Link Building 101
Sunday, April 5th, 2009Link Building is a vital part for ranking good on search engines. There are hundreds of various ways to make and build good links. Knowing the right techniques would help your site gain more traffic.
Proper knowledge is vital to link building. You would need to learn the processes and facts involved in link building campaigns. You need to gain Link Popularity and a good Link Reputation.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is one of the essential keys to link building. This is a process where in the quantity together with quality of traffic is directed towards a particular website from a specific search engine. This can be done through search results that are algorithmic in nature. If one site is on top of the search results, this may give the site more visits than other websites.
Links are considered as votes by search engines. If a particular site has more links, this means it obtains more votes that can carry it to the top of the ranking. Popular site links are given more rating than those of lesser popularity. This is what is known as link popularity.
Search engines also have the capacity to filter through and know if the contents are relevant and related. This makes links in highly connoted sites as more important compared to links that are on sites of less relevance.
Search engines also not only give weigh on link popularity but also on link reputation. Link reputation is words and or phrases that are in hypertext links on other sites that lead to your site. The key in being visible in search engines is to develop your link popularity plus your link reputation.
Making Other People Know About Your Great Website
Establishing good public relations can help you achieve good links and let others know that your website exists. A way to do this is via press releases that are carried out to the right individuals. Usually the “right” people are persons who would subscribe to stuff that are particularly interesting to them. It would be most likely that they would be open to accept and read press releases about those interests. This may be a bit costly, but press releases may in fact give you links!
Software for Link Building
Types of software applications that are intended for link building purposes collect important sites with their contact details. This is done via the keywords. Most of these link building software programs have automated contact managers. But it would be best to just use these tools to search and subsequently identify sites. Using the software program’s automated contacting system (i.e. its automated emailing functions) should be avoided. These automated mails may just be rejected and be considered as spam by webmasters. Sending manually typed emails would be far better. The said software should be combined with other techniques to gain and build links.
Link and Site Directories
The major link and site directories include Yahoo and Business.Com. These sites collect fees from those who wish to be included in their directories. Significant search engines in determining rank utilize these.
There are also free directories like joeant.com and ODP. Joining is the only requisite to enter your site in Joeant.Com. In ODP (means Open Directory Project), they are a lot more selective in picking sites that they will include in their directory.
Linking with Those on Top
When picking sites to link with, choose only those that are almost the same as your website. You should also link with those who have related content. This can be done by searching for keywords that are highly descriptive and related to your site.
Pick the ones that are on top of the search rankings. This is important in link building. You may also want to learn which sites are linked with your top searches. The most convenient way to identify the sites that are linking with your particular competitors is by accessing the link. You can also see who is linking with them by keying in “link: www.xxxxxxx.com” (xxxxxxx meaning URL of your competitor, do not include the quotation marks) into your favorite search engine.
Repeat this for the first five ranking sites that are also using your keywords. This is going to be a useful tool in link building. Send the emails to the authorized persons of each website. Tell him/her why they should put your site in their listing. Give compliments to their site to show that you have really visited it. Always state your contact details clearly. Try to keep this e-mail as short and as simple as it can be.
You may go on and contact the searched sites you have found. Send them REAL emails since they would likely trash spam mail.
Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal Links are mutual links joining two sites. Using this type of links is better than non-reciprocal ones. Sites of high traffic usually favor reciprocal links.
In building your links, you choose to outsource services and pay for it. This may be costly. On the other hand, you may do it on your own and handle the process of link building.
You should always conduct and improve your link building campaigns. The best part of link building is that other websites will want to link their pages with you as your site becomes more popular.
