SEO Link Building
A strong SEO Link Building strategy should be the cornerstone of your online marketing strategy. The greater the number of high quality inbound links from authoritative, content relevant websites using strong anchor text the higher you will rank with Google and the other major search engines.
To earn these links, your site must offer great content and be recognized as a destination by your audience and as a consequence, the search engines themselves.
Off page search engine optimization, through a well implemented SEO Link Building program, will drive the relevance and authority of your site and funnel visitors to your site where they can find content and copy which delivers real value to them, increased audience for you and as a result a greater return on investment for your business. This is the key to higher rankings.
Targeting a range of link building opportunities offers the greatest return as part of your SEO campaign. Equally, creating a mix of link building content, including online PR, Social Media, Viral and so forth, will allow for a sustainable ranking rather than a momentary spike. After all, you want to stay at the top of Google rather than just briefly visit it’s heady heights!
The range of link opportunities includes:
Directories
DMOZ, Yahoo, yell.com, allied trade directories etc. There area plethora of free and paid for directories which provide opportunities for rapid link building. We would always recommend quality, human edited directories whose listings show up as valid back links within Google and the other major search engines. We submit manually to quality directories that have relevant sub-categories.
University and Government sites - .edu, .ac and .gov sites are recognized as strong link providers. Articles, PR and great relevant content needs to be created in order to attract links here.
Publishers and broadcasters
As recognized news sources, links from these are highly regarded by the major search engines. Great news stories, PR and authoritative articles are key.
Web 2.0
A range of sites offer the facility to create profiles with links. These include MySpace,Frappr,Digg, Del.icio.us, StumbledUpon, Newsvine and Yahoo!
Blogsphere
Identifying the key bloggers in your sector can provide a good target for link building.. Link to them from your own blog, inform them and, if your site has high quality, relevant content many will reciprocate and link to you.
Professional contacts
Always look to network your URL within your sectors industry bodies and commentator sites. Provide value or information and they will usually link back to you.
Article submission, syndication and article exchange
Great articles submitted to PRNewswire and the like can generate a range of inbound links. Articles need to be relevant and the links gained are usually non reciprocal (non-reciprocal links are more heavily weighted than reciprocal links.) You may also have the opportunity to embed links to more than just one page in the article. Keyword specific anchor text at both source and destination needs to be matched and relevant to further enhance the search engine’s rating for these links.
The simultaneous application of a number of Link Building approaches should be part of an ongoing process ensuring a solid and secure influence on search engine rankings.
