So you've done keyword research for your business's website. You've written (or have hired a copywriter like me to create) quality, keyword-rich content with proper header tags, bolding and formatting. That programming firm in India has finally gotten around to updating your website with new content, and it looks beautiful. Only one thing is missing: traffic!
Link building is one of the three most important aspects of search engine optimization, the other two of which we've already covered. When you're going through the first phase of website optimization, link building is the "capstone" that pulls it all together.
First, let's review the first three steps of SEO for small business websites.
Search Engine Optimization:
1) Perform thorough keyword research.
3) Gather inbound links from authoritative sites.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of link building, let's define a few key terms.
Outbound Link - A hyperlink which directs from your website to another website. This shameless SEO copywriting link, for example, is an outbound link which directs from this page to my main business site.
Inbound Link - A hyperlink which directs to your website from another website. For example, I got an inbound link as part of my new Local First membership.
Anchor Text - The text that is used to hyperlink to another web page. Sometimes anchor text is the same as the website URL, e.g. www.creativewebbusiness.com, but ideally it's composed of actual words, e.g. Creative Web Business. More on that in a sec.
Link Building - The SEO practice of gathering more inbound links to your website in order to help boost your website's rankings in search engines. Good link building also boosts referrals from other sites and, ideally, helps to build brand awareness in relevant industry circles.
What does link building do, and why is it important for SEO?
I could ramble on about the complexity of Google's constantly changing algorithms and Page Rank, but why bother when Matt Cutts is still prowling the interweb?
This is what it boils down to: inbound links let search engines, like Google and Bing, know that your website is worth being included in search results. The more inbound links your website has, the more authority it has in Google's eyes and, consequently, the higher your website will rank in relevant search results.
You can think of it as networking, but for your website. A successful business person is constantly expanding his or her network; likewise, a well-ranking website is constantly gathering new inbound links from quality websites.
Key Elements of Link Building
Ok, that was the easy part. Link building isn't as simple as paying for a bunch of crappy directory listings. There are a few important details which are necessary to make link building a successful part of a larger SEO strategy.
Over the years, SEO spammers have found a way to wiggle around Google's rules of etiquette, and, consequently, Google's rules have gotten a lot more strict. An important part of link building is avoiding practices which will get you banned from Google's search results.
Never pay for inbound links. Paid links are strictly forbidden by Google, and Yahoo and Bing don't take too kindly to them either. There are ways to wiggle around this rule, but it must be done carefully. Some directory sites require you to pay a small fee for inclusion in the directory, not for the link itself - an important distinction. These directories usually offer very low quality links, however, and are usually not worth the money. Speaking of which...
Links from quality, authoritative sites carry more weight. Search engine optimization specialists used to rely on "Page Rank" to determine how much a website is "worth". Page Rank is quickly becoming outdated, but it's still a useful guide to determining which sites to target for link building. In general, links from websites and/or pages with higher Page Rank will give you more "link juice" than those with low Page Rank. For example, a link from LocalFirst.com, which has a PR of 5, will send more link love than a link from MichiganLookup.com, which only has a PR of 3.
Prominent links outweigh buried links. How deep within a site a link is placed is yet another factor to consider when determining the value of a link. In other words, a link placed on the home page of a website is going to be far more powerful than a link placed on a sub-sub-subpage or a buried "Links" page. Remember what I just said about LocalFirst.com's PR? Well, when you drill down to the actual page my website link is listed on, the PR of that subpage is only 3. Most listing pages on MichiganLookup.com haven't even attained PR, so the LocalFirst.com listing is still more valuable.
Anchor text counts! If I could only give you one piece of advice for link building, it would be to pay attention to anchor text. Whenever possible, use the same keywords for which you want your website to rank for in inbound link anchor text. In other words, if you're targeting the term "Grand Rapids transmission repair", you'll want to gather inbound links which contain those keywords in their anchor text.
Using anchor text properly can be tricky, however. You do NOT want all your website's inbound links to have the same anchor text, since Google tends to see this as spam and may lower your website's rankings. The solution? Change things up. Changing anchor text as much as a word or two can keep your website on Google's good side.
Of course, there are many finer nuances of link building not discussed here, and I didn't touch on how to go about obtaining these links. Those topics will have to wait for another post.
Confused yet? Comment and drop me a question.
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