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If you've spent time researching ways to optimize your website
to improve your search engine rankings, you've no doubt been
introduced to the concept of link building. It's one of the most
effective ways to improve your rankings. The challenge is that
all links are not created equal. Here is your guide to success.
First, a little background:
Search engines like Google assess the number, relevance, and the
quality of websites that link to yours. When another site links
to yours, they are essentially "voting" for you. They are
telling Google that your site has quality content and that it is
a good resource for "something."
What's something? Well, if a website that talks about computer
memory links to your website, that website is telling Google
that you're a relevant resource for people who are looking for
computer memory. The more websites like this computer memory
site that link to you, the more of an authority Google will
perceive you as being on this subject matter.
Yes, Google will assess the content on the websites that link to
you, and will even look at the sites that link to the sites that
link to you, to determine the quality of the votes that you're
getting. The more of these votes you get from websites that
Google considers relevant and authoritative, the greater your
opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines.
The million dollar question: How do you get these relevant sites
to link to you?
There are many "approaches" to get sites to link to you. Before
you start, however, consider Google's motive:
They don't want to see how good you are at getting links; they
want to find out how important and relevant of a resource your
website really is.
As a result, your challenge is to either:
Make your website a really good resource, or Make Google think
your website is a really good resource
If want optimal results, however, you'll do a combination of
both.
Make your website a really good resource and over time you'll
get good in-bound links to your website, and your rankings will
climb. If you want to speed up the process, however, make your
website a really good resource and then actively pursue links
that appear to be "natural" rather than "forced" links. You'll
still need to be patient; the goal is simply to push things
along.
Active versus Passive link building
At the end of the day, and at a very high level, you get links
one of two ways:
1) Passively - by having great tools on your site, and/or
articles that give other sites a reason to link to you
2) Actively - by doing things like article syndication,
link swaps, directory submissions, tagging, etc
To get the best of both worlds:
First - Takes steps towards making your website a real resource
by doing things like:
- Building a valuable tool or collection of tools
- Building features that make it easier for customers to buy
complex products from you rather than your competitors
- Creating a fun but useful blog oriented to the products or
services you offer (employ a gimmick, but make sure there is
steak behind the sizzle)
- Posting valuable articles and "how-to" guides
- Creating an "award" or offering comprehensive reviews
(sometimes user-generated reviews)
- Etc, etc, etc (the point is to be creative)
The idea behind passive link building is that you're making your
site such a valuable resource that other website owners start
linking to it simply because it would be a good place to send
their visitors. In other words, they link without you asking.
Then - Use active link building to get "natural looking" links
to your site
Your attempts at getting "natural looking" links leading to your
website probably won't appear "perfectly natural," but if you
can start improving your rankings gradually and getting more
traffic, you'll be getting the word out about how useful your
website is - and the natural links will start coming all by
themselves.
Ideas for actively bringing links to your website:
-Article syndication: Write 1,000 word articles that are
useful to your target audience (top 10 lists, etc), and
syndicate them to article directories like EZineArticles.com.
Other webmasters go to sites like EZineGuides.com to pick up
useful articles for their site.
-Link swaps: Though I'm not a big fan of link swaps, you
may want to contact 10 to 20 websites that you consider
"friendly" and relevant to your site, and offer to exchange
links. Note that Google can tell when you "exchange" links,
versus "earning" one-way links from other sites, so don't abuse
this.
-Create a blog: Yes, I mentioned this as a passive link
building strategy because it is both passive and active. Build a
blog and take advantage of "trackbacks" and "pings" to get links
from other blogs and blog aggregators respectively.
-Directory submissions: Submit your site to relevant
directories. Some will allow you to submit your site for free
(without reciprocating) like DMOZ. Others will require that you
pay a listing fee (like Business.com). Either way, if the
directory is a good one, these links have value.
-Tagging: Submit your resource page to sites like
Yahoo's MyWeb, Slashdot, Digg it, and Del.icio.us. If other
members of the respective network like your link, it will gain
more prominence, traffic, and links.
Summing it Up
The idea here is to offer something of real value on your
website (something that would give other people a reason to link
to you), and to speed the process along a little bit by putting
some bait out there.
Another way of saying that is: Use active link building to speed
up your passive link building.
While active link building may help you get short-term results,
it's the passive link building that helps you get long-term
results, and allows you to target more competitive search
phrases.
GA-002
About the author:
Scott Smigler founded Exclusive Concepts
in 1997. Exclusive
Concepts provides integrated online marketing strategies and
search engine marketing solutions for hundreds of clients (Yahoo Merchant
Solutions) to business to business service providers.
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