Link Building Quick Wins
14:14, Wednesday, 18 May 2011
If you're still wondering how a lot of this SEO malarky works, then you're not alone. Despite the fact that search is now a well-entrenched aspect of our daily lives, a great many business owners are still to become educated in this seemingly dark art. In our opinion, that's fine - after all, you've got your own business to run - do you really want to have a hand in every aspect of your marketing operations?
In this month's DIY SEO Tip, we wanted to bring your attention to the importance of building links to your site. Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, to name but a few search engines, all hold importance in the number of links that a site acquires from other sites. Each time a webmaster sees fit to link to your site from theirs, you can consider it a vote of your importance and authority on a given topic (typically indicated by the keywords resident on the page that links to you).
Companies can pay a great deal to have an agency build links for them, but what options and quick wins are available to the frugal business owner. Well, you could start with one very simple and easy to implement strategy...
... Ask your friends! How many people do you know, who have their own website, Blog or social media profile? Whilst they may not write a huge amount of content on the subject of animal hypnotherapy (if that's your business), you can usually illicit some value from their site, and a link thereon.
Here are some important factors to consider:
- Choose a page which uses related keywords and phrases associated with the topic you wish to be found for. relevance between the linking page, and the destination page on your site, is of utmost importance to the engines.
- Choose your most popular friends first! If they have a healthy following, and a healthy link popularity themselves, they'll add more benefit to you.
- Use anchor text on the link, to tell search engines exactly which keyword(s) are associated with the link. Never use link text like "Click here" or "Read more", as they're simply not relevant, and hence will not add as much value.
- Look out for Spam. Many search engines apply a Trustrank score to sites, based on their own link popularity and the quality of the links they possess. There are a number of websites that will help you assess the Trustrank of sites you're thinking about linking from.
In short, not all links are built the same. Choose your friends carefully, and set yourself on the right link-building path today!
Tags: seo,link building