Getting Started with SEO: Building Backlinks

[webgeek]

Thanks to the massive FUD campaign by Google, there is considerable uncertainty amongst business owners (and marketers) about link building.

Besides trying to figure out which links are good vs. which links are bad, questions remain about which links help rankings the most and what links should be built first.

While there are many ways to approach link building, the below represents a February 2013 overview of how to get started:


Phase 1 - Building the high-trust foundation
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a) Local links - get listed on Google+ Places Local (new name every day), Bing business and the UK citation sites
b) Business links - these are sites like Chamber of Commerce, trade organisations, BBB and local city business listings
c) Social media profiles - set up your Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Pinterest profiles

After getting well underway with the above, it's time to branch out a bit...


Phase 2 - Building high-authority profile strength
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a) Select directories - a select few carefully managed links from sites like Best of the Web (BOTW), Yahoo directory, Business.com, DMOZ
b) Niche begging - asking site owners in your niche for a backlink
c) Guest posts - getting your content placed on sites with decent page rank/domain authority/traffic


Phase 3 - Building diversity and increasing exposure
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a) Resource links - search for niche relevant sites with resource or 'links' pages and ask to be included
b) Infographics - still a good viral source where you build it and give it away
c) Video - another possible way of reaching large audiences
d) White Papers / Case studies - similar to infographics, but on different sites (including self-hosted)
e) Document sharing - slideshows like slideshare


The above is by no means an exhaustive list, and doesn't address important information like link anchor text to be used, which sites are better than others, what rate of building is optimal (velocity), and so on. It should give enough inspiration to get the ball rolling nicely, for all you DIY marketers.

 

[alanc]

Very good list.

Only one question: I got a link on DMOZ some years ago, and I've often found that Webmasters shows a number of inbound links from low value sites that simply contain a copy of the DMOZ pages. I can always tell these by the DMOZ folder structure. I've always wondered if these were causing any problems.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Many people use the DMOZ dump to create directories. Nothing at all to worry about.

 

[float_glass]

I find linkbuilding frustrating as it is so time consuming, plus Google often changes their mind about what is a follow and a no-follow link.

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I find linkbuilding frustrating as it is so time consuming, plus Google often changes their mind about what is a follow and a no-follow link.

Could you explain this? Ther eis of course no such thing as a 'folow' link as by default all links are folow unless marked with the 'NOFOLLOW' attribute.

Google treat the NF attribute the same now as they always have, so not sure why you feel they have changed.

 

[Normansmith]

Great list for those who want a simple plan to follow. The only part i would perhaps disagree with. From experience working on trying to remove links to clients sites over the past 6-9 months is :
"a) Resource links - search for niche relevant sites with resource or 'links' pages and ask to be included"

The so called link builders, use these to disguise their link directories, farms,wheels etc so they become of no value, Google slaps them and i spend hours trying to remove clients links So i would need to know the website very well before i went down that road.

Google may have knocked some of them for the time being, but they will be back with a "new method" before too long. Easy links tend to be a liability.

 

[webgeek]

Great list for those who want a simple plan to follow. The only part i would perhaps disagree with. From experience working on trying to remove links to clients sites over the past 6-9 months is :
"a) Resource links - search for niche relevant sites with resource or 'links' pages and ask to be included"

The so called link builders, use these to disguise their link directories, farms,wheels etc so they become of no value, Google slaps them and i spend hours trying to remove clients links So i would need to know the website very well before i went down that road.

Google may have knocked some of them for the time being, but they will be back with a "new method" before too long. Easy links tend to be a liability.

You've raised a couple of very good points indeed.

First off, all sites are not created equal. All of the advice above requires a certain amount of manual review on your part before placing a link.

For example, some social networks are either dead, dieing, home to spammers or NSFW. It might not be a good idea to use friendster, myspace or ashley madison.

When it comes to resource links, a quick sanity check should show that:
1) the site is in your same niche
2) the site is alive, vibrant, frequently updated, has quality content and appears to have good traffic volumes
3) the links on the resources page point to niche relevant, quality sites (similar to your own of course)
4) no links on the resources page point to 'bad neighborhoods' or porn/pharma/gambling (technically not bad, but do carry risk for other reasons)

If you're wondering how to know if they are bad neighborhoods, such things include sites that:
a) spam
b) install malware on your machine
c) are link farms
d) make use of cloaking

You can go to Google and in the search bar type: site:blahblahdomain.com
If you see 0 results for that domain, they've been de-indexed, a danger sign!

There's also a neighbourhood checker tool from Majestic SEO that gives some insights.

Also, you can point the following bad neighbourhood checker at a links page URL and it will check those other links on the page and give you some good basic intel about the other sites they point toward, plus check the links on those other sites, seeing where they point on a 2nd tier.

In short, before you build backlinks, cast a critical eye and think about it. Is this a quality site that is part of a good neighbourhood? If not, then give it a Matrix body swerve.

 

[pinterestmarketing]

This is a very good list indeed. Just one question, after building your social media account, what are your thoughts when adding the company's keywords in the posts they publish everyday? Is this practice good? or only if when done occasionally?

 

[webgeek]

We try to use an 80:20 rule for social media marketing.
- 80% of the time discuss highly timely, relevant, valuable, interesting or entertaining topics that your target market should engage with
- 20% of the time go for shameless self promotion

Rather than going after one of your main keywords and pounding it post after post, hopefully you've made a list of:
- target keywords
- target variations
- long tail keywords
- lsi / synonyms

Hopefully you're using those types of tools in planning out your blogging, with forethought as to what posts will internally link to support and push rankings up on other pages, as well as external links.

Just as your blog posts would have topic + long tail + lsi + authority, your social posts might include bits of that, in varying mixes.

The key takeaway from this is that you should worry most about adding value, engaging and being remarkable in what you do. By staying front of mind as a valuable resource, the sales will follow, whether your keyword saturation is right or not.

 

[eventdomain]

Obviously the list in a previous post is geared towards the fantasy of decent, quality free links - this is a misconception and silly strategy to take:

a) Local links -

Everyone knows the standard listings will be a joke, as the majority of locally run directories are off-target and low traffic producers. Local industry sites are lucky if they pull in 15k of page views a year (not the same as 15k of visitors) - the top directories WILL pull in 150 - 200k's worth of visitors - big difference huh..... its dumb to chase after link space where you'll end up on v-deep link exchange pages - that's NOT standing out, its hiding yourself from where the main traffic frequents eg: the product/service pages.....

b) Business links - these are sites like Chamber of Commerce, trade organisations, BBB and local city business listings

Ok, another bad idea and advice. The Chamber of Commerce sites ALL charge hefty fees depending on number of staff/employees. You WILL be charged for membership at roughly £70 entry level on many of them.

Again, their directories are v-deep level and for the cash, you really want higher placings.

b) Niche begging - asking site owners in your niche for a backlink

Websites want to make money - they don't serve Charity cases or beggers.

c) Guest posts - getting your content placed on sites with decent page rank/domain authority/traffic

Your so better off building your own content site - than waste time hunting the limited link space on offer. Besides anything decent won't be free.

a) Resource links - search for niche relevant sites with resource or 'links' pages and ask to be included

A thing of the past as money takes over. The few decent resources that still display link pages don't necessarily maintain them, either removed them totally (due to much hassle) or de-activated their registration forms.

It can take a lot to maintain a simple links page - people don't realise this! So, its fair to expect many have dropped them due to the effort involved, and why do it for free when they can charge for it.