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We’re receiving a lot of traffic for link building keywords lately. I am sure there are many reasons for why people are searching so keenly for good link building advice. Quite probably many people are over-emphasizing link building because they still read second-rate SEO blogs that tell you SEO is all about links. But I think there are some people out there who are wondering why their links don’t seem to be working.

Of course, before you get started on figuring out how to build good links for any site you should read through Why Link Building May Not Work, an article I wrote last year that addresses some of the problems Websites that depend on link building for SEO may encounter.

There is no perfect system for search optimization. Every site has its own special needs and a good SEO technician will balance well-managed link building with solid on-site content optimization, good site structure (internal navigation and cross-promotional linking), continual keyword research, and performance monitoring using analytics to evaluate search visibility and conversions.

Link building is an important part of the search optimization process but without good content to link to the links are rather pointless. Good content has to be interesting to someone, if not everyone (nothing is interesting to everyone). With that in mind, here is a quick rundown of what you should include (at a minimum) in your “SEO link building kit”.

1. A list of reasons for why the site should have inbound links
   This list has to make sense to a reasonable person who knows nothing about search engine optimization and doesn’t care about nonsense like PageRank, anchor text, backlink reports, and useless SEO fluffery.

   If you cannot enumerate for yourself why a given site should have links there is a serious problem with the site. Your reasons don’t have to convince or persuade anyone but you. Some people will agree with your opinion. Many will not. That’s just the way it is.

2. A link analytic method
   Put away your browser plug-ins. Spare me the promotional hype about your favorite link research tool or service. Those are meaningless wastes of electrons. You need a method, not someone else’s idea of how links should be assessed and organization. You should be doing your own assessing and organizing. You don’t need Yahoo! to tell you how many links you have built, where they are, whether they are visible to search engines, or whether they pass value. In fact, there are no link tools out there that will give you this information.

   If you’re working with a site that already has a backllink profile then you should try to determine where its links are coming from. Break out the tools. Go to town. Get as many URLs as you can. Then divide your data into probable natural links and probable artificial links. Is there any particular reason why the site earned those seeming natural links? Do they make sense? If you can figure that out, your link building efforts should improve.

   The point about using a link analytic method is that you need to determine what the quality of your own links should be and how to ensure they are placed in advantageous places. No decent, self-respecting link building should be worrying about what competitive sites are doing for their links. If you keep looking at backlink reports, you’re not focusing on link building.

3. A social media criteria checklist
   You should not be looking at social media link placement as a means of obtaining link anchor text and improving search results. Chances are pretty good that a linking page that receives no real visitors won’t be given much value by search engines. Sure, everyone can find examples of cheap, low-quality pages that provide pretty good links. But if you’re a link specialist you want your links to provide as much value as possible.

   So evaluate the social media resources you know about and determine which ones help create visibility and drive traffic. Search engine optimization should not be the only way a site obtains traffic. If you’re going to use social media sites for link building, then learn how to use social media the right way.

   Your checklist may change from client to client. You should understand the demographics of each social media resource you use and how they match up with the site you’re building links for. It takes about as long to place a really good, powerful link that creates visibility and drives traffic as it does to just place a link on some random page. Use that time well. Get the most bang for your client’s buck.

   Unless you’re a social media link building specialist (and, believe it or not, there are some out there) you should not be focusing solely on social media. Build the links you deem to be appropriate and move on.

4. A blog criteria checklist
   You should not be dropping links in blog comments but you may want to engage with bloggers who have a passion for the topic your client site addresses. If the client site is mediocre at best you’re not going to get much help from the really good blogger community but you may still be able to find bloggers who will link to the site.

   Of course, a good SEO technician works with the client to improve the quality of the site as much as possible, but ultimately a site that is just another cookie-cutter affiliate link farm or ecommerce-in-a-box inventory sheet of generic merchandise is going to earn very few (if any) really good blog links. So design a checklist that matches the quality of the site. If the client doesn’t like the quality of the links you’re getting from blogs, try to encourage him to improve the site.

   Don’t be confrontational with a client. You can emphasize the value that is required and the rewards that value brings. As the link builder it’s your responsibility to create visibility for that value in the right places.

5. A list of your personal resources
   If you’ve been building links for any length of time you should have your own inventory of Websites to work with. I’m not talking about a blog farm you built with the latest black hat script. I mean you should have your own Websites for which you create content, value, visibility, and links. Those sites can and should be used to help clients.

   If you have a large enough network you might be able to tailor fit some of your resources to a specific link building campaign. The more appropriate the content for your link placements, the better. And don’t make excuses about not having your own sites. You build them one site at a time. Do not EVER commit to building 50-60 Websites (unless you know how to do that without burning out). The faster you are at building a site, the less time time it takes to build it, the less likely the site will provide much value. Sure, some people will be better than others, but your sites should be credible, useful, and helpful. Build them as you go, not all at once.

6. One or more reserve link placement networks
   I’m not talking about anything in particular. I just mean you should have access to a network of sites where you can place helpful, interesting, and contributory links that offer their own value to the user experience. You don’t control this network. It’s not a list of social media sites. Your client doesn’t control this network.

   Here are a few examples of reserve link placement networks. I don’t necessarily recommend any of them and the list is far from exhaustive:

   1. Paid links (highly risky)
   2. Article directories (somewhat risky)
   3. Press release services
   4. Subscription blogging services
   5. Groups of friendly linking sites (NOT link farms, link circles, link wheels, etc.)
   6. Reciprocal link management services (somewhat risky)
   7. Mailing lists, forums, or blogs where you can post announcements about Websites and share some information without people getting all huffy

   A forum is NOT a network. A forum community where people respect your recommendations and may share a link you suggest on their own site IS a network. If you’re a stranger just dumping links on other people’s sites, you’re doing it wrong.

   Use this list as inspiration for creativity and resourcefulness. It’s not intended to guide you in link placement. I’m just using some very well-known examples that people can relate to.

Nearly everyone interested in building links should be able to follow this advice. If you’re contracting with a link building service ask them what the basic work entails. If they are secretive be skeptical. Anyone can show you search results where their links have made a difference. If they are ethical and responsible they will engage in honest discussion with you. If they don’t care about the consequences of their work, you should have a sinking feeling in your stomach as they dodge your direct questions over and over again.

If you’re an in-house SEO you may find some of the options on this list don’t match the company’s priorities. For example, an agency is more likely to have an inventory of 100-200 linking Websites (although some larger corporations may operate hundreds of sites, they usually don’t want to use those sites for link building).

The less you cringe at the idea of someone stumbling across one of your links, the more likely the link is going to be a good one. You cannot guarantee that every link will pass Pagerank or anchor text, but if you hold yourself to a high standard that should not matter in the long run.

Link building is not search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is not link building.

Link building is part of the process for creating visibility and driving traffic to Websites. That goes so far beyond SEO it should not even have to be said.

Unfortunately, too many people still don’t get it.

Over the past few weeks I have reviewed quite a few new sites, all of which are link poor. The site owners are not getting much help from the various SEO forums with actual link building. Sure, there are plenty of SEO blogs and articles that offer link building tips and that tell you how to build links 101 ways, etc., but these articles are pretty much useless for people who have little time for link building.

Put yourself in the new Website owner’s shoes: you know nothing about search engine optimization, nothing about link building, and you really don’t have time to go out and master the social media landscape.

Here are three link building tips for new site owners who want to know how to build links.

Start your organic link building with a PPC campaign – You don’t need a $5,000/month budget to run a pay-per-click advertising campaign. Some businesses get started with just a few hundred dollars a month. You should budget $15/day for a week and practice managing a simple PPC campaign to learn the basics. You can afford to invest $75 in learning something about buying low-cost ads in search results.

But before you run out and spend your $75, stop and think about where you will send people. Your landing pages should offer good sales copy and easy-to-order instructions, but if you go the extra mile and offer people useful, helpful information about your products and services, you can create an organic landing page that attracts links on its own.

Here is an example: Suppose you start a gift basket site. You could set up a “Wedding Gift Basket” page with pictures of 16 gift basket ideas for weddings. Or you could write a brief list of anecdotes about how wedding gift baskets made recipients really happy. Pick 3 to 5 gift baskets to feature with these anecdotes. Now go buy some PPC ads for that page.

If the copy converts, you’ll want to link to the page from your HTML sitemap and at least 2 other places on your site. Then you’ll want to create another list of anecdotes for 3 to 5 gift baskets and change your PPC campaign to use the new page as a landing page. You’re still too new to the game to be worrying about “doing PPC right”. At this point you just need to bring in some visitors who will see high-value content on your site.

Keep rolling out your organic pages as copy-rich PPC landing pages first. Monetize everything in your inventory this way. You’ll find you don’t need to be a professional writer to be able to write interesting articles. You’ll also find you can write 1-3 pages of copy per week like this and in 3 months you’ll have a growing inventory of organic pages that are indexed and drawing traffic on their own.

Does that guarantee you organic links? No, but it will increase your chances of earning them without having to ask for, trade, or buy them. This link building tip helps you bring in traffic quickly while attracting links at a slower, more measured pace. This is how you can build links when you really lack link building skills and confidence.

Use your blog like a blog – Many people seem to be using Wordpress and other blog applications as content management systems to create “static” Websites. While there are many good reasons to create static pages for a dynamic blog-like site, ignoring the blogging capabilities of your blog is a mistake. You can create all those boring gift basket listings on static pages in your categorized tiered hierarchy but then you should be using your blog to write those interesting “three great Wedding gift basket idea” articles.

The blog empowers you to link to other, non-competitive sites that showcase people’s wedding memories — or their birthday memories — or whatever memories they share online that are relevant to your business. Business owners absolutely MUST link to other people’s Websites. That is what makes a good business site a great resource.

If you’re trying to become the next Amazon.com or eBay, you’ll need a massive advertising budget. Lacking that, you need to develop trusted linking relationships with as many non-business sites as you can. Most of them won’t link back to you, but many of them will. More importantly, writing regular blog content reduces your need for links.

Let me repeat that in big letters: THE MORE YOU BLOG, THE FEWER LINKS YOU NEED TO GET FOR YOURSELF. Just make sure you ping the search services and that you link out to other people’s sites.

This link building tip helps you become accustomed to putting content ahead of links. How to build links effectively depends on how effectively you build content. The rule is always Content First, Links Second.

Ask your favorite amateur bloggers to contribute articles to your site – Of course you’re going to link to their blogs in the footer of your feature articles. And they will link to your site in their blogs. Don’t ask them to write product reviews. Don’t ask them to sell your business. Do ask them to write articles that are relevant to your business and that will be of interest to people who might want to buy your gift baskets — whatever you sell, there is someone out there who has a passion for a related topic.

Don’t be greedy. Don’t go after big, well-known bloggers. Find bloggers who are consistent in topic and posting frequency but who are not yet extremely popular.

1 guest article per day, five days per week, should earn you about 250 links per year. They will cost you nothing. They will come from blogs that are not swapping or selling links because you will make sure you pick blogs that are not swapping and selling links.

Don’t think you can find 250 blogs about weddings, gifts, and celebrations? Don’t worry. Once word gets out about all your guest writers, people will come to you. Just be sure you publish clear guidelines about what kinds of articles you’ll accept.

And don’t ever use “nofollow” on the links you give to your guest writers. That isn’t fair. Let your site pass fair value to your contributors.

This link building tip helps you power up a site quickly with both content and links. How to build links while building content is maybe the easiest approach of all. You offer value for value: give people a reason to help your site and you’ll find more people ready and willing to help.

There is an interesting discussion going on over an SEO Theory article I wrote in February 2009. Secrets of How to Escape the Link Building Trap Now was a pretty popular article, probably not the least because I openly disclosed one of my link building resources (something I usually advise people not to do).

Let me emphasize that I have many link building methods and resources. I don’t rely on just one method, but in that article I talked about several methods I have used and in particular I sort of reviewed Fantomaster’s 20/10 Links A Day network.

10 Links A Day is a subscription blogging service. You pay for access to a blog network where you can post your articles. The blogs are managed by the network and your articles have to comply with a lengthy list of rules. The software reviews the articles for technical compliance but the network is monitored by people as well.

There are other networks out there, some older than 10 Links A Day, and I cannot offer any reviews of them, although I have found credible, believable “grass roots” or spontaneous reviews in several forums. For all of these networks there are both satisfied and unsatisfied customers. Apparently one of Fantomaster’s former clients is not happy with the service. That happens to most if not all businesses.

Now, if you’re curious about how many of these networks are out there, I don’t know. Here are a few names to look for but I cannot tell you how they work or whether they are a good match for your business. All of these services are mentioned in the comments of the SEO Theory article. Fantomaster specifically recommends to his clients that they not exclusively rely upon any one link building network (he says so in the comments so I don’t mind pointing that out).

• 10 Links A Day
• LinkVana
• 1 Way Links.net
• Firepow
• Backlink Solutions
• Article Underground

The idea behind these services (as well as free article distribution networks like eZineArticles, ArticlesBase, Article City, and other services) is that you contribute unique content to a central repository and in that content you are allowed (somehow) to embed one or more links.

With a subscription blog network your content is posted to 1 blog. With an article distribution service your content is posted to a repository and you extend the right of free redistribution to that service, whose guidelines people are expected to comply with when they republish the articles.

Both methods generate a lot of links for many Websites. Both methods are considered to be “white hat” because you’re publishing original content that is categorized and includes relevant links. You can add press release distribution to this mix as well.

Now, just because Web marketers believe in distributing unique content across the Web doesn’t mean someone won’t object to the practice. Search engines seem to feel this is much preferable to all the sneaky, deceptive practices that are forbidden in their guidelines. But just because a link building method is acceptable to a search engine doesn’t mean it will always work.

And here are several common reasons for why your distributed content may not produce the results you want.

• You pick a service that doesn’t pass value
• You are building links in a competitive namespace
• You use the wrong anchor text
• Your methods of measuring link value are ineffective
• Your content may not be indexed for technical reasons
• You are publishing content in a hyperproductive namespace
• You’re expecting too much from one methodology

Do all link building services pass value? I don’t know. Some services may use “rel=’nofollow’” on their links. Some services may require you to earn the privilege of embedding value-passing links. Be sure to review other people’s content before publishing with any specific service. See whether the links have “rel=’nofollow’”. Find out why they do if that is the case. Don’t just blithely assume everyone will allow your links to pass value.

Can these services be penalized? Sure, any site can be penalized. But I have seen several of these services go to extraordinary lengths (in my opinion) to deal with problem publishers who might threaten the quality of the services. They don’t want to be penalized as that hurts their credibility.

Might these services have “low quality” content? That’s an entirely subjective point of view. However, I think it’s naive to expect any one article from any one of these sites to have much value to pass through a search index’s algorithm. If you’re banking on one article to transform your search experience, you’d be better be the Stephen King of link copy writing.

Your keyword is too competitive That doesn’t mean that he who builds the most links wins, but when everyone is building links for the same keyword, he whose link building is the most effective usually wins. You’ll need a lot of low-value links to match up with a few really, really good links. Generally speaking, links from publishing services whether they are blogs, press releases, or article distributors are going to be relatively low value. That doesn’t make them bad. It just means they are wooden planks, not steel girders.

If you underestimate how intense the competition is, your link building strategy may not be ideal.

You use the wrong anchor text Of course, if you know what your keyword is, you might wonder how that could be the wrong anchor text. Ask yourself this: do all your links have the same anchor text? If so, that is a widely acknowledged signal of low quality. If you’re going to build links as opposed to attract them, you need to build some variety into your linking destinations and your anchor text and the content from which your links point.

Your methods of measuring link value are ineffective There is only one way to measure link effectiveness: when your links make a difference in the search results, you should see the change. If you’re doing this right, then you are separating your link building from on-page SEO (these should not be concurrent processes). Furthermore, if you’re really trying to measure “link value” you’re wasting your time.

All those pretty SEO tools out there that claim to provide you with insight into how valuable linking resources are — they’re worthless. You may see value in the tools but you’re fooling yourself if you think they can tell you whether a search engine sees value in a particular link.

If you’re just using the tools for estimating probable link value, then you’re taking a risk but at least it’s an informed risk. As long as you don’t believe the tool can tell you anything definite, you’re okay.

You cannot measure link value. Ever. Ignore the sales hype and taste the reality: we’re all living in the dark and that means no SEO no matter how popular he may be can tell you how valuable a link is.

Your content may not be indexed for technical reasons I have to admit to being spoiled. When I publish an article I expect to see it come up in various indexes pretty quickly. When that doesn’t happen I usually find that there is a technical glitch somewhere. If the glitch can be fixed, great. But sometimes you end up shooting a blank.

And not all blogs are the same. Some blogs just don’t get indexed as quickly as others. If you’re relying on blog links and you don’t see your blog posts in the search indexes within a day or two, you should reconsider your strategy.

You are publishing content in a hyperproductive namespace Hyperoptimized or hypercompetitive namespaces occur where the leading sites rely on extensive link building. It’s a link war, plain and simple. The search algorithm doesn’t force us into link wars. SEO greed and stupidity force us into link wars.

Hyperproductive namespaces are entirely different. That is, the rate of new content being published in the namespace is so high/fast that the clock is reset every day. I compete in these kinds of namespaces. I hate them. Your links don’t mean squat in the short term because Query Deserves Freshness and certain other algorithmic factors override SEO dependence upon links.

If you see 4-5 new articles in your namespace every day, it’s possibly a hyperproductive space. If you see 20-50 articles every day, it absolutely is a hyperproductive space. Links alone — no matter where you get them — won’t win the competition for you. It’s not all about links.

You’re expecting too much from one methodology The best method for link building is to use as many methods for link building as you can. You need value-passing, traffic-passing, long-lasting links. No one method can guarantee you that kind of consistent quality.

Some link specialists do indeed rely on one or very few link building methods. These people are specialists. They know what they are doing (hopefully) better than a generalist. I’m sure Eric Ward is very good at all sorts of SEO skills, but he’s one of the few link specialists I look up to. The guy knows what he is doing. And he uses a method that has been criticized and ridiculed many times over. He asks people for links.

But you know what? If Eric asked me for a link, I’d probably give it to him. I know he won’t just drop by any random Website, ignore the stern warning on the contact form that says “Don’t ask us for links”, and drop an irrelevant link request.

(HINT: There are ways to ask people like me for links — I’ve written about them, and so has Eric).

Not to push too much business Eric’s way, but my point is that there are people who are just better at this link building stuff than the rest of us. I’m good at link building but I’m not a specialist. And if you need a link from CNN or some big fancy site, I’m not the guy to come to.

When you cannot afford to hire a dedicated link building service that pretty much leaves you with do-it-yourself techniques. I’ve been writing about DIY link building techniques for years. What I’ve always tried to remind people, however, is that no one method or resource works for everyone.

I’m sorry when people who feel disappointed after trying a method or resource express frustration. I have known that frustration myself. But while I encourage people to share their experience with well-known popular resources and methods, I don’t want them to give up.

There is a lot going on in link building that just doesn’t fit into any one comprehensive article (although people like Dave Harry, Ann Smarty, and Wiep probably try to write such articles at least once a month). There are still some good opportunities for building links through social media, although the cost of acquisition may have increased. There are still some good opportunities for building links through forums, although the cost of acquisition may have increased. Etc., etc.

And by “cost of acquisition” I am not talking about buying links. I am talking about what it costs you to obtain value-passing links through those methods. Link building is only cheap for a spammer, and spammers are counting on volume. When you drop 10,000 links a day you can live with only .01% of them passing value. You’ll get more tomorrow — and eventually you’ll have to start over again as your domains get banned or penalized.

This article probably should have been published on SEO Theory but it’s Thanksgiving week (here in the U.S.) and I won’t be working tomorrow or Friday so I wanted to make this the second Best SEO Blog article for this week.

I’m going to quote myself from a discussion that occurred on the LED Digest in January 2007. I made a point there about how people can improve their linking that I have reiterated several times in different ways. I stumbled across the archive for the original post while looking for something else and thought it was worth repeating, in part, here on Best SEO Blog.

My reason is simple: over the past few weeks a growing number of people have reported lost listings in Google. They all claim their sites are 2 to 4 years old, they’ve been studiously “building links” for those sites, and they have no idea of why their rankings might suddenly disappear. This all sounds so very familiar to me. I’ve seen the pattern many times before.

Begin Citation – Michael Martinez discussing “Google linking” in LED Digest 2322

I’ve spent the past few weeks browsing complaint threads in forums and discussion groups. There are many, many, MANY Webmasters who have lost listings in Google, whose pages are now showing as Supplemental Results, who are confused and angry because they have lost traffic.

The other day I finally saw an opportunity to ask Matt Cutts for as definitive an answer as I felt he could give on what’s happening. He has been reluctant to speak at the level of detail people want him to. I asked one of the most convoluted questions of my career, giving him virtually no room for a graceful exit. Matt doesn’t lie, but he won’t answer a tough question if it’s chasing the algorithm and he can avoid doing so.

Matt Cutts’ search statistics for 2006

Here is his answer (his reference to “PageRank” is to INTERNAL PageRank — not what you see in the Toolbar):

Michael Martinez, I can try to talk more about things like supplemental more. Usually it’s not because I’m trying to sidestep, but because I’ve said the high-order bits already. For example, the main thing that determines presence in the supplemental index is PageRank. Not enough links for a page to make it into the regular web index? Then it’s likely to be an issue of not enough PageRank to that page. The page used to do well and now it’s in the supplemental results? It could be that links that previously counted aren’t as trusted anymore. For example, if someone’s doing a co-op link exchange, or buying links, or reciprocal linking to excess, that’s the sort of thing where those links might not be counting as much as they used to.

What is “reciprocal linking to excess”? I don’t expect him to say, but I would say that if all your links are reciprocals, that’s “to excess”. They have found ways to filter a LOT of links. There are many, many angry and frustrated Webmasters now.

For weeks I’ve been telling people to get more links from the Main Index and that should help them get their pages out of the Supplemental Index. You should not need many such links. Maybe 3-5. Several other SEOs have spoken up in support of the low number.

For those of you who are not operating ring-tones affiliate pages, but who instead sell golf clubs, I would say you should be able to get some good links.

In my opinion, however, I don’t think you’ll get them from the ring-tones affiliate pages.

Everyone wants to know how to get those valuable links. What I’ve been trying to explain to people is that first you have to know which links really CAN pass value. They will be the links that are hard to get. Think about who you would link to if you absolutely knew that linking to the wrong people would cause you to lose rankings.

I mean, exaggerate, in your mind, to the point of absurdity, what the consequences of linking out undesirably would be. Under those circumstances, who would you link to? Don’t think in terms of Yahoo!, CNN, and Whitehouse.gov. Think in terms of, “Well, my cousin Greg has a great guitar site but my friend George’s ring-tones affiliate store is just going to have to live without my link.”

Your site should be every bit as trustworthy and linkworthy as the kind of sites you would recommend to anyone who would make your life miserable if you didn’t give them your best, most honest recommendation. You don’t have to be Picasso. You should be a legitimate artist offering your best work possible.

That is the standard that tells you where to seek links.

But what I tell people — what I have done for years — is that I link out freely without asking for reciprocation. In my opinion, if you do that enough, exercising good sense in your selections, other people will link to your site because it’s a useful resource.

You may need to buy some PPC ads just to bring in some visitors. But if you convert them into your supporters, they will help you. Give them a reason to become your advocates. Make their experience on your site a great one.

Then you don’t have to worry about whether you’re tripping link filters.
End Citation

Let me add something here, as that discussion took place in a context dealing with the value of what are now known as “thin affiliate sites”. I believe that over the nearly three years since I wrote the above comments Google has managed to devise even more ways of filtering links. For example, I doubt your average blogroll and footer links work the way most people think they should any more — at least not in Google’s index.

Of course, through 2007 and much of 2008 there was a huge shift in the SEO community to grabbing links from social media networks — a practice I openly criticized. Now many SEOs have learned the hard way that their links have been nofollowed, thus rendering them useless for off-page search optimization in Google (but they may still send you some traffic — you never know). Note: I don’t mean for anyone to confuse link building through social media with social media marketing, which is a different matter altogether.

In 2007 the PageRank Sculpting myth took off, thanks in large part to people overinterpreting Matt Cutts’ position on the use of “rel=’nofollow’” on internal links and putting words into his mouth. In 2008 Google changed the way it handled implied (nofollowed) PageRank because people were screwing up their Web sites. The SEO community, of course, blindly continued to “test” its PageRank Sculpting methods and reported heartfelt success long after Google diluted the amount of PageRank they could channel.

Now in late 2009 the heart of the classic link purchasing community is starting to collapse under the weight of its own fear of losing clients. Buying links has become “too risky” for some SEOs, although others still defend the practice. We are probably witnessing the passing of an era of open link manipulation. That doesn’t mean link manipulation is going away.

No, more likely we’re probably going to see an explosion of sneaky linking tactics like the use of PageRank Traps (I first openly discussed PageRank Trapping in September 2007).

The SEO community is more desperate for value-passing links now than ever before. There are certainly alternatives to sneaky link building. For example, you can still join one of several subscription blog networks. I’m not talking about your Grandpa’s 2006 Blog Networks (those sites should have been called Blog Hosting Services). I’m talking about real networks of blogs, hundreds or thousand of them, that you can post your original content to.

Subscription Blog Networks (which I have described as “subscription article distribution services”) are different from free article distribution services in several ways. For one thing, the point of the blogging is to embed links in unique content; the free article services are inviting other sites to copy your content.

Some people have apparently confused the Subscription Blog Networks with blog farms. Blog farms are a nasty piece of work. The blog farms are created via software sold through the Black Hat SEO community channels (and openly on the Web). They usually populate their blogs with RSS feeds (Syndic8t publishes a huge list of overspammed feeds, and pretty much all the major SEO blogs are included in the list). Blog farms look nothing like Subscription Blog Networks. Unlike link farms blog farms don’t have to link all the sites together, but sometimes the blog farmers do engage in tight or heavy interlinkage.

You can still obtain good links by asking for them. People think I am dead set against this practice. Not exactly. What I am dead set against is people asking ME for links. I’m not very likely to give you the links you want. That’s just me.

But asking for links is also inefficient. If you’re not doing good research and prequalifying your link resources, you’re probably sending out a lot more email than gets answered. Worse, you probably have a low hit rate on the link requests. If that’s the way you want to spend your time, make sure someone is paying you well to do that.

You can also obtain good links from free article distribution and press releases — but those links are not guaranteed and you should not assume you’ll get them. I would say the odds of getting good links from those channels today are considerably less than they were 4 years ago when most people still were not using them.

You can still obtain good links from a few Web directories. Plenty of people have reservations about submitting to directories, and it’s admittedly not very efficient. But you can still get good links from Web directories.

Even passive link reciprocation still works pretty well. I’m not convinced that active link reciprocation still helps much with search engine rankings but I suppose some people might be succeeding. Passive link reciprocation occurs naturally without exchanges of emails. You see someone is linking to you so you link to them. Someone else sees you’re linking to them so they link back.

Some bloggers still use pingbacks to capture links from other blogs. Pingback spam is probably not paying off much these days but I am sure there are some hardcore pingbackers in the SEO community.

Comment blog spam is alive and well, too. It doesn’t get you many value-passing links, and every time some idiot publishes a list of “dofollow” blogs the number of available dofollow blogs shrinks.

My point in recapping all these linking techniques is to show that in less than three years the SEO community has managed to screw itself out of some pretty cool link manipulation techniques. The “A List” SEO bloggers so many people love to follow no longer openly share their best ideas — they’ve learned the hard way what I’ve been telling people for years: it’s easier to burn out a good idea than it is to find the next one. So now everyone is telling everyone else to keep their mouths shut.

I don’t entirely agree with that approach. What I tell people is not to share all their knowledge openly. Once you do that you have no advantage left. You cannot really compete like that — not in this industry where we have only three real secrets: which techniques you use, which resources you use, and who your clients are.

But there are some things that bear repeating. You should not be telling people where to find dofollow links but you SHOULD be talking about how you decide to link out to other sites. That is where we can help each other. Letting people know what you’ll link to and why may help some scammers but if you exercise due diligence before granting a link, you’ll save yourself some grief and embarrassment.

When the dust settles and you once again see the SEO community caught with its pants down, you can repair your dignity quickly by reminding yourself that you already know the best linking expert available: yourself. Understanding who you will link to and why will help you find links from good sites.

After all, even blog farm spammers won’t link to their competitors unless they think they’ll gain more from the exchange than their competitors do. When it comes to what we link to, rather than where we obtain links from, we’re nearly all extremely picky and demanding. You don’t need to look any farther than your own site to learn how to obtain links. You’ll never get a better link than the link you give to someone else. You’ll never give a better link than you feel anyone deserves.

In today’s Web, links form connections and convey trust. You know how to build connections and you know how people should earn your trust. That’s really all you need to know about linking.

The rest is up to you.

With more people in the SEO community emphasizing the value of good internal linking these days, it’s easy to fall into the “it’s all about architecture” rut and forget that internal linking goes well beyond what you put into your primary and secondary navigation lists.

Here are three types of internal links you should be using on your Web sites. These linking styles work for virtually every kind of Web site, including ecommerce, blogs, and traditional static HTML sites.

1: Promotional Banner Ad
You may think banner ads are dinosaurs but when it comes to promoting your own content within your site, a well-designed banner ad helps increase user page conversions (a “page conversion” occurs whenever a visitor moves from one page to another within your site).

You can use simple banners or complex banners. Find where your comfort level is.

Each banner should be clearly branded, so that you identify your own content to your visitors.

Rotate your banners. You can use Javascript to do this, but some people prefer CGI.

You can track your banner conversions and use the data to improve your design and placement.

Include a visual aspect with your banner copy: a picture, a smiley, clip art — something that catches the visitor’s eye and which is relevant to the destination page.

2: Pull Quote Links
I learned to call these “floaters” in college but most people in the news and publishing industry probably call them “lift out quotes” or “pull quotes”. People don’t use floaters in their Web copy as much as they used to but floater links work very well. A “pull quote” is a block of copy you insert into your normal copy, using it to highlight a section of the article to attract reader interest (and to break up long articles that lack sufficient images and graphics). The pull quote is often demarcated by lines or fancy quotation marks. Horizontal rules work well for this, depending on how you have structured your HTML. You may have to use little images for the lines. Rather than fight with this blog’s CSS, I’ll use hard-coded underscores:

There are variations on this technique. For example, if you include someone’s picture with the link and position the link block at the side or front of a block of copy, it’s a Mug Shot Link or Pork Chop Link.

3: Kicker Links
Through the years many people have asked in SEO forums if they’ll get any advantage by embedding their links in Hx tags. I don’t know of any advantage, although I’ve experimented with such links just to see what mostly.

Mostly they just look ugly.

But you may not be aware of the kicker. This is a small headline, usually underlined, that appears just above the headline of an article. The font is small, not microscopic. The text as has to be human-readable (and I mean readable with the use of magnifying glasses or microscopes). Don’t make the visitor struggle to see what is in your kicker, but you can use it to link to other content on your site that is relevant to all or some portion of your page copy.

Example:

You want to create credible links in your copy

How To Create Good Links People Click Through

If this were a real article about creating good links that people click through, it would provide you with information and suggestions on how to style, position, and use internal links to help increase page conversions in your copy.

Another variation on kicker links would be kernel links. A kernel is a brief statement or abstract summarizing an article, usually placed at the top of the article.

Final Word
This is not about being sneaky. If you’re even tempted to use one of these techniques to hide links, you’re doing it wrong. You want to leverage these ideas to make your copy more interesting and to inform your visitors of other content on your site that is relevant to whatever they find. It may be that they are really looking for the other article anyway. You never know.

The point is that you don’t have to limit your internal linking to navigation and cross-promotional links embedded in your page copy. You can be creative and informative together, and that makes your site more interesting to everyone.

And you may have noticed that I cheated on the pull quote link — it links to the SEO Glossary at SEO Theory. There is no reason why you have to limit these kinds of links to just the site that hosts them; they are clearly flexible linking mechanisms. Just make sure you don’t confuse your readers (too much).