Finding reliable information on the net about proper link building can be a great task in itself. From knowing who has the right information, to what really does work and especially who to trust as a qualified expert in this field.
Link building can be defined as the process of getting quality web sites to link to you’re web site, in order to improve search engine rankings. Link building techniques can include buying links, reciprocal linking, or entering barter arrangements.
Although it may seem like a difficult task to accomplish, what most people need is not a huge list of link building techniques, but only the most simple and effective techniques that actually work. The best five styles are based on:
1 – High relevance
2 – High link-ability/viral content
3 – High authority
4 – High traffic
5 – High page rank
Now with those in mind I will shared some basic ways to make you’re website be more noticeable and more profitable is that is what you’re trying to accomplish.
Get your customers and other people to link to you
If you have products or loyal customers coming to you’re website you can use that to your advantage and request if they can link back to your website in some way. This will give more credibility to you’re site when Google can actually see a real human being linking back to you. Sites that have a high level of credibility say like something like cnn.com or new york times would do wonders to you’re site because Google recognizes these websites as high quality content sites with great amounts of traffic. Now of course getting a link from one of these websites is hard enough but it’s just to name an example.
Build a blog and make it a valuable source of information
Blogs are a great way to keep visitors coming to you’re site and when someone finds valuable information, that person is more likely to share and tell others about it. This is great way to get other bloggers linking back to you, thus making you’re site more credible and visible in Google.
Create content that makes people want to share
The most effective type of links are natural links. That is, links that naturally come to you’re website without someone having to “build” them. Link baits are great for this. Good link baits will attract a large audience and create a huge amount of incoming links. What is a link bait?
A link bait is something that creates a buzz, usually something unique and fun… something people won’t feel stupid for sharing. Â Nintendo is infamous for making amazing link baits Â
This link bait received over 2 million links in just one day!! So much that YouTube had to remove it and this is the only way to view it now. As you will notice, the screen starts to “shake” and fall apart as Wario gets moving. This remains one of the most powerful link baits ever created…
However, if your not able to create these type of “baits” then fear not. The concept to consider when building links is a natural appearance. It’s not natural for every web site to link to you using the exact same anchor text. It’s not natural for every link to point to you’re home page.
Local Nashville SEO expert Bryan Sayers said this about link building: “There is a saying in the SEO world… “your not a true link builder until you crash a site” which sounds weird, I know… but it makes sense once you understand SEO. The only true way to learn what to do is to learn the hard way what not to do. Once you crash a site… you’ll never make that mistake again!” – Bryan Sayers.
Create More Content
I think we’re starting to see a trend here, creating info graphics, videos, pictures is a way for people to link back to you’re stuff and share with others. As you may have noticed content is king and that still holds true to this day. keeping users coming back for more is always the most effective way to continue to get more traffic to you’re website and gain higher credibility by others and Google.
Switching the topic to bad link building, let’s talk a little about what not to do for link building and what many consider to be bad practices. Here are the top 5 things you shouldn’t do in link building efforts.
Link Borrowing
Have you ever seen people leave comments on blogs that sound so random or that you can actually tell they didn’t read your article whatsoever? I have, and they also leave links in the bottom of their comments. Just so they can get some traffic on their site. Here’s an example of what I mean.
In this example, many blogs allow you to insert links into you’re comments and other’s don’t. So what many people try to do is insert there link where their name is supposed to go and thus getting traffic back to their website. Spam software can detect this most of the time but obviously is not perfect. This may seem like a quick way to get traffic back to you’re website but Google is smart enough to know that is clearly a spamming attempt, so don’t do it unless what your linking back to actually has something to do with what the article is talking about.
Link Begging
These are the people that send random emails to people they don’t know asking for links. Sending random emails to web masters or other people is the fastest way to annoy someone and not the right way to get someone to link to you. There has to be a benefit for both parties in other for someone to link back to you.
Link Bartering
Basically the way it works is that you link to me and I will link to you. While I know that I mention getting links from other people to you’re website is a good thing, it is also bad when you ask someone to link to you that either doesn’t have anything to do with you or the site content your presenting. Google can detect patterns quick and they know when site A is linking to site B because they agree on it.
Link Bribing
Many companies try to bribe webmasters and bloggers for links. We’ll send you stuff if you link to us. Although harder for Google to detect, this isn’t a great practice. In fact, the FTC frowns upon this.
Buying links
This is probably the most effective link building strategy of the top 5 I have listed for bad link building, because you can control what sites you are getting links from, and analyze these sites to ensure that you are not placing links in bad websites that have no credibility whatsoever. You can also place links within relevant content and use anchor text for the keywords you are trying to rank for. But, Google explicitly states:
However, some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.
So there you have folks, good and bad link building techniques to help you at least somewhat on you’re website. Remember ranking well on Google depends in many other factors, so I encourage you to do more research and continue learning about the fascinating world of SEO.
