Successful Link Building

Every Internet Marketer is focused like a hungry shark on increasing their page rank and improving their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and, if you are a serious marketer, you might be, too. Your attention will be sharply focused on “backlinks,” their individual quality and how those backlinks appear to Google’s army of robot spiders when compared in their current algorithm.

Let’s start with “backlinks.” They are links on other websites directed back to your website. Both the popularity and the importance of your website is gauged by how many other website owners consider a link to your site worthwhile. All of this is done in the name of Search Engine Optimization…or getting Google and other search engines to love your website.

But, don’t run off gathering up as many links as you can from other marketers. Google is more interested in “quality” backlinks to your website than any others. Those quality backlinks would be backlinks from websites with similar content to yours. It’s all a game of relevancy, from Google’s point of view, and has a lot to do with the success of your website and marketing efforts.

A search engine calculates the keyword relevancy for a site and that calculation is strictly based on the percentage of related content found at either end of the link. For example, if your content is all about writing and selling ebooks, and the links from other sites have nothing to do with writing and selling ebooks, they will not be considered important to your relevancy and you will lose page rank or be totally ignored by the spiders.

There’s several ways to accomplish this balancing act with the search engines and to stay out of SEO trouble while you’re doing it. More than one seedy webmaster has been banished to Google Hell for trying to manipulate links to get a higher ranking, which is why Google tightened the criteria in the first place.

There’s lots of ways to virtually shoot yourself in the foot online without irritating Google, so why add it to the list?

Backlinks are great ways to get visitors to your website. That old chestnut, “Build it and they will come!” has no meaning in the virtual world of Internet Marketing. If no one knows you’re there and what you’re doing, they will NEVER find you.

One way to attract attention and the resulting free traffic, is with reciprocal link exchanges, as long as those links are “quality” links and from other sites with content or focus similar to yours. You will have to learn to check out your link partners and avoid any with pages full of unrelated links or links to what Google labels “Bad Neighborhoods.”

If Google devalues a site because of the “bad company” it keeps, or the “bad neighborhood” in hangs out in, your site will get devalued also and dropped in Page Rank if you are linked to it, or worse, just ignored by the robots.

What makes a bad neighborhood?

• Sites that use black-hat techniques to drive traffic

• Sites with many, many pages of outbound links

• Sites with pages of no content usually are just storage sites for thousands of links of poor quality and will certainly have Google snorting fire.

You will have to stay constantly vigilant to make sure you are not linked to a “bad neighborhood.” You are in control of whom you link to and that has to be your main focus. You cannot control who links to you, but the search engines will punish you if you link out to a “bad neighborhood.”

A search for the term “bad neighborhood,” with quotes, will turn up several free tools you can access to uncover any sites that might be harmful to your own linkbuilding efforts.

There are certain industries that seem to be involved in using spam and link farming techniques that you need to be aware of before you start building your links. Two major players in this field are the pharmaceutical and adult industries. Unless your business is in some aspect of those two industries, you would be well advised to avoid them entirely.

While inbound links to your site are good to have, quality outbound links to other high-quality or authority sites definitely will help your rankings considerably. Just remember that, in order for those outbound links to matter, they have to be within the subject field of your site.

There are a couple of things you have to consider while you are trying to get traffic and a decent Page Rank for your websites. It is important for you to check on your links and to keep track of which sites are linking back to you. If all the links are outbound from your site and not reciprocated with a link back, the sites on the other end of your outbound links will get all the traffic and page rank. You, on the other hand, will be considered an unimportant website.

Search on “verifying reciprocal links,” with quotes, and you will have a list of online tools you can use to check your site and those you’ve linked to for backlinks.

Another major consideration for your marketing success is the content of the anchor text of the backlink (what the link actually says on your site) and how it is using, or not using, the keywords relevant to your site.

For example, “Click Here” is totally generic and does not relate in anyway to your website. But, “For a great recipe, visit our site,” uses your keyword, “recipe” in this example, in the hyperlinked anchor text. Search engines love this.

There’s several easy ways to generate a set of quality links for your sites. Before you do anything, though, you have to make sure you know whom your audience is and who you want to attract to your site. Once you locate your target audience, focus your link building efforts on sites within that audience.

Your major task when looking for link possibilities is to slowly build your own directory of sites with themes that complement your site’s focus. These sites do not have to be exactly identical to yours, but they do have to be related in focus and content. For example, if your site is all about collecting comic books, a site that provides tips on pricing and/or preserving comic books would be a valuable link for you. Your keywords would probably be somewhat the same.

One outstanding way to find possible websites for reciprocal linking is to use the search engines to find the top sites with the same keywords you use. Use several search engines…Google is not the only search engine on the Web…and search on your keywords. The sites that come up in the first five or six places are websites the search engines consider important and have ranked them accordingly. Your next move is to visit those sites and contact the webmasters and ask for a link.

Some will decline, if their site is in high competition with yours. Don’t take it personally. It is just business. But some will accept, especially if you offer a link back to their site. When that happens, you just added a high quality backlink to boost your value with the search engines.

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From time to time, you will get offers for a link trade with sites that say they’ve already placed your link on their links page. Check that out carefully. If they get a link from you and do not have one back to your site on their links page, they are only helping themselves to your traffic and not reciprocating.

Another thing to check out is whether or not they have a link on their home page to their link pages. If they don’t, decline the invitation. Google won’t spider the link page and the link would be totally worthless to you.

When you are looking at link pages on other sites, avoid linking to any that have multiple link pages crammed full of links of all types. If you remember the discussion above about Link Farms, you will recognize what you are looking at.

Another caution: Do not link to pages with a zero page rank. That link will do nothing for your own page rank and you might be linking in a bad neighborhood or to a website that has been banned by Google.

As discussed earlier, a simple but powerful way to get quality backlinks is to write and submit articles on your niche to webmasters who publish newsletters focused on your niche.

Not only will they appreciate new content for their readers, but also you will provide yourself with a backlink that means something to Google. How? Your author’s box will have a link back to your site, along with a sentence or two about you. Article marketing is viral and provides a necessary resource for other marketers and publishers.

Smart marketing starts when you first think about your website. The first choice you have to make is your list of keywords that govern how your site is perceived, listed and ranked. You can use several free keyword tools to see how many people are searching for information using your keywords.

A simple search for “keyword,” (no quotes), or “keyword search tool,” will return several online keyword search tools you can use to analyze your keywords, generate new keywords and compare keyword density on your websites.

Here are three FREE, good ones to start with:

• Google AdWords Keywords Tool Because this is a Google tool, you will have the benefit of using the largest search user base in the universe. You can view a 12-month historical trend or simply analyze a site or page with keyword suggestions.

• Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly known as Overture) This tool is free, quick to set up and easy to use. This service offers general or regional marketing.

• Overture Keyword Selector Tool With this free service, just go to the site and enter in a search term. Overture automatically returns related searches including your term and the estimated number of times that term was searched for in the previous month.

When you’ve got your keywords selected to provide the most benefit to your marketing plan, put them to work for you immediately:

• Use them in your website title

• Sprinkle them throughout your sales page text

• Definitely put them in the description of your page in your HTML code

• Make sure they are in the metatags of your source code

Everything about virtual marketing depends on the value of your keywords. The search engines use them to index your site and evaluate your site contents. Customers use them to find the information they need. Your competitors use them to draw more traffic than you do.

Now that you’ve got your keywords in your source code’s where they need to be, let’s move on to building your link pages with the intention of making the most use of its subtle power for your marketing efforts.

The question now is “What Do You Put On Your Link Pages?”

Build a link page on your website giving other webmasters permission to link to yours and make it super easy for them to do it. Put everything they will need right at their fingertips and make it easy to find. If you offer several choices for links, make sure there’s enough separation between them so it is easy to see where one ends and another begins…don’t jam things together.

• Provide HTML code for your link so they can just copy and paste it on their link page

The easier it is to add your link to their pages, the more likely it will get added by webmasters. If it is a hassle, they won’t bother to use your link.

Before you post the code on your link page for the webmasters to access, make sure your URL is correct. Check it!…Check it!… Check it! How stupid would you feel if you published an incorrect link for your own site? I know because I’ve done it.

• Make sure your keywords are in the linking HTML code

This gives your link a double whammy…the keywords will be picked up by the search engines for people searching those phrases and your link will seem more important to the indexing spiders.

• Small banners or buttons with your linked code attached are always attractive for those with a taste for graphics over text

On a page of text links small colorful banners or buttons, hyperlinked to your site, are attention-getters and might just make your link stand out in the crowd. Some webmasters prefer graphic links.

One thing you absolutely need to add to a graphic link is the HTML “Alt” tag. Search engine spiders do not recognize graphics. They only read text, so the explanation located in that tag will be enough for the spider to index it.

If you decide to follow this suggestion, do not go overboard and add animation and flashy effects to the banner…just a tasteful, colorful button or small banner is all that is needed.

• Put a description with each link on your links page.

This looks professional and keeps your page from looking like a Link Farm to the search engine spiders.

Put a link to your link pages on your home page and any other pages you have on your website so your visitors and the search engines, can find it.

Remember that those indexing spiders check your links to determine value and legitimacy. If you have links going out to link farms or bad neighborhoods, you will be punished by the search engines…sort of “birds of a feather…” mentality.

Now that you have a good-looking link page, let’s take a look at how to ask for links on other webmaster’s pages.

Before you make any contacts, search on your keywords to find sites with decent page rank and similar content, but not directly in competition with your page. Visit the page and take note of how a link to your page would be a welcome resource for that page’s visitors.

A webmaster would be more interested in adding your link when he discovers that you have visited his page and noticed the possible benefits your link would add to his site.

When possible, use the telephone, old fashioned it may be, but a personal phone call from you to a webmaster is likely to get more consideration than a “cold call” email. Introduce yourself and mention that you had been on his site and would be interested in placing a link on his site.

If a phone call is not possible, compose a polite email, mentioning some of the parts of his site that you liked and how a link from you would benefit his site visitors. This technique is far better than an email that just asks for a link without providing any justification for it and is a dead giveaway that you’ve never been on the site.

If you are targeting an ezine in your niche, the best way to get links is through the author’s box in articles submitted either to article directories or directly to ezine publishers. The first chapter in this ebook discusses article submission directly, but it is so virally powerful that it deserves another mention here.

By now, you should have some good techniques to spread your reputation and news of your website across the Web without spending a cent. With Internet Marketing, FREE does not mean useless or without power. Every technique mentioned so far and the hyperlinked online resources mentioned are for you to freely to use…no cost.

Let’s move on to a couple of other powerful FREE options for your marketing arsenal.

Did you know you can download and read this chapter as well as the entire website traffic book now for FREE? Click Here for Free Traffic

Next: Newsletters and Ezines