Aug 21, 2010
This SEO battle will be won based on the art of linking. Yet another art that is part of the Search Engine Optimisation business.It is certainly possible to write many pages about linking and Google Page Rank. So the below is an overview. Google for more detail.
What are links
Once any two websites are identically Search Engine Optimised in themselves, the next differentiating point which website is more important. What is the measure of this importance? Is it a power Prime Minister type website, or a street cleaner type website?If already powerful websites link to you, then some of their power rubs off onto both your page, and your website. The more powerful an individual page is that links to you the better. The more powerful pages that link to you the better. The more of any page that links to you the better, all statements certainly coming with exceptions.
Continuing my example, if the Prime Minister speaks highly of you, you are likely to be important. If the street cleaner gives you a recommendation, that means little. However, if many street cleaners, and in fact many of the population say you are important, then you can become the Prime Minister! The same is true of linking.
What is the Power of Links
<a href="http://www.domain.com">Link Text</a>
The power of links come in two parts. Firstly the attributing of Google Page Rank (power) from the sender page to your page. Not that the sender page loses any power in the attribution process.
Secondly, the text in the link is a vote for the page receiving it. You can get higher on Google for that phrase, that specific phrase, and close derivatives of it.
Not only will that one page get ranked higher, but the overall power of those inbound links will make many pages of the website start to rank higher on Google without them needing to receive specific incoming links.
Warnings
It is better to have a mix of different text linking into you. Too many of any one link text value runs the risk of Google treating the links as spam, and so disregard them, or penalise the page or even the whole website.Don't use whole of website links to another website - web designers love doing this, with a link from every page of their clients website to their website. Not a good idea.
Google likes "editorial" content. It does not like "paid" links. What are paid links? Something that in general is not a person making a random reference to a website. So make sure that the words before and after your links are in general unique. The more unique the better.
What links don't work so well
A search engine optimisers job is easy when the competition is low. Get the right words in the right places on the pages, sort out website issues, and then throw a few links at the website. For an already high ranking page on a website for a low competition search phrase, this is enough to get substantially higher on Google.But what about the highly competitive search phrases? You soon exhaust all the easy avenues for links, and in general your competitors have used them as well. So you go on the lookout for something a little extra!
The Problem with 'Directory Submission'
For a small amount of USD, you can get an Indian worker to submit selected pages to thousands of directories. But what value is this to your website?Firstly you need to make sure that you use a variety of link text and descriptions as mentioned above.
But more importantly, check how Google is caching the directories own websites. I went through a list of several hundred of our so called best value directories and found that Google had stopped caching many of their pages. If the pages are not in Google's index, then they certainly are no value to have.
Secondly, even if the page has been cached, there are generally MANY links on each page, and the page is on page 536 of some category, and so provides little value to you.
Do Follow Blog's
Manually writing interesting comments on Blogs posts that have high Google PR becomes counter productive after a while. Too many people find out about the do follow blogs, they add many links and so it becomes a spam filled area. Its all very well adding one link, but what if you have many clients, and each want a link from there? Then your links person needs to 'become' different personalities to write comments against the same posts. Not my idea of ethics.Manually writing quality posts is a rather time consuming process for just one link at a time.
And as soon as you try and outsource, the posts can also become spammy. Indians writing bad English and comments about nothing, will quickly get deleted.
However, I have a great contractor that writes good blog comments that get approved. But I still don't like the method.
Forums
Forums have the the same issue of many links per page, and pages getting buried in pagination. They suffer the same issues of finding it hard to get someone to write intelligently for you in such a way that posts don't get immediately deleted. I get many posts on my forum.time2dine.co.nz forum that I promptly delete. Even some people from Indian IP addresses that are commenting on New Zealand restaurants. Their incorrect comments, and the existence of a link in their posts to an irrelevant website is a dead give-away.So how can you get quality inbound links for clients???
Well that's my secret. I have a method that I am using that is getting quality inbound links for clients, and is ranking them well on Google as a result. While I generally give lots of information away, I have decided to hold my methods a little closer as they are proving so effective.
I have a number of linking packages that I offer clients that are getting many ranked well rather fast. For competitive search phrases its still a battle, as will this competition be. There are only so many 'easy' links to get, others need to be continually found for competitive phrases. Contact me michael@searchmasters.co.nz if you need more incoming links into your website.
The value of an SEO Consultant
All SEO consultants should be getting the words done properly on your website, and should be correcting issues in your websites Content Management System. The true value of an SEO is the quality of the linking packages and strategies that they can provide. If they don't have access to easy incoming links that work, they have little value as an SEO.All the best with your linking work. It is definitely the hardest aspect of being a Search Engine Optimisation Consultant
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