Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University
As a part of my ongoing SEO University posts I’m going to begin a series on Link Building Tactics. From its inception Google has weighed links very heavily when deciding where to rank a website in its index. Links count as votes and the more links and higher quality links you have from authority websites, the higher you will rank for your keywords.
The idea is pretty simple. Assuming that you’ve picked your keywords and have done all the possible optimization on your website, how should Google rank you if your competitors have done the exact same thing? The answer is through links. If your competitors have hundreds or thousands of quality links and you’re a brand new site with no links then you are not going to outrank your competitors.
The Quick Way To Find Links To Your Website
If you want to check to see how many links the search engines are picking up for your site, Google offers a number of free tools for webmasters. The first and the easiest is to do a search for link:http://www.YourWebsite.com. If I put it in for EvanCarmichael.com, here is what shows up:
The Real Way To Find How Many Links You Have
According to this result Google is showing that 529 webpages are linking to my site. You should take this number with a huge grain of salt because Google will only show you a fraction of the real links that it actually recognizes.
If you really want to find out how many links Google recognizes you need to go to the Google Webmaster Tools page (https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home?hl=en). If you have not yet claimed your website then it’s time to verify it with Google! It will give you access to tons of free data on how Google sees your website and give you insights into what you need to work on.
If you have already claimed your site and want to find out the number of links you have simply load your Webmaster Tools, click on your domain name and go to Your site on the Web > Links to your site. Here is what it looks like for my site:
According to Google Webmaster Tools I have 25,473 links to my site and 6,788 of them are going to my homepage. If you continue with the report you can see exactly which external website are linking to your homepage as well as all the other pages on your site. With the link:http://www.evancarmichael.com showing only 529 links, Google was only reporting 2% of the actual links that they recognize for my site!
How Do I Use This Information
Two of my favorite ways to use this information are to check for links you think should be there and thank and build relationships with current linkers.
“Finding out who is linking to you can be a great opportunity to connect with the website owner who set up the link, thank them, and potentially build even more links to your site!”
Check Links – Have you recently received a couple of links but you’re not seeing them on Google’s list? Sometimes Google can take months before they pick up new links and they may not find all of them (Google isn’t perfect!). If Google didn’t pick up the new links yet don’t wait and hope for them to find them, tell Google they exist by submitting the link to their add URL tool. I used to use this tool every time I got a link, now I only do it for the high profile ones. I want Google picking up those links as soon as possible! Most people who know about the add URL tool use it to submit their own pages but you should also submit any page that has a link to you that you know about and Google hasn’t picked up yet!
Build Relationships – One of the features I love about Webmaster Tools is that they show you exactly who is linking to you and what pages they are linking to. I’ve found so many links to my site that I didn’t even know existed before! Finding out who is linking to you can be a great opportunity to connect with the website owner who set up the link, thank them, and potentially build even more links to your site! It’s a great way to build relationships and people are usually surprised that you cared enough to write to them!
Over the coming weeks I’ll continue this series on link building and will share with you some beginner and then more advanced tactics on how you can generate more links to your site and boost your Google rankings!
What have you done to build links to your webpage?
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
RT @tweetmeme Link Building Tactics Series – SEO University: As a part of my ongoing SEO University.. http://bit.ly/1eOHlI
Hi, Evan:
Just added this to my to-do list. I thought I had “verified” my site once before, but apparently not, so I’ll need to do that before I can collect the details.
Once I get that done, I’ll check it out and will report back here with a further comment.
I appreciate what you said about checking for links that should be there, and especially your suggestion to build relationships with current linkers. Thanks for the insight and encouragement!
GT :)
[...] [...]
Hi, Evan:
I finally did it! Bit the bullet and spent two minutes installing the Google Webmaster verification code, then successfully verifying with Google.
I’ll have to spend some time another day investigating how to use the info provided in Googles report.
However, at the moment, Google says I have 2,660 links to my site: the majority of them appear to be Entrepreneur Forums posts! :lol:
There are a few in there that I’ll definitely want to check to find out who they are and, as you have suggested, express appreciation and investigate the relationship-building posibilities.
Thanks for pointing me to this tool and encouraging me to use it!
GT :)
Congrats GT – great work on taking that step! It wasn’t too painful was it?
I’m glad the forums are helping boost your links totals!
Hi, Evan:
Yes, it was easy to paste the verification code. I’m just a worrier! :roll: :lol:
It is so interesting to look through all the links and see where they’re coming from. As I mentioned, a few surprising ones.
And yes, I am now very glad that I’ve posted so much here in the forums and that we get backlinks for doing it. Thanks so much, Evan. Just one more reason why this is such a great entrepreneur community!
GT :)
GT,
Like you 90% of my links come from my Entrepreneur Forum posts.
Hi Evan,
I think your post gives great advice on how to naturally build links. I couldn’t agree more that building relationships online is a basic principal that is often overlooked online. So many people get confused with the “link building tactics” they read about online they forget to take care of the basics; which usually works the best.
I will have to admit it has been a while since I have done this for some of our clients; thanks for the great reminder.
Jeff
Hi, Jeff:
I agree with your comments. Developing links the natural way by working at creating relationships makes so much sense if a person is in business for the long term.
There seem to be a lot of automated programs for link-building, but it is so much better for your reputation if people simply add your link to their site because they see that you are offering value that their visitors might appreciate. Chances are, they will also promote you to their friends, too.
Every once in a while I include links for marketing friends in my blogs, not because I am hoping to get something in return, but because I truly appreciate something they did, or something about their website or services.
GT :)
Hi Evan,
I thought I would add to this post with my own philosophy on link building. Most of my search engine marketing efforts start with building a foundation of reputable “content” and then continue adding logs to that fire once started. People will naturally link to good information and that is when your advice from monitoring who is linking to you from Google Webmaster Tools is great.
I know these methods are common by now and I have talked about these before, but they are important so I will discuss them again:
Blogs: If you don’t have a blog today it is as bad as your company not having a website. The easiest way to generate backlinks is to get a wordpress or blogger blog started, write a blog once a week, submit your blog to some blog directories, and connect with other bloggers to build backlinks. There are 906 free wordpress themes you can download and it should take a programmer 1-3 to get it installed, configured, and test to make sure everything is working properly.
Vlogs: Buy Camtasia Studios or use Cam Studio which is free or Windows Movie Maker and start creating videos. People like to watch videos. People like to link to videos. If you build a good video people will naturally link to it.
Case Studies: Do some research in your industry, type up a good case study, promote it instead of your company. Case studies are great “link bait” for researchers. It only takes one college student, professor, librarian, or other researcher to link to your case study to make it worth your while.
Tutorials: People like learning online. Website owners & bloggers like linking to tutorials. I have seen competitors link to other competitors tutorials out of respect. If you know how to do something very well why not teach others; it will benefit you.
White Papers: Download Nitro .PDF Converter, take an article you typed up, throw some images in it, change around the formatting, and now you have a white paper, sales copy, .PDF document, or whatever you want to call it. This gives you one more thing for people to link to; careful not to run into duplicate content here though.
Webinars: An online webinar does not need to be hard. GoToWebinar makes it affordable. Online webinars is a non-intrusive marketing tactic you can promote. Webinars don’t need to be complicated, you can use a .PDF document, power point presentation, or even a pre-made video presenation. People like to link to free webinars.
Events: People like to link to free events; especially locally. Events are easy to promote online and easy to build back links for.
Read full article & more advice: http://www.evancarmichael.com/SEO/3200/Link-Development–Why-Would-Someone-Link-To-You.html
This is really good advice and the best way to get links naturally. Thank you.
MichelleJ
Hey, Jeff:
A great list: comprehensive and thorough. I like all the suggestions, but I particularly appreciate the vlogs tip – that is one area I have not yet worked on developing and I KNOW I must!
Thanks for adding this list to this topic thread.
GT :)
Just to add to what has been said to-date.
We have used a number of techniques for building links including:
1. Search Google for websites that offer free links
2. Reciprocal linking
3. Asking suppliers and customers
4. look at websites that allow you to write about your particular niche
5. Free article sites such as Hub Pages
6. Comments on relevant blog sites
7. Guest blog contributions
8. Directory submissions
Here is a short video that explains how to go about your link building project. It also focuses on link quality. Remember that link volume is all very well but link quality is the key to higher page rankings
http://www.interleado.com/link-building-video-tutorial.php
And how to get new links? this article talks about existing links!
Hi Edds – check out part 2: http://www.evancarmichael.com/blog/2009/08/19/link-building-tactics-series-part-2-%E2%80%93-seo-university/
More to come in the near future!
Evan, thank you I read your article and it helps a lot in building my blog, I’m a beginner, just started, but what I read on your site is very helpful to me …