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“I had a client [retailer] that archived their newsletter to a blog platform but cross linked anchor text to related products – hugely advantageous.”
Lee Odden, August 2008, SES San Jose
“I had a client [retailer] that archived their newsletter to a blog platform but cross linked anchor text to related products – hugely advantageous.”
Lee Odden, August 2008, SES San Jose
PJ Fusco defines link building as
“The ongoing activity of increasing the number of high quality inbound links to a document, in order to raise its visibility in search engines for targeted phrases.”
But just how do you go about building links?
According to Fusco, who spoke at Search Engine Strategies San Jose Wednesday, it all starts with analyzing your links to determine where they are coming from, using either free or fee based backlink analysis and anchor text tools.
The major search engines offer some of these tools freely. Yahoo’s Site Explorer is a “very handy tool if you’re just getting started, and remains one of the best ways to export to spreadsheets”. Google Webmaster Tools is a great way to see the links that Google sees, but Fusco warns “export can be a little wonky.”
When it comes to free link analysis tools, like with everything else, you get what you pay for.
Search Status 1.25: A Firefox Plugin that “gives you a heck more than just quick studies of backlinks,”
SEO for Firefox: Displays PageRank, Google Cache Data, age, Delicious bookmarks, Compete.com details and more including a keyword research tool
Market Leap Popularity Checker: Useful for determining which “competitors links you want to raid,” assuming you already know who is linking to you.
Quintura: for when visualization is where you want to start
Hubfinder: You can almost always find authoritative links crowding around hub.
Advanced Link Manager: Great for anchor text link insight and backlink diversity data
Tip if you want to be a player, develop a tool
Once you’ve determined where you are getting links from (or where your competitors are getting links from), it becomes a matter of hard work and determination; creating link worthy content and getting it out on the Web.
Fortunately, during the same session, Jeff Quipp spoke about the myths and misconceptions surrounding link building – you really need to know these before you start – and Michael Gray showed us where to find sites on the Web that could potentially link to you. Subscribe to their blogs if you are interested in link building, SEO, social media and how it all fits together.
I’ve outlined Jeff’s presentation here, and will post a link to the podcast of a chat I had with Michael for Tech Talk Radio as soon as it goes to air in Australia.
If you know of any tools that are not included here, please let me know.
According to Jeff Quipp, there are 4 myths and seven mistakes people commonly make when they get involved in link building.
Myth 1: PageRank
Toolbar PageRank (little green bar) is a red herring – it’s not real. Real PageRank is only seen by Google. For instance, in Google a page with a PageRank of 3 is ranking number one for ‘ranges’ with 82+ million results. If PageRank really mattered, this page should be PR 8, or PR 9.
Jeff’s advice: Don’t take toolbar PageRank as a given.
Myth 2: Reciprocal Linking is Dead
It’s not dead. It’s a natural pattern when used in moderation. However, if 75%+ of your links are reciprocal or networked…warning!
Jeff’s advice: Reciprical linking is okay, but should not be the crutch of your link strategy.
Myth 3: PR Sculpting
PR sculpting is not the best use of your time. According to Vanessa Fox “It seems like a lot of effort for little pay off” and “external links matter so much more than internal links.”
Jeff’s advice: Set up your linking structure right up front in the main navigational structure – that’s when it counts.
Myth 4: More links = better
It’s about quality – not quantity. Think in terms of trust and authority; the more trusted and authoritative the inbound links, the more the site is trusted. This equals better rankings.
Jeff’s advice: If you can get links from the sources that Google likes, that is, that Google has never had problems with, you’ll get ranking.
Mistake 1: Not using text links
Text in links is very important, and has more than ten times the value of image links. Make sure you use targeted keywords in the anchor text.
Mistake number 2: Link Farms
Stay away from FFA’s (Free For All) links and the likes. Blatant manipulation leads to bad search engine karma, and you will be punished.
Mistake 3: Links to home page only
Sites with content get links to many pages and search engines know this. Too many links to a main page and too few to internal pages should send up warning flags.
Mistake 4: 302 redirects
Out of date pages and sites – don’t delete or 302 them, 301 redirect them and keep all the link juice those pages/sites accumulated. 302′s don’t direct link juice for maximum advantage
Mistake 5: NoFollow links
Not all inks are created equal. Many are designed not to pass link juice so when you’re building links, check the code for ‘NoFollow’.
Mistake 6: No valuable content
Valuable content invites natural link opportunities; the more content you have, the more long tail opportunities and site power you have. More deep links equal more authority and all pages rank better.
Mistake 7: Not socializing content
Socializing content means creating awareness of it. It also creates opportunities to get seen in other media and if your submission goes hot, it can create 100′s or even 1000′s of links.
Tip: Buying links
Some types of bought links are discounted, some are not, and punishment is possible. Avoid buying links for SEO purposes where possible, and when you do buy links, make sure you are buying them from reputable sites.
Try This:
Find 50 social media sites with dofollow links
Submit your [well written and valuable] post
Use great anchor text to link to your siteVoila! 50 + links for each blog post!
This post is from Jeff’s presentation on Link Building at Search Engine Strategies San Jose 2008.
To stay up to date with news from Jeff, read the Search Engine People Blog.
If you’re interested in link building, take a look at PJ Fusco’s list of link analysis tools, and stay tuned for Michael Gray’s list of best places on the Web to find links.
When you self host your own WordPress blog you have access to the most basic of WordPress functionality.
In order to get the same functionality, and more, for your blog as that provided by WordPress.com, you will need to install some of the many WordPress.org plugins.
We have written a beginner’s guide to FTP for WordPress (1.39 MB PDF) which will show you how to:
If you have never used an FTP client before, or don’t even know what FTP stands for, and fish transferring ponds it is not, this guide is for you.
The aim of this post is to show you how easy it is to turn ordinary links into nofollow links; regardless of whether you know HTML or not.
Note: This is a how-to post. If you’re interested in learning more about nofollow, there are many great posts about it on the Web; I’ll point to some at the end of this post.
The first thing you need to do is create a link.
If you are using a visual editor that creates the HTML for you, you’ll need to edit the HTML at this point. In WordPress, this is a simple matter of moving from the visual tab to the HTML tag when writing your post or page.
Find the link that you’ve created within the HTML; the code will look much like this:
<a href=”http://www.google.com”>Google’s Home Page</a>
Now, you need to add ‘rel=nofollow’ (known as an attribute), to the link. You can do this one of two ways; it doesn’t matter which you use, they both do the same thing.
<a href=”http://www.google.com” rel=”nofollow”>Google’s Home Page</a>
Note: If you do it this way, make sure you leave a space between the end quote marks of the URL and the word ‘rel’.
<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://www.google.com”>Google’s Home Page</a>
Note: If you do it this way, make sure you leave a space between the end quote marks of ‘nofollow’ and the beginning of ‘href’.
And there you have it, your first nofollow link!
See also:
What is nofollow and why was it created?
This post from Google’s WebMaster Help Center talks about how Google handles nofollow links, and shows you when you need to use nofollow if you want to remain within their guidelines. Failing to follow the guidelines can result in your PageRank.
The importance of Google PageRank: A guide for small businesses
The authority of your blog, and where it appears in search results is influenced by your PageRank. The higher your PageRank, the higher up in search results your site will appear. As the nofollow attribute stops the flow of PageRank from your site to the site you are linking to, you might want to get to know PageRank better before you use it.
Matt Cutts, Why am I still being punished?
After being removed from Google’s index, Donna cleaned up her site, removed most of her advertisements, and nofollowed the rest. While her site can now be found in the Google index, her PageRank has been fatally injured. Read this open letter she writes to Google’s Matt Cutts to understand the importance of making your links ‘Google friendly’ Make sure you don’t miss the conversation in the comments.
The history of the nofollow tag
In this post, Jen walks you through the history of the nofollow tag, and explains how it has morphed from being a spam fighting tactic into a necessity if want to stay in Google’s good graces.
Understanding what nofollow can do for you from an SEO point of view
A great explanation for the non techy that shows how using nofollow may help retain, or increase, your Google juice; that is, PageRank.
This post is part of the Small Business Blogging Basics category.
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