Through the Linking Glass

1
Through the Linking Glass

• How a Successful Campaign Can Bring Otherworldly
  Rankings
• Rebecca Kelley

2
Why Links?

• A link to your site an editorial vote
• Links are more difficult to obtain than on-site
  factors thus, search engines put more weight
  behind them
• Links pointing to pages on your site can increase
  the ranking of all pages on the domain
• Links can drive traffic!

3
Link Properties What Can Search Engines See?

• Search engines can identify the following
• Where the link is pointing to
• Location on a page
• Anchor text
• Relationships between domains
• The age of a link and when it was given
• Trends over time

4
Link Development Fundamentals

• Attract links naturally
• Search-friendly site, fresh content
• Manual link building campaign
• Acquire links from relevant sites
• Purchase links
• Contact webmaster
• Purchase through a link broker
• Viral marketing
• Create link bait
• Social media marketing
• Create social media profiles

5
Best Practices for Building Links

• Include proper anchor text in links pointing to
  your site
• Double-check that the page linking to you is
  spiderable
• relnofollow javascript meta robots
  nofollow no link love for you
• Don't give up after one attempt. Be tenacious! Be
  creative!
• Look at who is linking to your competitors
• Think about lasting links. Would search engines
  want to give value to your link? (Come on, be
  honest now...)
• Keep track of your efforts!

6
Determining the Value of a Link

• Is the site linking to you considered to be
  trustworthy?
• .gov and .edu domains
• News portals
• Is the site linking to you relevant to your
  site's industry?
• Where does the page linking to you rank in Google
  for
• Its own title tag
• Competitive keywords
• Plug the URL into SEOmoz's Page Strength tool
  (http//www.seomoz.org/page-strength)

7
Pitfalls to Avoid

• Forgetting to 301 your pages when you change/move
  your site
• Splitting your site into multiple domains
• Falling for the Get a crapload of links for X
  dollars! guarantee
• Falling for the We'll submit your site to a
  million search engines! guarantee

8
Want to Learn More? Of Course You Do!

• Check out the SEOmoz blog (http//www.seomoz.org/b
  log) for more link building and SEO tips.