Mar 05 2009

Observations From My SEO – Link Building Strategy Talk In January

Category: organic seo — Tom Shivers

 

Q&A:
What are the top 3 directories to be listed in? Which directories should I not be listed in?
For some reason business marketers seem to think that being listed in certain web directories impacts ranking more so than others. Hardly, it’s simply a good place to get started with link building assuming you know the reputable directories. Here are a few I recommend:

One attendee seemed overly concerned about link exchange as a recommended tactic, although I pointed out this tactic requires that you have a good relationship with plenty of webmasters. See how link exchange can work.

Half the attendees did not know how easy it is to identify websites that link to their site. See my short video on evaluating your site’s backlinks.

What does reclaiming links mean?
It’s about optimizing link anchor text of current links to your site.

  • Links that say “click here”, “company website” or “www.mysite.com” can all be optimized by changing the link text to some form of your keyword. Contact the webmaster and ask politely for a change.
  • Sometimes webmasters make mistakes with the domain name, or anchor text when they attempt to add your link to their site. Check the link for accuracy.
  • Link pages are often overlooked during website upgrades, and can be removed accidentally or not included in the new site’s navigation. Check to make sure your link is still found in the site.

I was somewhat surprised that about half the attendees were not aware that links can be built by getting customers, prospects, and organizations outside their business to promote their site for them:

  • Provide them with exceptional content that invokes them to pass it along
  • Create a unique and useful web tool or widget for your industry
  • Get links from .edu domains by providing research and content that helps professors teach and students learn
  • Get links from .org domains by contributing to nonprofit organizations and asking for a link on their friends page

Some didn’t know about Google’s crack down on the link broker industry some time ago. Google lowered the PR of most web pages at that time in an attempt to combat the link broker industry, businesses that sell or rent links on web pages that have a high PR. So don’t get sidelined into believing the “published” PR for a web page makes a big difference as you consider a link from a website. And stay away from link brokers.

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    2 Responses to “Observations From My SEO – Link Building Strategy Talk In January”

    1. Craig S. Kiessling says:
      August 13th, 2009 at 5:47 pm

      Very nice indeed. Thanks for the tips – am definitely looking into these directories :)

    2. Vince Shepard says:
      January 9th, 2010 at 6:14 am

      Stunning blog post about SEO. I’m honestly very astonished that it has not really been enunciated earlier to such a great length.

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