'Net Features : inbound links

Hiring Professional Link Builders

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:00:00 GMT

It’s the single most important part of your success with search engine optimization – inbound links. But a link-building initiative can also be one of the most time-consuming tasks one can undertake. However, outsourcing this essential process is possible when you ask some very important questions (and the get the answers you want) of the agency or individual who will be responsible for the project.

Let’s look at some general principles for hiring a link builder (researching link building vendors, understanding the link building methods used, and what to look for when analyzing link-building reports) and address some important questions to ask before you even think about signing a contract.

Read more about hiring a link building team or expert now...

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Find Who Links To You - WhoLinksToMe.com

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 15:35:00 GMT

Finding sites that appreciate (or dislike) your content enough to link to it is not as easy as you think; in fact, it's so important that some SEO's might want to consider adding the practice for clients. Some already have with the rise of reputation management providers like StepRep or Trackur.

There are of course no shortage of SEO tools for Web professionals to faciliate the process of finding inbound links to a website. Their value in relation to their cost for many however is a completely different story. WhoLinksToMe.com, a new web-based link analysis tool did catch my attention this morning, and while it may not be the most robust way of identifying inbound links (and probably won't match the accuracy of running manual checks) it is an interesting solution that offers individuals and organizations with a chance to get more closely involved in the conversations that impact their reputation and brand and potentially improve their return on SEO investment.

Unlike other link analysis services, WhoLinksToMe.com covers a "broader online footprint" according to the company in near real time. Users can navigate through a web-based list of inbound links to their site and identify the most popular terms associated with the site and its brand. These anchor text reports could prove exceedingly useful in optimization of a current site and even individual pages in an ongoing SEO campaign.

"We are at a crossroads of what an online campaign should encompass. SEO, social media, reputation management, server architecture and web design are all emerging marketplaces. These technologies are inter-dependent, yet are often at odds with each other," says Ryan Russell, Founder and CEO of Star Nine Marketing, Inc. "When departmental walls are broken down and best practices are put into place, amazing wins in the marketplace occur."

The downside of the service is that you'll need to keep a verification link, file or meta tag on your site at all times.

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Searching For Inbound Links

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:10:00 GMT

How do you secure top rankings on the search engines? Inbound, high quality links - and that fact is not going to change in the foreseeable future. But how and where do you find these excellent sources of links? Easy - the search engines of course; the same ones that analyze the number and quality of links pointing to your site as a means to rank your site against your competitors. Makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? Here's how to search for links in all the right places.

This article originally appeared in Website Magazine's Web Success Weekly