10 Steps to Building Links to Your Site
by Craig Fifield
It's the online equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. And just like
its offline cousin, it's the most effective way to get new business.
This advertising mode is known as "link building," and it involves
getting other Web sites to link to your site. It's like one of your neighbors
recommending a good plumber or handyman; it carries more weight than if
a person just stumbled across your Web site.
In today's world, there is much more to good search engine listings than
simply optimizing your site for keywords.
In order to keep searchers happy, search engines are always developing
ways to make their results more relevant. In the last couple of years,
links have become increasingly more important to the engines because they
see links as an endorsement of your site by other Web sites. Think about
it for a minute: Would you link to a site you didn't like?
This concept is referred to as "link popularity." Based on
the links pointing to your site, the search engines either increase or
decrease how relevant your site is for particular keyword searches.
Obviously, you want to increase your site's relevancy, right? Good. That's
the goal here: to make sure you start building the right kind of links
for your site in order to improve your search-engine results.
To this day, the best way to build links is still doing it by hand. Here
are the steps you should follow when building links:
1. Set a goal.
Link building takes a lot of time, but it is very effective and easy
to do, so you want to keep at it. Set a goal for the number of links you
want as a way to stay motivated through the process.
Depending on the sites you ask and your approach, your results will vary.
But a general rule of thumb is to set your linking goal at four-to-six
times higher than the number of links you actually want to receive. You
need to set your goal higher because most sites will not want to trade
links, for various reasons.
2. Make sure your site is worth a link.
This means your site must offer something of value to entice other sites
to link to yours.
If all your site does is sell products or services, you need to get busy
creating some additional linkable content. Examples of linkable content
include how-to articles, product reviews, tools, tips and so on. Creating
content can be tough, but if you don't have some on your site already,
you've got to do it. Adding linkable content not only will encourage others
to link to your site, but it will improve the overall quality of your
site for your visitors.
Make it easy on yourself by writing about something you know that relates
to your site. This column is a perfect example. It teaches without trying
to sell something. The best part of creating linkable content is that
if you do it well enough, you will find that people will link to your
site without you even asking, and that's the easiest way to build links.
You're not a writer? You can always add free tools or free downloads.
Also, consider creating a links page prior to requesting a link trade
with a site. You can usually expect a better reception from a potential
link partner if they can see where you will place the link to their site.
3. Determine the type of sites you want to trade links with.
This takes some thought. You need to figure out all of the different
types of sites that could potentially trade links with you. Focus on sites
that are related to your target market.
Here's a good example:
I worked on a site that sold sunglasses, so I approached sites that sold
swimsuits and tanning lotions, but not sunglasses. Once we accumulated
links from those sites, we then developed a section of our site on eye
protection and asked for links from all of the sites we could find that
addressed eye protection. In the end, we significantly increased the number
of links to our site from other sites in our target market. Plus, we added
about 10 additional pages of content to our site that our visitors enjoyed
and we continue to link to. This helps significantly in search-engine
placements.
4. Get equipped to evaluate your link partners.
To make the most of your efforts, you don't want to spend too much time
going after links from sites that the search engines don't think are valuable.
While it isn't perfect, the Google Toolbar can help you decide which sites
are quality link partners and which aren't.
The toolbar integrates with your Web browser. It helps you by displaying
the "page rank" of each site you visit. Put simply, page rank
is a rough indicator of what Google thinks of a site. You can rest assured
that if Google thinks it is a good site, it probably is.
The higher a page ranks the better. One strategy is to try to link up
with sites that have pages ranked as high as or higher than your own.
5. Locate quality link partners.
There are many ways to find link partners, but the easiest way to find
quality link partners quickly is to start at Open Directory and Yahoo!.
Open Directory and Yahoo! are good places to start for three reasons:
These directories are both so difficult to get listed in that each potential
link partner you find there is likely to be of a higher quality than those
you would find elsewhere.
Yahoo! and Open Directory greatly boost a site's link popularity when
they list a site. Your site will receive a little bit of that boost each
time someone from one of those directories links to you.
The links you build don't help your link popularity in the search engines
unless the engines know about the link. The search engines crawl the sites
listed in Yahoo! and Open Directory on a regular basis, so by starting
your linking campaign here you can be sure the search engines will find
you new links quickly.
To find partners, simply start searching for terms that are related to
the types of link partners you decided are best (step No. 3 above). While
surfing your potential partner's Web site, keep your eye on their page
rank (step No. 4).
6. Organize your findings.
Again, there are many ways to do this, but it's always a good idea to
keep it simple. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of the following:
Full name of site owner or Webmaster.
E-mail address of the site owner or Webmaster.
Home page URL of link partner.
URL of the page where you think your link belongs and why you think it
belongs there.
Page rank of the page where you think your link belongs.
Something unique that you liked about the site.
Date of initial link request.
For many sites, much of this information will not be available, but you
should try to find as much of it as you can.
7. Prepare for contact.
Now that you have a list of potential link partners, go through the list
and send a custom e-mail to each one requesting that you trade links.
Do not send a generic e-mail requesting a link; it will not get a response.
Your link request should mention the following, most of which comes from
your spreadsheet (step No. 4):
Something you liked about their site; compliments go a long way.
Why you think your link belongs on their site.
The URL to exactly where you think your link fits on their site.
The URL of where you'll be placing their link on your site.
How you would like them to link to you. Provide a sample link and description.
The easier you make it, the more likely they will post it.
8. Check for links.
When building links, you are dealing with real people, so it can take
some time. You may need to wait a month or longer before checking to see
if anyone has linked to your site from your new partner. Usually it is
best to do this step by hand, but you can use a link popularity tool if
you have a lot to check.
9. Follow up with the cream of the crop.
Once a month has passed, follow up with each site that hasn't linked
to you yet. Save time and only follow up with the cream of the crop “
those in your spreadsheet with the highest page ranks.
10. Set a schedule.
You will find it easier to keep building links if you put yourself on
some sort of link-building schedule. Consider doing a certain small amount
(30 to 60 minutes) of link building each day. It will help prevent burnout,
which is inevitable if you try to do your entire campaign in a couple
of days.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Fifield is product
manager and Chief Idea Guy for bCentral's Web site analysis and submission
service,
Submit It!. Fifield is an expert in search-engine marketing, having
achieved top search-engine listings for numerous small businesses as well
as for Microsoft Web sites.
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