Sometimes it’s hard to explain to people what a quality link is but in simple terms this is how I describe a site you want a link from:
- Links do not have to be relevant to your industry
- The linking site doesn’t have to be an authority in it’s niche
- It doesn’t have to be the same links as your competitors
It can be totally unrelated to your site, too.
What it should to be is a website (or websites) that wasn’t built ONLY to provide links to other sites. This is what is defined as a link scheme – and Google is going after a lot of link schemes in 2012!
That’s the sort of links I usually go for anyway and the more authoritative the site, the better, of course.
Ideally:
- You don’t just want a link on a useful links page
- You don’t want it on a page with other sites as to make it look like a paid link whether it is or not
You do want it on a page that’s in Google’s index, on a legitimate website which pages rank themselves. Links within content are much more valuable, it is thought.
If you want to increase Google Pagerank of your site, you better make sure the pages that link to you have PR, can transfer it and are making your link the focus of the article. This takes a bit of experience though….
Do the stuff above (and a lot of it) and you’ll have a natural link profile as is possible that will probably stand the test of time.
I don’t use that many tools for linkbuilding website promotion because I don’t really want the same links as my competitors for my clients – you just need Google and your brain, in some cases.
Of course there’s many ways to SEO the cat (and I don’t IGNORE competitor research) but if I was a linkbuilder picking through a competitors backlinks instead of trying to think a bit more creatively about building a brand online I think I would shoot myself in the head.
Get links from REAL SITES – remember that….and you will probably always be ok.
I hate linkbuilding i really do. I can never seem to find the time. And then i can never pick the right anchor text. Or get it in the right place. some good thoughts above. Everytime i read a good article on here it makes me want to go away and creat spreadsheets and plans for my seo strategy. Maybe one day i’ll get that done :-) When you say about increasing PR, by checking if a page can transfer it I assume you mean that its not a nofollow link, is that correct?
Yeah Tom, I also find it very time-consuming. But I suppose it can pay off. A few days ago, I was searching for a few hours for some good blogs with dofollow on the comments. I managed to find a reputable blog with PR6, and a post with PR5 – a nice little linky for a few hours googling (in my uneducated opinion). Of course I read the blog and the post, and left a decent comment… not just a “great site” etc etc
On the “pick a page with good PR” comment – I find it’s sometimes good to pick a site with good PR, but comment on a newer blog post that hasn’t got a pagerank itself yet. If you comment on really good posts that are in the niche of the site, the chances are the page will eventually get a good pagerank and there’ll be fewer outbound links (initially). Also, some blogs (like this one) close off comments after a while! Most importantly, if you want to really contribute to a blog, commenting when a topic is hot (ie newly posted) furthers the debate and helps the blog out. Commenting on a 12 month old post usually does nothing more than getting you a link. Ian
Shaun – Some of what you say runs contrary to other information I have seen regarding only linking to sites relevant to yours. I think part of the confusion on the Web is the volume of varying information. Who do you trust? Tom – I agree with you also. I have spent so much time gathering information that I never get to implement much of it. By the way, I did develop a spreadsheet using Excel. I set up sheets for different topics such as “keywords,” “SEO,” “blogging,” etc. The only problem is getting the time to go back and read in depth. I keep it on my desktop use it as a reference for I get an idea for an article or for a customer. I also agree with some of the other comments…It does take a long time to build links. And, commenting on a blog early on is a great tool as well as referencing on our blog. This way people look to us as experts since we are on top of the latest information in our industry niche.
Hi Michael I just try and theorise / share my experience. I usually tell you what it is – experience or theory. In my experience links from unrelated sites are a benefit in all verticals and linking to irrelevant sites will not get you banned / filtered. In the end of course it’s your intent to decieve wich may be ultimately measured.