Posts Tagged ‘link building’

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Build More Links to your Site by Syndicating Articles

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

Generating original articles for your site accomplishes several objectives – they build content on your site which boosts rankings, they provide a valuable resource for prospective customers and they attract incoming links, which helps your position in the search engines.

One way you can obtain incoming links for your site is to submit knowledge articles to other sites in exchange for a link back to your site. These “article submission” sites provide great resources on various topics in addition to helping you spread your name around.

If it’s done correctly, it is reasonable to expect you will get links to the exact pages you want that include the exact anchor-text you desire.

But submitting content to some of these article submission sites can also have some drawbacks – namely low quality links, duplicate content problems and drawing unwanted attention to your site’s search engine optimization efforts.

Google in fact frowns upon this and views it as an artificial link-building tactic.

There’s in fact a right way and a wrong way to build links through these article submission sites. Some of these sites are in fact duplicating content from your site so you need to be sure your stuff is tweaked to not trip the duplicate content alarm at Google.

You also don’t want to totally rely on these sites. The ones you do use should be reputable and professional. Sites who say “looking for writers” or “submit an article” are better options to choose that won’t paint a big target on your website.

Some popular article submission sites include: Ezine Articles, Article Dashboard, Buzzle, Article Alley and more.

Check back again soon for some more tips on how you should go about submitting articles to these submission sites along with some info on finding good ones to work with.

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day, Writing for search engines | No Comments »

A Quick Link Building How-To for Small Businesses – Part II

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

In the second part of our quick little link building guide (see part I here), we will explore the differences in links and ways you can get more inbound links to your website.

Not all links carry the same value in the eyes of the search engines…some are more valuable than others. Links from established websites usually carry the greatest value since their PageRank is much higher (because they have a vast amount of links already). For example, a link from CNN.com will carry much more value than one from a free press release distribution service few have ever heard of.

A link from a small business directory like www.sbdpro.com will be more valuable than one from a directory that uses no-follow tags. Speaking of no-follow tags, it’s the bane of any inexperienced link builder’s existence.

No-follow is basically a link search engines cannot follow so therefore, it has no value. Links from Facebook, Twitter and many online ads are usually no-follow so try your best to avoid these. They don’t hurt anything but they don’t help you either so you would be wasting valuable time if you try and acquire these.

So how can I build incoming links naturally?

Like we said before, you want a good mix of links to your site that appear naturally. Having 100 links from the same place will be a red flag to the search engines. They will most likely penalize you in this situation, which is not a good one to be in.

Some good places to get inbound links include: directories, press releases and blogs.

Directories – Links from professional organizations, online communities, forums and business directories can provide great links for your site. Examples include DMOZ.org, business.com, Yahoo!, Best of the Web and more. Be sure your directory listings are fully optimized to get the full benefits.

Press Releases – Writing and distributing press releases to various outlets are another great way to gain inbound links to your site. Not only will people be able to learn about what’s happening at your company, you will build more links to your site.

Blogs – You can also link to relevant pages on your website from your blog. Building relationships with other bloggers will also bring great links to your blog and website. Active blogs with large followings are your best bet but you can also target lesser known blogs as well. As their PageRank grows, the value of the link will grow with it.

Another way you can build links is to create content so fascinating and valuable that other people will want to link to it. This is the ultimate way to build links but is also the hardest.

Create a schedule for link building – for example, you could find a directory once a month and create links in your blog every week or two. And carefully evaluate directories and press release outlets to determine the value they can pass to you. Different directories and press release outlets can offer a wide variety of link value (check out our article on press release optimization for more).

How can I see who’s linking to me?

Another important aspect of building links is inventorying what you have already and checking on that periodically. You can easily see who Google is crediting a link to you by entering “link:www.yourwebsite.com” in the search bar (without the quotations).

This won’t show you all of the links but if you’re inclined to, you can use Google’s free webmaster tools for more in-depth research…Yahoo’s Site Explorer is another tool to see what links Yahoo! are showing for your site.

You should make it a point to checkup on these every month or so. And build relationships with more web properties too…obtaining a link not only helps your prospects in the search engines, it is also a great compliment and professional networking tool.

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Posted in SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | 1 Comment »

A Quick Link Building How-To for Small Businesses – Part I

Monday, July 26th, 2010

Pages within a website and across the Internet are connected through links. You have links on your website to navigate from one page to the next. You also have links to other sites you think your readers will find interesting. And finally, other sites will link to yours, providing Internet users one more way to find you.

While all three of these are important and impact search engine rankings in some way, the last type has the largest by far…which coincidentally, is the hardest links to control.

Basically speaking, the search engines’ concept is as follows: if high-quality sites are linking to yours, then your site must be pretty important and therefore, will be more inclined to show it higher in their results…you in effect receive “link juice” from other sites that link to you.

But it’s not enough to just get a couple of links and then sit still. Search engines like Google look at link patterns to your site as they build over time, not just a one-time snapshot.

So, building the right links in a consistent fashion can payoff tremendously – that much is clear. But how do I go about building strong inbound links without getting myself in trouble? Getting on Google’s blacklist isn’t much fun and hard to recover from.

Continue reading for one of the ways you can build high-quality links to your site naturally and check back again in a week for part II of our quick little link building how-to.

Variety is the spice of life – and links too!

There are all sorts of link farming schemes out there you can buy into – which is probably the first reason you should run away. This practice is known as reciprocal linking – you exchange links with other sites who will turn around and link to you on a mass scale…Google and others are on to this!

The key to successful link building is to cultivate a good mix of links over time.

Having 100 links with the same anchor-text doesn’t look natural to anyone, including search engines. When links come naturally, some may use your business name while others may use some kind of descriptive phrase for the anchor-text…they vary.

If anchor-text is the same for all links pointing to your site, it will be signal to the search engines that your links are being generated artificially, not naturally.

And consider the pages people are linking to and try to mix that up too…don’t have them all going to your homepage. Try to drive links to specific product pages, your blog, your press room, your articles and more. This will help get them ranking as well.

Also, you will want to try and influence the title tag for incoming links if any have one. If you can, you will want variety in the link text and title for links pointing to your site…again, it’s about growing your links in a natural way, not simply slapping a bunch of homogenous links up there and walking away.

Variety in your links is perhaps the most critical component of successful link building. Don’t have them all coming from the same place to the same place and so on.

Check back with us next Monday for part II of our quick little link building guide and even learn how you can easily find out which sites are linking to you.

In the mean time, take the above steps to ensure what links you do acquire don’t get you in any trouble and give you the most bang for your buck.

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Posted in Articles, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | 1 Comment »

Gain Links Quickly by Purchasing an Abandoned Website

Friday, June 25th, 2010

Building links for your small business’ website is a central tenet to gaining top search engine rankings. A plethora of strategies to help you accomplish this swirl the Internet…some are legitimate, and some will get you in pretty deep trouble (i.e. link farms, etc.).

We spend a lot of time here at the search engine optimization e-blog exploring the best and most legit ways of doing this.

One strategy of building links budding web entrepreneurs can consider is buying an abandoned website that has an existing cache of inbound links already. This can be a quick way to jumpstart your link-building efforts.

It’s been estimated that nearly half of businesses started in the U.S. fail within four years. In the old days, this exclusively meant a brick-and-mortar storefront was abandoned, leaving the real estate for someone else to pick up and use for productive purposes. In the online world, the site owner may keep his “online real estate” around in hopes of making it work one day.

These kinds of businesses or their website more specifically, are ripe for the picking at rock bottom prices. As far as cash outlay, this option may be more expensive than other link building strategies but the time you will save will make up for it. As the old saying goes – “time is money.”

One of the easiest ways to find these link jewels is to do a search on Google for outdated copyrights. For example: “copyright 2003” + your keywords

One of the easiest ways to spot an abandoned website is to find one whose copyright date is several years old. Sites that are consistently maintained will change that date each year but if it’s abandoned, the copyright year may be from 5+ years ago. Nothing says a site has given up like an old copyright date.

Another way to find abandoned or underperforming websites you can pick up for cheap is to type in “temporarily down for maintenance” or “under construction” plus your keywords. This is another indication that a site could be abandoned.

Once you locate a potential site, make sure its domain hasn’t expired. If a domain expires, Google wipes their entire history and infrastructure clean. Meaning, the value of any links and PageRank is reduced to zero so it would be a waste of time to purchase it for link building purchases.

We’ll have more on how to effectively build links through purchasing abandoned domains. Check back with the search engine optimization e-blog for more on this and other tips on building search engine rankings and effectively marketing your small business online.

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Posted in Forum Watch, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | No Comments »

Requesting Links – 12 Things your Email Request Should Include

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

As we all know and understand, links are an integral part of ranking well in the search engines…it’s a barometer they use to determine your site’s importance and relevance.

There are many ways you can obtain links – you can purchase them (be very careful doing this), someone who finds your site can link to it from theirs or you can request a link from a site you visit…the third option is where we’re focusing today. How you request a link from someone is every bit as important as obtaining them in the first place

Consider the following:

Dear site owner,

I was looking at your web site and think we should link to each other. If you are interested, please add the following code to your HTML:

[Insert code here.]

Thanks,

Any Company USA

Amazingly enough, a lot of website owners think this will pass muster and get them that link. Of course that’s nonsense as you will see. This type of link request message would most likely be ignored by anyone who receives it.

So what should a link request email contain so it gets opened, read and acted on by the site I’m trying to target?

Continue reading for 12 things your link request should contain. While these items may seem pretty obvious, you will be amazed at how many do not think about these.

  1. In your subject line, be sure you follow any instructions given from the site you’re trying to get a link from. Many sites that have a collection of links include information on what to include in your subject line. Example – Subject: Link Submission. If you don’t take the time to find any link request instructions and/or don’t follow their directions, don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from them.
  2. Include the site owner’s name in the salutation and in the first lines of your message. This indicates that you have taken the time to look through their site and truly respect what they do. Also, immediately addressing the person by name lets them know that your message isn’t some ‘spam’ they’re receiving.
  3. Right after their name, include your name as well. This lets them know that it’s a real human sending the message. A first line like “Hello, Mr. Jones. My name is Adam Smith” indicates that you have taken the time to find out who runs the site and that you’re nice enough to tell them who you are. It also shows you didn’t just send the message to several thousand other people.
  4. Include the site’s homepage URL in the first few lines of your message. This is an extension of steps #2 and #3. Also, maintain professionalism and don’t show fake sincerity or imply friendship when in fact, you’ve never met the person.
  5. Next include your site’s URL – “I am contacting you about my site, known as ‘SiteName’, which is located at http://www.anysite.com/.”
  6. State the URL on their site where you think your link would fit the best. “With regard to your links section at…[insert exact URL of their links area].”
  7. A quick paragraph explaining your site and why you think it’s worthy of a link from their site. “I respectfully request you consider my site for a link as I feel my site is a nice match for your collection of links.”
  8. The exact URL on your site that you want the site to link to. Your homepage for instance may have a lot of flash images so you could suggest an alternative page that will load faster if someone clicks on the link.
  9. Include a valid email address for them to reply to with any questions, etc. Actually write out your email and don’t rely on them to hit ‘reply’ or see where the message came from – “If you would like to contact me or have any questions, please feel free to email me at johndoe@anysite.com.”
  10. And include your phone number too so they can exercise that option if they like. “Or if you prefer, you can also call me at (352) 555-5555.”
  11. Confirm that you have added a link to their site from yours.
  12. And include the URL on your site where they can see the link to their site – “…that you can see at http://www.anysite.com/links.html

Including these items in your link request email goes a long way in ensuring the receiver opens the email request, reads it and acts on it. Recognizing the site owner as a real person and immediately stating your name eases their mind that they’re not being spammed. If it’s obvious your email is a bulk request, it will be immediately deleted.

And you guessed it, you can’t create one generic message and send it over and over again. You need to take the time to create and send a unique message to each site you’re requesting a link from.

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Posted in Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day | 1 Comment »

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