SEO Link Building – Building an Audience
Most companies go about their link building strategies all wrong. They are thinking about the search engine rankings and not the customer experience. Is it really a shock to anyone that smart search engines like Google are trying to end the unethical link building process? Google and other search engines are used by visitors because they give the searcher the information they are looking for. If a site generates top listings because of unethical tactics, chances are that site is not one of the best options when a person is searching their engine, which in turn makes their search engine less valuable to the user.
Your link building strategy is a very important aspect of your local SEO campaign. If you spent time creating a great website with a strong structure, creating great content that is useful to the user, why should you take short cuts on your link building? The answer is simple, you shouldn’t. Make sure every link you build is a benefit to the users of the web. You want to link to companies or websites who are related to your niche.
The first thing you always want to do is make sure the link is helpful to your company website by being able to potentially drive traffic and new customers to your website from that link. When you are doing your link building definitely remove the search engines from your mind. Think about the site you are building a link from and ask yourself;
1) is this link useful to the websites user?
2) Does it make sense to have a link from this site?
3) Will the link have the opportunity to bring in visitors from the website the link is on.
If your answer to any of the above questions are no, than move on to another place. A good link building strategy is a long term strategy. Not a strategy for the search engines but a strategy to help boost your online traffic from sites related to your niche. The problem with a lot of SEO’s and “link building specialists” are they take the easy road. When it comes to your link building campaign the easy road ends up as a dead end road sooner or later so it is better to do things right the first time.
The biggest question I always get is how should I do link building to help with my SEO efforts? Below I have listed some of the ways you can make sure your link building is done correctly to generate traffic from the sites you link with, while keeping everything above board on the search engines.
Guest Blog Posting
You are an expert in your field, so why not share that knowledge with everyone who wants to take the time to learn more about your product or service? Guest Blogging can be an extremely helpful way to get your company name out on the web. Sharing your experience with people is another way for you to generate more business as well. In order to do guest blogging on other peoples site you need to make sure you have a blog of your own (this is not necessary but it would always be a great benefit to not only your site but to the blog you are trading with). By having your own blog it allows the other site owners to read previous posts you have done to see if your style is a match for the services and products they offer. A blog of your own can also help you get guest blogging gigs by being able to trade original blog posts. By doing a trade of blog posts you are offering to write a blog post on their site for them posting a blog post on yours. This could be a win, win situation.
Link Trading
Link trading can be a beneficial way for you to increase your sites traffic as well, but it depends how the link is traded and where your link will be. Having a link placed on a relevant sites link page is not going to be a beneficial link trade (in most cases, not saying it shouldn’t be done but there are better places for your link to be displayed). Sites with a link page or partner page are usually full with pages and pages of links. This leaves your link as a needle in a haystack. However, if you can get your link placed on the homepage or within the content of an article on the sites page, your link can be very valuable to their users, and to your website traffic.
Directory Listings
This can be very time consuming so make sure you are only listing your site on directories that actually get some usage. A directory that is easy to use and allows you to have your own profile page are the ones you should be targeting first. Make sure you list your NAP (name, address and phone number) the same across all directories. Tip: Use the Name, Address and Phone Number you use in the offline world. This will help your user know they are contacting the right company and as an added benefit help the search engines find your business online with all the correct information. You also want to make sure you fill out the profile page completely. This is your chance to explain to users why they should choose your company over the others offering your services. Some of the directories that are good to list on are; Yelp, CitySearch etc.
Get Social Links
Make sure you list your site on your social networks; Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn etc. Have your friends and acquaintances share this information across their network as well. This will not only help your presence online but may even bring you new customers or linking partners. Share your posts, your new offerings and any information or changes that come your way in regards to your business or services.
Those are some of the ways to help increase your backlink profile ethically. The more time it takes to build an authority on the web, usually means the stronger your foundation will be. If you do all your link building ethically you never have to worry when Google and other search engines update their algorithms (which happens hundreds of times a year by the way). In this day and age you want to make sure you’re not depending on the search engines alone for traffic. In order to make sure your site is successful online for the long haul make sure you have several ways of generating real traffic from real potential customers or clients.
