Better Link Building Strategies

Link building is an essential component of any SEO campaign and can often make a real difference to the ranking positions that a website can achieve. Increasing the inbound links to a website is an on-going process that needs to be implemented to support and improve rankings, as well as increase brand awareness and visitor traffic from other online sources.

A good link building strategy helps to increase the number of links to a website and, if done correctly, can help to drive increased visitor traffic from search (and in particular, Google) due to improved ranking positions, and from other relevant websites which potential customers might be visiting.

Link building campaigns are rarely complex or technical – you just need to have a clear plan to follow and to devote some time to the research, submission and administration of the links. There is no “quick fix” to building successful links and it often requires a long term strategy to gradually develop links over time. In fact, if you attract too many links to your website too quickly, it can alert the search engines to possible unusual activity and potential ranking penalties.

There are several core stages to a successful link building campaign, as follows:

* Link audit: you need to see where you currently have links on other websites and assess how big a task your link building campaign might need to be. You should have your website listed on Google’s Webmaster Tools to see how many inbound links are recognised by Google, but you can also review these through Yahoo and Bing as well.

* Competitor link research: you should also assess the number of inbound links for your main competitors, which means those websites ranking above your for your chosen search terms. You can’t see the full picture of links through Google, but researching Yahoo and Bing can provide more information and a benchmark to aim for.

* Identifying link sites: the above research will help identify some potential sites where your link should also appear, plus there are ways to identify other sites where your link should appear – ideally alongside content that’s relevant to your market and can include sites like online directories, social networking sites, article and press release sites, plus video sites. Also don’t forget customer sites where you might be able to add or exchange a link.

* Submitting links: once you’ve identified the websites to use, you need to go through the submission process and see if you can get a free link, or whether it requires a reciprocal link or payment. In the latter two cases you need to assess the relative value to your site, but reciprocal links in particular can still be effective.

* Reviewing links: The administration of a link building programme can be extensive and requires regular reviews, possible resubmissions, further research and assessment of the link results being achieved. You should always be on the lookout for new sites where links could be added, as long as these sites are good quality and relevant to your business.

Link building work should be allocated at least 2-3 hours a month and maybe more, depending on the scale of the task. And it has to be ongoing, to help improve your website’s ranking potential as well as to protect your existing rankings against competitor activity.

If you’d like more information about how the Web Marketing Workshop can help your business through an effective link building campaign, please contact us now.

Leave a Reply