Link Building Basics
When you start learning about SEO many people say "get links" as though it were a simple chore. Worse yet, after you start building links and then ask "how am I doing" people say "Those are the wrong kinds of links. You need quality links."
It gets frustrating, so how do you know what types of links are worth getting?
Not All Links Help You
Different engines look for different things when evaluating links but not every link is a good link, and some links may actually hurt you, especially if you build lots of low quality links without getting any high quality links.
Matt Cutts mentioned that Google may be less likely to even crawl or index a site if too many of its links are of low quality in nature.
If getting the wrong links can waste your time and money how do you find good links?
The Golden Rule
Links do not have golden rules by themselves, but it doesn't hurt to create a few rules that make it easy to tell the difference between a good link and a bad link.
- Will the link drive direct targeted traffic? If you build links that are likely to drive direct targeted traffic to your websites those are the types of links that search engines want to count. Some search algorithms may take many months to fully credit any links you build. Links that drive traffic may count quicker and may lead to secondary links.
- Is the link editorial in nature? If a link is editorial then it is going to typically stick around a lot longer than links that were bribed. As search algorithms advance engines want to count true editorial votes.
- If you worked as a search engineer would you want to count the link? Most of us are not search engineers, and it may be an abstract way to think of the web or a page, but it also clears a lot of the gray area out of the way. Thinking along these lines consists of asking a bunch of simple questions to set up the mental framework of a search engineer. Is this page or site important for any reason? Was this page made for humans? Did a human add this link because they thought the site they were linking at was genuinely helpful and useful?
Building Credibility
When you are new to the web you have to active in your link building activities. Since nobody knows your website exists it is hard to find your site to link at it, so you have find the right people and ask them if they might be willing to link at your site.
When you are new to the web it is hard to get people to link at your site because:
- People are skeptical. Why should they trust you if they never heard of you before?
- It's all been done. What was once linkworthy and remarkable no longer is. New sites need to have a unique value proposition that is not already being used by a competing site. What message does your site focus on? Why should I want to tell people about it?
- Why should I trust you? Is your site credible? Does it have unique, interesting, compelling, well designed, and well formatted content on it? What have you done to you're your business and site seem credible and trustworthy?
Active vs Passive Link Building
You can start building a few well trusted links, by doing things like:
- Submitting your site to the Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ
- Building links to your site from local chamber of commerce sites
- Joining trade organizations
- Looking for resource pages or niche directories covering your topic
- Submitting an article to a trusted industry publications
In this post Seth Godin highlights that The Beatles did not become The Beatles overnight, but that it was a process they had to work hard at for years.
Even after others started paying attention they still kept "building links".
Active link building will only take you so far in a competitive marketplace. In those types of markets you not only need to actively build links, but you also need to create ideas that will lead to passive link acquisition.
Ultimately the highest quality links are typically not ones that are purchased, but ones that are editorially earned because someone liked what your sites offer. By launching creative ideas, cool products, or consistently writing high quality content and providing good customer service you earn the trust necessary to be a link magnet.
