Google’s guidelines are constantly evolving and the best SEO practices are changing with them, although what we do know is that the importance of links has not changed. Although changes have occurred in recent years, it was previously known that the “best practice” was to acquire keyword-rich links through various mediums of directories and bookmarking sites. This has dramatically changed as these methods now decrease the value of your site. Earning links through quality content publication is the future of link building. For now….
Link building establishes the importance of your content and site, this has ultimately become a very significant factor in terms of increasing search visibility and they give us a huge indication of trust, credibility and authority we have towards a particular site.
Links are still a dominant SEO ranking factor and building them correctly can truly benefit all parties involved. I guess the real question is what can we expect in the foreseeable future in terms with the process of link building? We are going to give you a few tips and suggestions to help you out with link building, to really get you ahead of the pack and to just generally keep you in the loop of what to prepare yourself for.
Here are a few things to be wary about:
There are ongoing developments in terms of Google’s updates. The Penguin update took place just over three years ago and was a bold statement in terms of the clamp down on the usage of obtaining spamming links in order to improve their company’s site ranking. This update included a Google disavow links tool, which many of you may be aware of. Although, you may wonder why I am mentioning this considering it was three years ago now, well a new update is more than likely to take place fairly soon and with these tools becoming more and more refined it is something to keep your eyes peeled for. Although smaller scale updates have taken place since then, for example the pigeon update and one of most recent pre-announced algorithm update titled “Mobilegeddon”.
Also, it’s probably a good idea to minimise the use of anchor text as much as possible, due to the links likeability to dissolve and to be pretty much non-existent in the foreseeable future. Not only will the usage of anchor text become a problematical issue: the positioning, surrounding text and the type of link will more than likely change and affect the rankings of the website. Scalable links are becoming a prime target for these tools and will ultimately will destroy your reputation as a company. So be aware, you need to constantly evolve with the updates or you’ll be in trouble!
Here are a few tips and suggestions to help out the beginner link builder….
Detailed Blog Posts
Alot of what you see these days is just repeated content and a ridiculously long blog pieces without any substance. In years gone by and even now, a lot of blogs seem to include a large number of repeated keywords and a ridiculous amount of embedded text. It’s all about attractive and informative content, with a soul purpose to produce interesting yet educating detailed posts. Check out our blog for some great examples of this..
Content Marketing
Creating unique and truly compelling content is a great marketing method for your organisation. In order to obtain truly established quality links, whilst gaining the targeted traffic which your company truly wants. You need to stand out from the crowd, rather than just taking a relaxed approach and expecting traffic to come in. This won’t work, the “Skyscraper technique” will.
This method will not only help you gain high quality links, it will also increase the number of backlinks, organic traffic and referral visitors dramatically. Instead of a long list of tasks to accomplish this, it can be achieved in three easy steps:
Step 1: Find link-worthy content:
How do you do this I hear you ask? Well, one of the quickest ways to discover reputable content with a proven track record of a gaining quality links is the use of Buzzsumo. A truly fantastic tool, which allows you to analyse what content performs best for any topic which would become beneficial for you.
All you need to do is find a site which generates an enormous amount of links from their content. Although you need to ensure they are reputable and reliable links – you can use Majestic SEO to do this. Majestic SEO is an excellent tool that uses the metrics of Trust Flow and Citation Flow to suggest the quality of a website. The higher the Trust Flow, the higher the quality of the website; so bear this in mind when looking for potential sites to target.
Step 2: Make something even better.
Not quite the most helpful point know – but whether it’s the improving the design of the content or even the finer details within the post. Something that is perceived as attractive, will ultimately draw attention and stand out from the crowd (once again, this is where the skyscraper method comes into place). This can also be said in regards to how thorough and detailed the posts can be, it may appear to be a rather long piece of content, but this indicates you have done your research on the topic. One method you could use is old and existing backlinks and make it even better. How on earth can I do that without it seeming like i’m just using a broken link method – well here are a few tips on how to get started:
- Find sites or resources that have changed names, shutdown or even moved:
The best way to find those truly respected, yet old links is not to follow down the route of the broken link building method. Although it may appear to be the same technique, it really isn’t. It’s a twist on the outdated technique, which will no doubt provide you with high quality backlinks. Anyway, the best method of this is to monitor the industry you wish to target and discover companies who are undergoing a rebrand or an URL/company name transformation.
Then use search strings to find site features that no longer exist. Once you discover these older sites, which have accumulated large quantities of backlinks from authority sites you’ll come across: “service no longer available”, “website closed”, “page no longer exists” etc, the list goes on. Don’t worry this should still work and you can even enter these terms into a search engine to pinpoint these backlinks.
- Find sites linking to the old page:
This stage is extremely important to the process. You’ll need to grab the URL and input the link into any backlink checking tool of your choice, like Majestic SEO. Once you enter all of these links, you’ll be able to compile a list of all the backlinks pointing to that particular page or site. Then you just need to export that list into an Excel spreadsheet or document of your choice.
Step 3: Reach Out and Get Your Links
This last step is all about outreach. These qualified prospects would have already been segmented to ensure they are already relevant to the industry you work within and ensure you exclude all the referring links. This is all about being personable and ensuring you have the correct email template, workflow and campaign.
A key point is to avoid repetitive email content, similar to repetitive links (Google won’t like this). So be short, descriptive and polite. Gently ease them into the email and mention about their outdated link and inform them of how suitable it would be linking to your site. This will all be about trial and may take a few trial and error email campaigns to find the correct solution.
Guest Blogging: If done correctly and appropriately
The focal point of guest blogging in recent years is determined by consistent referral traffic and assisted conversions. What we mean by this is whether the site you are linking to can drive relevant and appropriate value to your brand. The old days are behind us, no one wants to see referring domains linking to your site Google understands the relationships of links, so using copious amounts of URL’s in a blog comment is just looked on as spam and can negatively affect your Google ranking and your company just look a tad desperate, so cut it out!
We know many seem to regard link building as an old fad which lacks real substance and positive results, this really isn’t the case. There is a proven track record that link building works, as long as you do it correctly and tastefully – it will ultimately be a beneficial aspect of content marketing for your organisation. As long as you follow our dos and don’ts then you are on to a winner.
If you would like to know more or how we can help you, please feel free to get in touch with us today!
