Link Building: Still a Holy Grail? 

“ Not the fast and the furious style but I am having a second thought…”having a second thought…

G ViGary Viray

http://www.garyviray.com

Aaron Wall of SEOBook.comAaron Wall of SEOBook.com

“Link Building... Time‐intensive. Frustrating. Sometimes confusing. Yet Unavoidable. Because ultimately, it's stillUnavoidable. Because ultimately, it s still the trump card for higher rankings.”

Link Popularity

Link Popularity – is made up of quality and quantity of inbound links.

*** It is one of the most influential factors for determining how a website performs well in search engine rankings.

K d ThKeyword Theme

– made up of anchor texts, phrases used in pointing to your site from other domains which are detected by search engines.y g

**** The closer your keyword theme reflects the keyword optimization profile you used when optimizing your pages, the better your SEO efforts will beefforts will be.

**** A comprehensive keyword theme is the heart of overall inbound link quality, which, in its turn, is at the core of a strong link popularity factor.

Outbound links

Inbound link

Reciprocal links

One‐way link

The Batman - Joker Relationship

Search Engine reads the number of keywordsSearch Engine reads the number of keywords occurrence in the on-page element like the meta tags, title tags, etc.

Web developers used keywords stuffing technique!

Problem : The search engines had to find a way to take control over the spammers!

Search Engine started to give more and more weight to the elements out of direct control of a Web page creator.

Search engines made the assumption that the greater the number of links from other sites pointing to a website, the more popular the website and therefore the higher quality resource.p p g q y

Website owners figured out many ways to get links pointing to their sites. Whoa!!!! LINK FARMS.

Link farms are pages made up of long lists of unrelated links.

The Batman - Joker Relationship

Search engines gradually shifted away from estimating the link quantity and started to assign a quality factor to each of the links pointing to a websitepointing to a website.

higher number of high qualityNow websites that have a higher number of high quality links are looked upon favorably by the search engines

Link Quality

Link Quality Factors:

* PageRank of the site providing the inbound link PageRank of the site providing the inbound link

* Relevance of the content of the linking site to the content of your site

* R l f d d i th h t t f th li k t th t t f* Relevance of words used in the anchor text of the links to the content of your page that the link points to

* Number of other links on the linking page. The lower this number, the more g p g ,valuable the link

Links pointing to your site from a low ranking, low traffic and unrelated website are nearly worthlesswebsite are nearly worthless.

Link QualityOne-way link mostly influences your link popularity.

Site 1

Site 2

One‐way link

Sometimes it is assumed that outbound links might decrease a website's link popularity. This is wrong.

While outbound links do nothing to increase your link popularity you do not giveWhile outbound links do nothing to increase your link popularity, you do not give away any link popularity when you link to another site.

Link QualityReciprocal links can add to your link popularity if the website that you p y p p y yexchange links with has higher link popularity than your site.

Reciprocal links

However, reciprocal links are not as powerful as inbound one-way links, because the search engines assume such links are produced in an artificial manner as a result of link exchangeas a result of link exchange.

Link Building Tips

WARNING!

Do not add your link to a large link list.

Important search engines like Google recognize this and don't count these as inbound links.

In fact, your rankings may even be damaged as a result.

Do not link to a website just because of its high Google PageRank.

When you link to the sites with a high PageRank that means nothing for your own rank.

However, if it is a professional resource with valuable content for your visitors, you should definitely link to it!

Link Building Tips

What you should remember!

The best and most effective way of increasing your search engine ranks is working to improve your website's link popularity.

Get as many inbound one way links as you can from quality sites and-Get as many inbound, one-way links as you can from quality sites and directories.

-To get the best quality inbound one-way links, your site needs to provide valuable content, then request a link from sites similar to yours.

Increasing link popularity is a time-consuming and sometimes frustrating processprocess.

But it is definitely worth the time and effort when you see a dramatic increase in traffic.

Google PageRank

The actual formula based on Google official paper for PR is as follows:

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(X1)/C(X1) + ... + PR(Xn)/C(Xn))

where

X1...Xn are pages all point to page A.

d is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. Google usually sets d tod is a damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1. Google usually sets d to 0.85.

C(X) is defined as the number of links going out of page X.

Google PageRank

A site with a high PR but a large number of outbound links can nullify its own impact on your PRimpact on your PR

(+) PageRank get as many links to your site from pages with a high PR and ( ) age a get as a y s to you s te o pages t a g a da low number of total links.

Obtain as many links pointing to your site as you can, no matter what their PageRank is as long as they are rankedPageRank is, as long as they are ranked.

It depends on each specific case which variant will get the best out of the PR formula.

Google PageRank

Toolbar PageRank (log base 10) 

Real PageRank 

0  0 .15 – 10 

1  100 – 1,000 

2  1,000 – 10 , 000 

3  10,000 – 100,000 

4  100,000 – 1,000,000 

5 1 000 000 – 10 000 0005  1,000,000  10,000,000 

6  10,000,000 – 100,000,000 

7  100,000,000 – 1,000,000,000 

8  1,000,000,000 – 10,000,000,000 

9  10,000,000,000 – 100,000,000,000 

10  100,000,000,000 – 1,000,000,000,000 

Google Golden Triangle 100% of the views and 85% of the clicks100% of the views and 85% of the clicks

GET LINKSGET LINKS

B CREDIBLE i creating a good contentBe CREDIBLE in creating a good content

Syndicate your link baitSyndicate your link bait

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Bl hTap the Blogosphere

use directory listing

Topic‐specific directories

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Submit optimized content to 

Article DirectoriesArticle Directories

create press releasescreate press releases

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Free Links

GET LINKSGET LINKS

idPaid Links

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Interact and attend Conferences

Actively join forumsActively join forums• use forum signatures• get support from the community

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Link e changeLink exchange• Sites with low PageRank will not harm your PageRank

• Exchange with inter related sites• Exchange with inter‐related sites

• Place links not more than 100 links/page (according to Google  Webmaster Guidelines)

• PageRank is vital but most importantly the traffic of the site g p ybecause it will naturally pass‐on traffic to your site. (Alexa.com)

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Execution f th Li k h i CRUCIALExecution of the Link exchange is CRUCIAL• Make a link directory (not more than 100 entries per page)

• Build a list of your potential link partners 

• Place a link to them in your directory beforehand. 

• Once refused a reciprocation, remove the link in favor of interested link partners.

• Personalize email must be sent that includes the reason of interest for the link exchange. 

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Blog Comments and testimonialsg• “dofollow” comments are good however; even a “nofollow” link is equally important because Yahoo and MSN simply ignore the “nofollow” tagtag.

• Make sure to vary your anchor texts as well as your URLs. 

• Try to include you secondary anchor texts and subpages. 

Ch l t it• Choose relevant sites

• Make sane comments so as not to be treated as a spam. 

Note: Akismet is a good spam comment blocking plugin. 

GET LINKSGET LINKS

Create Bl dCreate a Blog and 

S b i i Blog DirectoriesSubmit it to Blog Directories

3 –way Link Exchange

Track the competitors usingTrack the competitors usingthe search engines 

https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.garyviray.com&fr=sfp&bwm=ip

66,439

Slow Link Building

Fast Link Buildingg

A > B ‐ when the “real” link score is lower than the “fresh” link score ‐ usually happens in case of crappy comment / forum signature / reciprocal / unrelated links.

A ≈ B ‐ when the two link values are approximately equal We will usually not see aA ≈ B when the two link values are approximately equal. We will usually not see a significant change in locations due to the switch between these two values.

A < B ‐ when the “real” link value is actually higher than the “fresh” link score. This ll h h h h h l l k f / h b husually happens with the high‐quality links from on‐topic / authoritative website. The 

result of this would be for a site to get an initial boost in rankings, stagnate for a while and then further improve.

90 353A > B 90,353A > B

#167,024 #2

A ≈ B66,439

A B

#770,975 #6

A < B#4

116 033116,033

How do you measure a link?How do you measure a link?

• If you want to rank number one in the keyword “ seo conference pangasinan“• If you want to rank number one in the keyword   seo conference pangasinan , search for the said keyword. The site ranking#1 has the high most valuable link value.

• Drill down until the 25th‐30th position in the SERP. The sites you can find will give you a solid link value.

• Pay attention to the title tag of the page you want link to. This will give you an idea onhow the search engines value the link from the said page.how the search engines value the link from the said page.

• The site can carry brokered links but of minimal volume or else it will be seen sooner or later by Google. 

• Relevance of the site you want to link into.

How do you measure a link?How do you measure a link?Links to High Ranking Competitors

Li k f tit i ll th ki hi h t i l h l dLinks of your competitors especially those ranking high certainly have a real good value.

Page Strengthg g

Links from Wikipedia and DMOZ and the site has high PageRank, lots of inbound links and blog links, there's clearly some value to getting a link. 

PageRank of Domain

A PR7 domain has a good value compared to a PR2 or 0 . 

Inlinks to Domain via Technorati (or Google Blog Search)

The Technorati and Google Blog Search link data can show you the trendsThe Technorati and Google Blog Search link data can show you the trends. 

The Art of buying a linkThe Art of buying a link• Keyword Discovery• Finding Relevant Sites• Finding Relevant Sites• Sending Initial Advertising Requests

Use the contact us form or any available email from the site. The style and approach y y ppof your email will greatly affect the success and failure of your request. 

• Follow Ups• Pricing Considerations

Trick here is, offer to pay a discounted rate for a year or 2. $500 a year is   more enticing than offering $40/ month when the link seller saysmore enticing than offering $40/ month when the link seller says $100/month.

• Checking Value• Evaluate & Repeat

Link Building ToolsLink Building Tools

Link Building ToolsLink Building Tools• SEOQuake FireFox Plugin• Google Preview FireFox Plugin• Google Preview FireFox Plugin• Parameter (Pagerank Checker) by CleverStat.com• Rank Checker (Aaron Wall)  ‐ http://seobook.com• Free Monitor for Google by CleverStat.comFree Monitor for Google by CleverStat.com• Fast Blog Finder ‐ http://www.fastblogfinder.com/• SEOMoz Tools ‐ http://www.seomoz.org/• Google Webmaster Tools ‐ http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.• Yahoo Site Explorer – https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com• Comment Hut –• Google Alert – http://google.com (sign‐up for an account) • WebCeo Software – http://webceo.com•Directory Denominator 

Warning!B f l i i hBe careful in querying too much the search engines using the toolsthe search engines using the tools 

available

SEOmoz.org TOOLSSEOmoz.org TOOLS

Thank you!Thank you!http://www.garyviray.com