Link Building Basics - Wordtracker · 2014-07-16 · Wordtracker.com Link Building Basics | 4 Also...

Link BuildingBasicsKick-start your link building campaign - and boost your search engine ranking.

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Link Building Basics | 2Wordtracker.com

Chapter 1: 5

Four steps to successful link building

Chapter 2: 19

Links without asking – how to get quality websites to link to you

Chapter 3: 23

The link building mindset – the principles that will get you noticed

Chapter 4: 31

Well written content, links and the benefits they bring

Chapter 5: 37

How much is a link worth to your website?

Chapter 6: 39

What is a quality link?

Chapter 7: 42

Why would another site link to yours?

Chapter 8: 45

Who should do your link building?

Contents

Chapter 9: 47

Buying links

Chapter 10: 49

Case Study: Free content – and no bones about it!


Also published by Wordtracker:

Link BuildingHow to build links to your website

for SEO, traffic and response.

Click here to learn more.

Google AdWordsPPC AdvertisingA Practical step-by-step guide

for creating profitable

PPC campaigns.


The Web Content Recipe BookLearn the ‘Secret Recipe’ for

outstanding website content.


Blogging for Business 50 Steps to Building Traffic and SalesA real world guide to creating,

writing and promoting a

successful blog.


50 Kick-Ass Keyword StrategiesLearn 50 simple, smart and

speedy ways to attract

more customers online.


Writing Kick-Ass Website Sales CopyCopywriting guru Nick Usborne

reveals his secrets for writing

sales-exploding website copy.


http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/link-building-ebook

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/ppc-book/

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/web-content-book

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/business-blogging-book/

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/kick-ass

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/kick-ass-web-copy/

Four steps to successful link building

Chapter 1 Link building is not only good for search engine rankings, it’s essential. But not all links are equal - some links are excellent, and many others next to useless. It’s quality, not quantity of inbound links that make winners stand out. That’s why link building is the biggest challenge SEOs and website owners face.


We asked our customers: what are the biggest challenges in link building? Here’s what

they said:

(i) Finding high quality link prospects - sites that could link to yours.

(ii) Creating effective, targeted campaigns.

(iii) Tracking the success of your campaigns - and knowing whether a prospect has

already linked to you.

(iv) Learning and understanding best practice.

Wordtracker’s Link Builder tool helps you meet all of these important challenges.

Here’s how:

(i) Finding high quality link prospects

Let’s use an example to show you what Link Builder can do.

Suppose you manufacture hand made wooden fountain pens and want to increase

your online sales. You’ve got your beautiful website in place, you’ve created some

great content and you’ve got a payment system that allows customers to buy your

products.

You want to rank well in search engine results and to do that you need to get links.

So who would link to a fountain pen site?

Well, websites that are already linking to fountain pen websites would be a likely

group. Find out who is linking to some well-known fountain pen websites and you’ll

find link prospects.

In Link Builder, there are two ways to find link prospects:

• Type in a keyword. Choose any word or phrase that represents your market and

we’ll search Google for the top 10 results for your keyword. We then build your

campaign by collecting all the links to these results. In this case we might choose

fountain pens; or

• Enter the web address (URL) of web pages that you’d like to investigate. We then

build your campaign by collecting all the links that point to the URLs you’ve

entered.

Chapter 1 | Four steps to successful link building

http://www.wordtracker.com/Linkbuilder




Let’s enter the websites of four leading fountain pen brands.

You’ll need to add a few details that will help you manage your campaign:

• Add your site’s web address (mysite.com) so that we can flag link prospects that

are already linking to you.

• Choose whether to add the prospects to a new campaign or an existing campaign.

• For now, don’t worry about the other options. Leave them as they are.

When you’ve done that, click ‘Create my link building campaign’ and wait for the

results to appear. This can take a few minutes as we’re searching a database of over 1.7

trillion URLs, but you should start to see the first results within a few seconds.

Managing your campaigns

On the campaign screen, you’ll see two tabs: Analysis and Contact.

Use the Analysis tab to find and categorize your link prospects. See image on the

following page.



Taking each of the columns in turn, you’ll see:

• The prospect’s website (www.potentialprospect.com). We show the ‘top link’

from that domain to the URL you are analyzing.

• Moving on to the second column, you’ll see that the links are listed in order, those

with the highest ‘TrustRank’ come to the top (TrustRank is simply a count of the

number of domains linking to the URL you are analyzing: it is a good measure

of trust). Google values links from trusted sites - so a link from a site with a high

TrustRank is often much more valuable than lots of links from sites with a low

TrustRank.

• You can see the address (URL) of the page that each prospect is linking to.

• You can see whether a site already links to you.

• The co-link count helps you find sites that are actively linking in your market. A

high co-link count shows that the prospect links to multiple sites and is therefore

likely to respond positively to a link request from you.

Sites that already link to you

Many people ignore sites that already link to them. That’s a missed opportunity.

Sites that already link to you are some of your best prospects. You should build a

relationship with the people behind these sites. Because they have linked to you in the

past, they’ll be likely to link to you in the future, if you launch new products or want to

promote a story or offer.

In Link Builder, you can see the prospects that already link to you. Just click on

‘Already linking’ in the left-hand navigation.


www.potentialprospect.com


(ii) Creating effective, targeted campaigns

The prospects in your campaign are presented in descending order of TrustRank. This

means you can start with the most important.

TrustRank gives a good indication of the quality of a link prospect, but a thorough link

builder will visit the link prospect to make a further judgment.

Click on the linking domain to be taken to the home page or click on the top link to see

the actual page on which the link sits.

In the Wordtracker Academy I have posted a slide show, which outlines “Thirteen

ways to assess a link prospect”. It includes the key factors you should consider when

deciding whether to target any site.

You can investigate those slides at your leisure. For now, let’s look at some of the ‘Top

link’ pages in our fountain pen campaign.

www.marcuslink.com/pens/companies.html

So this page lists pen companies and the publisher is asking for your help in keeping

the information current – great, an immediate opportunity.


http://www.wordtracker.com/academy

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/assessing-link-prospects

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/assessing-link-prospects

www.marcuslink.com/pens/companies.html


Scrolling down the results at www.penheaven.co.uk/About_Parker_Pens.php, we also

see a whole page dedicated to ‘Parker Pens’.

That’s great. Is your business good enough to be featured in such a way?

And finally, let’s look at editorial coverage, as you’d find here www.brandchannel.com/features_webwatch.asp


www.brandchannel.com/features_webwatch.asp




Such editorial links are not only beneficial in themselves, but they can encourage

other sites to follow suit and link to you as well.

So in a matter of minutes, Link Builder has helped us find some great link prospects.

And there are thousands more to investigate.

Different strokes for different folks

Professional SEOs will tell you that different types of site require different approaches

to link building. For instance, you would never send a reporter the same information

that you would add to a directory – journalists are interested in well-told, exciting

stories while directory entries are factual and free of hype.

In Link Builder, we’ve already filtered your prospects and organized them into

strategies so you can tailor your link building - and increase your chances of getting a

link.

On the left-hand side of the campaign screen you can see the different strategies, all

containing sites that are already linking to sites in your market:

• Blog outreach: Blogs.

• Media PR: Online newspapers, magazines and broadcasters.

• Social Media: Highlighting discussions, comments and debates on news stories,

products and companies.

• Jobs: Sites that promote or comment upon jobs and internships.

• Directories: Directories and lists that offer you immediate and simple

opportunities for links.

• Shopping: Shopping directories, affiliate sites, discount and gift guides.

• Business: Trade associations, special interest, local and other business groups,

events and awards.

• Trusted sites: .gov, .edu and .org sites that because of their nature are likely to

rank well on Google.

• Already linking: Such sites are great places to build relationships and start new

initiatives.


http://www.wordtracker.com/linkbuilder


• Co-linking: Sites that link to multiple sites in your market.

• Imported links: Sites that you collect from the web using Link Builder’s Firefox

browser extension.

Tagging prospects

You can create your own strategies too. Just add a tag to the prospects you’re

interested in.

Your tags will appear on the left-hand side of the page beneath the existing

categories. For example, you could have a tag for sites that are highly likely to give you

a link and who you’ll want to contact immediately. See image on the following page.



In my fountain pen campaign, I’ll go through the list and pick out the prospects I’d like

to target right away. I’ll save them to a tag called ‘Pens-immediate’.

Filtering your prospects

You’re more likely to get links if you create campaigns targeted at sites that share

something in common. For example, you could have a campaign targeted at green

(environmentally friendly) sites.

This is where the ‘filter’ feature helps. Just filter the results looking for all the top links

that contain the word ‘green’ and tag the prospects appropriately.

Getting in touch

Contacting prospects can be a time-consuming task. Link Builder makes it easier by:

• Finding contact details automatically

• Allowing you to record who you’ve contacted and see the status of each

prospect.

Let’s look at how this works. Let’s say you want to run a link building campaign that

targets bloggers. Click on the ‘Contact’ tab at the top of the page. Next, click on the

‘Blog outreach’ link on the left-hand side of the screen - this will bring up a list of

prospects, people who are already blogging about fountain pens.



You’ll see your prospects and some additional columns:

• You get to see whether the prospect is already linking to you.

• You can make your own ‘Notes’ about the link prospect you have found.

• You can change a prospect’s ‘Status’ so that you can record what has happened

with that link prospect.

Let’s work through an example to show you how this works.

Find contact details quickly and easily

Link Builder can save you hours of research. In the ‘Contact’ tab click on ‘Find contact

and about links’ and we’ll search for contact details for each of your prospects. This

can take a few minutes, but will save you days of research.

It’s not always possible to find a contact page, so don’t expect to see details for every

prospect.

Let’s get back to our example. One of the top links I noticed was http://tigerpens.

co.uk/blog/why-not-give-a-penfor-christmas/

Let’s have a look at that screenshot on the following page.



So I can see this is a nicely designed blog. A quick glance at the top menu of the

page and I can see ‘Submit an article’ and ‘Contact’. It’s clear that this site welcomes

submissions and gives a link in return.

Follow the ‘Submit an article’ link and you’ll find submission guidelines:



This submission opportunity is exactly what I’m after.

Tiger Pens Blog has done a great job here and they’ve set out their guidelines.

You MUST follow these guidelines if you want to build a relationship: in no

circumstances should you submit irrelevant topics or articles that don’t fit the criteria.

Back in Link Builder, let’s record what we’ve found.

I can now type in my notes and set the status for each link prospect – ie, ‘Contacted’ or

‘Not contacted’ etc.

This means I can now organize my work well and keep a record of exactly what I’ve

done. I can come back to it at any time and know exactly what stage I’m at.

Planning campaigns like this helps you concentrate your efforts and minimize

repetition – that’s an effective way to build links.

Collect link prospects as you browse

Link prospects appear all the time on the web - even when you’re not actively looking

for them. You see a great list of recommended websites you’d like to check out but

you just don’t have the time.

Now you can just save them directly into your Link Builder campaigns as you browse,

using Link Builder’s unique Firefox extension. To download the extension, just click

on the ‘More prospects’ link. You’ll be taken to a video showing you how to install the

extension.

Once you’ve installed it, you can go to any page, click the LB button in the toolbar and

select “Get external links from page”.

When you’re next ready to start link building, your links will be ready and waiting for

you in Link Builder.

(iv) Learning and understanding best practice

Link building can be an incredibly effective way of boosting your site’s rankings. But,

there’s no doubt, too, that there are lots of skills and techniques to learn. It’s difficult

to keep up with best practice.



We understand the challenges you face - and we’re here to help. It’s why we produced

this e-book. And it’s why you’ll find lots more great resources in the link building

section of the Wordtracker Academy. There are more than 50 link building articles

plus slide shows and videos. Here are a few of our favorites:

• 62 steps to the definitive link building campaign will help you plan your link

building

These articles will help you devise creative campaigns for:

• Sites that already link to you

• Blogs

• Media

• Social media

And we’ve advice on:

• How to Twitter and

• Online PR

Wordtracker runs regular live webinars. They’re free to attend, we cover lots of

different topics, and you can ask as many questions as you like.

And if you haven’t yet read our Link Building Masterclass book, you really should. It’s

135 pages packed with useful advice.

If you have any questions, any at all, our support team is happy to help (you’re likely to

speak with Jo, Mal or Edith). Just email [email protected] or give us a call.

Summary

In this introduction we’ve shown you how to use Link Builder to:

(i) Find high quality link prospects – sites that could link to yours.

(ii) Create effective, targeted campaigns.

(iii) Track the effectiveness of your campaigns - so you know whether a prospect has

already linked to you.


http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/link-building

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/link-building

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/62-steps-to-the-definitive-link-building-campaign

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/questions-for-linking-sites

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/link-building-hero-london-cyclist-blog

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/media-links-seo

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/social-media-networking

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/how-to-twitter

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/link-building-techniques-online-pr

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/how-to-build-links-webinar


mailto:[email protected]

http://www.wordtracker.com/contact



In the rest of this free guide you’ll find more information on how to approach the

important task of link building for your site.

We often feature our customers’ sites in our case studies. So, please let us know how

you get on. Email us at [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]

Links without asking – how to get quality websites to link to you

Chapter 2 Sending out link requests is a time-consuming business. So wouldn’t it be wonderful if other sites linked to you without being asked?

Sound impossible? Well, it can be done and in this guide, we’re going to show you how.


Asking for links won’t get you the link you want. With link requests, you first have to

find target websites, review them to decide if asking for a link is worthwhile, identify

the contact person and send them a customized link request.

If you can do all that in 15 minutes per request, you’ll be doing very well. On that

timing, you’ll be able to send out 160 requests in a 40 hour week and with a success

rate of say 10%, you’ll get 16 links for your efforts.

40 hours for 16 links - perhaps there is a better way to spend your time?

Sometimes the best way to get links is not to ask for them.

That doesn’t mean you should sit back, do nothing and wait for links to appear.

Spend time creating content and making sure your site is attractive – with content

others will want to link to. There are lots of things you can do to build your link

popularity without sending out link requests (though, of course, the carefully targeted

link request that is impossible to turn down does have its place – more of that later).

Here are some of the approaches we’ll be exploring in this guide:

(i) Play an active part in online discussion groups, forums, blog comments and

other social sites. Not only will you learn, you’ll also become known, spot the movers

and shakers, and if you post good opinions and helpful advice then people will link to

you.

(ii) Create relevant profiles on the large generic social sites (like Facebook,

Twitter and StumbleUpon) and on smaller specialist social sites that serve your

market, eg, WAYN for travel; RecipeZaar for cooking; stylehive for fashion and style.

Build a network of friends on these sites.

(iii) Publish a regular newsletter and re-use the content on your website.

Encourage people to link by asking, “if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, you can link to

the permanent version at (insert URL)”.

(iv) Publish articles on other websites – blogs, ezines, information sites,

media sites, even article banks. You can find sites to submit articles to by doing a

Google search, eg, intitle:”submit an article” business and this produces over one

million results.

Chapter 2 | Links without asking – how to get quality websites to link to you

http://bit.ly/7GrgBF

http://bit.ly/7JcrzZ

http://bit.ly/5DtVa2

http://www.wayn.com/waynsplash.html

http://www.recipezaar.com/

http://www.stylehive.com/

http://bit.ly/4GzMCA


(v) Find niche blogs, sites and newsletters that serve your market and that

you would like to link to your site. Study the type of content they publish and adapt

your writing to their style.

(vi) Create an interactive tool. My favorite of old was ‘The Longevity Game’. You

answered about 20 questions and the tool predicted at what age you would be likely

to die. Irresistible – I still remember that my prediction was 83. The test was designed

and published by an insurance company – could they have been trying to sell me a

pension? A little bit of creativity in thinking about such tools will be time well spent

and a good programmer will be able to create a tool in just a few hours.

(vii) Create great content. (OK, it’s an old trick, but it still works.) Just keep

publishing great stuff. One of the best at this is online marketing expert Sean

D’Souza’s PsychoTactics. His site and newsletter are models of consistency and

genuine value to readers.

(viii) Submit your website to legitimate award sites like Mike Corso’s Cool Site of the Day. The emergence of sites like Digg and Reddit means that such ‘pick of the day’ sites will struggle long term but meanwhile they offer a quick, free link and

traffic opportunity.

(ix) Praise and link. When you find genuinely useful resources, write a short,

complimentary review together with a link. Then publish on your website and click on

it just to make sure it ends up in your target’s referrer logs. Larry Chase of Web Digest for Marketers publishes a monthly newsletter that reviews about 10 web resources. A

few days later he writes to each reviewed site and allows them to quote his comments

in return for a link.

(x) Become a source of quotes. Provide sharp, useful, timely quotes for the

media. You can get yourself known and you’ll find journalists will seek you out. Sign

up for services such as PR Leads ($99 per month) which can put you in contact with

journalists looking for experts to quote.

(xi) Volunteer to become an editor for several directories. You’ll be able

to submit reviews of your own sites and you’ll have opportunities to get to know your

market better - that inevitably leads to more linking opportunities. Go beyond the

obvious - as well as DMOZ, try Joe Ant, Skaffe and Web Beacon.

(xii) And, of course use Wordtracker’s Link Builder tool to help you find

great quality link prospects.


http://www.psychotactics.com/

http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/

http://www.coolsiteoftheday.com/

http://www.digg.com

http://www.reddit.com

http://www.linkingmatters.com/site-of-the-day-sites

http://www.linkingmatters.com/site-of-the-day-sites

http://www.wdfm.com/

http://www.wdfm.com/

http://www.prleads.com/

http://www.dmoz.org/

http://www.joeant.com/

http://www.skaffe.com/

http://www.web-beacon.com/


It’s easy to get too wrapped up in sending out link requests. Stepping back and

thinking of some creative ways to get people to link without being asked will be time

well spent.

Wordtracker’s Link Builder tool can help you find the best link targets for your

business.

Yes, I’d like to know more about the Link Builder tool.

If you’d like a practical, step-by-step guide to effective link building, we recommend

Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building. How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic, and response. In this 135-page e-book you’ll discover the 7 stages of a

definitive link building campaign

Yes, I’d like to learn more about the Link Building e-book.







The link building mindset – the principles that will get you noticed

Chapter 3 Links from authority websites are essential if your link building efforts are to be successful. But what does it take to get those authority sites to link to you? Well, you’ll probably guess that it is not easy – quality links don’t materialize from feeble or automated requests.


To get those ever-so-valuable links you’ve got to adopt the right mindset – the

principles that show link targets you mean business and that you’re worth linking to.

(i) Know your online community

The majority if not all of your potential quality links will come from the online

community around your industry. This community is made up of blogs, websites,

forums, associations and email newsletters specializing in your industry.

You really must get to know this community and you must establish your position

within it. To do that you must devour information: you must know the best news sites,

the most popular newsletters, the busiest forums and the most popular blogs and

tweeters. Sign up for the newsletters, create Twitter lists, get yourself a news reader

and read as many useful RSS feeds as you can. These will deliver news to your

desktop rather than you having to go and search for it – used well, they can be a huge

time saver.

(ii) Obsess about your customers

Get to know them inside out. Understand their stories. Statistics about customers

on their own are not enough – statistics don’t give you much to use in link building.

Customer stories, on the other hand, provide wonderful material.

People are interested in other people and if you write web copy that highlights

interesting stories, you’re sure to attract links.

So find out about your customers. What are their needs? How did they arrive at your

website? What did they do when they arrived? And most importantly what did they

do when they left? Did they find the answer to their problem? How did your site help

them?

You can start this process simply by looking at the emails you receive – reply to

people’s queries, enter into email conversations, monitor your brand and products on

Twitter, send direct tweets, ask questions, probe a little deeper to find out more.

Ask your customers directly to share their stories – direct requests can give you some

terrific insights. You might even put a formal story-gathering project in place.

Whatever you decide to do, the main objective should be to add detail, opinion,

examples and ‘color’ to your web copy.

Chapter 3 | The link building mindset – the principles that will get you noticed

http://bit.ly/7eEqcx


(iii) Use the language that your customers use

Keywords are just ‘the words people use when they search’. Using keywords is

fundamental to successful link building. There is nothing better than getting keyword

rich links coming back to your site.

Keyword rich links are easy when you’re buying directory listings or text link ads, or

indeed when you have relationships with other sites and can ask them to link to you

using your chosen keyword phrases.

But paid links for the sake of boosting your search engine rankings now carry a risk

because Google hates them (see ‘Buying links’ below). If Google finds paid links

without a nofollow tag it will at best remove their worth and worst penalize you.

But there are other ways to get keyword rich backlinks.

When people link, they often use the name of a product, a publication or the title of an

article or blog post as the linking text. So use your target keywords wherever you can

in names and titles – it’s a simple way to influence the words people use when they

link.

(iv) Be wary of automation

There are many link building schemes that claim to be able to build you inbound links

automatically. Avoid them like the plague – they invariably involve some variation on

search engine spam. Don’t waste time trying to fake an inbound link network. Better to

invest your time and money in building real links from quality sites.

(v) Be generous with your outbound links

Giving outbound links to quality content is one of the best ways of establishing

yourself in your online community. But be selective with the sites you link to – don’t

just link to any relevant sites you find: choose sites that have exceptional or useful

content.

Add some comments and descriptions as you link. The readers of your website

will appreciate it and your generosity will encourage some valuable word of mouth

marketing for your site.

And of course, the publisher of the site that you’ve linked to will appreciate it. Think

how badly you want links – other webmasters are the same and they will pay attention

to sites that link to them. Your outbound links could be the start of a beautiful

relationship.



(vi) Watch out for great content, no matter where it comes from

There’s an old technique that comedy writers use called ‘switching’. The idea is to

create a new joke from the basic elements of another, successful joke by switching the

situation. So the basic elements of a joke about salesmen could be switched to a joke

about teachers.

You can do the same switching for content ideas. Take a close look at any piece

of content that catches your eye – an article, a contest, a survey. Isolate the basic

elements and then transfer the idea to your own industry.

For example, online pawnbrokers Borro.com, conducted a poll to find out what things women value most. Their mothers came out top, with their partners only managing

fifth place, below things like their mobile phone and photographs.

The basic element of this story is to use a survey (giving credibility) to find a surprising

and interesting answer (or two) to a seemingly simple question. We once used a

similar technique for a debt help company when a survey discovered that borrowing

money to pay for a wedding was a significant cause of serious debt. Could you adapt

this to your own industry?

(vii) Get your message out

Great content on your site is wonderful to have. But if people don’t know about it and

if search engines have not indexed it, then you’ll not be getting the payback that your

hard work deserves.

You need to take steps to get your message out and make sure people know about it.

Journalists, editors, popular bloggers and other influencers get inundated with press

releases and other stories – most of it has not been edited well and contains irrelevant

information. So take care when you contact them. The big mistake is to put in too

much – to try to tell people everything. That will only overwhelm them: instead, stick

to a single aspect of the story you have to tell.

Write the absolute minimum that you need to get their attention: include a link that

will take them to more information if they are interested.

Best of all, first identify and get to know your target influencers by helping them eg,

with comments on their posts, mentions in your own, and answering any questions

they ask on Twitter or in their posts.


http://bit.ly/8jygnE

http://bit.ly/8jygnE


(viii) Incorporate writing into your daily routine

The more you practice the better you’ll become. The web is a text based medium.

Even if you’re creating a software application or interactive content, you’ve still got

to write about it, to tell people of its existence. And since it is a text based medium,

you’ve got to learn how to write clearly and briefly without waffle.

Learn how to write great copy – even better, learn how to write great copy that contains

important keywords. And the best way to learn is to write a little bit every day – build

time for writing into your daily routine. Start simply – a 100-word blog post once a day

should not be beyond any of us.

(ix) Obsess about quality

It’s not the number of links you get, or the number of articles you write or the number

of pages that you publish. It’s about getting links from quality sites in your industry.

In deciding the importance of your site and your search rankings, search engines put

emphasis on the quality of sites that link to you. What could be a better source of

unbiased information than a link from an article that a journalist has written and an

editor approved?

Just as important if not more so, is that quality sites will have high levels of traffic and

as a result, you’ll get a lot of interested people directly visiting your site.

Quality links attract more links. People see a link to your site on BBC.com, NYTimes.

com, Digg.com and many others and they’ll be more likely to link to you. There is a

power law at work: the strong get stronger – people with good inbound links get more

inbound links without asking.

You can also get some pretty neat testimonials – being able to write ‘as featured on

the BBC’ on your website is a valuable endorsement.

(x) Build links offline

It’s people who decide to give you links and the great thing about most people is

that if they get to know you, they’re more than happy to help. Through comments on

forums and blog posts, Twitter replies and the email conversations that follow, you

can quickly build up contacts with people all over the world. That’s one of the great

strengths of the internet.



But don’t stop with just online communication – follow up and build personal

relationships wherever you can – those relationships can bring you many future links.

So make sure that you:

• Pick up the phone and talk to some of the people you’ve made email contact with.

And with the quality of Skype calls now so good, it costs next to nothing to do.

• Attend local business meetings, whether web specific or more general from the

local chamber of commerce. Funnily enough, the people who attend these meetings

have websites – and if they have websites, they can give you a link.

• Attend national events – these are not only great places to learn but they are

tremendous networking events. You’ll easily build contacts among fellow delegates

and even among some of the speakers.

(xi) Monitor your results

The number of links pointing to your site is not a good enough measure of the success

of your link building efforts. A website with 100 quality inbound links will outperform a

website with thousands of links from mediocre websites.

So what should you do? Here are the main things I would look at:

• Appearance on the most influential blogs

• Appearance in Google news

• The sites that already link to you and drive traffic

• News sites that link to you

• Deep links to pages within your site (ie, not your home page)

• Any link text used

To find and monitor your new links use:

• Wordtracker’s Link Builder tool.

• Your site statistics software, eg referrer sites on Google Analytics

• Your Google Webmaster account

• Yahoo with this search:

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=yoursite.com



http://www.google.com/analytics/

http://www.google.com/webmasters


(xii) Anticipate – be prepared for the unexpected

Things are always happening in your marketplace. Sometimes a sudden development

or change will catch you out and cause some real problems. Other times, changes in

the marketplace can present you with a sudden opportunity. If you just react to such

events, you’ll be in the mix with everyone else.

If, on the other hand, you anticipate events and do some basic preparation, you’ll be in

a powerful position when serendipity throws you a great opportunity.

Start with the easy-to-predict occurrences, like forthcoming events and any mention of

new personalities in your markets who might emerge to be stars. For example, if you

have a sports site, create pages for any promising young stars; if you are a business

site, create pages for new interesting companies you hear about. Then go beyond the

obvious...

How about introducing a ‘what if’ brainstorming session into your monthly routine?

Pull your team together and ask them to imagine what might happen in your market in

the next 12 months: have some fun and be as wild and imaginative as you can.

Draw up a list of people’s ideas and pick the top five or so. Then ask the question,

“What would we do if this actually happened?” Such an exercise will get your team

focused on your marketplace and who knows how you might take advantage if one of

the ideas turns out to happen?

(xiii) Be relentless and determined

Of course, the thing about quality links is that they’re hard to get – you have to really

make a concentrated effort, but the results will be well worth it.

Building quality links is rarely an overnight success but there are exceptions. Sites can

make a tremendous impact in a short time if they have an exceptional story to tell. But

for most of us, immediate success is not usually the case.

Sure, go for the spectacular if you can. But treat it as a bonus. Don’t forget to stick to

the task and build up quality links over time. If you start with content that is genuinely

useful, and if you target sites that are real sources of information for sizable numbers

of readers in your marketplace, then you will succeed and start to see powerful and

sustained results in a matter of months.




business.












Well written content, links and the benefitsthey bring

Chapter 4 The web is used to find information, to make a purchase or to interact with others. Whatever the reason, content is vital.


Here are the top four reasons why content is important.

• Content attracts customers. They want to know what’s on offer. If it reads well

and looks good, then they are more likely to part with their cash.

• Content is attractive to search engines. Spider bots sent out by search

engines are ravenous for content. They want more and more keyword rich text to index

and store in their databases. (Keywords, of course, are the words people use when

they search.)

• Content persuades other sites to link to yours. Great content stimulates

word-of-mouth marketing online and creates a network of sites that link to yours.

These sites are telling their audiences: “There’s something useful and interesting here

– have a look!”

• Content attracts media attention. Case studies, white papers, research

reports, news stories and how-to articles can all grab media attention. Editors and

reporters are almost as hungry for content as search engines. Learn to give them

what they want and they’ll come back to your site time and again, bringing hoards of

potential customers in their wake.

You don’t have to be a professional writer but you do need to learn the tricks of the

trade that differentiate good writing from bad. No matter how good your ideas, if they

are not expressed clearly, confidently and with conviction, then they are not going to

grab the reader.

Writing good content and improving the quality of the content you already have are

two simple and cost effective ways of improving your website’s results.

Remember, many people who own websites concentrate on design and construction

and spend very little on writing. Yet it is good content that will get your website to

the top of the search engine results pages and attract visitors. Invest in well written

content, optimized for search engines and you will out-perform competitors who are

still wondering which images they should include on their latest splash page design.

But creating content alone is not enough. You must make sure that people can get to

your content and the best way to achieve this is to get it linked to from well-respected

sites.

Furthermore, it’s not just the number of links that are important: it’s the quality and

reputation of the websites that link to you that really counts. So a link from

Chapter 4 | Well written content, links and the benefits they bring


CNN.com or BBC.co.uk will be much more important than a link from (the made

up) GeorgesPersonalPages.com.

Link building is the craft of persuading an unconnected website to provide a link to

yours. This is a powerful endorsement and one that both search engines and people

respect.

Every online marketing campaign should include a major element of link building if it

is to be as effective as it could be.

(i) People follow links like traffic follows road signs

As people browse the web, they move from site to site by following links. In research

conducted by Linking Matters among over 1,000 business executives, following a link

was the second most popular way to find new resources on the web (the first was using

search engines – whose results are, of course, highly influenced by links).

So the more quality links you have from external sites, the greater the chance that

people will find a link and follow it to your site. If potential customers see a link from a

website that they know and value, they’re likely to follow the recommendation.

(ii) Search engines pay great attention to the sites that link to you

All search engines now use some form of link analysis as an important part of their

algorithms. The theory is that since most people only link to sites they like, counting

the number of links pointing to a web page is a powerful way to measure quality. As

search engine expert Mike Grehan says: “It’s not so much what you say about yourself

[on-the-page], it’s what others say about you that matters [off-the-page]”.

(iii) Links influence your brand and online reputation

You are known by the company you keep. If people who are researching products

regularly come across your company or product names – be they in blogs, editorial,

product reviews or customer forums – then they start to build a picture of you as a well

known brand that is respected.

The growing market share of the Firefox browser is a case in point. Spread largely

by word-of-mouth recommendation and links, this competitive threat to the mighty

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer now has over 330 million users and, as of November

2009, a 25% market share.


http://www.linkingmatters.com/

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/


(iv) Links attract links

You’ve got to work hard to get other sites to link to you but once you’ve had some

success and become established, other websites will link to you without being asked.

Imagine you’ve established a great site for selling vintage cars online, like AntiqueCar.com. Your name is recognized, you help set industry trends and occupy a powerful

position. How could any directory that wants to be a respected source of information

not link to your site? If they didn’t their reputation would suffer. A vintage car directory

will not want one of their visitors to say, “They don’t list AntiqueCar.com – can’t be

much of a directory.”

Likewise, a news or information site or a blog that provides regular editorial on classic

cars is going to write about AntiqueCar.com on occasion and, in so doing, is going to

provide a link to the website. Links attract links and once you are established, your

links will grow organically – a significant percentage of sites that link to you will do so

without being asked.

(v) Quality links are long term

Invariably when people link to you, the link stays – either in their archives or as part

of their own resources list. People are usually too busy adding new content and

references to review links that they’ve already created.

This inertia has important implications for the return on investment (ROI) of your link

campaign. Say you have a budget of $10,000 for an online campaign and you spend it

on pay per click advertising. Once you’ve spent it, it’s gone.

If you’ve planned your campaign well, you’ll have sold more than enough to cover your

costs; you’ll have attracted a number of new customers and a percentage of those will

turn into long term relationships. This pattern of sales over time is shown in the graph

on the following page.


http://www.antiquecar.com/index.php

http://www.antiquecar.com/index.php


Figure 3.1: Pay per click (PPC) advertising has an immediate impact on sales but once you stop

paying, sales drop dramatically

With a linking campaign, however, you’ll attract a large number of visits, many of

whom will convert into customers, some of these long term. But unlike advertising,

your links won’t disappear – they’ll continue to attract customers and influence search

engine results day after day, month after month and even year after year. This more

attractive long term pattern of sales over time is shown in the graph below.

Figure 3.2: A linking campaign takes time to produce results but the benefits are long term - the

links established continue to drive traffic and boost your search engine rankings.



A link building investment will create a solid foundation on which your business can

grow. Invest in link building and you’ll reap the rewards for years to come.


business.












How much is a link worth to your website?

Chapter 5 Link building can be time-intensive. So, how much effort should you put into link building?


What is the value of a link?

Every link is worth cash to your business. Let’s look at the example of an online

retailer. His average sale is $150 and he has a repurchase rate of four times per year.

So each new customer is worth $600 per year in gross revenue.

His conversion rate is 3% – so for every 100 visitors to his site he expects to gain three

new customers.

Suppose he has a quality link that brings him an average of five visitors per day. That’s

1,825 visitors per year which means 54 new customers, each worth on average $600

in gross revenue. That’s $32,400 in gross revenue per year from a single quality link. If

his link building campaign brought him an additional 20 links of the same quality, he

could expect additional gross revenue of $648,000.

Furthermore, the quality links would boost his search engine performance and bring

even more visitors – and revenue–to his site.

Chapter 5 | How much is a link worth to your website?

What is a quality link?

Chapter 6 Many people use Google PageRank as a measure of the quality of a link – usually via the little green bar that you see when you’ve downloaded the Google toolbar. This is a mistake as the PageRank shown on the toolbar is not necessarily that which Google actually uses.


There is more to Google ranking than PageRank.

When assessing possible link targets, only use Google’s PageRank, or the ranking in

the Link Builder tool from Wordtracker, as a rough first measure of the quality of a link

and cross reference using the following methods:

(i) Is the website somewhere you’d like to be seen? That is a must when looking for

long term link targets. Look for popular sources of information in your industry. It’s

safe to say such sites will be regarded as authority sites by Google and that a link to

your site will be valuable.

(ii) Is the website relevant to your business? It should be used by people who would

be interested in what you have to offer. That doesn’t mean you stick rigidly to sites

that are exactly on topic. Look for sites that are related. So a company that offers data

recovery services will want to be seen not only on technology sites, but also sites

that concentrate on health management, education or local government and have

significant content on technology.

(iii) Is the website able to drive appropriate traffic? That not only means the same

target market as your website, but ideally at the right stage of the buying cycle. If a

website accepts comments, then the number of comments on an article is a great

measure of its popularity and the chances of it bringing you traffic. Also, the Alexa Rank of the site will give you a guide to the site’s popularity.

(iv) Does the website perform well on Google? Or, at the least, are the pages upon

which your link might sit to be found on Google’s results pages? To find out if the page

has been crawled by Googlebot simply select a unique group of about 6-10 words, put

them into the Google search box and enclose them in quotation marks. If the page

has been crawled it should come up in the search results.

(v) Will search engines follow the link and pass on link power? Some sites hoard

PageRank by using the nofollow tag (discussed below) to stop search engine bots

following links – such links will not be recognized by search engines and are only

valuable for the actual traffic they bring.

(vi) Will the website embed your link in the body copy or editorial rather than listing

it at the side or end of the article? For example, we’ve found that on WebProNews,

an article written about Linking Matters will bring us more traffic than one of our own

articles that includes a link in the signature at the bottom of the article.

Chapter 6 | What is a quality link?

http://bit.ly/7xRhF8

http://bit.ly/7xRhF8

http://bit.ly/6Bj0OP

http://www.webpronews.com/

http://www.linkingmatters.com/


And Google almost certainly values the body copy links more highly. Indeed, some

search engine optimization professionals (SEOs) have reported that links in site

footers actually reduce their pages’ Google rankings.

(vii) How far away from the site’s home page will your link be? You don’t want your

link’s page to be too far from the home page (or other pages distributing significant

link power). Search engine bots struggle to go more than three levels deep on many

websites so links buried deeper than that may have little link power.

(viii) Does the website allow you to use your own linking text? Webmasters who know

the value of linking text will take the small bit of trouble required to link to you with

meaningful text rather than just your URL.

(ix) Will your link be to specific content (a deep link)? External links to your site,

particularly if they are included in editorial, should link to a specific resource, not just

your home page. Ideally, you want the link text used to match the target keywords of

the page linked to.

(x) How many inbound links does the page have from other domains? And from how

many different domains? A page may have 100 inbound links but if they all come from

the same domain then they are likely bought, affiliate or in some other way ‘unnatural’

links. If Google spots that these links are unnatural then it will pass on no link power.

Most link building tools, including Yahoo inbound link counts, don’t distinguish

between a page’s number of inbound links and the number of linking domains, but

Wordtracker’s Link Builder does.

(xi) How old is the website the page is on? Either Google likes older established pages

(as they are less likely to be short term spammers) or older established pages are

more likely to have built up their own quality inbound links. Either way, you prefer links

from old pages.


business.






Chapter 6 | What is a quality link?






Why would another site link to yours?

Chapter 7 To answer that question, let’s first turn it on its head. Why would you link to another website? Most of our clients usually answer, “Can’t we do this without linking out – I’d rather not give people the chance to go to another site before they’ve bought something because there’s a chance they won’t come back.”

This is poor rationale. To be successful online, you should be at the heart of your community.


If you were setting up a hardware store in your local town, you wouldn’t look for some

isolated suburb: you’d look for a good location on the main street, with lots of people

bustling around. It’s the same online. To be successful you need to be part of a busy

online community, and that means links coming in and links going out.

Here’s a checklist of why another site would link to yours:

(i) You have a reciprocal link arrangement

They agree to link to you because you link to them. This was the main way of linking in

the early days of link building on the web. However, if you want to get real value from

a reciprocal link, make sure your link is not hidden away in a ‘links page’ that people

never visit.

(ii) It is their job to do so

Industry or location specific directories may have a mission to link to all relevant sites

and will do so either on their own initiative or when asked.

(iii) You have an established business relationship

Suppliers will often link to their customers and vice versa. If the relationship between

you is good, then such a link is easy to create.

(iv) You are a member of a trade association or organization

Many organizations, associations or business networks will list your site as part of their

membership package.

(v) You pay them to give you a text link

Many websites sell text links either direct or through brokers or auction sites. Others

can be approached directly. But remember that Google hates paid links (see ‘Buying

links’ below) without nofollow tags and will discount or not count them if it finds out

about them.

(vi) You publish useful content

Other websites will link to content that is useful to their customers or to content that

supports their sales proposition (a review, for example).

Chapter 7 | Why would another site link to yours?


(vii) Your company or products are being discussed

Many sites and blogs provide forums and comments for discussion and these can

contain extensive links. Some sites publish summaries of these discussions together

with associated links.

(viii) You’ve got an interesting story to tell

News sites, blogs and commentary sites can be a great source of topical links to your

company.


business.






Chapter 7 | Why would another site link to yours?







Who should do your link building?

Chapter 8 The accepted wisdom in many circles is that link building is dull and tedious and therefore to be avoided and delegated wherever possible. As a result it’s a task that gets handed down until some poor soul says, “OK, I’ll do it,” and then is told to just get as many links as possible with no real guidance or support.

This approach completely misses the point of link building.


The aim of a link building exercise is to establish your market position and bring profits

to your company. It should be given the importance that it deserves.

The reason that doesn’t happen is that many marketing directors or managers don’t

understand the importance and don’t take the trouble to find out. (Present company

excepted of course – you are reading this guide.) Unfortunately, link building in most

organizations is treated in one of these ways:

• “Give it to the office junior – it’s only grunt work anyway”.

• “Give it to one of the techies – they can sort all that nasty stuff out”.

• “Give it to our search engine optimization company – they should be experts at that”

(and said SEO company might just outsource your link building halfway round the

world).

• “Give it to a specialist link building company but make sure we don’t pay more than

$20 per link.”

However, the process – or at least a great part of it – should be done in-house. This is

because no matter how good an external agency may be, they do not have the in-

depth knowledge of your industry or the experience of working in it every day. Unless

you tap into the knowledge that exists within your company, you’re going to miss

opportunities. Your staff should be encouraged to contribute to the link building effort

because:

• Staff will come across websites as they do their day-to-day work. The sites they

visit and find useful will publish information on your industry, market trends and

predictions, changes in legislation, competitive activity and new products. These sites

should be collated formally and shared with others.

• Because of their insider knowledge of your industry, staff will be better able to

spot link targets that match your company ethos and provide appropriate linking

opportunities.

• Staff will have the experience to see the bigger picture and will be able to spot

market gaps and business opportunities.

A popular solution is to have a professional link building company start the process,

set up systems, train in-house staff and then maintain a consulting role and work on

spectacular link building projects.

Chapter 8 | Who should do your link building?

Buying links

Chapter 9 Thinking of buying your links? Think again.


Buying links has become a multi-million dollar industry and Google hates it. But let’s

be clear and say that Google hates sites buying links for ‘page rank’. That is, links that

will boost your site’s performance on Google’s organic (not paid) results.

Such bought ‘page rank’ links are identified by the absence of the nofollow tag. When

Google (and other search engines) find a link with a nofollow tag they don’t follow the

link and they don’t pass any link power or ‘page rank’ via that link. But do note that

even though nofollow links don’t pass on link power, they use it up – nofollow links are

link power black holes.

So, as far as Google is concerned, you can buy all the nofollow links you like, including

from Google itself with AdWords.

But if Google finds that you’re buying a lot of follow links (links without the nofollow

tag) then you may get your site banned. That means no more Google traffic for a while.

And Google ignores lots of follow links that it knows are bought – for example, the

links on press release pages on PRWeb and directories it has identified as giving no

value.

There are well known companies like Text Link Ads, Text Link Brokers and Linkadage

selling text links. Of course, Google knows about these so don’t expect their links to

give you any link power.

Search for a short while and you’ll find slightly more discreet companies selling text

links. Go to an online marketing show and you might be approached by an agent of a

company selling paid links that (it’s claimed) Google can’t identify as such. And these

links can bring great results quickly. But for how long?

It takes a professional a few seconds to spot a site that’s buying links or using a link-

sharing network. Within a few minutes they can gather the evidence to prove it and

make a complaint to Google and you lose the link power.

Still fancy your chances and want to buy links? There is another issue for you to

consider...

Our main objection to buying links isn’t that you might get caught – if you know the

risk then that’s your business: it’s that if you practise buying links then you’ll get good

at buying links. Much better to get good at creating link-worthy content and learn how

to promote it. Those same skills create satisfied loyal customers.

Chapter 9 | Buying links

http://bit.ly/5btqvQ

http://www.text-link-ads.com/

http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/

http://www.linkadage.com/

Case Study: Free content – and no bones about it!

Chapter 10 Wordtracker created a free 75-page Keyword Research Guide that attracted thousands of visitors and links – and it cost them nothing!

Here’s how they did it…

http://www.wordtracker.com/academy/keyword-research-guide


Wordtracker asked experts to give advice to a fictional vegetarian dog food company,

Virginia Veg.

The free guide was packed with useful tips on using Wordtracker and generated huge

publicity.

Worktracker’s Keywords tool identifies the most popular words (keywords) people use

when they’re searching online.

When website owners and search engine optimizers use these words in their website

copy, they increase their chances of getting more visitors and customers from search

engines.

But using Wordtracker requires creative thinking and a sound strategy – in expert

hands it will give great results, but it can leave the novice bewildered. Wordtracker

needed to educate people on how to get the most from its software.

Search engine experts are loath to give up their secrets – and even if they did, their

clients would not want to share the strategies with potential competitors.

So Wordtracker created a fictional but realistic scenario in which search engine

optimization advice was required. The scenario centered on Susan Webster, CEO of

troubled company Virginia Veg who decides to launch vegetarian dog food online.

The advice the experts offered to the fictional company is relevant to anyone who

wants to optimize their website.

There were four key steps to creating the Wordtracker e-book:

1. Wordtracker started by writing the first chapter to introduce Susan Webster and her

company, the problems they faced, and how she came upon the idea for vegetarian

dog food.

2. This chapter was emailed to experts from a range of disciplines – search engine

optimization to copywriting and advertising. They were asked to imagine Virginia Veg

as a real company and explain how they would use Wordtracker to help.

3. Advice from each expert made up a separate chapter in the guide (there were nine

chapters in all). Wordtracker added an introduction on ‘Why keywords matter’, and a

final chapter on how to incorporate keywords into website copy.

Chapter 10 | Case Study: Free content – and no bones about it!

http://www.wordtracker.com/find-the-best-keywords


4. The completed e-book was heavily promoted and given away for free – no

registration was required.

Each expert was asked to promote the e-book on their own site – this led to high

quality inbound links to Wordtracker.

Advance notice was sent to several dozen carefully selected publications and blogs.

Word spread quickly and it was this ‘online word-of-mouth’ that was the major driver.

After a week, press releases on PRWeb.com in the US and Pressdispensary.co.uk in

the UK added to the momentum.

These news stories were followed up after a month or so with a series of in-depth

articles on keyword research aimed at the most influential relevant websites.

The spread of the story was measured by doing a Google search on ‘keyword research

guide’. Before the guide was launched there were just 12 results ten weeks after

launch there were over 20,000 results, and most of these contained high quality links

back to Wordtracker – so it was a highly successful link building exercise.

Building good content and links is not easy. It takes a determined effort but once you

start, a linking campaign will develop its own momentum and continue to grow. You’ll

leave your competitors far behind.

We hope you found this guide useful. Please remember that Wordtracker’s Link Builder tool can help you find the best link targets for your business.





Yes, I’d like to learn more about the Link Building e-book. And there are lots more

articles about link building in Wordtracker’s Academy.

Chapter 10 | Case Study: Free content – and no bones about it!

http://www.prweb.com/

http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk








http://www.wordtracker.com/academy


The Mysteries of Successful Link Building Revealed

Introducing a step-by-step system for improving your link building campaigns.

If you found this Link Building Basics guide useful, we

recommend Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building. This

135-page e-book builds on the ideas you’ve just read about

and walks you through the five critical stages of successful

link building:

Buy the book today and you’ll discover how to:

• Find quality sites that make up your market’s online

community

• Network and befriend influencers within that community

• Create compelling, link worthy content that is also

optimized for the search engines

• Promote your content to your online community

• Get inbound links without having to chase them down

Every quality inbound link is worth cold, hard cash to your business.

So why wait another moment - when you can get your hands

on this valuable information right now?

Yes, I’d like to learn more about Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building.

Product detailsPages: 135

Format: PDFThis is an e-book. Once you order you’ll be able todownload immediately.

Published: February 2010

Price: $49

Buy Now

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/link-building-ebook/



http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/ppc-book

http://www.wordtracker.com/ebooks/ppc-book

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