(Link Building Strategies)

What is Link Building?
Many people hear the term link building and that they need it, but often they don't really know what that means.  In fact, many are not even sure what a link is.  A link is simply a reference to your website by another. For example, if you are on a website and can click on a web address or keyword and get to another site, that is considered a link. In the world of search engine optimization, the search engines determine how many sites link to yours when considering how to rank a website.  The most (quality) links that you have, the better you will do in the rankings in the search engines.

Where do you get links?
The short answer is "anywhere you can" but in reality there are some links that you want to pursue and others that you want to stay away from.

Recommended Link Building Strategies
Below are methods of link building that you should seek to employ.

Trusted Search Engine Directories. I am not referring to search engines like Google or Bing, but search engine directories such as Business.com, BestofTheWeb.com, Illumirate, etc. These sites will contribute link value for the purpose of ranking well, but will also send visitors to your website.

Press Links.  Many small businesses miss out on the value of press from both an exposure standpoint and a link building standpoint.  It is not very hard to get press coverage, and very easy to create a press release that links to your site.  They key here is making sure your press release is actually news and not just advertising as this is where most fall short.

Links from Related Websites. Getting a link from a site that has nothing to do with your business is ok, but having a link from a website related to what you do will help the visitors from that site find value and the search engines will reward you for having links related to your business.

Social Media Sites.  Creating profiles on sites such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook can help create links to your site and also let those you influence know more about your business.

Article Links. You can write articles and have them posted on other websites or blogs that contain links to your site.  While there are plenty of free article sites out there, a great tool for generating links from articles is SEOLinkVine because it allows you to have control over how many times your article is shared.

Creating Free Downloads or Tools.  This can be huge, especially if you have something that others really want and need as they will share the link with others.  My advice is to share information openly as opposed to making people register for it as this will produce far more link activity.

Member Organizations.  These could be links from associations or business groups that you are a part of such as a networking group or Chamber of Commerce.

Links to Stay Away From
Not all links are created equal.  And more importantly, not all links are good.

Link Exchanges. If someone sends you an email asking to exchange links, most likely it's not going to be a good thing.  There are far better links to attract.

Links to Bad Neighborhoods.  The search engines consider bad neighborhoods to be things like online pharmacies, pornography, and online casinos.  These are known in the search engine industry as the "3 P's  - pills, porn, and poker" and you not only want to stay away from them, but stay away from sites that list them.

Paid Links.  The search engines (Google in particular) have made it clear that they are opposed to people paying for links and are always looking to find sites using them for the purpose of assessing a ranking penalty.

When to Get Professional Help
Often a business owner can invest time in getting links and often even get rankings as a result. The more competitive your business is, the more aggressive your industry is, the more likely you will need professional help in acquiring links from trusted and highly ranked websites. If done right, the investment in link building is one that will benefit your website for the long haul, so it is a worthwhile investment.

(contact us)
If you would like a complementary link analysis contact Anthony today at 480-338-6744 or akirlew(@)akaim.com to learn how your websites links compare to those that rank well for your business related keywords.