Building link popularity is a core strategy in any search engine marketing plan but we must not forget that not all links are equal.
Let’s start with a bit of background. When it became clear that inbound links were being used by search engines as a means of determining the importance of a site the race was on to get others to link to us. Many people began to go overboard, collecting as many links as they could from anyone willing to trade links. Link farms sprang up everywhere.
Predictably, the search engines looked for a means to separate the good links from the bad - those that resulted naturally because of useful, interesting content and those that were created only in an effort to boost search engine visibility for sites that might not otherwise deserve top rankings.
One of the results is the concept of link reputation. Rather than a simple measure of the number of links, it is an analysis of the quality of those links. Large numbers of links from sites with no relationship to yours will no longer help you. Link reputation looks at the quality of the sites linking to you and also their relevance to your topic area. If you sell house plans a link from a pharmacy won’t help you, but links from building supply outlets, home decorating sites or landscapers probably will.
When you’re considering linking between two sites always ask yourself why. Are you doing it because the two sites have similar target audiences who will be interested in the content on both sites, or are you doing it only to get a link in the hopes of getting higher rankings.
When you build links carefully, with link reputation in mind, you will be rewarded in two ways. Because your links will be from sites that are in some way related to your topic area, you will gradually build higher rankings. And you will be opening up the possibility of getting site visitors through those links. Because the visitors are coming from a site with a similar topic it is far more likely that they will be interested in your products or services and become customers.
Tags: inbound links, Link Building, link reputation, linking
Patricia MacGregor
May 18, 2009
Muriel
This is fabulous! Thanks so much. Did I put you up to this by any chance? Seems VERY relevant!
Just wondering …
: )
Direct Marketing
May 18, 2009
Include the most important keyword phrase in the text link, using the EXACT spelling.
admin
May 21, 2009
Yes, use your keyword phrase in the link text when you can, but also be sure to vary your link text. Don’t use one keyword phrase for all your links, but instead use variations of the phrase, related words and synonyms.
admin
May 21, 2009
Thanks Patricia, glad you found it useful. I had a draft done but your questions prompted me to finish it.