Link development is of the most important components of search engine optimization, yet often one of the most confusing. What is link development? Simply put, it is the act of requesting or securing inbound links to your site. The higher your link popularity (more times your link is found on other sites) generally the higher click through rates from these sites and higher your traffic. There are some key elements everyone should know before taking on a linking campaign. Hopefully, the following hints can make your next link development campaign more successful and you will gain the traffic you are looking for.
Choosing your anchor text
Before you start on any linking campaign, you should first do a detailed keyword analysis to find out what your top which keywords would be in your benefit. There are a number of tools out there that can help you with your keywords analysis:
- Wordtracker - A small fee is required but it does give you a great idea of what keywords would be beneficial for all of your successful SEO campaigns.
- Keyword Discovery - Another great source for your keyword analysis.
- Google Adwords Tool - This is by far one of the most beneficial tools. It is free to use and it gives you a great look at the approximate search volume for all keywords. You do not have to be an adwords subscriber in order to use it.
After you have selected your keywords and you know what the best ones are for your site, write out a few text links using those keywords in your anchor text. What is anchor text? Anchor text is the visible part of your link.
Choosing Your Link Partners
When you are searching for some good quality sites to link from remember the home page PR is not necessarily carried throughout the site. Look to where the potential link will be put, generally you will find a links page or a resources page. While on the page take an assessment, is the PR good? Does the page have over 50 links currently on the page or will it have the potential to exceed that number of links? When you're looking for reciprocal links you always want to find a site that is directly related to yours, and I will often look for a page with a good PR and very few links outside of the links page and offer to the same this way it benefits both you and your link partner.
A few other hints will help in your quest to find good quality link partners:
- Check to make sure the page is actually indexed by the search engines, it won’t help you if the SE’s can’t find the page you are listed on.
- Do the links have a rel=”nofollow” attribute? These are more and more common especially now on forums and blogs, if you use the firefox browser you can find a tool to help you recognize these link so you know where you can stay away.
Of course the above is all related to finding link partners. The best method for link development is finding places to add your link where it is simply a one way link pointing back to your site. Some great methods for this are, finding good directories to include your link, you can find many free resources throughout the internet, find really well organized directories that potential clients would actually use.
Great method number two, is writing a blog and articles, this topic has been beaten to death, but still today it is essential for one way linking techniques. Find a number of sites that publish articles in your niche and submit often. It just doesn’t stop at one back link per site, if people are reading your articles, then they can be linking to them, re-publishing and getting you more links that you would originally thought it could.
Whether you are finding link partners or doing one-way link campaigns you must arm yourself with the right tools and information to make your campaign very successful, find your own way, we all link differently but just don’t forget to get your inbound links!