Useful Advice for Building Links

[vangogh]

There was an interesting post on SEO Book last week that I thought some of you might find helpful. The post, The Why's Behind Some Aspects Of Link Building (http://www.seobook.com/link-building-questions), is an answer to some questions about links, specifically about article marketing as a way to build links.

One of the keys to successful article marketing is to have your article published on a quality page, which naturally raises the question what is a quality page. To Answer the post looks at link popularity and discusses.


link quantity
link quality
anchor text


Finally the post considers the idea of relevance between the page where your article will be located and the page(s) it would be linking to.

I thought the post a good one in explaining what to look for when trying to build links through article marketing. One of the quotes I really liked from the post is:


Link building is less about what you do, and more about where you do it.

Anyway give the post a read if you engage in article marketing or have been thinking about it. The post will point you in the right direction for how to be successful with it.

[Harold Mansfield]

That's a good article, especially for anyone who doesn't quite understand Link Building.
It certainly covers all of the technical aspects of link building, but still leaves the age old question: "How do you get your articles on quality pages?" or "How do you get quality pages to link to your articles?".

So then it basically comes down to the quality of your content and marketing. Even if you write phenomenal articles, how do you get the publications that you want some love from, to notice? How do you get people to read them, when you don't have many social media followers?

The answer is kind of a round robin. Your articles get read and linked to when they are found in search engines, and they are found in search engines when you have good SEO.

[vangogh]

I thought it was a good article too. Hopefully it clears up some myths for people who think article marketing is to write anything and submit it to directories. The article will let you know why that won't work.


"How do you get your articles on quality pages?" or "How do you get quality pages to link to your articles?"

I don't think either is a hard question to answer. It starts with creating great content. If you can do that then you will be able to find quality sites willing to publish your content. Your quality article on their quality site becomes a quality page. Assuming the site is one people know about, it will gain links without anything more.


Even if you write phenomenal articles, how do you get the publications that you want some love from, to notice?

You can tell them you exist. Spend time commenting on their posts. Link to them when you write an article. Engage with them on whichever social site you want. Send them an email. If they accept guest content, submit some.

How do you meet anyone in this world? It's not really any different online than it is offline, except that it's easier online since there are so many more ways to reach someone and connect with them.

[Harold Mansfield]

How do you meet anyone in this world? It's not really any different online than it is offline, except that it's easier online since there are so many more ways to reach someone and connect with them.

Actually, it's little different. In the real world, thousands of people aren't trying to get your attention so that you will post their article for SEO purposes.
I understand what you are saying and you are correct, and it can be done.

But the noise level online is much louder because EVERY webmaster is looking to do the same thing.

[HandyMarketer]

Thanks for the link to the article, it's quite helpful. So how often do you write articles for other blogs or sites? Do you spin them or write new articles? It's quite a time consuming exercise, isn't it?
Do you continue even when your blog is starting to be quite successful on its own?

[vangogh]

Actually, it's little different.

I'd say it's the same. It's just at a different scale. Sure more people are trying to get someone's attention online, but you still need to stand out regardless of how many people it is. Also while there may be more noise online, there are also far more ways to connect and stand out from that noise.


So how often do you write articles for other blogs or sites? Do you spin them or write new articles? It's quite a time consuming exercise, isn't it?
Do you continue even when your blog is starting to be quite successful on its own?

I'll write for other sites when I'm looking to do additional marketing. How often you do is really up to you. It's no different than how often you might decide to buy an ad somewhere.

When writing for other sites you should always create unique and original content. You should create the best content you possibly can. The goal is to convince real people to click on the link back to your site and you do that by creating content so good they want more.

Yes, it's time consuming. The things that work usually require more effort than the things that don't. That it is difficult is a benefit. It means less of your competitors will put the time and effort in.

[socialme82]

Personally I try to write new content starting from my site on as frequent of a basis as possible while making a few hubs as satellites for article writing. I find that it is getting tougher and tougher to just rank based on articles and precise keyword density without at least integrating a good link strategy behind all of it from either social links, other articles, or even things like forums. Guest blogging is another method that is kind of nice, being allowed to add your link to someone else's blog allows for a truly natural linking method without the possible stigma of content farm link building.

Spinning is something you have to be careful about unless you can generate almost complete originality. In time I believe Google's spam team will get more and more strict over what % has to be unique.

[vangogh]

I don't think article spinning is going to be as effective as it might have been in the past. It's exactly what Google's Panda update was targeting. Links are definitely important with ranking pages, though with most of your content you probably don't need to actively build links all the time. If you create really good content that real people want and give it a little push to attract early readers, your readers will start promoting it for you.

That's not to say once you have a few readers you can stop promoting your content, but it really has to be about your readers first. I never worry about keyword density at all. I just do my best to write the best article I can. If you write about something and stay focused on a topic and if you use the words your customers or readers use when talking about that topic, you'll have used the right amount of keywords without thinking about it.

[socialme82]

I can see that working out well. You are supposed to write for the reader first and everything else after that. As for social bookmarks, video, directory submissions, and some web 2.0 properties I actually use some automation, I found a tool that lets me slowly drop the links in a very deliberate and well spun manner for things that do not require a lot of original detail like social bookmarks especially.

[vangogh]

I think there's a place for automation, but I'd always be careful not to push it too far for a couple of reasons. First the search engines don't like it and so are always looking to combat it. They certainly aren't going to punish all forms of automation or even catch everything, but you have to figure they're going to continue to move in that direction. The other reason is that ultimately whatever we're writing needs to convince a real person to do something, whether it's to buy or click or link. I think automated writing is much easier to detect than it might seem and doesn't convince as well as it should.

That said there are definitely things you can automate to make your life easier. To help you time things is one good example and there are plenty of things that don't need to be most beautifully crafted text. I'd be careful using it for longer form articles though. The thing with the article I linked to is that it points out that while there are ways to get some links without a lot of effort, those links usually aren't going to help much. Little effort doesn't mean no effort and the effort no matter how little could probably be put to better use. Spending an hour or two to craft one good article for the right site probably leads to more benefit than spending a half hour getting links for many not so great sites.

[JunkDawgs]

I read recently that there is more emphasis on Social Bookmarking pertaining to the new content that emanates from your website, but I'm not quite sure how to implement it? I will post blog entries to our Twitter account, or Facebook page, but that can't be exactly what they are referring to is it? Any advice, clarification would help, thanks!

[vangogh]

The basic idea where social stuff comes into play is that search engines have said they're looking more to social signals in general. They're trying to measure how often content is shared, who's sharing it, who's visiting it, etc. Some SEOs have collected data that suggests there's some kind of correlation between content being shared on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, etc. and how well that content later ranks in search results.

As far as what you should be doing, the first step is creating the best content you can that people want to share. Just posting something to Twitter or Facebook isn't enough. Your goal should be to get the people who visit your site and consume your content to want to share it. You could provide social sharing buttons at the end of your articles to encourage your readers to share it. You'll probably want to grow your network on different social sites so when you do post something more people will see it and hopefully share it.

Don't think about the connection between social and seo to mean you have to post to Facebook in a certain way or tweet at specific times of day. The goal is to get more people to share your content. The best way to do that is to start with something worth sharing and then encouraging people to share it.

[KristineS]

Vangogh is totally right about this. You can get lost in the small details of when to post and where to post and how to post, but the main thing is creating content that draws people in and that they want to share with others. Content is definitely king now. You have to find the hook that will draw other people in. It's all about creating relationships and also creating content that resonates with your audience. That takes time, because you have to get to know the people to whom you're talking before you can create content they will want to share.

[vangogh]

You can get lost in the small details of when to post and where to post and how to post, but the main thing is creating content that draws people in and that they want to share with others.

Yep. Sadly I think many people don't want to hear that, since creating really good content is hard. People are still looking for that non-existant magic formula that will lead them to seo success.

It all starts with creating the best content you can and then finding some way to promote it to bring it to the attention of others. You usually won't have huge success instantly with that strategy, but if you keep at it, you will have success of a longer lasting kind.