Link building your way to success

Introduction

Many of us are familiar with the old saying: It’s not about what you know, it’s who you know. This also applies to online marketing, of all things. In order to succeed online you need to drive quality traffic to your site that converts or, simply put, performs the actions you desire, like buying a product, signing up to your email newsletter and so on. There are many ways to drive traffic to your site:

• Paid advertising,
• Search engines,
• Social media,
• Offline marketing (business cards, word of mouth and so on),
• Other websites.

In most cases you want to have as many links as possible to your site, because it makes your site look more important to search engines, which in turn increases your chance of appearing in search results. Inbound links, or backlinks as they’re known in the industry, play an important role in online marketing. Links are essentially currency when it comes to search engine optimization and everybody wants more. When it comes to search engine optimization, link building (getting other sites to link to your site) is one of the most difficult things in search engine optimization. So how do you get links and are all links created equally? This is the topic of today’s blog post.

Attention: All tactics mentioned in this article are free.

What is a quality backlink?

Let’s imagine we have a website about shoes, and we want to get backlinks for it in order to drive quality traffic to our website and improve our search engine ranking for keywords important to us. For this example we’ll assume the keywords that we want to appear on search engines are: cheap shoes, fancy shoes, wedding shoes. Let’s call this company Awesome Cool Mega Shoes. So what kinds of backlinks should we get?

Our ideal backlinks would be from websites with a high page rank, which are related to our industry and link to us using keywords that are important to us. Pagerank is one matrix Google uses to decide how important your web page is. It’s a number from 0 to 10, where the higher number is better. You can view the pagerank for any URL by using browser extensions or online pagerank checkers. When assessing a backlink’s quality take the following aspects into account:

• Is the website you’re getting the link from well established? The more established the website the better.
• Are you getting a link from the homepage? This is almost always preferred since the homepage probably has the highest pagerank.
• Is the content displayed on the page alongside your link relevant to your site/industry?
• Will the link be attached to an image or text? Text is almost always preferred due to its positive impact on search engines.
• Will the link be marked as rel=nofollow? In this case it might be still useful, but its search engine effect will be almost non-existent. Many search engine extensions for modern browsers are able to tell you whether a link is marked nofollow or not.
• Will it be a normal HTML link or dynamically generated using something like Flash or JavaScript? HTML links are always preferred since search engines are still pretty bad at locating links within JavaScript and Flash.

So let’s compare a few links and see which ones are worth the trouble.

Our first example is a link to our imaginary shoe store that looks like this: Awesome Cool Mega Shoes, and it links to http://www.awesomecoolmegashoes.com, which is our website’s homepage. This is an OK link, but it would be much better if it was: Cheap wedding shoes, and linked to http://www.awesomecoolmegashoes.com/wedding-shoes/. The reasoning behind this is that people who are not aware of your company will not be searching for shoes using your company’s name. They will be searching using keywords like: cheap wedding shoes. The link should point to a URL on your site that has content relating to keywords used to link to your site; in this case link pointing to a page that lists wedding shoes.

Let’s take another example. Let’s say you have the option of getting a link from a page that has a pagerank of 5 and is not related to your industry at all, and a page from a website related to your industry but has pagerank of 4. Which would you choose? In most cases you should always choose one that is related to your industry, but you should never turn down a link from a reputable website with a high pagerank.

Now that we know some basics about what makes a good link let’s learn what you should never ever do.

The dark side of link building

There are some link building tactics that could get you removed from Google altogether, and some that will hurt your search engine ranking and company brand. So let’s learn about them just enough so that we can avoid them.

Link farms

There are a lot of trashy websites that are nothing more than a collection of links. In most cases having a link to your site from one of these link farms will actually hurt your search engine ranking. So how can you tell if a website is a link farm? Well for one it would have lots of links to  very spammy content. This could include viagra, mortgages, pills and other junk. Another good sign is just how bad they look in most cases.

Comment spam

Many spammers leave comments on blog sites with links to their spammy sites. This unfortunate trend has forced web developers to innovate and come up with solutions that combat blog spam. We use the Defensio anti-spam plugin to get rid of most of comment spam on our website automatically.

Paid links

Search engines are not very fond of paid text links because they would allow people to influence search engine results with money, and the person with the most cash would be on top. A search engine’s value to the consumer is that it tries to deliver the most relevant results (we’re talking about natural results and not paid ones). If you could just buy links in order to get a high search engine ranking then every other search term would yield a spam result. People still do it, but if Google’s search engine catches you doing it they will most likely remove your website from their index. This could cost you millions in lost revenue. If you want to buy links then you should always mark them as nofollow.

Automated tools

There are a LOT of tools out there that promise you high search engine ranking by ”spinning” content, utilizing social media and basically doing all the hard work for you. Now pause for a second and ask yourself this: If you could press a few buttons and get a high search engine ranking on Google why wouldn’t everyone do it? The reason is that it doesn’t work. There are a few exceptions to this rule, but if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Link exchange

This is a highly debated issue among webmasters, but search engines are not fond of link exchanges either. They consider it another way to ”game the system”. Still, I do recommend link exchanges with quality websites, but remember to always mark those links as rel=nofollow in order to stay on the search engine’s good side.

My rule of thumb

When adding a link ask yourself if visitors to that site will find it useful, and if you can honestly say yes then you’re good to go.

Now that I have scared you enough it’s time to get down to business. Remember to always check what is acceptable content and what is not before submitting your links.

Getting your first links

WARNING: You will probably receive a lot of phone calls from companies advertising their link directories for companies and how it’s really worth a small yearly fee. Don’t do it! In most cases those companies are borderline scammers and in 99.9% of cases they will not bring you any benefit—unless receiving a bill is a benefit in your mind.

Your first stop for links should probably be DMOZ. This link directory is very old and reputable, sporting an 8 pagerank on the front page. It’s massive and is run by volunteers. When submitting your links to DMOZ make sure you’re submitting them to the relevant category, and cut back on marketing talk. Editors in charge of approving content are so fed up with spammers that any marketing talk from you might result in your application being ignored.

Once you’ve submitted your link to DMOZ it’s time to visit Webinfo (Finnish audience only). This is a directory similar to DMOZ, but for Finnish links. Use their free option and add your site. Remember to stick to facts and use words that your potential clients might use, but don’t overuse them because you don’t want to be flagged as a spam submission.

Next stop would be your regional business agency that has a directory of all companies in your region, like the one we have in Oulu. They will gladly accept your submission and it will again cost you nothing.

Another source of good links is the chamber of commerce, other entrepreneurial organizations and support groups, because in most cases they have a database on the net listing all their members and their company info (including links). Remember that it’s not worth it to join those organizations just for the sake of a backlink, but if you’re already a member then why not.

Now grab your rolodex and select 3–10 companies that don’t compete with you directly, but work in the same field or are somehow related to your business. Call them up and ask if you could exchange links with them. Make it clear that you will mark their links as nofollow and suggest they do they same.

We’re now ready to move on to more interesting stuff so put your social media hat on and get ready.

Social media

What do social media and alternative medicine have in common? Both get misused when placed in the hands of people who think they know what they’re doing, but actually don’t. When properly used social media can be a powerful weapon.

Today we’ll focus on using social media as a link building tool only.

Before we dive into different social media sites and their benefits you might heed a word of warning. Social media is a weird beast; it works for some, while it doesn’t for others, and only a few seem to know why. In order to be successful in social media make sure you have following:

• Content that you will promote in social media that brings value to your target audience. A link to your company’s ”about us” page doesn’t bring value to anybody, while a how-to guide on how to pick good snow tires might. Just keep in mind that different people consider different things valuable. A teenager might not consider a 40 page white paper on the importance of open source all that valuable, so make sure you know who your target audience is.
• Understanding of what is acceptable behavior on the particular social media site you want to use for link building. You can learn this by following what others are doing and what kind of responses they get.
• Passion for what you do. If you don’t have passion then you will seem fake, and social media doesn’t care for fake. No matter what it is that excites you make sure you show it.
• Remember to always ask yourself: ”Will people find this useful?” before hitting send.

Now, as I warn you to be careful once more, let’s drill into different social networks. Please bear in mind that for the sake of brevity I will only cover the basics. I will also not even try to cover all the social networks, but rather will focus on a few major ones.

Facebook

This particular social network receives a lot of media attention and seems to be favorite among B2C companies. Below are some link building opportunities on Facebook:

• Your profile,
• Your status updates,
• Friends’ walls,
• Groups,
• Fan pages,
• Facebook places,
• Comments on status updates,
• Events.

In order to make your links more appealing make sure to include a thumbnail in your posts (this happens when you post a link to a page with images). Links with images always receive more clicks than those without.

You can create a fan page for your company/product/service and keep posting new content from your site to the fan page, and drive traffic to your website. Remember to measure engagement when posting links. If people ”like” your link and/or comment then you should probably keep posting similar links.

In order to encourage your visitors to share your content on Facebook you might use Facebook’s social plugins for websites.

Digg

Digg is basically a link aggregator with social features. I had the pleasure of appearing a few times on the Digg front page. That can drive an enormous amount of traffic to your site in mere hours, but is very hard to achieve. The new version of Digg allows content providers to automatically submit their links via RSS. If you’re using some sort of modern content management software to manage your site then it probably comes equipped with RSS feed. Just register on Digg and submit your RSS feed. Then remember to ask friends to Digg your submissions, and encourage your visitors to Digg your content by displaying Digg buttons (that’s a lot of Digg mentions in one sentence!). Now all new entries in your RSS feed will automatically be posted to Digg.

Reddit

Reddit is very similar to Digg, but doesn’t have an auto submit feature so you will have to add your links manually.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social network for professionals. Once you’ve create a profile for your company you can add your site’s RSS feed to your company profile. This will display latest entries automatically. Another thing you can do is add your company’s Twitter stream, to be displayed alongside your RSS feed entries.

Once you have plumped out your company profile with RSS and Twitter links it’s time to move on to LinkedIn groups. Groups are a great way to find people who have common professional interests. For example, this article could be posted to the Online Marketing group on LinkedIn where people might find it valuable. Search for relevant groups and post your link, asking for feedback and suggestions.

Our next stop is LinkedIn answers. Find questions where your link might be a solution. For example, I could search for questions regarding link building and post this blog entry hoping to help the person asking the question.

If content on your site is related to an event you’re organizing then LinkedIn Events are the right place for you to plug your event and link.

Let’s not forget you can also post links as your status updates, and just like in Facebook’s case links with thumbnails work much better.

StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon allows its users to ”stumble” upon interesting links. You can drive a lot of traffic your way if your link becomes popular on this social network. Submitting your links to this network is very simple and straight forward.

SlideShare

You probably have tons of PowerPoint presentations lying around (they accumulate almost magically) so why not put them to work. Upload your presentations and remember to add links to your website in the presentation itself and in comments.

Scribd

Scribd is a document storage place, so once you have some documents worthy of publishing then it’s time to upload them to Scribd. Just as before remember to add a link to your website in the document itself as well as in comments.

Delicious

This social network focuses on bookmarks. You can add your bookmarks (links to your site’s content) and encourage others to add those bookmarks to their personal bookmarks. As with many cases before, you can encourage people to share your bookmarks by adding Delicious buttons to your website.

Twitter

Lately, media coverage of social networks seems to be focusing on Twitter and Facebook. You can share links to your content on Twitter and once you have a large following your links have the chance of being re-tweeted by your followers. This will increase your link’s visibility. And guess what: Twitter has its own set of buttons too.

YouTube and other video sites

If content you want to promote is a video then you should definitely use something like TubeMogul, which allows you to upload your video to many video places at once. By now you already know that your video should be accompanied by a link to your website.

If you prefer to upload videos by hand then here is a list of popular video sharing websites: YouTube, Vimeo, BlipTV, Viddler, Yahoo videos, Facebook videos.

Technorati

Technorati aggregates blog posts across the universe and provides additional exposure to your content. In return they also link to your site. Register and suggest your blog.

Profiles on social networks

There are tons of social networks out there and you’re probably a member of a few of them. In almost all cases social networks allow you to post links and add links to your profile, so use it.

Letting others do the hard work

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people linked back to your site, Twittered about you, posted on Facebook and so on? It sure would be sweet. Attracting people to share your content and link back to you is known as link baiting and if you’re smart it can pay huge dividends. Below we’ll cover a few techniques that will help you attract more links.

Viral content

If you don’t know what viral content is then check out Old Spice commercials on YouTube. Viral content is something that people want to pass around to others, share and link to. Creating such content is really hard and in most cases it happens by accident. Is there anything you can do in order to create something like that? If you can’t come up with anything don’t worry, and keep reading.

Break the norm

If everybody in your industry does X then maybe you can write why X is the worst thing ever since global warming (if you honestly believe in what you preach). Breaking the norm will always result in people arguing with you, and in most cases linking to your site/blog.

Be first

Do you have connections to some big organizations? Can you release some information that nobody knows about and be the first to do it? Imagine if you knew about a new iPad before anyone else and released real screenshots (I am not encouraging you to steal and release secret information; this is just an example). Imagine the amount of traffic you would get. This has happened many times, most recently with the iPhone 4.

To bring it back home, and on a much smaller scale, could you write a product review before others?

Be funny

If you’re naturally funny then why not create content that appeals to your target audience, but at the same time entertains them.

Contests

People like free stuff so they might link to your contest page from Twitter and other social networking sites.

Publish statistics

People seem to love statistics, and if you publish previously unknown or shocking statistics you will definitely get a few backlinks.

Review interesting tools

If you review some interesting tools and notify the creators they will probably link back to you.

Create how-to articles

Share your knowhow and people will spread the word.

Create lists

There is something about lists that attracts people. I am to this day not sure what it is. People tend to love ”101 ways to do X” and ”20 Must follow Twitter users”. Could you write a list?

Create content on other websites

There are many ways to get links by helping somebody produce content for their site. This allows them to get quality content at no cost and you get great exposure along with a backlink. Let’s look at some of the ways you can use this technique to your advantage.

Article directories

You can submit your articles to article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles and iSnare. Just remember to read their terms of services before submitting anything. Creating high quality content is the name of the game here.

Squidoo

This service allows you to publish a lens which is an article on a certain subject. Squidoo has come under some fire for hosting spammy content, but lately they’ve cleaned up their act and introduced zero tolerance for spam. Why not create a lens about something related to your business (remember quality, quality) and add a link back to your site.

Wikis

I bet there is a wiki nowadays for just about anything. Google for a wiki in your niche and start contributing content. If you can’t find a suitable Wiki there is always Wikipedia. Remember that wikis are used to spam so don’t ever (not that you would anyway) just add your link to an article that’s related to your link.

The best approach would be to publish a study or some statistics on your website and add the results to a wiki page, adding your link as a reference. This way everybody wins.

Guest blog post

It’s a known fact there is a blog for just about everything from weird fattening foods to dog massages. Find a blog in your niche and volunteer to be a guest writer, asking only for a small plug with a link in return.

Forums

Same story as with blogs; there is a forum for almost any topic. Find a forum where your target audience hangs out and start contributing. Many forums allow you to have a signature that can contain links. Use that to bring visibility to your link every time you contribute on the forum. Again remember to play by the rules of the forum.

Testimonials

Are you extremely happy with some service provider? Well why not leave a testimonial, which would of course include a link back to your site. This is one of the easiest ways to get links.

Blog comments

If you follow a certain blog frequently why not start commenting on the blog. Many blogs allow you to provide a link back to your own blog. Just remember that bloggers are so tired of spam that your comment needs to be really good and valuable otherwise it will never see the light of day.

The routine

You need to make sure that link building is part of your weekly if not daily routine. Only then will you be successful. Start by creating a plan for producing quality content targeted to your desired audience. Every time you publish new content on your site promote it though channels that make the best sense to you and just keep at it. Link building is hard work, but it’s a good thing because if you commit to it you will stand out from the crowd.

Thank you for reading this far, I really appreciate it. If you have any tips or tricks please leave a comment.

Read More...