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Link Building 101 :: The Key to Successful Link Building

Link building is one of the most important task that can be done to increase website search engine ranking, traffic, value, leads, and sales.  The biggest misconception with link building is that quantity matters more than quality.  Quite contrary, quality trumps quantity any day.  Having a single link on a highly valued and highly trusted webpage is more rewarding than having 100 links on undervalued and non-trusted webpages.  If someone gave you the opportunity to place 30 second television commercial ads at 4AM in the morning in 100 ad slots or to place one single 30 second television commercial ad during the Superbowl, which ad slot would you choose?

What are the elements of a web page which makes it quality?

Page Rank.  Google PageRank (PR) is a value displayed in the Google Toolbar which shows the value of the webpage according to Google on a scale #1-10.  The Google PageRank can help you determine how well your online marketing campaign is progressing.  The Google PageRank is commonly updated quarterly (every 3-4 months).  If a webpage has a Google PageRank then it may be worthwhile to add a link to that page.  The higher the Google PageRank the better.

Number of Outgoing Links.  The number of outgoing links on the page makes a difference.  The page should have at maximum no more than 100 outgoing links.  However, you should target pages which have far less than that, such as webpages with 25 or less outgoing links.  Outgoing links also known as outbound links are links on a webpage which are pointing to an external domain or website.  The fewer number of outgoing links on a webpage the better.

Relevant Content.  The content of the webpage should be relevant to your website or the page to which you are linking.  You should target high relevant webpages, but a broad relevance is fine in most cases, such as if your website sell luggage then having a link on a page about travel would be acceptable.

Passing of Link Juice.  In 2005 Google created a new rel attribute called the "nofollow" attribute.  This attributes tells search engine bots to ignore and don't follow links with this attribute attached.  This being the case, if you have a link with the nofollow attribute attached then you are not getting any search engine benefit from that link, because search bots such as Googlebot do not see the link and will not follow it.  An example of how the "nofollow" attribute can provide no search engine benefit, is if you have 1,000 links across the web, but 750 of those links contain the "nofollow" attribute, then in the search engine view you only have 250 links.  This mean you have lost 75% of your link popularity and link power, because no link juice is being passed from the other 750 links.  When examining a page for link building you should stay clear of links with the "nofollow" attribute, you view the "nofollow" attribute by looking at the source code of the page and take notice of the link -- if the link contains the syntax rel="nofollow" anywhere in the URL string then it is safe to say it is a nofollow link and link juice is not being passed.  An easier approach is to install Quirk Search Status (Firefox extension) and enable the "highligh nofollow links" feature.  It is important to note that just because a link does contain the "nofollow" attribute doesn't mean the link is completely worthless because you still get the benefit of human traffic, so keep this in mind because ultimately your target is a human audience.  Additionally, it is important to note that not all search engines are onboard with this attribute and ignore it therefore your link will possibly be followed by other search engines.

Placement of Link.  The placement of your link on the webpage is important, because depending on the raw code of the webpage your link may not be found, indexed, or crawled by search bots.  You should be certain your link appears as close as possible to the top half of the raw code.  An ideal placement target should be in-content links.  In-content links are anchor text links which are placed within the content of the webpage, such as a link inside the body of an article. 

Depth of Webpage.  The depth of the webpage from the homepage is important.  The webpage which contains your link should be no more than 2-3 clicks away from the homepage.  Having a clear navigational path on a website should take care of any deep page issues.

Besides quality, another thing to consider when link building is the keyword targets.  Keyword targets are the search terms or search phrases visitors will use to find your website.  You must do efficient keyword research and analysis to find the most optimal keyword targets for your link building campaign.  If you target low quality keywords then you will waste a lot of time and effort.  It is important to target keywords which will yield a high search volume while also having low competition. 

The more competitive the keyword then in essence the more difficult it will be to rank high for that keyword, but time, effort, and strategy will be the winning factor for ranking for your target keyword sets.  Research and analysis of a keyword does not have to be a long drawn out process, there are many tools and ways to find out the effectiveness of a keyword.

How can I determine if a keyword is effective?

Keyword Relevancy.  Your keyword targets should be relevant to your landing page content.  The more relative your keyword targets the better chance your webpage will have to rank high for the keyword targets.  Anchor text should also relate to your keyword targets.  Anchor text is the text of an active hyperlink, this text should incorporate your target keyword or keyword phrase.

Keyword Popularity.  Keyword popularity is determined by using keyword suggestion tools.  Keyword suggestion tools are applications which provide you with keyword suggestions when you type in a keyword term or phrase.  These suggestions often display an analysis of the keyword competition and keyword search volume.  For keyword suggestion tools visit Google Keyword Tool or SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool.

Keyword Effectiveness Index (Indicator) aka KEI.  The Keyword Effectiveness Index (KEI) is a program which calculates the effectiveness of a keyword by evaluating keyword popularity and keyword competition.  The higher the KEI, the more popular your keywords are, and the less competition they have, thus increasing the ability for your website to rank high for the target keywords.  For KEI tools visit WordTracker or KeyowrdDiscovery.

Keyword Density.  Your webpage should have a fair density of the target keyword.  A fair density is considered anything between 3% - 6% of keyword popularity on the webpage.  If your webpage has a fair density then it increases the chances of your website ranking high in the search engines.  However, it is important to note that if your keyword density is too high then it can negatively effect your ranking and relationship with the search engines.  For keyword density analysis visit Ranks.NL.

Link resources can sometimes be difficult to identify.  There are so many different ways and places to build links.  The most obvious places to look for links are at niche websites, these are websites that highly relate to your website content and has a focus around this topic.  Finding these resources commonly start with a search engine query itself.  When a new resource is found you should attempt to get a website link from the website, using the information above you should be able to identify if the page is valuable or not.

What are some effective methods for identifying link resources?

Niche Pages.  As we already discussed niche websites are the most obvious place to find link resources.  The same applies for niche pages, which are webpages that highly relate to your website content and has a focus around this topic.  The only difference is the niche pages are secluded to the webpage itself and not the entire site.  The site can be completely unrelated, but the page itself is the target.

Social Media Links.  Social media links are links from social bookmark websites or social networks.  Social media links are great link resources because commonly they can produce a vast amount of traffic as well as link juice.  Social media links are most effective when frequently generated.  Social media links are popular with search engines because they are socially accepted links, meaning the public votes for the link to rank high on the website.  If the link receives a majority of negative votes from the public then the link will be buried deep in the website, almost non-existent.  Although, not impossible this in itself makes it more difficult to game social sites.

Internet Directory Links.  The old method of submitting your link to web directories is still an effective practice in today's world.  However, it seems nowadays everyone and their mother has a web directory.  Therefore, it is more important than ever to focus on quality when it comes to obtaining links from web directories.  You want to be certain the web directory has value and has a trust relationship with the search engines. 

Blog Comment Links.  I find this method a little polluted, but it is highly used and does yield results.  Finding blogs which allow comments is simple, getting your comments to pass moderation is the tricky part.  If you write your comment in relation to the blog post then you increase the chance of your blog comment being published.  To gain value from your blog comment simply include your target keyword or keyword phrase as the title of the comment post with a link to your landing page in the website URL field.

Forum Signature Links.  These are positive links as the forum owner allows you to publish links in your signature, its a way of giving back for participating in forum discussions.  One of the most popular forums is VBulletin.  Many forums will disable HTML code for signatures, but will enable BBCode, it is advised you familiarize yourself with this coding standard if you intend to place forum signature links.

Classified Ad Links.  Probably one of the least effective and least attractive ways of building links.  Classified ad links are an old method of link building which died out with the dinosaurs.  With that said, links published within the popular Craigslist.org has shown significant value in the search engines.  Craigslist links are an exception to the rule and there are a handful of other classified ad sites which are considered valuable classified ad links.

Article Syndication Links.  Article syndication links are great simply because they are viral in the sense that publishers are required to include article links in the author byline.  Basically, if you write an article then submit the article to syndication sites you are allowing publishers (or website owners) the opportunity to copy/paste your article on their website.  When they publish the article on their own website they must keep intact the author byline which commonly includes links to your website.  You should strategize and add links that point back to your website using keyword-rich anchor text in your author byline.  The author byline is the same as the "About the Author" passage.  Writing frequent articles (3-5 articles per week) for syndication is most rewarding.  Writing articles can also personify you and/or your company as an industry leader.

Press Release Links.  Press releases are great ways to deliver traffic and newsworthy stories about your website and/or company.  Press releases can include links to your website.  If your press release captivates the attention of its reader then it is likely the reader will click-through to visit your website.  If you or no one in your company is capable of writing a compelling press release then I advise you seek the help of a professional copywriter.  Hint:  Capturing an audience starts with the title.

Public Profile Links.  It is likely that if you use some of the methods above such as Forum Signature Links, then you will inadvertenly generate public profile links.  Public profile links are simply links achieved by registering for an account.  It is links in your member profile, usually given as a benefit for being a registered participant of the website or forum.  Public profile links don't hold a lot of juice, but it does help.  I consider these links worthwhile because they are easy to obtain.

Direct Sales.  Direct sale links are paid links obtained by purchasing from an individual (website owner) or a network such as AdBrite or Text-Link-Ads.  These text links commonly come with the benefit of a direct static URL pointing to your website opposed to dynamic URLs or javascript redirects which can't be read or interpreted by search bots thus decreasing link juice being passed.

Link Bait.  Link bait is the act of creating undeniable content which generates an army of links.  Basically, the reader or website owner has no choice but to link to your website because you offer something no one else does or you have something newsworthy about your website which deserves a link.  Link baiting is a way to get someone to link to your website without them questioning the link.  Creating link bait content can be as easy as creating an article which list the top 10 topic (related to your niche).  Creating link bait can also be as difficult as developing a useful downloadable widget such as a mortgage calculator (if your site relates to real estate) which embeds a link to your website.

Link Exchange.  This is an old method which still shows to be beneficial.  Link exchanges can be as simple as sending an email to the website owner and requesting a link exchange.  However, it will probably be more effective if you were to send a personal email and you already had a link on your website to the link exchange owner website or more effective if you were to call the potential link exchanger via phone.  The most beneficial link exchanges are those that are highly relevant to both exchangers niche.  Also, three-way linking is an effective link exchange practice.

Internal Links.  Internal links are links which point to a landing page on your internal website.  Internal links are a great way to share link juice between your website pages.  If you have a web page which is highly valued then pointing to a web page which is undervalued may increase the value of that undervalued web page without taking much juice from the originating link source page.  You should create an internal link architecture which creates a clear navigation path and shares link juice between your most important web pages.  Your link architecture should incorporate three-way linking practices so that you don't share link from one page then share the same juice right back to the same page, thus cancelling each other out.  If you strategize and plan then you will be better off.

There are other methods of obtaining links, but the above are some of the basics.  Once you begin building links and get more accustomed to the method of building links you will soon develop your own style of link building which will help you build links for virtually any website.  Building links takes time, effort, and strategy...I gave you the strategy above, now its up to you to put in the time and effort.

 
 

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