Link Growth - Ideas, Knowledge & Experience

March 27, 2007

As I am sure you will agree, link building is a core part of almost every SEO campaign. Without the knowledge it's difficult in applying link building ideas. Likewise without the ideas, it's hard to standout in a crowd and be noticed. And of course without the actual hands on experience, it can be more of a case of trial and error in determining which link building techniques & ideas will really work.

Link Building Knowledge

There are plenty of helping hands to assist in our own link building efforts. Staying up-to-date is the key to success "“ here are a few important posts in the last month or so.

1) The Relationship between Content & Link Growth
Rand Fishkin over at SeoMoz is continuing to unearth plenty of SEO gems. His content & link growth post is just one of many. He looks into the shift patterns for the acquisition of links and the production of content with regards to relevancy and authority of a site over time.

He identifies the following key areas:

Content growth patterns - how often does a particular site tend to add new pages
Content update patterns - how often are documents edited and updated
Link growth patterns - how often are new links pointing to the site
Link stagnation patterns - does the number of links to the site stagnate or decrease

Rand goes on to provide some useful real life examples and how the 'links to new content' ratio can pay a significant part in establishing perceived trust by search engines.

2) Understanding Link Reputation

Another interesting link building read is Eric Ward's Understanding Link Reputation. The post looks at a site's reputation and trust from a search engines perspective based on its linking history. Again this relates to Rand's post outlining shift patterns for the collection of links over time and how your site builds up link trust/reputation.

3) The Perfect Link

Matt Magee shares his wealth of knowledge and attempts to define the perfect link. He first points out that links can not only help with ranking in search engines, but also in referring traffic and not to mention branding too.

In Matt's quest for the perfect link, he considers 4 types of links:

Type of Link #1: With Whom?
Options: one-way, reciprocal, 3-way, 4-way "¦ 400-way, etc.

Type of Link #2: How'd You Get It?
Options: paid or earned

Type of Link #3: Format
Options: text or non-text (image, Flash, etc.)

Type of Link #4: Placed Where?
Options: sitewide placement or unique location(s)

The article is a worthy read for any SEO "“ and also gives lots more guidance for things to look for when targeting link building.

4) Google Anchor Link Reporting

Google's Webmaster Central is now showing the exact phrase used in the anchor text to your site.

Google blurb “"¦enhanced the information we provide and will show you the complete phrases sites use to link to you, not just individual words. And we’ve expanded the number we show to 100″ courtesy of SearchEngineLand.

5) Link Development: 10 Questions by 5 Experts

SugarRae's massive Q&As with some of the big guns of Link building is a must read if you can still find a space to digest the 6600 worded beast. If you have not read it all and are a little linked up, then I recommend it for a single sitting all by itself.

Update - Try these beefy lists for size too.

Link Building Ideas

In the world of link building, if knowledge is King, then ideas must surely be Queen. Generating link building ideas is where SEO takes a leap away from its geeky routes and towards a more fun & creative aspect.

You may wish to take a logical walkthrough to linkbaiting for some ideas. For a more comprehensive guide why not spend sometime reading the various enormous linkbait lists. There really are heaps of ways to acquire links, sometimes they can be straightforward and other times it requires a little bit more of lateral thinking "“ but hey, this is where it gets all the more interesting!

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Comments

2 Responses to “Link Growth - Ideas, Knowledge & Experience”

  1. Lyndon Antcliff on March 28th, 2007 9:28 am
  2. The Naked SEO Guide from Netpaths on April 22nd, 2007 7:38 am

    Surefire Link Building Advice From 5 Master Linkers…

    Successful websites have a lot of links pointing to them. People link to websites they like and sites that make their life easier. Encouraging linking is done by creating linkbait. Here is a great post about linkbaiting that includes interviews with t…

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