Link Acquisition
Link building is the process of building backlinks to your site. More backlinks (link form other sites to your site) a site has, higher it ranks on the search engines. Link-building is a very difficult and time consuming process which can take from a few weeks to several months. This is an ongoing process that you will need to focus your attention on a regular basis. The purpose of link acquisition process is to bring in more traffic and improve your rankings.
What are the methods to achieve more links?
• Write good and unique content. Users will link to your content if they find it interesting and/or useful. Linking is done if there is a value to that site’s readers, so make your content valuable. You would have greater potential with your linking strategy by viewing it as a content strategy.
• To effectively building links is to evaluate your the most strongest competition. What works for your competitors can also work for you. Any Web site that links to your competitor is a prime candidate to link to your Web site as well. The simplest tools available to find your competitor’s backlinks are the search engines themselves. Use Google’s link query (type link:www.yourcompetitorsite.com in the search box) and Yahoo’s linkdomain query (enter linkdomain:yourcompetitorsite.com). Yahoo seems to keep the most updated and comprehensive list of these links. And Google shows only a small sampling of the total number of incoming links, however it is believed that these are the links Google considers the most influential to your sites’ rankings.
• Send a link request to your found potential link partners. These sites should be a good authority resource in your niche. Send each of the site owners a personal email requesting a link. Be sure to go out of your way to show a sincere interest in the site you are requesting link from. It’s very important to give them a good rationale for providing the link. In some cases, you can offer to write a relevant article for their site or offer some financial compensation. If your site has quality content that complements theirs, chances are they might link.
• Social Bookmarks it is just another opportunity for linking. Encourage your visitors to share your content on social bookmarks like Digg, delicious, Mixx, Propeller, etc. You would not only boost the potential for links to your site, but you would also be gaining more traffic, both from other people in your network and also from search engines. Many posts from Twitter now appear as unique entries in Google.
• You can increase incoming links rapidly by participating in forums and blogs. Most blogs allow you to comment on their article. So, by commenting on relevant posts with interesting and relevant content [not spam!] you can gain additional visibility for your URL. This is a link building method where lots of spamming have already been done so to make the best of it, you need to work a little harder here. It is best to find quality blogs related to your own category and make on-topic relevant comments. Not only do your comments add value to the blogpost, you now have a greater chance of getting your comment approved and your comments have greater chance of staying on those blogposts. In the comment section you get to include URL in your signature which becomes a hyperlink on your web site.
• A great way to get back links to your site is by writing original articles and submitting them to sites like ezinearticles.com. Many web site owners find relevant articles they would like to publish on their web site; the link to your website gets published too. You can put relevant links in the article or in the authors box which point to your website.
• Submitting to press release sites can get you some backlinks as well. It is however hard to put together a list of good press release sites that’s worth submitting to. If a good list can be managed, then this method can offer some quality relevant backlinks as well.
• Directories. Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea. Most of these directories allow you to choose a specific category and offer either free or paid placement within that category. Do a search on Google or Yahoo for directories in your niche area. The Open Directory Project, also known as DMOZ is one of the oldest and the most respected directories in the Web. Although directory links are not quite as useful now as they were in the past for SEO purposes, there are still a few directories that can provide your Web site with high quality link.
These are the types of links you do not need:
• FFA (Free For All) pages where links can be obtained by any means without scrutiny, resulting in junk that no one looks at.
• Guestbooks. This is where a site invites visitors to sign a guestbook, many of which allow HTML code in the comments section where anyone can create a link to their site.
• Link Farms. Submitting to so called link farms is a poor way to attempt to increase links to your site. The use of auto linking software programs usually result in link farming. Google Guidelines advice “Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.”