pages will struggle to rank for competitive keywords, unless your homepage has lots of trusted backlinks and your website is already well established.
Over the last couple of years, internal links have been devalued significantly by Google, so this means that 'homepage trust' is now less transferred onto internal pages than it used to be. The effect of this Google algorithm change is to reduce the search engine visibility of internal website pages on less trusted sites which have few external links. This has caused noticeable traffic reductions to many web domains, particularly those with mediocre content quality and few links to internal pages. This internal link devaluation effect has also been noted in Yahoo! over the last year.
More common SEO mistakes are discussed in our list of recommended link building tips and strategies below.
Link Buying
Link buying is rife on the web and Google has made considerable effort to identify websites which sell links in order to discount the value of links they provide - they even provide a "report paid links" link in Google Webmaster Tools to encourage the public to report sites which buy or sell links for Page Rank gain. In other words, the promotional value of paid links is always uncertain, depending on whether Google is aware of the site's involvement in selling links. One of the most reputable suppliers is Text Link Brokers which represents a good source to buy text links. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that any links bought from them will provide any ranking benefit in Google!
KSL Consulting advises our clients to treat link buying with caution and to be aware of the risks. Our recommendation is to avoid sites which blatantly advertise link buying / link selling in favour of a direct approach to webmasters of authority (hub) sites to come to a more discrete under-the-counter financial arrangement. Buying links for promotional purposes is strictly against Google's terms and conditions and Google has detection methods for paid links in its algorithm as stated in Matt Cutts SEO Blog (Google Engineer). Interestingly, Matt says that websites selling links won't be penalized but the practice may well result in their outbound links offering no Page Rank or promotional value to recipients.
Of course, this could also affect their own business as it is common for companies to own more than one domain and to link out to their sister site/s from their authority domain. In his SEO Blog, Matt Cutts also goes onto saying that search engines will take "stronger action in future" against websites who buy links, implying that penalties or ranking reductions may be introduced. In fact, Page Rank penalties were handed out to high Page Rank sites suspected of selling links during the last PR update in October / November 2007, so this process has already started; so be warned!
Link Building Tips
- Write compelling website content - such as a knowledge base which includes authoritative articles and consider a User Forum that other www sites will want to link to. Remember that naturally acquired backlinks are more valuable to search engine marketing than artificially derived links and present little risk of triggering a Google penalty.
- Focus on building quality one way links - Aim for around 70% quality one way backlinks from related theme websites of which as many as possible should be from well Google ranked sources.
- Links from .edu and .gov domains - These are worth their weight in gold. Even obtaining a few backlinks from .edu and .gov domains can boost Google ranking significantly. Sites with large numbers of .gov and .edu links can quickly become leaders in their field and dominate the organic search results in Google for competitive keywords.
- Adopt a slow backlink acquisition rate - For new domains (websites) aim to acquire more high quality links at a slower rate (maximum 5 links per week) and make sure that link anchor text format and description is varied.
- Get links within content - Ensure links are added to Google indexed and cached webpages. Most importantly, remember that it is much more beneficial to get a backlink from a page containing worthwhile content rather than from a made-for-purpose page full of "link partners".
- Use reciprocal links in moderation and only as part of a more diverse link building campaign. Try not to exceed around 15% of your website backlinks being reciprocal links. Never add large quantities of reciprocal links to dissimilar theme sites and never link to sites with low quality content or obvious spam. Avoid reciprocal linking when promoting very new, recently launched web domains as it can reduce Google trust.
- Get more deep links to your website - Avoid the common SEO mistake of link building purely to your website homepage. Websites which have unnaturally high weighting of backlinks to homepage only, can appear more artificially manipulated (SEO'd) to search engines.
- Avoid buying or using site wide links - Site wide links pointing to your site can lower Google trust and extend the Sandbox period for your domain especially if it is a relatively new web domain. This can have an adverse effect on Google ranking.
- Vary link anchor text and description - for every backlink added as part of any self managed low cost link building campaign. Use different anchor text keyword combinations as part of your SEO campaign management. If targeting highly competitive "high paying keywords" be particularly careful. Changing the format of anchor text, by changing the order of keywords is not enough to constitute sufficient anchor text variation. Choose totally different keywords and link anchor text formats to avoid problems with Google backlink over optimization penalties (BLOOD). Check backlink anchor text using the backlink analyser tool.
- Check a link page is Google cached - When submitting to web directories and particular when paying for submission, ensure that the link you are getting is placed on a fully Google indexed page. You can check whether a page is Google cached by entering the full URL of the page in a Google search window. Check the Google and Alexa ranking of the web directory too before parting with your money.
- Submit articles to top article submission sites - These help raise awareness of your business and are one of the best sources of one way backlinks for website search engine promotion.
- Links from business partners - Approach companies you have a business relationship with to see if they are prepared to provide a free backlink to you website.
- Consider "link bait" for website promotional purposes. Link bait is compelling original content about popular topics in order to attract natural linking to help improve search engine ranking. A good appraisal of the merits and pitfalls of "linkbait" in search engine marketing is provided on SEOMoz
- Check backlinks regularly - Keep a database of backlinks from link partners and use an automatic link checking script and check for removed links regularly. Contact offending sites to try to recover lost and removed backlinks.
Choosing the Best SEM Company
Managing low cost link building campaigns, search engine marketing (SEM) and website promotion strategies is complex and very time consuming. At KSL Consulting, organic search engine marketing is our speciality. Contact us for more advice and help to acquire more quality links for your website/s. We offer affordable SEO campaign management on a monthly retainer basis with no minimum term contract.
Disclaimer
The link building tips provided on this page aim to reduce the risks inherently present with any form of artificial link acquisition process. This SEO article is provided in good faith and we will not be held responsible for reductions in website ranking, directly or indirectly resulting from acting upon the SEO advice provided.
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