Category Archives: Link Building

Written on April 12, 2011 by in Link Building

Setting up an internet business, these days, is quite easy and cheap. To get it to bring in significant profits, however, is not so easy. The most critical aspect of making any website profitable is to market it in such a way that it becomes extremely trusted and highly visible on the internet. This is where you need to find a link building guide and learn to become a link building expert or hire one. This is also where the concept of Search Engine Optimization enters the picture. Getting page ranks depends directly on the quantity of backward links you have created for your website and the quality of these links in terms of a variety of criterions. The problem with creating backward links for your website is that it is a very time consuming and tedious process which is why you either need to commission a link building expert or learn about link building through a comprehensive link building guide. This is one such link building guide and the following are some link building techniques that would be useful for beginners for learning about the basics of link building and seasoned professionals in terms of being a checklist.

1.  Article directories:
Article directories are places where people go to search for relevant information on a variety of subjects. As a result of this, these directories are ripe for search engine optimization and link building expert folks. The trick is to write relevant and useful articles about the industry you are involved in and then linking the article to your website. These links would benefit you in terms of direct target click through visitors and better search engine ranks. There are many different types of article directories in terms of their quality and your aim should be to put more focus on quality than quantity.

2.  Business directories:
Online business directories serve the kind of purpose that was synonymous with yellow pages before the advent of the internet. Just like article directories, a whole array of business directories also abounds on the internet with some being dubious and small time in nature as well. It should be noted that the small business directories may only provide useful backlinks and help improve your search engine rankings if they are frequently visited by the search engine robots.

3.  Link baiting:
This is, by far, the most effective method to build links for your website mainly because it only aims at using intelligence and ingenuity. Link baiting is fast being regarded as the technique with the most potential by any link building expert all over the world because it does not cost money and creates staggering results if implemented correctly. Link baiting involves the use of sub techniques which are known as hooks in the search engine optimization terminology. With this technique, what you need to do is provide people with content that can be seen, either in their entirety or partially, as one of the different types of hooks. There are many types of hooks and many search engine optimizers refer to these hooks by different names. However, at the end of the day, most link building guide or reference materials available on the web today will instruct you to use one of five main hooks including the contrary hook, the attack hook, the news hook, the resource hook and the humor hook. The news hook means that your content should contain relevant news about something that is not that easily available on the internet. The resource hook is to put up some kind of special widget or device on your website like an insurance premium calculator to get people to return repeatedly. The humor hook, as you have already surmised, deals with providing something so funny that people want to share it. The contrary and attack hooks are designed to get people to share the link because the content either attacks a certain concept or person, or says something that is in contradiction to popular beliefs. You should make sure that you use the negative hooks of attack and contrary only in small amounts because if you use them consistently for a long period of time they can backfire.

4.  Social media:
Social media marketing is one of the latest techniques being included in the link building guide today. The reason for this is that the fame of facebook, twitter, digg and other social media marketing websites is new when compared to the existence of Google. However, having people share your link with their friends is a highly efficient and cost effective method because the social media backward links, once on their way, will only lead to exponential growth. The best way to get people interested in your website is to provide them with high quality content. This technique can also be considered similar to link baiting which mainly aims at using specific types of hooks to get people to share the link.

5.  Blog comments:
Blogging and getting interlinks with other bloggers is a technique used by many a link building expert. It is in fact a very good method to not only build links but to also create an established following for your website. However, what you must not do is use blog comments only for posting your link because this would quickly get you into trouble with most major search engines and it’s simply not very nice for the blog owner to have to moderate and delete those types of comments from their blog. If you come across a link building guide that recommends that you hit as many blogs as possible with useless comments you need to stop, use some common sense and toss that link building guide in the trash can. Instead, you should put relevant and thought provoking comments that make people sit up and notice you enough so that they click on your name or your link. This would not only help you create links but also lead to a certain amount of credibility for you.

6.  Forum posts:
Forum posts are quite similar to the concept of blog comments, except forums tend to require experts or people with highly innovative responses. The real value of forum posts is that it would help you tap into a network of people who may find your website interesting enough to share links of their own volition. As stated earlier in this link building guide, whatever you do, do not use these for spamming your links.

If you go through this link building guide and implement all the points mentioned above like a link building expert does, there is no reason why you will not see a serious improvement in your link popularity building process and the performance of your website with regard to both traffic and conversions. The key here is to make your link building campaign as diverse and variable as possible.

Did you find this link building guide helpful? Post your comments below.

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Written on April 10, 2011 by in Link Building

Website link building is, debatably, the most crucial aspect of a complete link building and search engine optimization campaign. Google and other search engines analyze page rank on the basis of how many links are pointing to your domain and individual pages. The principle behind this is that search engines want to direct searchers to websites that are active and doing well. The best way to evaluate a website’s quality is through the number of people who find it useful enough to share it with other people. This translates into the instances of links of your website on other pages. Therefore, what you have to do is to ensure that the link of your domain or web page is visible on multiple third party pages. Most internet marketers have an already devised system for building links and, needless to say, every campaign or strategy would consist of a variety of variables and techniques. It is also likely that you have come across many blog posts and articles which list out different techniques of link building. However, despite being seasoned link building experts with complete link building campaigns many of these seasoned experts overlook the four fundamentals of link building.

  1. The importance of Anchor text:  
    All the major search engines attach a lot of importance to the anchor text of your link. Anchor text is nothing but the text on which the link is built upon. For example, if you have a website that deals in selling and buying antiques form the countries of China, Japan, and Indonesia then your aim should be to build your links using anchor text like ‘Asian antiques’ and related variations of the same. There are two considerations when it comes to the anchor text being used in a complete link building campaign. The first is the relevance of the phrases or words used to the target web page i.e. your domain or one of the sub pages on your domain. This, as is obvious, means that if you have an insurance website then insurance policies would be more relevant than insure and insure more relevant than policies. The second aspect of this complete link building analysis deals with the content surrounding your anchor text. In simpler terms, the web page on which your link exists needs to be relevant to your website or web page as well. For instance, if you are planning to use your insurance anchor text and link on a page dealing with leather shoes, then it is advisable that you forego this plan.
  2. Quantity and quality of links:  
    There is an age old debate among website link building experts where one side says that quantity of the links and content is more important than the quality of links and content, while the other side says the opposite. There are practical proofs of both strategies giving solid results, which is why the debate is still raging on. The quantity of backward links seems to matter if the quantity is really high because low quality links carry less link juice than high quality links. Most major search engines use a concept known as ‘reasonable surfer’ which, basically, deals with a link being evaluated on the basis of what it means to a fictional reasonable surfer. Therefore, things like font, placement, location, source page, relevance and user behavioral dynamics, which are considered as functions of quality, all play a major role in the link being evaluated. With website link building  when you go for quantity, you basically compromise on these things for an extremely high number of links. Alternatively, when you go for quality, you have to either spend a lot of money or settle for less numbers of links. In practical terms, if you were submitting 10 or so articles per week, then you would be able to pay special attention to where they go and how they are used. Alternatively, if you were submitting 100, you would not be able to give the same attention to the process. However, at the end of it all, the resulting performances of both these techniques are still comparable. Hence, if you are wishing to achieve complete link building, then you should aim at balancing the two sides. Using the same example given above, instead of going for 10 or 100 articles, you go for 50 articles to create a balance while at the same time utilizing on-page search engine optimization.
  3. Variable source pages:  
    The diversity of the source pages in the website link building where your backward links are placed will also play a very significant role in how effective your campaign is. This means that the pages which are pointing to your website need to be housed with different root domains. Thus, three sub pages under the xdomain.com would not be as effective as one page each on xdomain.com, ydomain.com and zdomain.com. This takes away the older strategies which used to be based around link exchanges with domain owners and replaces them with the qualitative and genuine website link building strategies. Even if this technique may be more difficult than the older strategies, they are still more beneficial because not only do they improve your link building endeavors but they also give a boost to your click through traffic.
  4. Trustworthy neighborhoods:  
    Finally, source pages which are pointing towards your website need to be situated in trustworthy and safe neighborhoods, as per all the major search engines like Google and Yahoo. For instance, if you have a website that provides news of some kind then the most trustworthy backward link you can get for it would be from some major news website like BBC or Wall Street Journal. Granted, these examples are extremely difficult to achieve in real search engine optimization practices, but they still get the point of reliability and trustworthiness across.

The above mentioned four pillars of complete link building strategies are ideal for website link building experts to evaluate if their strategies meet the fundamental principles of link building and are in fact increasing their traffic in measurable ways. However, it should also be noted that even though basics are important, some innovation can go a long way in setting you apart from your competitors. Therefore, while you pay attention to the basic, make sure that you look into advanced as well.

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Written on April 8, 2011 by in Link Building

Using a healthy mixture of link building techniques is one of the mainstays of any internet marketing campaign and there is a reason for this. Contextual link building is one of the most effective ways for any website entrepreneur or blogger to improve the traffic on their web page and ranking on all major search engines. Most significant websites like Google and Yahoo have a page ranking formula that rely heavily on backward links to a web page. However, this is just a simple explanation because the formula is extremely elaborate in nature and incorporate a variety of aspects such as quality and quantity of links, user behavioral tendencies and even the formats in which the links have been created. This means that, regardless of what web page or domain you are trying to create backward links for, you need to delve into extreme detail to be successful. A majority of search engine optimization experts employ a variety of link building techniques and focus on contextual link building. Here is a list consisting of the major techniques being used by seasoned search engine optimization professionals all over the world.

  1. Social networking:  
    If you have not been living under a rock, then you already know what social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook do. However, it is likely that you have not analyzed the immense potential that these websites hold for search engine optimizers. One basic rule for search engine optimizers is that where there is an influx of online visitors, there is usually the potential for getting some of that traffic to your website using clever but ethical link building techniques. Both these websites are extremely useful not only for networking and getting direct click through visitors but also for further dissemination of your links. These are relevant matters because if you deal in apples and you talk about oranges then you are targeting the wrong audience. Therefore you need to utilize contextual link building strategies, stick to the core subject of your web page and be as welcoming and cordial as you can to create a long standing following for your page.
  2. Article submissions:  
    Articles submissions are, by far, the best way for you to improve the ranking and popularity of your web page or domain. Article submission, as the name suggests, deals with the submission of articles to article submission websites to create backward links that are relevant. There are three things that you will have to be very careful about here. The first is the kind of articles that you use and this is also the place where the concept of contextual link building enters the picture. It is very tempting to write something with half a heart and post it thinking that it will still generate a link, but you should not do this because a well written article may lead to direct click through traffic and also further spreading of the link. Well written here does not only refer to the standard of English or the style of writing but the relevance of the content with respect to the target web page. In simple and practical terms, if you have a website on coffee makers then do not write about alcohol. Effectively using contextual link building, by writing a good article, will offer you a better chance of getting a spider web like network where you have consciously created the first layer of backlinks to your site. The second aspect of article submissions is that you submit your articles to an article submission website that is regarded highly by major search engines like Google. A prime example of this would be ezinearticles.com which would easily get you a solid, reliable and highly effective link. The final but, debatably, most important facet of article submission is the use of right anchor text. Anchor text, as you already are well aware of, would be the phrase or word on which your link is placed.
  3. Link baiting:  
    Link baiting is a concept that is fast becoming the foundation of many link building strategies in the world today. Have you ever come across a website that has some extremely funny blog posts or some kind of news update and then shared it with your friends? If you have then you have seen link baiting at its best. Link baiting, basically, means that you provide attractive content on your web page which is designed to encourage people to share it with their friends and acquaintances. This could be anything from written text, some major resource or even some kind of downloadable software. In fact, you can even use innovative or insightful ideas as link hooks.
  4. Press releases:  
    This is another example of very good white hat link building techniques. They are extremely simple to implement because the primary focus lies in the quality of the content in your press release. Once you have a high quality press release that is relevant and contains all the pertinent keywords, you can optimize them just the way you do for your website.
  5. Link swaps and purchased links:  
    In case of link swaps, you will have to be extremely discreet to be successful because Google and, indeed, other major search engines do not assign a lot of value to link swaps. However, if the situation is warranted which it is sometimes, then you should not avoid it. An example where you might find these types of link building techniques to be useful would be when you link with your local chamber of commerce, get approved and receive a link from them to include on your website. On the other end of the spectrum are purchased or bought links. Purchasing backward links used to be one of the most common practices in the early days of search engine optimization. This is not the case now and, as a matter of fact, this practice is frowned upon by Google. Therefore, you should use link swaps sparingly and not use purchased links at all.

Google is quickly becoming smarter to link building techniques being used by search engine optimizers in its bid to provide better search results to its users. Therefore, you need to change with the times and adapt to using new ways to acquire authority back links by focusing on contextual link building methods instead of the conventional norms.

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Written on April 6, 2011 by in Link Building

Despite what you may believe, high PR link building is not a strategy of the bygone era. Instead, it is still considered to be a very crucial component of most comprehensive link building strategies being used by search engine optimizers today and it helps your website to maximize its potential with regard to Google’s PageRank formula. However, as you may already be well aware of, Google is, by far, the most dynamic place when it comes to the evolution of established techniques and systems. As a result of a recently approved patent by this search engine giant, you will need to make some serious modifications to your link building strategy. The patent, titled ‘Ranking documents based on user behavior and / or feature data’, was filed by Google in 2004 and approved last year and entails a whole new and extremely elaborate PageRank formula. Here is a much more detailed explanation of this new patent and how it will impact the success of your link building campaign.

The most basic change that you will have to make will have to be with regard to how you view and understand the concept of a link. If you consider the existing concepts of link building, you will quickly realize that search engine optimizers treat all links as equal because Google treats every link as equal. This means that a link of extremely small font and inconsequential color being placed in some obscure part of a page that is completely irrelevant to the target page is equal to a link of a very large font size and prominent color placed in a page that is considered to be the best in the industry that the target page deals with. In simpler terms, whether you put a link that has no probability of being clicked or you put a link that invites users to click, it is all the same. As per the patent mentioned above, the newer PageRank formula is much more advanced than the old monolith that was unilateral and simple. The new formula takes into account, in a much more elaborate way, the concept of ‘reasonable surfer’. This means that a link that is more likely to be linked by a user would be given more weight in the big scheme of things i.e. the PageRank formula. In practical terms, this means the following changes in your high PR link building strategy:

1.  Comments on forums and blogs:  
A link in the comments or blogs will have to be extremely relevant to the source page and the target page. This means that if you are dealing with dog leashes, then you cannot have a link on a gaming page because the two subjects are vastly different, that would be a link building mistake. Furthermore, the relevance of your link placement also matters. For instance, if you have a link on dog leashes then your anchor text needs to conform to it as well or the link would not receive enough weight by Google. Generic forum posts and blog comments have their place in the big scheme of things, but with high PR link building in mind you would do well to be very specific of your usage.

2.  Social Bookmarking exploits:  
The impact of the PageRank formula will be the same for social bookmarking usage as they are with forum and blog comments. As you are probably already surmising, the fundamental thing here is the wise usage of links instead of just bombing them. In different terms, quality is the prime concern for search engine optimizers over quantity now.

3.  Article submission:  
The concept of article submission is a bit more interesting than the previous two things because the impact of the PageRank formula is complex here. However, in terms of article submissions, what everything will boil down to is the fact that you need to start focusing on submitting to high quality and well recognized websites instead of article spamming that is the norm today. For example, instead of submitting a bunch of 100 articles on low profile websites of low repute, you would do well to write 10 extremely high quality articles, deep link to pages within your website fro those articles and then post them on really well known article websites. The idea is to get genuine recognition for your website from genuine users and proper syndication with a reliable website through the right channels.

4.  Bulk link exchange gimmicks:  
With the induction of the new page rank system, bulk link exchange techniques have become almost useless. The reason for this is simply that bulk link exchanges, more often than not, tend to be random exchanges instead of planned syndication and this is exactly what Google wants to discourage. Therefore, if you wish to draw direct click through traffic towards your website, then you can use bulk link exchange deals, but if you want relevant high PR link building, then you would be better off using more qualitative methods when link building for your website.

It is possible that you are not viewing these changes with a great deal of enthusiasm because they tend to make high PR link building more cumbersome and difficult, especially when compared against the earlier days of search engine optimization and older link building techniques. However, if you look deeper into the impact of these changes, you would realize that they are actually good for your website. The reason for this is simply that these changes are designed to make it easier for the ‘reasonable surfer’ to find links that are relevant to him. Consequently, for the search engine optimizer i.e. you, it would mean more sales conversions to traffic ratio than before. The final goal of any website is to convert visitors into customers and this would be made easy with the new PageRank formula because the likelihood of visitors needing what you offer is increased. Moreover, since every search engine optimizer is in the same boat, this would not give any extra benefit to anyone and the industry is still at par. Hence, the conclusion is simply that you have to focus on qualitative content and genuine syndication instead of creating quantitative back links amongst irrelevant pages. Some ways that you can employ to make this happen can be guest blogs, link baiting, genuinely published press releases, authentic and relevant syndication or tie ups and community creation.

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Written on March 28, 2011 by in Link Building

There is a lot to be said for the benefits of high quality search engine optimization. In fact, the success of any website is directly proportional to the quality of its search engine optimization campaign. Search engine optimization is about optimizing the source code of your web pages and building enough links from other websites pointing to your optimized pages so as to create better rankings on all the popular search engines such as MSN, Yahoo and Google. However, advanced link building techniques and, indeed, a whole link building campaign tends to not only be cumbersome but also highly complicated. These small difficulties can immediately transform into something big if you are unaware or negligent of even one of the many fundamentals of link building. In order to avoid such situations, the following are some link building techniques along with descriptions to help you in your endeavours.

1.  Directory links:  
There are many different types of directories for online and offline businesses. The trick, as you may already know, is to list your business on as many directories as possible. Although this process is quite tedious and time consuming, it will not only give you click through visitors but also improve your page ranking. Two things you should be sure of, however, are that the directory is indexed by major search engines and that you vary the anchor text being used.

2.  Specific linking:  
One of the most difficult but also the most advanced link building techniques is to create links for, at least, the top 20 results for your relevant keywords. This technique involves you using your relevant keywords on search engines and trying to get the link of your website on the top 20 results from those searches. Logically, the competition has to be excluded from the top 20 list. While all websites might not be conducive to your requests, others will settle for link exchanges, tie ups, money and even free SEO services from you. The reason why this is so useful is that each link that you create in these search results will generate targeted visitors for you which would be easier to convert into sales.

3.  Link searches:  
This is a very old technique used in a link building campaign by experienced search engine optimizers. The aim here is to look for websites, pages and portals that allow link additions pertaining to the industry you operate in. You can search for these types of pages, websites and portals via all the major search engines. Usually, these searches will result in link directories, business directories, forums and, sometimes, even blogs. These results will vary in the way that they may allow free links, selective links, paid links or link exchanges.

4.  Competitor’s links:  
If your website is only just starting then you will need this advanced link building technique to reach some type of parity with your competitors who have been in the industry for a significant amount of time already. This technique involves you searching for places where your competitors have already placed their links and then placing your own links in the same places. This will quickly lead you to achieve a sort of equality with your competitors in terms of quality traffic. Furthermore, you would get insights into your competitors’ link building strategies and these would be tried and tested by them over the years.

5.  Article submission:  
Original articles on the subject matter related to your business can easily become the spine of your link building campaign because, with this technique, everything will be in your hand. Herein, you are supposed to write unique articles related to your industry and post it on your own site. However, you should make sure that your articles conform to the SEO rules i.e. include relevant keywords, in order to be truly successful. Along with this, you can even generate good ranking by posting original articles on various article directories that are available online. Putting articles with links of your website on third party websites can make a significant difference in terms of your ranking.

6.  Forums and online groups:  
While other advanced link building techniques look to get traffic onto your website, forums and online communities will allow you to not only get targeted traffic onto your website but also make contact with industry insiders. Just posting links on forums would be considered spamming. Therefore, you have to employ the proper technique for posting on forums. You can use the link of your website in your signature but make sure that you post relevant and authentic comments.

7.  Blogging and blog comments:  
Linking with blogging is more akin to making contacts and building followers. Inbound links on the back of your creativity and brilliance in your own blog or through blog comments can lead to a lot of people going through your website. In fact, by being truly interesting and building an image for yourself, you can even generate a regular audience over and above the individual links that you create in your link building campaign.

8.  Tie-ups and collaborations:  
This advanced link building method is a lot like renting pages on other people’s websites, portals or domains. However, you can make this even more elaborate by making collaborative partnerships with other websites that provide products and services upstream or downstream to your services or products. Therefore, you would be able to get relevant page ranking because you are connected to a reliable website and also proper targeted customers that arrive at your link looking for your services.

9.  Automated link building software and packages:  
This is a method that will give you instant results but is also very risky if you get noticed. You will find many types of software, programs and packages online that will promise to submit articles, comments and forum replies automatically for you to create links. However, you need to be extremely careful with these kinds of software because they can get you blacklisted by major search engines quite quickly.

The above mentioned advanced link building techniques are only a few and there are many others that you can use in your link building campaign once you have cracked these. Link building requires a lot of patience and diligence from the search engine optimizer, which is why you should make sure that you are set for the long haul.

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Written on March 26, 2011 by in Link Building

Ask any search engine optimizer and he would tell you with a straight face that the SEO industry is one that is extremely dynamic because of Google’s persistence in improving page ranking and indexing formula. As a result of this dynamic nature of the SEO environment, almost every search engine optimizer has come to a place where the link building strategy in question has come to a standstill. For situations where link building strategies have become stagnant, the following are some tips that are sure to get them rolling all over again.

1.  Hyperlinks:  
Although a very basic point, sometimes search engine optimizers tend to skip them or neglect them. The words inherent in the concerned hyperlink are very crucial to the whole link building campaign. The reason why hyperlinks play such a major role is simply that they fetch better weight when considered in the page ranking formula of major search engines.

2.  Content provider:  
Link building means that you need your link on other pages in relevant situations. Therefore, what you need to do in a content providing link building strategy or situation is to provide people with the kind of content that they feel would be worth forwarding to other people. The direct result of this is that you get people sharing your articles and videos with their friends, some of whom will, in turn, do the same. It has also been noticed that certain controversial content can incite a lot of publicity and traffic for a page, which would lead to more visitors and impressions amongst the target audience.

3.  Competition link hijacking:  
This is one of the most common link building strategies these days. Most online businesses try to find out the kind of backward links that their competitors have and then try to get the same for themselves as well. This is especially useful for new businesses because it allows them to get to the level of their competitors sooner.

4.  Variable anchor text:  
The search engines have become more sensitive to user behavioral dynamics and search engine optimizers’ gimmicks. Using identical anchor text is a technique that is nothing but a method to con the search engine bots. Although this technique used to be useful in the earlier days, it has been a while since the norms changed. Now, in order to get good results from these types of link building strategies, you should use variable anchor text or, at least, make sure that your anchor text alternates and gets shuffled.

5.  Link baiting:  
With the advent of the newer and smarter ‘reasonable surfer’ concept from Google, link baiting has become one of the most potent link building strategy known to search engine optimizers today. The reason for this is simply that link baiting is an entirely transparent and legal process. Link baiting is very much like providing content, except with a twist. There are primarily five different types of ‘hooks’ or methods used in link baiting. These are the news hooks, the resource hook, the humor hook, the contrary hook and the attack hook. Although many search engine optimizers and bloggers would seem to suggest that the contrary and attack hooks are useful, the majority say that they need to be used in a controlled manner. A link building strategy is designed to create a long term following, which is why rubbing people the wrong way for too long would be counterproductive.

6.  Relevant directory submissions:  
Directory submissions are very well known for the kind of traffic and page ranking that they can generate. However, the true results of directory submissions will only be visible if you use the right directories and directory pages. In different words, the directory pages should correspond to your area of concern or be as close to it as possible. The best way to find such directories is to conduct a search with directory name and the relevant anchor text together.

7.  Building trust:  
Google is well known for its elaborate ranking formula which they are always trying to tweak to create the concept of the ‘reasonable surfer’ algorithmically. As any experienced search engine optimizer would tell you, there exists a concept known as the circle of trust in SEO jargon which, basically, means how much Google trusts content from a particular domain or even a person. Investing time and effort in getting into this circle of trust is something that can make a huge difference for a website. Also, if you already have an established website then you can use it to promote other websites and if you are in the circle of trust then you will find it easier to do so.

8.  Expired or discontinued pages:  
The efficiency and the cost effectiveness of link building strategies like this one are really staggering once you take them both into account simultaneously. This technique looks at using expired and discontinued pages for creating backward links to your website. The reason that this method is so useful is that there are many pages online that have discontinued their service, and some of these pages even hold extremely high page rankings. Furthermore, as these pages have discontinued, your chances of getting backward links on them improve drastically. Also, you can mine these websites for linked pages which would also be beneficial for your link, if used properly. It should be noted that this method is completely white hat and legal.

9.  Using twitter and similar networking sites:  
Twitter is the mainstay of the social networking circles and this makes it prime for search engine optimizers. Using twitter in your link building strategies would require a certain amount of innovation from you.  The method focuses on using locals or even nationals who have had experiences with issues in the industry you function in to create blog posts for you and then encouraging them to share it with their friends. A typical example would be to use a ticket booking and the resulting experience, if you are a booking website or an agent.

Link building strategies are extremely complex in nature. However, you can use this characteristic of a link building strategy to your advantage by thinking up new and innovative techniques of using this complexity as is evident from the techniques mentioned above.

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Written on March 24, 2011 by in Link Building

Search engine optimization is something every webmaster is going to have to master if they want to grow their website with targeted traffic from organic search engine rankings. There are many different ways you can optimize your site to increase web traffic including external link building, article marketing, free products and much more. One part of SEO that often gets overlooked is the process of internal link building. Internal linking is just what it sounds like, you have links from one page in your site linking to another. These types of link building tactics are not as powerful as external linking; however, they do have a place in SEO.

Internal Link Building Within Your Navigation

The main reason webmasters use internal link building is for better navigation. You want customers and potential customers to be able to move around and through your website easily and internal link building is a great way to do that. You can add links to the side bar, within the text and as a footnote, which allows users to naturally flow from one page to the other. Navigation is also important when it comes to ranking well in the search engines.

Search Engine Importance

Internal linking is one way that search engines determine which pages on your site are more important. Links within your site tell the search engine how much importance you place on specific pages. Anytime you have a multiple page website it is a given that not all pages will have the same importance which is why setting up this hierarchy is important.

Opportunity for Internal Linking

Creating a website is generally a complex thing; you work hard to create a site that is entertaining and useful for users. Toward this end, many people will use banners, images and logos to enhance the experience and you can use these for internal link building. You will want to link back to your home page or other important pages through these graphics or text links. It is also a good idea to use keywords in the ALT text of links with any images you use on your site, this does not have a huge impact on your SEO but it does make the user experience better, which is important.

Suggested Articles

Once you get a visitor to your site, it is not a stretch of the imagination that you would want to point them to further appropriate content. Many times web site owners will use this opportunity to link to other sites with relevant content; however, this could be a good opportunity for more internal link building, which will send users deeper into your website.

You can accomplish this by having a suggested articles list on your sidebar, but a better option might be to hyperlink within the content itself. With just a little HTML experience, you can easily insert clickable links within the text that will point to other important pages on your site. This is a clean and professional looking way to achieve internal linking.

Keywords

In conjunction with the internal link building mentioned above you can optimize your efforts by linking through relevant keywords. For example instead of creating a “click here” in text citation, you can use hyperlinking to make a keyword or phrase the link. Let’s say you have a site that promotes vacations in Florida, you could use the keyword Florida, vacations, hotels or restaurants as the anchor text of links that point from a page on your domain to another page on the same domain. This will make navigation smoother for users, tell the search engines which pages you rank as more important and help with keyword optimization. It is a good idea to use common variations of your chosen keywords instead of focusing on just one or two words.

SEO

Search engines use complicated algorithms to rank websites. Keywords and content are very important, as are link building strategies. It is important that you use both external and internal link building in order to push your site higher in the SERPS, (search engine results pages). There is a good deal of emphasis put upon external links, content and keyword optimization however, internal linking kind of gets left on the wayside. Utilize all SEO options when you are building your website and traffic will be your reward.

As a side note you can also sculpt the PageRank of your pages to some degree by implementing rel=nofollow attributes into your link statements. You would do this for links that you deem unimportant for search engines. Some examples of those types of links that you might not want a search engine to pay attention to are your privacy policy page or perhaps your terms of service page.

Building a site and having it recognized by the search engines is the goal of any webmaster. The above tips on internal link building are just a few of the many ways you can optimize your site. Remember, however that you must keep your users ultimately in mind. Search engines will change and tweak the way they rank websites but people will remain the same. Users want to find good information, easily understandable and constructed in a simple to navigate fashion. If your users begin struggling to find what they are, looking for you can rest assured they will quickly move on to a better site. By all means, use internal linking and other valuable SEO tools to improve your site but do so with the end result in mind, a good customer experience.

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Written on March 22, 2011 by in Link Building

Most website owners know they need to improve their link popularity and want to increase backlinks to their site. These are links that come from other sites and point back to your website. Search engines look at the number, quality and relevance of these links when they determine where your website should show up in the search results. There are of course other factors that also go into this decision, but make no mistake anchor text, backlinks and great content are absolutely essential to any SEO campaign.

Most of the information you will find on the internet will point you to what you should do to increase backlinks, however there are some things you should not do as well. Avoiding these practices can often be the best search engine optimization techniques you could have. Here are a few of the top things to avoid when you work to increase backlinks that point to your website and otherwise optimizing your site for high search engine rankings.

Voting to Increase Backlinks

When websites place a link to your site on their site this is seen as a vote of confidence to the search engines. You would think that the more votes your site receives the better, regardless of where they come from. However, when sites with low reputations are voting for your site it rather nullifies the effect. Look at it like advice from your mother, bad company corrupts good character. When the search engines see you are “hanging” out with quality, sites they will naturally assume you have good content as well. This is the best way to increase backlinks to your site, think quality over quantity every time.

Relevant Anchor Text Backlinks

Increase backlinks with sites that are relevant to your sites content. Always try to avoid establishing links to your site from sites that do not fit into your niche. Irrelevant backlinks are pretty much worthless, they are seen as a tiny vote of confidence but smack more of spam than anything else. Besides having less value with the search engines irrelevant backlinks do your site no good organically either. A backlink from a skate boarding site to a house painting site simply does not make sense, to visitors or the search engines.

PageRank

If you are going to place, anchor text backlinks you want to also pay attention to a sites PageRank. This is a complicated algorithm that takes many things into consideration to come up with a numerical value for a website. There are more than 500 million variables and two billion terms to come up with a websites ranking in importance.

Links that point to your website from a site with a low PageRank is similar to linking with a site that has a poor reputation. This relationship will not hurt your websites credibility with the search engines but it also won’t help to improve your search engine rankings either when it comes to search engine results, which is completely counterproductive. Increase backlinks by creating link relationships with sites that have relevant content and better PageRank than your site, or at least as good as yours.

Selling or Buying Links

Purchasing links is still done and can work to a degree however; search engines such as Google definitely frown on the process. It would not be surprising if Google figured out a way to exclude these from their algorithm in the future. Beyond this issue however is the problem of where the links you are purchasing are coming from. We have already established that low PageRank, poor reputations and non-relevant sites do not make for backlinks; you could be getting all of the above when you purchase links.

Keywords

One very often overlooked aspect of link building is getting keywords into the anchor text. Backlinks to your site should always contain the keyword or phrase you are trying to rank for in the anchor text. This is critical to your SEO efforts and should not be overlooked.

Link Age

Search engine optimization is an ever changing thing, over time the formulas used to determine which site will rank on the search pages will vary. Link age is one factor that has been given more weight than it might deserve. The idea is that the older the domain hosting a backlink the more weight it may have. This is good in theory, which is why many people are attempting to purchase older domains.

Before you go to great lengths to purchase older websites with the idea that you will cash in on link age you should gauge the other criteria of the link. Content on the site, relevance of the content and reason behind the links placement are all important to consider as well. Don’t go to great lengths to obtain aged links instead look for quality when trying to increase backlinks.

It may seem complicated to climb the search engine results ladder and it can be a frustrating experience. The process is ever changing and evolving as search engines become more sophisticated. One of the best pieces of SEO advice you could get is to always remember why you are building your site, anchor text, backlinks and content; for people. Make real people the focus of your efforts and the search engine results will follow. Time is a key factor when you increase backlinks, but if you will exercise patience and good sense, the results will follow.

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Written on March 17, 2011 by in Link Building

What’s new in search engine optimization? Well, high quality back links are not necessarily new in the field but they are more important than ever. When you want to know what is new with search engine optimization you need to look to what the search engines are focusing on, and right now that is providing a geographically local targeted internet experience.

In order to stay competitive search engines must respond to what users are looking for and today that is more local centered search results. Why you might ask? For one thing, consumers are turning to the internet for product research daily, even if they plan on making purchases from a local brick and mortar establishment they will hit the internet first for information, price comparisons and more. All this means for the internet marketer is that they are going to have to create local targeted high quality backlinks if they are going to stay competitive.

Where to Start?

Getting backlinks that are local targeted actually sounds more complicated than it actually is, it will require some time and effort on your part but it is definitely not an impossible feat. Do not worry you do not have to scrap all your marketing campaigns, simply tweak them and your website a bit and you should be good to go.

Geographically local Copywriting

You will want geographically local text on your site, this is crucial. Include names of places, cities, towns and more on your website if you want to rank well when it comes to geographically targeted (also known as local) search results. The more specific your site is to an area the better it will rank in the search engine results. Of course, this is not always prudent for every website since not every site will be related to a geographically local area. However, as much as possible put this SEO tip to work for your site.

Other Businesses Can Provide High Quality Backlinks

When you are talking about local targeting it changes up the way you look at high quality backlinks. Generally, you want your links on sites that are relevant to your product or service. Nevertheless when you are working on targeting people in a certain area you can link up with other companies in the area, even if they have nothing to do with your business. These can actually be some of the easiest backlinks to get since you and the other business owner are not in competition. Getting backlinks from a neighbouring business can be beneficial to both of you, as long as both business are related to one another, your close geographically local proximity can work well for both your businesses online.

Other Ways of Getting Backlinks

Local targeting is just one way of getting backlinks for your website. One of the most popular techniques on the books today is the use of article marketing. It has been used so much however that the web is covered in reprinted, copied and spun content. This is opening up a wide market for the business that can produce quality, original and unique content for their readers.

In the rush to create, high quality backlinks marketers have turned to the quick yet poorly written article. The focus has become more on quantity than quality and the entire internet is suffering for it. These marketers and SEO companies may be getting backlinks at the moment, but it will not last.

If you want to properly, structure your SEO efforts start with producing or purchasing quality information that is timely and useful. Fresh, unique and useful content from a talented writer will trump the spam that is floating around all over the internet every time. When you are the site providing the answers that people are looking for on a variety of subject’s, high quality links will be a side effect of your efforts. Getting backlinks takes time; patience and dedication so do not rush the process.

Making your presence known on the internet will require some creative maneuvering on your part, which includes getting backlinks. However, high quality backlinks should be your goal. Do not settle for a quick fix as it could easily backfire on you and leave you completely out of the loop when it comes to the search engines. Let’s face it, with more than 35% market share if you are not in Google’s search results then you almost do not exist on the web.

Many people are eager to get their niche sites up and running so, they can see the profits begin to roll in. This has led to the creation of dozens of cookie cutter websites using the same tired content and strategies for getting backlinks. Do yourself and your business a favor, consider local targeting for your website and always publish great content that people actually want to read. If you will follow these basic principles, your business will flourish instead of flounder.

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Written on March 11, 2011 by in Link Building

Building backlinks, this is a phrase you are going to hear over and over again if you are trying to build an online presence. Today more and more people are interested in creating an online stream of income, which requires a website or blog and traffic. Both of these things mean you are going to have to rank well in the search engines. The only way to get around this simple fact is to have money at your disposal to fund a massive ad campaign and if you have that, you probably are not immediately interested in building backlinks! Here are a few basic tips for how to get backlinks for your website and increase traffic.

Why is Knowing How to Get Backlinks Important?

Links from one website to another are important in the online world for two reasons. Number one of course is the fact that if a link to your site is on an authority site, people can and will click through for a visit. The number one reason most marketers are interested in how to get backlinks is for search engine optimization or SEO. You see, when Google, Yahoo or Bing sees that your site has several links from relevant sites they will push your address up the ladder so to speak. Search engines are constantly trying to improve the type of search results they provide to internet users and a link from one website to another is considered a vote of confidence in the content, the more quality “votes” you get the better the search engine will rank you.

Website

Before you begin, building backlinks to your site you want to make sure your site is ready for people. Do not just haphazardly throw up bizarre content, AdSense ads, affiliate programs and an article or two and expect to begin marketing it. There are tons of these kinds of sites flooding the internet already and the search engines are on to them, you can bet they will not be around long! First create a site that people will actually enjoy visiting and can take something away from, if your site does not fill a need all the marketing and knowing how to get backlinks in the world is not going to be profitable. Humans first and search engine optimization last.

Blogging

The simplest method for building backlinks to your site is by starting your own blog. This can be a less formal place where you can talk to current customers about your business and insert handy links to your website. Your goal for a blog should be consistent relevant content. A blog should be updated on a regular basis with helpful content to the readers. The plus for your business is that every blog post can contain links back to your website. A bonus feature of this type of link building is that good content will often be copied, links and all, and used by other bloggers! Which means more links for you!

Press Releases

Press releases have been in the top ten when it comes to how to get backlinks for quite some time, and they are still a really good strategy. In some cases, it will cost you upfront to submit your press release but when you have something important to say about your business it is worth the cost. Not only does your business get much needed exposure and links you could find your business featured on a prominent news website if the release is worthy! Imagine the name of your business with a link cropping up on CNN or a similar website.

Domain Purchases

It is not often mentioned but purchasing domains that are about to expire is another slick tactic for building backlinks. Search out relevant domains that already have a good number of sites linking to them and purchase the domain for yourself. Once you have ownership simply host the site, continue to publish great content on the site and place a link to your main site.

Niche Related Comments

Have you come across a really good article or blog post about your chosen niche? Leave a guest comment with a link back to your own site. This is helpful in many ways, not only will other posters see your link and possibly click through to your site, but the search engine also sees it surrounded by relevant text. This gives your backlink much more weight than it would normally carry. Remember, do not spam and avoid sites that auto post, you want to land on moderated pages for the best results.

Building Backlinks With Social Media

Have you heard of Digg or Stumble? Chances are if you have been trying to learn how to get backlinks you are familiar with these social media sites and many more like them. These are places where people can “like” a particular article or post and share their opinion with the world. The more Diggs or Stumbles your content receives the higher it ranks on these sites, which means tons of link popularity and traffic for your site. You can promote yourself through these sites, but do so sparingly and promote other good content as well. When your content is good it will receive traffic from these social sites.

How to get backlinks is a complicated question, but one that if you take it in bite size pieces is answerable. The key to building backlinks is to take your time and exercise patience. While you may want 1,000 links pointing to your website in a days’ time, it will surely get you banned from the search engines if you do! You can speed the process a little bit through the use of automated directory submissions, and article submissions but do not try to run before you have learned to walk.

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