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External Linking Factors Part 2 Effective Link Building Campaigns
The Importance of Knowing your Competition
To help set a larger context for what you're doing, it's important to take a look at what the competition has done, in terms of their linking strategy.
Firstly, have a look a their PageRank to give you an idea of what your looking a working your way towards (if a necessary part of your strategy).
You'll also want to know, overall, the sheer quantity of links that are inbound to your competitor's site. There are a number of free pure 'link popularity checker around the web'. For example here are a couple of free checker on the web...
http://www.linkpopularity.com/ http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
Note: You can also do a direct search on Google or Yahoo yourself to see which sites link to any particular site. You can use the command:
link:www.website.com where www.website.com is the website you're interested in finding out about who links to it.
The thing you have to watch out for is that you'll find that NOT all the links will be made available to you (I suppose the SEs don't want you to know exactly what's going on behind the scenes). However this will still give you a fair idea, which most importantly, allows you to evaluate the other sites relative to each other. For possibly more available links you may wish to do the same search at www.alexa.com (which uses the Google engine but somehow seems to provide more link information).
However, if you're serious about achieving a strong search position, you'll need too consider more that mere link popularity.
This is where being able to analyse link-reputation comes in. As seen in part 1, link reputation come from the 'link text' on the link from the other site that links inbound to the target site. However, link-reputation is also to do with the keyword theme/keyword densities and the relatedness of the other sites that link to target site.
So how should you work out and keep tabs on all this stuff at once?
Important Tool: To help you to all of this stuff (unless you want to spend days on end doing it manual, here is a piece of software that virtually all SEMs will use. It is the standard in link reputation analysis. Highly configurable, with many analysis options, there is no other software that works as well.
Read more here: about optilink
Going about actually building your links
The process of acquiring real, valuable links is one that you'll need to do carefully and with patience.
Be Careful
In general, you'd be wise to be careful with any website, service or software to says they'll make it effortless and instant. Once a significant number of people start using it, the SEs will likely begin being able to detect the strategy and possibly penalising for it. So some services or software that automate the link requesting procedures may not be too bad - as long as you don't let it run completely automatically, and you have the ability to vet individual link requests and edit them if necessary... (however this kind of comes back to the idea of doing manually anyway).
Be real weary of anything that sound possibly like a link-farm/club/exchange which may only provide a limited field from which to draw links... Even if you decide that they're okay in the end, remember not to neglect doing your background research on the site you're considering linking to etc.
A useful attitude to have
In general, the mindset to adopt when approach your linking campaign is to think in terms of real traffic. This tends to be the best way to see thinks. Websites that are already getting significant traffic may tend to be more 'important' to the search engines anyway. Also, if you successfully request a link from such a site, then not only can are you aiming to help your ranking... but also, there's the real potential of visitors coming straight to you from that site
Also:
(a) Be aware that it's better to have links from sites that share a keyword them with your.
(b) Don't willy-nilly submit to free-for-all directories
(c) Bear in mind the reputation and type of site you're looking at. Is it an Authority (lots of inbound links, few out) or hub (like a directory, common reference)? - Also do you plan to become one of these types of sites?
Nice attitude but how should you go about actually doing it?
Ten Pointers to Link Building
Explore the internet looking for websites that you may be able to get a link on.
(i) Look through the directory sites like Yahoo Directory or DMOZ, or other ones, or even any smaller industry specific directories you may know about.
(ii) Do a search using the keywords that you're interested in and see what comes up... they may not all be your direct competitors. There may be some related site (even directories) that show up that you could have a link upon.
(iii) From your linking analysis of your competition, see what sort of sites they are receiving their links from. Perhaps you should have a link on that site as well.
(iv) Have a budget prepared, you may come across sites (directories or otherwise) that will let you place a link on them for a fee. You'll have to decide if it is worth it, in terms of their 'rank-boosting-potential' or traffic generation potential (which you'll measure using your visitor track solution).
(v) Keep a business minded eye out as you move through the day, you never know who you may meet, what you may see or read that has a website the your could get a link from.
Asking for the link is the next stage. As you're well aware people tend to only do things that are in some way helpful to them. So start racking your brains on way you can help motivate the other webmaster to put up a link to you. Here are some guidelines.
(vi) Always be nice and polite. You may also be well advised to mention something unique and specific about their site or business (and why you'd like to swap links) within your email. This will help let them know that you're not a spammer and that you're just shooting off automated emails all around.
(vii) Have a link to their site already placed on your website before even asking them. After all, if they're a non-directly competitive website, and you'd like their visitors to potentially visit you - it may only seem right that you also allow your visitors the chance to visit them. - If you've already got a link on your site that is already sending through some traffic to them, this make your case for a reciprocal link stronger.
(viii) Provide some incentive. This will usually take the form of content that can add value to the site that you are requesting a link from. Take the time to create worthwhile information. Ensure that the content your create will be suitably attractive to the websites you're aiming to contact.
(ix) Write some useful articles and offer them as content upon other websites. As is custom, you'll be including a hyperlink to your website at the bottom of that article (which must be display as a condition for the use of the content - and make sure you include the full URL). Instead of an article, some smart SEMs have devised awards which are essentially, little graphics that a website can place on their page which link back to you. If you're possibly any sort of authority, you may wish to offer certain awards.
(x) Keep Organised! (a) Keep track of your efforts. Inevitability, during your efforts at contacting other webmasters, your messages may get lost, forgotten, overlooked etc. So it is important to use, if not a contact manager, then perhaps a list or spreadsheet. Keep details on who you've contacted, what they've said or whether they've replied. (b) Also keep details on what work you have too... this all ensures you're well organised and will not forget links (b) You may wish to keep your outgoing links organised in a directory like structure (both for clarity and to make them more appealing to potential link exchange partners).
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Process: Explained In-Depth Guide to SEM
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SEM Advantage (SPS Group Pty Ltd) Suite 207, 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia
p 61 2 9280 0010
f 61 2 9280 0081
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All content is (c) copyright 2004 SEM Advantage
No reproduction permitted without prior written consent |
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SEM Advantage (SPS Group Pty Ltd)
Suite 207, 410 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills, NSW 2010, Australia p 61 2 9280 0010 f 61 2 9280 0081
Copyright (C) 2003 SPS Group Pty Ltd. No Reproduction permitted
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