10 Steps to Building Links to
Your Site - by
Craig Fifield
It's the online equivalent
of word-of-mouth advertising. And just like its offline
cousin, it's the most effective way to get new business.
This advertising mode is known as "link building," and it
involves getting other Web sites to link to your site. It's
like one of your neighbors recommending a good plumber or
handyman; it carries more weight than if a person just
stumbled across your Web site.
In today's world, there is much more to good search engine
listings than simply optimizing your site for keywords.
In order to keep searchers happy, search engines are always
developing ways to make their results more relevant. In the
last couple of years, links have become increasingly more
important to the engines because they see links as an
endorsement of your site by other Web sites. Think about it
for a minute: Would you link to a site you didn't like?
This concept is referred to as "link popularity." Based on
the links pointing to your site, the search engines either
increase or decrease how relevant your site is for
particular keyword searches.
Obviously, you want to increase your site's relevancy,
right? Good. That's the goal here: to make sure you start
building the right kind of links for your site in order to
improve your search-engine results.
To this day, the best way to build links is still doing it
by hand. Here are the steps you should follow when building
links:
1. Set a goal.
Link building takes a lot of time, but it is very effective
and easy to do, so you want to keep at it. Set a goal for
the number of links you want as a way to stay motivated
through the process.
Depending on the sites you ask and your approach, your
results will vary. But a general rule of thumb is to set
your linking goal at four-to-six times higher than the
number of links you actually want to receive. You need to
set your goal higher because most sites will not want to
trade links, for various reasons.
2. Make sure your site is worth a link.
This means your site must offer something of value to entice
other sites to link to yours.
If all your site does is sell products or services, you need
to get busy creating some additional linkable content.
Examples of linkable content include how-to articles,
product reviews, tools, tips and so on. Creating content can
be tough, but if you don't have some on your site already,
you've got to do it. Adding linkable content not only will
encourage others to link to your site, but it will improve
the overall quality of your site for your visitors.
Make it easy on yourself by writing about something you know
that relates to your site. This column is a perfect example.
It teaches without trying to sell something. The best part
of creating linkable content is that if you do it well
enough, you will find that people will link to your site
without you even asking, and that's the easiest way to build
links.
You're not a writer? You can always add free tools or free
downloads. Also, consider creating a links page prior to
requesting a link trade with a site. You can usually expect
a better reception from a potential link partner if they can
see where you will place the link to their site.
3. Determine the type of sites you want to trade links
with.
This takes some thought. You need to figure out all of the
different types of sites that could potentially trade links
with you. Focus on sites that are related to your target
market.
Here's a good example:
I worked on a site that sold sunglasses, so I approached
sites that sold swimsuits and tanning lotions, but not
sunglasses. Once we accumulated links from those sites, we
then developed a section of our site on eye protection and
asked for links from all of the sites we could find that
addressed eye protection. In the end, we significantly
increased the number of links to our site from other sites
in our target market. Plus, we added about 10 additional
pages of content to our site that our visitors enjoyed and
we continue to link to. This helps significantly in
search-engine placements.
4. Get equipped to evaluate your link partners.
To make the most of your efforts, you don't want to spend
too much time going after links from sites that the search
engines don't think are valuable. While it isn't perfect,
the Google Toolbar can help you decide which sites are
quality link partners and which aren't.
The toolbar integrates with your Web browser. It helps you
by displaying the "page rank" of each site you visit. Put
simply, page rank is a rough indicator of what Google thinks
of a site. You can rest assured that if Google thinks it is
a good site, it probably is.
The higher a page ranks the better. One strategy is to try
to link up with sites that have pages ranked as high as or
higher than your own.
5. Locate quality link partners.
There are many ways to find link partners, but the easiest
way to find quality link partners quickly is to start at
Open Directory and Yahoo!. Open Directory and Yahoo! are
good places to start for three reasons:
These directories are both so difficult to get listed in
that each potential link partner you find there is likely to
be of a higher quality than those you would find elsewhere.
Yahoo! and Open Directory greatly boost a site's link
popularity when they list a site. Your site will receive a
little bit of that boost each time someone from one of those
directories links to you.
The links you build don't help your link popularity in the
search engines unless the engines know about the link. The
search engines crawl the sites listed in Yahoo! and Open
Directory on a regular basis, so by starting your linking
campaign here you can be sure the search engines will find
you new links quickly.
To find partners, simply start searching for terms that are
related to the types of link partners you decided are best
(step No. 3 above). While surfing your potential partner's
Web site, keep your eye on their page rank (step No. 4).
6. Organize your findings.
Again, there are many ways to do this, but it's always a
good idea to keep it simple. Use a spreadsheet to keep track
of the following:
Full name of site owner or Webmaster.
E-mail address of the site owner or Webmaster.
Home page URL of link partner.
URL of the page where you think your link belongs and why
you think it belongs there.
Page rank of the page where you think your link belongs.
Something unique that you liked about the site.
Date of initial link request.
For many sites, much of this information will not be
available, but you should try to find as much of it as you
can.
7. Prepare for contact.
Now that you have a list of potential link partners, go
through the list and send a custom e-mail to each one
requesting that you trade links. Do not send a generic
e-mail requesting a link; it will not get a response. Your
link request should mention the following, most of which
comes from your spreadsheet (step No. 4):
Something you liked about their site; compliments go a long
way.
Why you think your link belongs on their site.
The URL to exactly where you think your link fits on their
site.
The URL of where you'll be placing their link on your site.
How you would like them to link to you. Provide a sample
link and description. The easier you make it, the more
likely they will post it.
8. Check for links.
When building links, you are dealing with real people, so it
can take some time. You may need to wait a month or longer
before checking to see if anyone has linked to your site
from your new partner. Usually it is best to do this step by
hand, but you can use a link popularity tool if you have a
lot to check.
9. Follow up with the cream of the crop.
Once a month has passed, follow up with each site that
hasn't linked to you yet. Save time and only follow up with
the cream of the crop “ those in your spreadsheet with the
highest page ranks.
10. Set a schedule.
You will find it easier to keep building links if you put
yourself on some sort of link-building schedule. Consider
doing a certain small amount (30 to 60 minutes) of link
building each day. It will help prevent burnout, which is
inevitable if you try to do your entire campaign in a couple
of days.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Craig Fifield is product manager and Chief Idea Guy for
bCentral's Web site analysis and submission service,
Submit It!. Fifield is an expert in search-engine
marketing, having achieved top search-engine listings for
numerous small businesses as well as for Microsoft Web
sites.
BACK TO THE LINKING LIBRARY
