An Overview of Link Building

(@VerticalMeasure)

What is Link Building:

Link building is the process of attracting inbound links to your website. It’s a difficult, time-consuming process – a recent survey revealed that search marketers find it to be the single most annoying, challenging task on their plates.

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Why do You Need to Build Links:

Link building is important because inbound links are a major factor in Google’s ranking algorithm

This is an oversimplified depiction of how search engine rankings work, as it omits several key factors: The trust and authority of the linking sites The anchor text of the incoming links Whether or not the links are reciprocal

In general, more incoming links increases your chance of strong search engine rankings for your target keywords.

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How to Get Sites to Link to You:

Your link building strategy can and should include several different methods: Content Creation & Promotion – You’re more

likely to get links if you create link-worthy content: compelling, high-quality, unique pages that people will want to read and reference. But don’t stop there. You need to tell your intended audience about your content. No one can link to it if they don’t know it exists.

Submissions – You can write and submit press releases announcing company news, as well as submit your site to online directories.

Reviews – Tell influential bloggers about your site and your products. Reviews or other mentions on popular, high-authority sites not only drive traffic, they improve your rankings. (Ideally, the sites will be relevant to your space.)

Links from Friends & Partners – Ask people you know and work with to link to your site. Don’t be shy!

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Method Disadvantages:

These methods are time-consuming – Building high-quality content and attracting quality links takes time. And it requires additional resources, such as good copywriters and social media and PR experience.

These methods depend on variables you can’t control – You can’t fully control the quality of the pages that link to you, the language they use to write about your offerings, or which pages on your site they link to.

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Linking Factors that Affect Your Rankings:

Anchor Text – One of the most important things search engines take into account in ranking a page is the actual text that third parties use when they link to your content. When someone links to the Good Guys Wind Turbine Parts site with the anchor text "wind turbine parts," it help you rank for that keyword phrase. Conversely, if they had used text like "Good Guys LLC," you’d lose the ranking advantage for the “wind turbine parts” keyword.

Quality of the Linking Page – Another factor is the quality of the page that is sending the link; links from high-quality, trusted pages carry more weight in boosting search engine rankings than questionable pages and sites.

Location of the Linked Page– Often sites will link to your home page by default. This makes it difficult for deeper pages to achieve high rankings.

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Geospecific Search:

Internal Linking- linking to your own pages from other pages on your site.

With internal linking you can: Determine what keywords to

use in your anchor text. Decide which pages to link to. Control the quality of the linking

page. Building external links to your

site is important, but a strong internal linking strategy will also provide a big boost to your rankings.

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Internal Link Building Tips:

Do Your Keyword Research – Use a good keyword suggestion tool to find keywords that are relevant to your business and have promising search volume.

Assign Keywords to Content – Group your keywords into an organized, meaningful taxonomy to help create an SEO-friendly site architecture.

Use Targeted Anchor Text for Internal Links – Apply your keyword research as you connect your pages. When you create new content, use your site search to find relevant content that should link back to it.

Twitter: @VerticalMeasure