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SEO – A Non-Spammy, Natural Linking Strategy

By Tracy Mu Sung in Featured

Despite there being over 200 parameters taken into account by search engines when ranking sites, one of the most popular facets of search engine optimisation (or SEO) continues to be linking.

However, this article isn’t about non-spammy content, it is about non-spammy linking strategies. Yes, although linking has fast become an industry whereby directories have popped up everywhere and links are put in footers, headers, background color, or a myriad of other disguised ways, there is still a non-spammy way to do links. Whats more, my history shows that this way works better for your ranking over the long term as well.

Before we get started, a very brief introduction for those newly initiated into the world of SEO. The bottom line is this – Google will recommend your site, if others recommend it first. This means, to get high rankings in Google, Google needs to know that others find your site useful. How does a search spider know what people think about your site? Links. If people are linking through to your site, the Google spider will think your site is well liked. If relevant sites are linking through to you, this is even better, because Google will consider you to be an authority on this topic.

So, how do you go about getting the nice mix of links that Google might consider appropriate? Well, you can just dive in and submit your site everywhere you can think of. Or you can take the longer, more well thought-out way around…

1. Before you even start – look at who your client is. What is and isn’t going to be effective for them? Where and where wouldn’t they want to be seen? You need to know exactly what the limitations of your link building strategy are going to be. For example, if you have a government body as a client, you are going to have to think VERY conservatively. Similarly for national brands or straightlace industries like insurance. On the other hand, start ups, media and online retail might be more willing to take risks. You need to note all this down, and make a memo of what kind of strategy you will be following. This is particularly important if you are sharing this client work with others.
2. Similar to point 1, point 2 is about relevancy. you don’t want to damage your brand image for some basically worthless links, so make sure all your links are on topic in some way. Its best for your SEO and it is best for your brand. The effect of directory links seems to be negligible these days, so you might want to consider if this is worth your time. In content links however are much more valuable.
3. Assigning the work. Link building is often assigned to junior staff, or as a starting task. Now, sure, it might seem like brainless work – but if your junior gets an irrelevant or inappropriate link for your client, and your client or a competitor sees it, you will have a lot of explaining to do. Make sure that the person doing your links has some experience or good training, and most importantly, that they have read your client memo.
4. Now, in the interests of corporate knowledge and continuity, it is also recommended that you keep good records of every link you do for your client. No, not so you can copy this strategy for the next client (see point 1.- client suitability!), but so that you can go back and see what has worked and what hasn’t. Going hand in hand with this is the obvious monitoring of rankings to see how your efforts are affecting them.
5. Step 4 will help you with step 5. Evolution. You can’t just get links and then stop. You need to constantly increase, improve and diversify your sources of links. This takes creativity and experience, and is yet ANOTHER reason why the most junior people in your organisation shouldn’t always be given linking to do. As part of evolution you need to monitor your progress, learn more about your client and keep up with their latest developments (look for linking opportunities), and also keep on top of general SEO industry developments.

This is the general overview of how a linking strategy should be undertaken. Sure it is a lot more complicated than just submitting your site to link farms, or sending out a mass email, but SEO is about having the edge over your competitor, and these steps will help you get there. Website Marketing is an increasingly popular and competitive form of marketing, you need to make sure you are keeping up with the Jones’s not just looking for the fast or easy route.

If this advice is too vague for you, here are some more specific do’s and don’ts:

Do use relevent anchor text, which helps Google to know what exactly it is you are an expert about.Don’t use ‘click here’ as your link – ever! * Don’t forget to check if a site you are trying to link from is nofollow’ed * Do try to diversify your links – 100 links from one site isn’t the same as 100 different links * Don’t use irrelevant links – Google can spot this a mile off, and may penalise you. Also, it just doesn’t look good if you want to retain some dignity for your brand * Do try and generate buzz with good content so that links will come to you naturally * Don’t undertake any paid links without thinking very very carefully about the implications * Do contribute valuable content/comments/reviews to other sites, with relevant links embedded * Don’t try and contribute spammy content with embedded links that aren’t relevant. Your content will either get blocked, or Google will devalue the links. * Do think laterally – always be on the look out for good, relevant, linking opportunities. There are opportunities out there if you remember to keep thinking, developing and diversifying.

This article was written by Tracy Mu Sung for MooMu Media, the search engine marketing experts. MooMu Media provides search engine optimisation, PPC marketing and web analytics advice. MooMu’s clients include multinational companies including professional services, online retail and digital media.

Build Authority Before Links

By Jeffrey Smith in Featured

Rome was not built in a day, neither was a top ranking using SEO. Each keyword has a threshold that search engines and the competition have set, finding it and surpassing that mark is the true objective of search engine optimization.

Just like climbing Mount Everest (conquering a competitive keyword), takes planning, preparation and execution. One of the common misconceptions about search engine optimization is that once you acquire the most competitive keyword in your industry the floodgates will open and your job marketing your product or service is done.

How To Build Backlinks via Google Alerts

By Titus-Hoskins in Featured

Building backlinks is an essential, yet tedious
job for most webmasters. Here are a few tools
and tips to make that job just a little bit easier…

I am a member of many online forums. Most of these
forums have to do with online marketing and site
promotion. Recently, I came across a post on Ken
Evoy’s SBI forum that truly caught my attention.

It basically described how to use Google Alerts
to build your backlinks. Now for those not familiar
with Google Alerts a little explanation is probably
needed.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a free program run by Google
that allows you to keep track of any topic on
the web. You select your “keywords” or “urls”
and Google will alert you via email whenever
links/content containing your selected topics
appear anywhere on the web.

It is an excellent way to keep informed about
your own domain or name. It is also perfect for
keeping up-to-date on the latest information in
your market niche or niches. It’s also a great
way to find out what other people are saying
about you or your site.

For example: if you have a site on “antique cars”
then you would create a Google Alert for those
keywords. Google will alert you by email whenever
a new link/content related to those keywords
appears on the web.

This is a great way to stay informed in your niche,
but it is also a valuable source of potential
linking partners. Many of those links are blogs
that will allow comments with a link back to your
site.

Google Alerts will probably send you 10-20 links
each day, depending on the popularity of your
chosen keywords. Just go to these blogs/links
and see if you can leave a comment with some
valuable additional information on what’s been
discussed.

Don’t Spam

Please Note: Don’t spam; there are intelligent
people behind most of these blogs, and they will
recognize keyword spam when they see it. Your
main goal should be getting targeted traffic back
to your site and any link PR should be secondary.
Always put the reader or viewer first, especially
if it’s on someone else’s site. Don’t talk about
your site or your marketing – just join the conversation
and add your comments/opinions/suggestions…

Enhance their site and they will reward you with
traffic and a link. But you still have to keep
your own interests in the equation! You have to
make sure you get your targeted keywords in the
anchor text.

Keyword Market

First, if you’ve done your homework, your main
keywords should already be in your domain name
or url. Another way is to add your “keywords” +
“guide” to your sig or signature. Such as:
Name, Your Antique Cars Guide. If you’re an
expert in your particular niche, many webmasters
will kindly welcome your comments and links.

Since your main goal is the traffic, many
webmasters don’t worry if there is a “no follow”
attribute attached to the link. But if you are
concerned about this – one way is to look at
the source code to see if it has the “no follow”
tag. I usually copy the whole source code of
the page to my text editor and then do a simple
“no follow” search.

No Follow

There is also a great little free comment tool
called “Comment Kahuna” co-created by Jason
Potash which will search blogs and tell you if
they have the “no-follow” attribute or not, it
will also give you the PageRank of each blog post.
If you’re going to use blogs as a source of
your backlinks, I suggest you try Comment
Kahuna – it will make the task much easier
and it’s free.

Actually, while the “no-follow” issue may be
a concern for some webmasters, the savvy ones
will realize these are links/sites Google is
actively indexing and spidering, otherwise you
wouldn’t get the alert in the first place. You
must get your links into this whole mix of related,
relevant sites to help raise your own rankings.
Also remember the other search engines may not
even consider the “no-follow” tag.

Trackbacks

Likewise, creating trackbacks are another way
of linking relevant content. Keep in mind, a
trackback is simply an acknowledgement via a
ping signal that is sent from Site A (originator)
to Site B (receptor). Then the receptor often
places a link back to Site A showing its worthiness.

Again, I am mainly concerned with the quality
of the blog or link, rather than the linking
structure. I want the targeted traffic, and it
doesn’t really matter whether the link has
“no follow” because interested visitors only
see a link they can click for other helpful
information.

Other Linking Options

Since we are on the topic of link building,
another useful way to build backlinks is to
use Google Search or Google Blog search. Now
if you’re looking for niche-related blogs just
type in:

“(Keywords)” “powered by (blog scripts)”

For example, if you’re looking for some
“antique cars” related links on WordPress
blog, you would search for:

“antique cars” “powered by wordpress”

And Google would give you a whole list of sites
on antique cars.

Now if you want to find the links that will
allow comments, just repeat the Google search
with:

“antique cars” “powered by wordpress” “leave a comment”
-”no comments”

Remember the “-” means posts that have no
comments will not be displayed.

If you’re concerned with PageRank, Number of Backlinks,
Alexa Ranking… of particular posts you can download
and install the SEOQuake plugin. This handy SEO plugin
can be attached to your browser and will give you helpful
SEO information on the link or links you’re viewing.

Please Note: If you’re using SEOQuake in FireFox you have
the option in Preferences to tick a Line-through “nofollow”
and “noindex” links. Really handy tool to find those “nofollow”
links…

Used in conjunction with Google, it can sort thru all
these blog posts and give you the ones with the highest
PR? Highest traffic? Highest number of backlinks? The
more knowledge you have, the easier and more effective
your link building will become.

Just remember, finding quality backlinks is probably
the most tedious job for most webmasters. It takes
time and it takes patience. By using Google Alerts
you can have relevant keyword related links emailed
to you each day. Use this information to help build
your backlinks in relevant related niches. Do this
consistently over a period of time and your site will
get noticed and ranked higher.