Link Building Campaigns - Link building efforts are important for generating visitors, and go hand in hand with Search Engine Optimization.
If you are able to find links from other web sites that are related to yours, then you are more likely to get visitors to your site that will buy your products or services. (This is called targetted traffic). Links to your web site will build your link popularity and help to improve your search engine rankings, which will again direct targetted traffic to your site. However, I would strongly advise against indiscriminate linking. More on this a little later on.
But link building is probably one of the most misunderstood tasks. Broken down to its most basic, you would think link-building would be fairly simple. After a little work you manage to get a link from another site and it magically helps your ranking. For example, without links you are ranked #9 and after a few links pointing to your site Yahoo ranked you at #7. Sounds easy doesn't it? Let me warn you it's not.
There's a number of factors to consider:
1. Quality, not quantity.
Yes, the more links the better, but only if those links are quality. Let me explain, the companies you link with can help you or maybe hurt you. There's been some evidence if Yahoo bands or demotes a website link to you, you could suffer the same action. Furthermore one good link from someone like the Wall Street Journal could be worth more than hundreds of weak or unrelated links. One of my favorite sources for high quality links is major industry directorys.
Links from "Authoritative" Documents: Links originateing from web site or documents considered having higher authority in a particular industry. For example: a link from Nascar about automobile racing would be considered an authority link. Links from authoritative documents add both, "importance" and "relevance" to your web pages. Now, what comprises a good authority page link has not been indicated by the search engines. It appears Search Engines like to keep this information a secret.
- Tip: Yahoo Toolbar (toolbar.Google.com) tells you the topic-independent, absolute importance of a web page, 0 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Great tool allows you to quickly check PageRank from your browser. Each PR value between 1 and 10 is 6-times more valuable than its previous number. For example, PR8 is 6-times more valuable than PR7.
2. Pay for listings.
Whether it's a directory like yahoo or another website, be willing to pony up the cash for a listing-- whether it's $19.95 for a year or $300.
3. Hunt down specialty guides.
If you think you're only competitors is your competition you're mistaken. The internet has spawned a diverse collection of specialty guides that will cover more topics than you could imagine.
4. Accelerated link growth-- caution should be taken.
Theirs evidence that you could be penalized for too many links to quickly. U.S. patent information from Google suggests that the leading search engine may penalize websites that gain a bunch of links all at once. Nobody seems to know and Google's not saying.
5. Use discretion.
You can get links from places that may be OK today and troublesome tomorrow. I always caution companies against buying links on other websites It's hard to know when Yahoo or other engines will discover your link-building arrangement. Or how they'll respond, you may actually get band. It's Just too risky. Furthermore there's growing evidence that Yahoo is taking steps against paid links sites.
I suggest before you decide whether or not to attempt all these link-building strategies in house or even consider outside consultants, you may want to think about the following questions as honestly in completely as possible.
- Do I have the time?
- Can I effectively tie links to my SEO strategy?
- Is my staff trained in this area?
- Do I know how to size up a website to decide if it's a good fit?
- Do I know how high my link popularity should be?
- Do I know how to seek links?
- Do I know how to write descriptions?
- Can I safely avoid Free for All (FFA) websites and link farms?
- Do I know how to organize a links page or directory on my site?
- How much should I pay other directories for links?
- Do I know what keywords to use in my links program?
- Do I know how to correlate links with web analytics?
Outsourcing Quality Guidelines for Link Building:
If you are considering outsourcing your link building, I suggest that you insist that your service provider conform to the following quality guidelines for your Link Building efforts.
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No JavaScript links
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Links with relevant "Keywords" in the Anchor Text
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No links from Blogs and Blogspots
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Links from sites having a different range of PageRank
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Links from industry-relevant pages
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No paid or time-bound links
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Link to your site should not be through a "redirect" script
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No links from "framed" pages
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No "flash" embedded links
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Only relevant established links are counted in the final report
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No robots.txt excluded link pages
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Securing "unidirectional" or only-Incoming (non-reciprocal) links
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No Robots Tag excluded link pages
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Links spread over different domains
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No email spam used to solicit links. Must conform to CAN-SPAM act.
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No links from Link Farms
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No links from FFA (Free-For-All) link networks
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No links from pornographic and other sites containing offensive content
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Full data sheet of links created at the end of each month
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Links campaign pace as per client convenience
Whatever way you decide to move forward with your link-building, take time to carefully consider each of your options before making any decisions. I have found it is better to move a little slower than it is to move in haste and make mistakes. Regardless of how you proceed, stay involved and learn as much as you can. Even if someone else helps you, your company can still contribute to the link-building process at the same time to improve your odds of success.
