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Archive for the ‘link building’ Category
Sunday, January 31st, 2010
It seems that some media companies don’t like people linking to them. They want to charge to be linked to. The history of the Web is such that website owners have always linked to content on other pages – ones they don’t own – without needing permission or paying for the privilege to do so. The Web is the public square.
That does not mean that the Web is public domain. You can’t steal or appropriate whatever you want for your own purposes just because it’s out there. Intellectual property rights still apply online.
But where is the line?
I think the line is clearly intent. Are you being helpful and does your link benefit the site you are linking to without detracting or impinging on their right to profit from their own content? If so then I’d say you are good for your link.
Linking has always been seen as a form of payment. When you link to another website you are essentially benefiting them in the search engines because that link could be counted by Google, or another search engine, in its search ranking algorithm and could potentially benefit the other site by pushing it up in search rankings. But you are benefiting the other site as well in another way. Traffic.
If you send traffic to another website because you link to it then that’s payment. That new traffic could very well purchase something.
So I really don’t understand these media companies that are complaining about being linked to. And, remember, if it’s true that you are benefiting those websites you link to then it’s true that sites linking to you are providing you with unpaid benefits as well. Why complain?
Tags: linking, search engine optimization, website promotion
Posted in link building | 3 Comments »
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010
A few years ago, if you’d have received a link from a .edu or .gov website you’d been told those were “high value” links – worth more than your average .com or .net link. But what about today? Andy Beal questions whether that is true based on a video by Matt Cutts.
Personally, I’ve always wondered. Most small business owners really don’t have a hope of obtaining these links. I mean, a .edu link is a link from a university. What would it take to get a university to link to you. You’d have to have some pretty valuable content for a university to link to you. Maybe that was the thinking behind the theory that those links are higher value links than your run-of-the-mill .coms.
I suppose the same would go for .gov links. But is it true?
I really don’t think it matters. I think the most important thing to remember about links is that if you get a link from a relevant site with a lot of traffic then that is going to benefit you. I really don’t know what other kind of link you’d want.
Tags: .edu, .gov, link building, links
Posted in link building | 4 Comments »
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Have you heard that buying links will get you penalized? It’s not really true. Selling links will get you penalized, but buying links usually not – unless it’s a blatant violation of search engine guidelines. But there is a way to get around the whole link buying/selling thing without actually buying or selling links. You hold a contest.
It doesn’t have to be anything elaborate. It can be real simple. Hold a contest in which you offer something of value – like $100 or a toaster over – and make sure the winner of the contest has to do something that drives traffic or builds links to your website. Any page of your website.
For instance, you could offer a $100 prize for the best endorsement of your service on a blog post that links to a page on your website. Real simple. Of course, you have to spell out all the details carefully to make sure that everything is on the up and up. You want your contest entrants to get something out of the deal, but you want something too. And you want potential customers to get something other than a warm wet willy.
Technically, you aren’t really buying links. You are holding a contest and offering a monetary prize, but one of the stipulations for winning the prize is that entrants must link to you. Make sure your prize is something that a large number of people will want. Otherwise, it will be useless to hold the contest. Give it a try!
Tags: contest, link building, link buying
Posted in link building | 2 Comments »
Saturday, December 12th, 2009
Link building is one of the most important tasks in the world for any website. Links from external websites can do a great deal of good for ranking your site for its keywords. But internal links – those links that point from one page to another on your own website – can be just as valuable, particularly if you use the right anchor text.
That’s why Gab Goldenberg has developed an internal link building plugin for WordPress.
I’m not suggesting you should use the plugin. I haven’t tested it. But I do know that internal links and anchor text are very valuable and can give you a huge SEO boost with the search engines. If you have page, for instance, on your website that is optimized for the key phrase “big blue widget” and you use that phrase a lot on your other pages, linking to the big blue widget sales page using that anchor text from your other pages will make that page rank higher for the key phrase. It’s link building 101. And you can influence that from your own site as well as you can from other sites where you have no control.
When it comes to link building, it’s not all about begging for links from external sources. It’s all about building quality links with the right anchor text. Internal links are important too.
Tags: internal link building, SEO
Posted in link building | 3 Comments »
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
If you wonder what you should do about low quality back links, or links from low quality websites or bad neighborhoods, don’t stress too much. There’s not a lot you can do other than write to the webmaster and request that your link be removed. But that’s rarely necessary.
The search engines know you cannot control who links to you. They don’t generally discredit bad links. They may not count them, but they won’t penalize you for being linked to. That frees up your mind to worry about other details.
Back links are something that everyone covets. And most webmasters want the best back links they can get. But don’t get too infatuated with back links. You’d be better off planning and creating fresh new content. That’s what the search engines really love.
The only worry you should have about back links is whether you are being aggressive enough in pursuing them for your site.
Tags: back links, quality, webmasters
Posted in link building | No Comments »
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
Link building is an essential aspect to doing business online. When you have a website and you want to increase your search engine rankings for the keywords that you are targeting, on-page optimization will only take you so far. Link building can get you further. It’s not a first line of offense, but it’s a great enhancer.
What methods do online marketers use to build links to their website? Here are some ways webmasters build inbound links:
- Article marketing
- Blogging
- Social bookmarking
- Social networking
- Viral marketing
- Forums and blog comments
- Widget creation
- Reciprocal linking
Reciprocal linking has almost gone out of fashion. Some webmasters still do it but they don’t rely on it for huge link building success. They really would prefer one-way inbound links.
When you want to take your website further and increase the already good exposure you’re getting, link building is one sure way to help you get there.
Tags: inbound links, link building, website promotion
Posted in link building | No Comments »
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
Duplicate content has a bad rep online. I’m not sure how it started, but there’s a myth that is still perpetuated today about a duplicate content penalty. The myth stems from the fact that the search engines – primarily Google – limit a result of a search query to only so many pages with the same content. In other words, if 100 websites feature the exact same article and the that article is optimized for the key phrase “banana butter” then Google doesn’t want to show all 100 pages with that one article because it doesn’t really add value to the searcher who has to filter through all the articles to find original content. Therefore, Google omits some of those pages from the search result for the search query to prevent searcher frustration.
So how does Google decide which ones to omit? That’s a good question. I’m not sure I have all the answers, but one thing that is considered is originality. Google makes a very good attempt to include on the search results page at least the site that originally published that content. Whether Google succeeds at this perfectly is up for debate, but I believe they are making good efforts.
So what does this have to do with article marketing? Well, if you are submitting articles for mass distribution, it helps to be aware of how the search engines are receiving those articles. After an article has been published in so many directories and picked up by so many publishers, it really isn’t going to help you much in the search engines. You’ll still get the link credit every time someone uses the article, but don’t expect all of those thousands of articles to appear in the SERPs when someone searches for a key phrase that is important to them.
This isn’t to say you should ditch article marketing. Far from it. But I would add that another type of article marketing – one that doesn’t rely on mass distribution – can be useful in your efforts as well. If you’ll write an original article and submit it to one blog or website owner for review then you can build a reputation as someone who writes great articles and delivers quality while giving yourself quality back links and someone else quality, original content. No duplication.
As I said, I wouldn’t ditch mass distribution, but I would add the single distribution model of article marketing to your efforts. Just a suggestion.
Tags: article marketing, duplicate content, links, mass distribution
Posted in link building | 4 Comments »
Monday, June 29th, 2009
When it comes to building links for your small business, I can think of two surefire ways to build great links over a long period of time. And that’s really how you should do it – gradually over a period of time.
Why are links important? Because the search engines analyze links for value. They rank web pages based on a number of factors, but one very important factor is the quantity and quality of your inbound links. Of course, I’d say that on-page ranking factors are more important. But link building shouldn’t be discounted.
As a local small business, you don’t have to put out as much effort or expense as other businesses. Your pool of competition is likely smaller. That’s why you need to be careful about how you go about performing your search engine optimization. Nevertheless, there are three sound link building methods that I’d recommend for most small businesses at the local level:
- Blogging – Blogging is all the rage. But there’s more to blogging than what the hype suggests. Blogs build links. And you can have as many blogs as you want. You can use those blogs to build links back to your main website. Those links will be figured into the search engines’ formulas for ranking web pages.
- Article Marketing – Yes, articles are very important. Even for a local business. You can write articles and distribute them online to promote your business. You should. Use links in your author resource box to build inbound links to your important pages. That’s how you use article marketing for link building.
- Directory Submissions – Some people say directory submissions are not important any more. I disagree. I think you need quite a few directory submissions. But I wouldn’t rely on directory submissions alone. People who say directory submissions aren’t important any more haven’t learned the value of link diversity. They’re beneficial, but not all by themselves.
There are lots of ways to go about link building, but if you stick to these three methods, you can’t go wrong.
Tags: article marketing, blogging, directory submissions, link building, small business
Posted in link building | 5 Comments »
Saturday, May 30th, 2009
There are two generally recognized types of SEO: On-page and off-page. Link building is typically considered off-page SEO. And it’s a very important aspect of SEO at that.
Google started counting back links to websites back in 1998 when it became the major competitor to Alta Vista, recognized as the leading search engine at the time. It was a revolutionary way to consider a website’s authority but the thinking was that if a website linked to another website then it was considered a vote of quality. After all, no one would link to a site they didn’t think was worth visiting or recommending. Therefore, Google introduced the idea of inbound links as a measure of quality.
Since then, link building has grown into its own industry. Google has taken the link valuation standard to new levels by introducing the idea of anchor text value, domain age value, relevance, and several other factors as well. Where before, link measure was largely a process of counting the number of links, it has since become a process of measuring the quality of links. It is the combination link quality and link quantity that determines, to a large degree, the effectiveness of your off-page SEO campaigns.
Link building is important because without it you may not be able to achieve the best rankings for your targeted keywords. But you may also not be able to maintain those rankings. Links are still considered a measure of authority by most of the major search engines. Until that changes, link building will be an essential part of your SEO strategy.
Tags: link building, search engines, SEO
Posted in link building | 1 Comment »
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