Link Building Strategies 101

We all know that links are important. So important, in fact, that your site probably won’t rank well unless you have a solid base of quality incoming links to your site. When site owners started to realize how important inbound links are, the mad dash to build up those link numbers began. And along with it, lots of shady (black hat) techniques. So now it’s a challenge to figure out what the difference between a good and bad link is. We decided to share some basics of link building in an effort to help you weed out the facts from the myths about link building and to create a better web for all of us.

Let’s just start out by saying that links are for your users, not for the search engines. If a link brings you traffic, then it’s a good link. Period. Coincidentally, the search engines have a pretty good idea of what types of links are bringing quality traffic to your site, and therefore are going to reward your site with a higher ranking. So, don’t stray from that concept – think of your users, not of how to impress or fool the search engines – and you will see the results.

Here are a few fundamental facts and tips for building quality links.

Outbound Links
I’ve often heard the myth that outbound links are bad – that it lowers your link popularity “points” and drives traffic away from your site. The fact is, the Internet is called a “web” for a reason. Everything is supposed to link in and out of somewhere. By linking out to other relevant sites, you are sharing knowledge and information with your users and providing a service. No one site is the single source for all information on a subject, therefore, shared knowledge and linking to other quality sites is a good thing.

Here’s a tip on building outbound links. Google may actually penalize your site for NOT having any outbound links. But make sure you link out to quality, relevant sites. Link to a national association for your industry, or industry related directories, for example. Perhaps you have a list of vendors or a list of clients that you could to link to. Surrounding your links with some descriptive keyword rich text will also help the search engines and your users understand what the link is about and why you chose to share that with your users.

Build Links Naturally
Beware of companies that promise to get you 1000’s of links in a very short amount of time. The fact is, most of those links – if not all – are probably all poor quality links that get you no additional traffic and don’t help your rankings. Links should occur naturally, over time, not 1000’s all at once. Avoid any schemes or practices that inflate your number of links too fast in too short a time.

Link Bait, Link Juice, Link Magnets
The search engines view links as a sort of “vote” for your site. If you build something interesting enough, people will naturally want to link to it. This is called link bait, link juice, link magnets, etc. If you put your efforts into putting some quality information or application on your site, just a little well placed PR will get the viral marketing flowing and your work is done. Just sit back and watch the links add up!

Quantity and Quality
The number of links you have to your site is important, but not nearly as important as the quality of those links. One link from a expert level site is worth much more than 1000’s of links from sites with little to no value. An expert level site is a site that offers quality information for your subject. It’s often a site that ranks well, has a lot of good information, and is well known in that community. Don’t just build links to increase your number of inbound links. Spend your time and efforts on going after those quality links and you will see better results.

Deep Links
Deep links are links to interior pages of your site. Don’t just get links to your home page. If you post a blog or submit a forum comment somewhere, or even write a Press Release with links back to your site, link to specific pages that you’re referring to. This helps the users get directly to the content that they want to see.Paid links
A couple years ago, Google announced that they were aware of about 95% of all paid links and said that they would not give any link popularity points to paid links. Many people misunderstood this to mean that paid links are bad. They’re not bad, they just won’t help your rankings. But, if you pay for a link on another site and it brings you quality traffic, it’s a good link. Just make sure you track any paid links so you know if you’re getting a return on your investment. Also, be aware that a reciprocal link is considered a paid link because it’s a bartered link and bartering is just another form of payment. There is an exception to all of this; paid links do bring value to your site if it’s from a trusted site. So, paying for a link in a highly trafficked, well ranking, subject matter expert site may help your ranking. Thomas Register, for example, is a great site for manufacturing and industrial sites to purchase listings in since Thomas is one of the major online sources for links to manufacturing and industrial information.

Directories
Directory links can be great for traffic and for building link popularity. But beware of directories that seem heavy with AdWords ads, directories that require reciprocal links to get listed, or directories that require payment. Yahoo! is one of the few directories that requires payment that is still worth the link, because they are so widely known. Business.com and Thomas Register are both another good example of a good directory that it’s ok to pay to be in. Vertical directories focused on your industry are great places to get listed. Check out the Internet Search Engine Database (isedb.com), a great resource for finding industry specific directories.

Other Quality Types of Links
Get links from your local Chamber of Commerce, .edu sites, library sites, and authority level sites.

Caution
Avoid link farms, which are sites with tons of links to a group of sites that all link to each other.  Avoid sites with lots of Google AdWords ads on them as these sites are built primarily to make money off of the affiliate aspect of the ads, and are not focused on providing quality service. If you have the Google Toolbar installed, look at the PageRank and avoid sites that have a zero PR. I personally try not to focus too much on PageRank, but in this case it helps to know what the PR of a site is before you try to gain a link from them.

Research
Do some competitive research and get links from the sites that are linking to your competition. First, do a few searches and find out who is ranking at the top for the keywords that you want to rank for. Those top ranking sites are there in part because of their links. So, look at their backlinks and see if any of those sites could link to you. There are several ways you can find out backlinks for a site. One method is to go to Yahoo! and search for linkdomain:domain.com (replace domain.com with the domain you want to know backlinks for). Yahoo will give you a list of links to that site, and will even let you download a spreadsheet of the first 1000 links.

If you are familiar with Firefox Plugins, and link research is something you might do more than once, try out the YExplore plugin for Firefox. One thing I find YExplore helpful with is for looking for deep links. Let’s say you do a search for a keyword and a page from a site is ranking at the top. Perhaps it’s a product page, or a landing page for their services – anything but the home page. Click on that search result and go to that site. Then, when you’re on that site’s page, right click it and choose your YExplore option from the menu that pops up. You have two choices from here – either look at the links to the entire site, or just the links to that page. Choose “Page” and look at the links going to that specific page. You may find some quality links, or even some inspiration for a type of link that you yourself can build for your site.

When doing your research, look at the top ranking sites for the keywords you want to rank for. You may find some industry directories or other top ranking sites to get links from as well. If a top ranking site links to you, this is a good quality link too.

Link Types
There are many different types of links: blog links, press release links, directory links, authority level site links, vendor links, .edu links, article links, etc. When researching your competition’s back links, take note of the types of links they have. Do they have a lot of directory links? Do they seem to write a lot of articles and link those articles back to their site? Look for clues there as to the types of links you can build. Not every link comes from a “Submit your URL” form.

Elements of a Good Link
Try to get the site linking to you to use keyword rich anchor text. For example, rather than linking to www.photoalbumsmadefun.com, ask for a link that looks like this: Photo DVD Slideshows Made Fun! Vary your anchor text from site to site, deep link, make it look natural, and make it relevant.

This may seem like a lot to take in, but it’s just scratching the surface of link building. Hopefully these techniques and tips will help you understand link building strategies so that you can build some quality links on your own. When in doubt, just remember to think of your users first. If it will benefit them and bring quality traffic to your site, then it’s probably a good link.