Posts Tagged ‘Linking’

Looking for a way to boost your link profile? One of the best ways to boost your profile is to put your linking strategy in the hands of a professional, and you can talk to us at SEO Consult. If you’re looking for links outside of your SEO company, however, there is a handy protocol you can follow that will increase your chances of success.

First of all, it’s important to know that there are three types of links that will give your link profile a real boost. These are links from your competitors, links from high-profile sites in your industry, and links from sites that are ranking well for related keywords. All of these links will have a high relevance to your keywords, and are likely to be looked on favourably by the search engines. All of these are also incredibly difficult to get links from. Luckily, all of these link sources have their own link sources, which you can use for your profile.

1. Identify the key sites in your niche. Every niche has prominent sites. Look for sites in the three categories above, and narrow down a list. If you haven’t identified your niche yet, it’s probably time to do so.
2. Mine their links. This is a very old SEO trick for quality links. Find out what sites are linking to the above sites. These are people who could be linking to you as well.
3. Make sure your site has link bait. It’s no use trying to build your link profile before you have completed your on-page SEO. Sites need a reason to link to you. If your site isn’t already high-ranking, the only reason you have is that you’re a quality site. Ensure that your content is up to scratch, and have some link bait prepared before you approach potential links.

Different sites will be looking for different things on your site. You will find that the links to your site can be separated out into three categories:

1. Reciprocal relationships: A site that is in a reciprocal relationship with its linkee will need a similar sort of bait from you. The best approach is to contact them, note that your sites are in similar industries and suggest that each set of site users would benefit from a link. Note that Google frowns on reciprocal link schemes, but not on sites providing each other support for the benefit of site users.
2. Media contacts: Media contacts respond well to a good press release, but only if you have something newsworthy to back it up. If you’re an influential thinker in your industry or have new research to share, let them know first.
3. Editorial sites: These are the non-news sites that might find your site interesting. People such as influential bloggers or industry commentators have less to gain if you offer them news, so it’s a good idea to offer something else as well. Discount codes, free products and other incentives can work well.

And remember: persist. It takes time to build a good link profile. Keep emailing, and build relationships.

How do you get links? This is something every newcomer to search engine optimisation tends to find themselves asking after a while, possibly accompanied by a scratch of the head. Getting a good link profile is possibly the hardest part of SEO. Getting one that will still be good in a year’s time is even harder.

SEO experts have come up with all sorts of tips and tricks when it comes to building link profiles. You can buy links. You can use online directories. You can form a reciprocal relationship for links. You can use article directories. You can do a thousand and one things that get you an easy link, but in the end, an easy link isn’t going to be of the best quality. If your links aren’t quality, they’re unlikely to weather the storm when Google and the other search engines change their algorithms.

Protecting yourself against banned techniques

Some of the above techniques aren’t exactly smiled upon by the search engines, and that may turn out to be a problem for your site. Although your SEO company should do whatever it can to ensure that your optimisation stays within Google’s guidelines, those guidelines are pretty vague. They also aren’t solid over a length of time. When you’re building on your own, you’re on even more unsteady ground. You can talk to us at SEO Consult about the advantage of experience when it comes to SEO.

A certain amount of future-proofing needs to be taken into account when you’re building your link profile. It’s much better to spend your time on getting a small amount of quality links than spending it on getting a large number that will be banned in the next algorithm change.

What to look for in a link

• The page is already in the index. This is the basic requirement. If the page is not in Google’s index, it cannot pass any link juice to you. This makes linking to new sites a bad idea.
• The page has a decent ranking, one at least equal to your own. Getting links from low-ranking sites is like associating with a bad business in Google’s eyes.
• A decent linking strategy on their part. If the linking site provides links to lots of dissociated sites, there is a chance that Google will devalue its links.

All links count for something

It’s important to remember that all links count for something. None of your linking efforts are really wasted. This gives you a little freedom to experiment when you’re trying to get some links in. Even if you land a link and later find out that it’s a nofollow, and therefore of little direct worth to your SEO, that link can still bring traffic to your site. It doesn’t hurt to chase quality links.

A link coming into your site can’t get you into much trouble. It’s the links going out of your site that you really need to watch. Work on your links, work on quality, and your profile will accumulate worth over time.