Link Building Tips

What factor is important in links?

Google PageRank of the linking page determines the value that is passed to your page. The higher the PageRank of the page linking to you is, the higher value you will get. This great backlink value checker tool will help you to automatically determine whether or not a link is valuable for you.

Each link to your website is considered as a vote. If your friend's website with PR2 links to your website, this vote is not as important as if his site was PR9. But of course the PagerRank is not the most important SEO factor which should be considered while building links. Factors like number of outbound links, position of the link on the page, anchor text are also very important. And again, this backlinks value checker takes into account the number of outbound links on page page too!

Look on the number of outbound links

The value your web page gets from a linking page is equal to the total PageRank value of that page divided by the total number of outgoing links on that page. Thanks to the thorought SEO Research conducted by us for already several years, we have calculated Google PageRank Formula, and now can determine which page will give a higher PageRank weight/value. For example, we know that a link from a PR4 page that has only 2 outgoing links is better than a link from a PR5 page with 20 outgoing links. Already advertised :) above backlink value calculator checks and shows these things.

That's where most people often make a mistake: they usually insist on getting a link from a high PR page, disregarding the number of outbound links!

So when you consider whether or not a page is good for you to get a backlinks from, take into account both factors: the PR, and number of outgoing links that page has.

Be as relevant as you can!

Search engines give higher importance to links from your own industry segment as opposed to those from unrelated industries. A link on a site about cars will do very little good for a restaurant site; however a link in a food services directory will have high relevance.

Search relevant pages! Search for similar pages once you have found a really good page. After the search in search engine look for "similar pages", "related pages" or "more like this" links next to entries in the results list.

What does anchor text tell?

It tells search engines what the page is about. Used wisely, it boosts your rankings in search engines (by the way, Google gives more credit to anchor text than Yahoo or MSN). If you use "click here" as the words people are going to click on, you're telling people the page is about the subject "click here". If you use "Part 2" as the anchor text, you are telling the search engines the page is discussing "part 2". You wouldn't want to rank highly for "click here" or "Part 2".

However, if your site is all about purple widgets, you don't want only "purple widgets" to be used as the phrase in every link to your site. Over-optimizing like that would create an unnatural pattern.

Where should you put anchor text?

External links – links from other sites.

Internal links – links on your pages.

Navigation maps.

Links on your main page. A very important spot.

Remember that real live humans will read your links as well as search engines, so the words in your anchor text need to make sense!

Be careful with Flash

It is also important to identify pages that are generated through Flash or a JavaScript, as Search Engines cannot read Flash pages nor can they read the links embedded within Flash.

Stay away from redirected link

Redirect link is a link which redirects to another page before pointing to your site. You should watch out for such links, as search engines do not give weight to redirected links. It is very unlikely that your site would draw any benefit from a redirected link.

Forget about links form framed sites

Avoid getting links from framed sites as Search Engines cannot read texts within frames.
A link placed on a framed site would not give your site any benefit, as Search Engines would not be able to recognize such a link.

Are you working toward getting links to your interior pages?
If any of your interior pages are of particular importance to you, work on building some link popularity to those pages individually. Remember: link popularity is "page specific," NOT "site specific."

Do not ever give the search engines just one way to find your pages.
Put links to new pages on your site map. If there's a corresponding page on your site that you can use to link to the new page, do so. Mention the new page on your blog. Do you have a directory associated with the particular topic dealing with the content of this new page? Add a link on that page. Just make sure that you give the search engines several ways to find the new pages.

All links should follow to the same page.
http://site.com, http://www.site.com and http://www.site.com/index are three different pages for search engines. So be sure that all your links are pointing to the same page (better if it includes www)

Do NOT change your current links anchor text.
Links with permanent anchor text which is not changed have much more value for search engines unlike links which changed text.

Content freshness.
Remember that you can get much more relevancy for "content freshness" than you may expect: don't just dump a bunch of new content on your website, but consistently add new articles or content on a regular basis. Watch how the search engine robots behave when you start doing this consistently.

You don't have to use your keyword phrase in your domain name.
That may be a revelation to some folks, but the keyword phrase in your domain name is just one "piece of the SEO pie", and an insignificant piece at that. There are over 100 pieces of the pie that go into what makes up the ranking of a page.

Adobe is #1 out of 3 billion result for the keyword phrase "click here." Why? Because of off-page factors, not because "click here" is in their domain name.

Read all of your content, including titles and descriptions, out loud.
If you stumble over words, so will your audience. Rewrite until everything reads smoothly.

Include your most important keyword phrase in both your title and description tags ONE time.
Your title tag should be around 8-10 words long, or shorter (maximum of 75 characters, including spaces). Your description tag should be around maximum of 150 characters, including spaces.

Avoid using a lot of the same keyword on the same page.
One quick and easy way to see how you are using your keyword phrase "visually" at a glance, is to enter your keyword phrase into Google's tool bar and turn on the "highlighter" option. This highlights every instance of your phrase as it is being used on the page. You can glance at it briefly and visually spot where ever you may be over-using any keyword. (The same could be done using Mozilla Firefox and its "highlighter" option for “all found phrases on the page”)

Remember to use supporting words, synonyms, and surrounding text when linking between pages.
Allow for at least a 20% topic drift and avoid use the exact same link text (anchor text) to link between all of your pages and websites. ...Avoid building up link reputation that looks unnatural or contrived. If you're a writer, swap up your bio as well. After all, don't you want to be found under a variety of different keyword phrases that are all important to your business?

Who is your "target audience"?
When you write your website content, who are you focusing it on?

Have the search engines ever purchased anything from you? Forget the search engines! Focus on your customers! When you write content, write valuable content focused on your customers. Focus on one topic (keyword phrase) only. Your keyword-containing tags should include that one topic (keyword phrase) only. Everything on the page should be focused on that one topic. Prove to the search engine that your page is about that topic. The page will then be very relevant for the topic. But it will be valuable for the customers.

Don't ever create a page just for the search engines. The search engines aren't and won't ever be your customers. Keep your true customers in mind, and give THEM true value throughout your site and in your content.

Place a robots.txt file on every domain.
The first thing a spider looks for when it hits your website is a robots.txt file. If it's looking for that file, put it on your site! Robot Manager Pro is an excellent tool for creating robots.txt files as well as monitoring spider traffic. Download a free copy at http://www.websitemanagementtools.com/robot.html.

Include a link to your site map on every page of your website.
Many search engine robots look for your sitemap in order to crawl the entire website. If you include a link to your sitemap on each page, you are giving the robots easy access to crawl your entire site, regardless of which page they come in on.

Make your title attractive.
Choose your most important keyword phrase. Search it in Google and carefully study the top 10 results. Which is the best written title? Which is the most captivating? Which grabs the reader by the throat and makes him or her want to click on the link? Is it the #1 ranked result? Not necessarily, is it? Is it your listing?

If it's not your listing, and especially if you're having problems with click throughs with this keyword phrase, how can you change your title to make it more intriguing and designed to pull in traffic? We're talking about click throughs here. You can often beat the top ranked sites if you have a more appealing and captivating title.

Make a list of title changes, being sure to include your keyword phrase in the title. Set it aside and don't look at it for two days. Then, bring it out again and study the list again. Begin culling down the list. Get others' opinions. Try a new title, and see if your click through rate will improve.

Are your links visible to a search engine spider?
A lot of Content and Links displayed on a webpage may not actually be visible to the Search Engines, eg. flash based content, content generated through javascript, content displayed as images etc.

Try this tool which Simulates a Search Engine by displaying the contents of a webpage exactly how a Search Engine would see it:
http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

Did you know that you can get some small relevancy benefit by using your keyword in BOLD instead of using it in STRONG?

Do NOT change your current links anchor text.
Links with permanent anchor text which is not changed have much more value for search engines unlike links which changed text.

Building genuine SEO skills that will impact your online sales.
A beautiful website with no traffic or visibility can't survive in the business world. But a high ranking website that gets tons of traffic, but where no-one is compelled to make a purchase or take action, won't work for you either. Think "visibility PLUS a solid call to action."

It is important to think about what search engine marketing means. It is a fascinating topic, but it takes in much more than just the process of "optimization" alone. Search engine marketing is actually the process of optimization plus effective marketing. You need both of these elements for your website to be successful and to effectively make sales and convert that new traffic.

Here's the thing to understand. Highly relevant pages that are easily found in top search results also need to be absolutely engaging and have a legitimate value to the visitor. They need to compel a response from the visitor - and this is where you can truly begin making money and increasing your sales. Visibility for "quality content" combined with the skill to compel your visitor to "take action" is what will make a nice pay check and make you happy.

Remember to include strong calls to action to compel a response from the reader into each page and leave nothing to guess work.

Three factors of ideal link

They are from higher ranked sites than your own.

They are relevant to the topic you are writing about.

They link to you using relevant keywords to your page.