July 23rd, 2009 | Written by: april
Successful link building is not an overnight phenomena- any SEO expert will tell you that. However, good link building practices are well worth the time, considering that all the SEO tricks in the book are futile unless you’ve got quality links pointing to your site. At the end of the day, quality link building is the driving force behind ranking in search. With that in mind, a little time and effort is well worth your link building efforts.
There are a number of healthy link building tactics, however for the sake of brevity here are just a few:
>Create valuable web pages
It’s been said a hundred times, yet it can’t be stressed enough – content is king! Organic link building will happen naturally over time, so long as you provide value on the pages of your site for your visitors. Whether you provide industry information, resources, tips or advice – quality content will continue to drive visitors back to your site and encourage others to link to your page.
>Submit to directories
Directory submissions are a quick way to build back links to your site. There are thousands of directories on the web to build links, however select your directories carefully as a good number of them are spammy and do not provide any real link value to your site. The top standard directories are Google, Yahoo, and DMOZ. Some directories charge, like Yahoo. However, there are plenty of open directories that allow you to submit your site for free. Try to find quality directories with high page ranks. The Google engine does not regard links from directories or websites with low page ranks, therefore finding quality sites is essential.
>Just ask
Don’t be afraid to ask another webmaster if they would link to you. This method may be old school, but it often works! Sometimes link building requires a little proactive initiative. Search the web for related, non-competitive sites with a high page rank and send a short, polite email requesting a link and the benefits of doing so. However, by all means, never mass solicit websites with a templated email, as you will quickly be dismissed as spam. Showing a little thought and consideration goes a long way, so be sure to customize your email to suit the prospective link site.
>Submit to article directories
Article submissions are great because they’re free, and search engines respond well to them. More importantly, article directories are a great link building practice, as it runs on the theme of creating “value.” Naturally, a well-written article will entice visitors to visit your website if they like what they read. Essentially, article submissions allow you to reap the benefits of including a back-link within the context of your article, while also increasing your exposure and attracting organic visitors to your site. A few of the top article directories include eZine, Helium, Articlebase and eHow.
>Optimize a press release
More people are realizing the power optimization can play in a press release. Yet again, another fantastic link building method which employs the power of the media to do a lot of the leg work for you. Essentially, an optimized press release can reach untold levels of exposure for several reasons: 1) It’s formatted for search engines 2) it creates buzz around your business, and 3) it floats around in cyber space attracting new visitors for a period of time. A few of the top PR sites as of now are PRweb, PRnewswire and PRleap (to name a few).
The fact is, the more effort you put into quality link building, the more value your links will be. Stephen Baker, from Fast Search and Transfer, sums up quality link building:
“it’s not the [link building] technique that we are concerned with it’s the intention”
Google sees the entire link structure of the web- in the end there’s no fooling the web’s most powerful search engine, so don’t think cheap link farms or purchasing links will award you overnight success. It’s best to build links as naturally as you can. A good link is golden.
I’ve excluded a number of other link building methods, however feel free to include your suggestions here. I’m always looking for new link building tips and would appreciate your feedback tremendously!
Cheers.
Tags: Link Building, link building tactics, Open Directory Project, search engine optimization, SEO
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 23rd, 2009 at 2:03 pm and is filed under Link Building, SEO. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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