Link Building Best Practices For SEO

Link building is always a hot topic because it is really what makes an SEO campaign work.  Content is important, page and link structure are important, and the url is important, but for competitive search terms, great on-site optimization will only get you so far. 

Much like in the world of content, quality is better than quantity when it comes to obtaining links.  After years of combining strategies and tactics, I have come up with a list of best practices for obtaining incoming links to your website. 

• It is well worth the time to write great content as opposed to lots of decent content.  Some of the articles I wrote was one that attracted the most links and landed on good websites, and one or two were even highlighted in a breaking news story that brought a LOT of referral traffic while it was on the site’s homepage.
• If you figure out something cool or unique, like getting Pandora to play through a mono bluetooth headset, write about it and keep the content on your site and create a buzz using social media.  Links will surely come.
• Write content for your own site first.  As other top marketing professionals point out, you will get the links pointing back at your site for having the original content.
• Here is one of my favorites – syndicate your RSS feed, not your article content.  This is a philosophical change to the approach many people have in article marketing.  Instead of publishing your duplicate content everywhere, keep the content on your site and ping services like technorati, twitter, facebook, and anywhere you can publish your site’s feed. Get visitors on your site and then give them an opportunity to bookmark or share your content via social media. 
• Quality directories are still valid.  I have still seen good success from getting listed in the top human-edited directories, especially local and regional ones.  Avoid the free-for-all sites and focus on the ones that add value to users.
• Guest Blogging is a new hot-topic which is also worth trying.  Finding relevant websites to post content to is a good way to get quality inbound links and brand awareness.  In many cases, you can get content for your site as well if you establish a good partnership with a complementary website or blog. 
• Patience is a virtue.  It is hard to not check Google rankings every day, but there are a lot of other things to do with your valuable time than checking rankings.  I schedule a time once a week to check up on how things are progressing. This keeps me from wasting time each day, and gives me a reason to measure results and dive into analytics at the end of the week.  We know SEO is a long-term strategy and results often take months to mature.
• Reciprocal links are not all bad.  It is natural for complementary websites to link to one another, so the emphasis is on relevance.  I will exchange links with relevant and complementary websites, but not with just any site.  You want to make sure you are linking to reputable websites too.  Using your “off-line” networks to create on-line link partners is a great way to build links from people and businesses you know.
• Don’t Spam.  Search engines (like Google) mostly update their algorithms to do one of two things: to increase the relevance of the search results and to battle spam in their index. If you keep things relevant and avoid spam tactics, your rankings should continue to increase as long as their isn’t a fundamental shift in how websites and pages are ranked. 
• Find ways to add value to your industry. If you are an expert on a topic, utilize Yahoo! Answers, DIY, or forums to give advice and answer questions – each time leaving a link to your website for more information.  This not only builds credibility, but makes you an authority figure within your industry. You can set up Google Alerts for some phrases and questions you can answer, and get updates about new questions posted. You can also write a blog post to answer questions you find online to attract visitors looking for the same thing.
• Give links to get links.  Especially in your blog or content, write about newsworthy information and list a few sources.  Giving out links to reputable websites tends to encourage other websites to link to you. Think about developing some lists of resources and industry best lists.  People love getting mentioned online, and they will point their audience to it.

Hopefully this best practices list will help you understand the importance of link building.  I originally posted this article at SEOmoz.org (here is the original post). The best practices have been updated and added to from the great discussion we had in the comments.  SEOmoz is one of the top SEO blogs in the industry, and you can find a lot more information about link building there.

About the Author: SEOTERIC is an Atlanta web design and SEO company specializing in building business websites and generating sales and leads through natural search results.

Building Business Networks – 101

There is really no secret to building your network of contacts.  There are a lot of resources out there giving tips and tricks on building business networks and expanding your realm of influence, but there are some basic principals to follow that can have a significant impact on how successful your networking events and strategies are.  Paying attention to the basic details is often a more effective approach than using any “secrets.”

What is the point of business networking?  It is the process of building relationships with complementary businesses, business owners, and business managers to increase your influence and position within a specific market or industry.  There are two points to take away here – building relationships and increasing influence and position.  Relationships will naturally increase your influence, and influence creates opportunity and improved market position.

The most important value in business is the relationships that are built.  Customers, clients, vendors, and colleagues all shape the relationships within a business.  Like any other area in life, the quality of the relationships can have a huge impact on the outcome of your interactions with existing and potential clients, vendor/reseller relations, and every other aspect of your daily operations.  Focus on building and maintaining positive relationships with your contacts (both within and outside of your company) you will quickly begin to increase your influence with your contacts.

How do you practically build good relationships with new contacts?  There is balance and communication to work on. All relationships tend to follow a similar tract – introduction, follow-up, acquaintance, interaction, commitment. There is room between each stage for varying degrees of influence, but most relationships in business tend to fall somewhere in these five categories.

In the introduction stage, you first meet the contact, give some overviews about yourself, find out who they are, exchange contact info, and independently decide whether or not the person is worth a follow-up action. If there is the potential to have a mutually beneficial relationship, or the new contact can possibly benefit you, request permission to follow-up with that person. If you can benefit them, let them know that you would be open to a follow-up communication.

The follow-up communication is where most individuals drop the ball.  It is difficult to make time in a busy schedule to get in front of your computer with the intent to follow-up on potential lead or new contacts.  If you don’t follow up correctly, a few things can happen: 1) you can loose out on a potential referral, 2) you could loose out on a potential client, 3) you loose out on a opportunity to get connected to a whole different network of contacts, and 4) you can loose credibility by not following up when you expressed an interest to.  If networking for increasing influence and position within a market is important to you, then follow-up opportunities should be created – not missed.

If you can get through the follow-up process, your hope is for a favorable response from the people you contact. When favorable replies are made (either by phone or email), you gain an opportunity to create an acquaintance with the contact. This is the real first step in developing a relationship. At this stage, you have made a favorable enough first impression to engage someone a second time, so use this opportunity to win them over.  This third step is usually the opportunity to give out some usable information, such as potential leads for each of you, or a request for proposal (or a request to offer a proposal) for services.

Once you have had a few interactions with your contacts, you begin to develop an acquaintance with them.  At this point, you both know each other and each others businesses, but you aren’t close with them yet. You may or may not have had any business dealings with them, but they are at least on your radar for future deals, or as someone who you can send referrals to.  Most business relationships don’t grow past this phase, but if you continue to follow up with them and remain in contact, often times you will either get a lead or be able to give a lead to someone you stay in contact with.

The final step in the business relationship process is developing a commitment with the new contact.  This doesn’t have to be any formal commitment, but typically means that you both agree to continue interacting with one another.  Hopefully the commitment comes in the form of a new customer or a referral that turns into a client, but either way, you have built a new business relationship that will only grow from here.  It is important to not loose contact with individuals in this stage of the business relationship because they can often be the most influential people in your growing network.

Most business-savvy individuals are always looking to grow their network, which means that follow-up and continued interactions are welcomed.  It is your responsibility to bring value to the relationships that you build – don’t just look to your own interest, but to the interest of your new contacts.  In doing so, you will begin to increase your influence and position within your industry.

SEOTERIC is an Athens and Atlanta website development and marketing firm specializing in building business websites that generate sales and leads through powerful SEO and marketing strategies.