Advanced Link Building
by Administrator
Posted on 12.07.2005
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As all search engines use some form of link
analysis in the ranking algorithms, the SES session on "Advanced
Link Building" was a must attend event from which a good deal of
practical information was provided to attendees.
The undisputed leader of links Eric Ward started the session with a
discussion of link reclamation (or the process of keeping (or
reclaiming) the links you have) and holistic link building.
If you are moving your site (say for instance changing your domain
name) link reclamation can be very difficult. Especially if you are
moving your site (to a content management system for example). One of
the things that you can do is to maintain the same file structure and
file names and use 301 redirects. ward suggests to "always mind your
server logs" and analyze what pages are still receiving traffic after a
move. You will know that there are outstanding links which continue to
send traffic to nonexistent pages when you see 404 error pages. At that
point you can either reinstate the previously deleted page or set up a
redirect.
Ward also discussed holistic link building. Since your website is much
more than just your home page you can have external sites link directly
to different section of your site which provides an immense amount of
value when it comes to link popularity. Say for instance you host
multimedia files or a forum at your site. Submit inclusion requests at
quality sites and submit a link directly to the content (multimedia or
straight HTML) hosted on your site. This also works for podcasts and
white papers or any content for that matter that you develop that
others would be interested in is a great opportunity to build links.
Todd Friesen discussed internal linking structures and encourages those
interested in advanced link building tactics to always have a
sitemap and use anchor text in any internal link structures. "People
need to start looking at their own sites first before starting an
external link campaign," said Friesen.
Greg Boser of WebGuerilla discussed how to develop an effective
external linking strategy. Starting by identifying the most visible
sites within your space, it's important to first extract and analyze
the backlinks from the major search engines (including information such
as what are the unique domains and IPs of the sites your are interested
in as well as what anchor text being used. Building a profile of each
competitor that outlines the types of tactics being used will provide
you insights into the cost/benefits of the various tactics being used
and which ones you should emulate, which make sense for your
organization and which you may want to avoid.
A Specific Example of Link Building In Action:
Say for instance that you provide some form of download. How do you get
links and in turn people to visit your site? Give something away for
free, ask for embedded link with descriptive anchor text or alt
attributes and develop relationships with those directories
specifically within your niche. This will enable you to develop long
term, deep links to your site.
What should you avoid in link building?
Develop or use a system that enables you to get credit for your
affiliate links. That means no third party systems such as
commissionjunction (cj.com) which obscure URLs.
What should be your next step?
Expand your knowldege about linking in the Search Engine Watch Linking forum, hosted by Chris Boggs of G3Group.
Chris will also contribute to the upcoming issue of Website Services
Magazine. Also consider visiting a Website Services sponsor in
LinksToYou.com, one of only pure, ethical link exchange networks on the Web.
Discover the Tactics and Techniques of the Top Digital Enterprises
today in Website Magazine's Special Spring Issue - Web 100.
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