Make sure your site has something that other webmasters in your niche would be interested in linking to.
Create content that people will be willing to link at even if it is not directly easy to monetize. These linkworthy pages will lift the authority and rankings of all pages on your site.
When
possible, get your keywords in the link text pointing to your site.
Register with, participate in, or trade
links with topical hubs and related sites. Be in the discussion or at least be
near the discussion.
Look for places to get high-quality
free links from (like local libraries or chambers of commerce).
Produce articles and get them
syndicated to more authoritative sites. Participate in forums to learn about
what your potential consumers think is important.
Issue
press releases with links to your site.
Leave
glowing testimonials for people and products you really like.
Start an interesting and unique blog
and write about your topics, products, news, and other sites in your community.
Comment on other sites with useful
relevant and valuable comments. Sponsor charities, blogs, or websites related
to your site.
Consider renting links if you are in an
extremely competitive industry. Mix your link text up, if you can.
Survey your vertical and related verticals. What
ideas/tools/articles have become industry standard tools or well-cited
information? What ideas are missing?
Read Brett Tabke’s quick couple-page guide http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/2010.htm
Since many of you who have bought will not read all of it, I need to make sure I deliver great value in the first few pages to ensure you get your money’s worth.
Relevancy
is never static. Due to commercial market forces, search is CONSTANTLY broken.
Thus, if you think of this e-book as a literal guide, it too will always be
broken. Instead of thinking of the web and search in terms of algorithms it
helps to think of the web as a large social network. Ask yourself questions
like
•
What are people talking about?
•
What stories are spreading?
•
Why are they spreading?
•
Who is spreading them?
•
How are they spreading them?
The
reason search relies so heavily on the social elements is that page content and
site structure are so easy to manipulate. It takes a mind well-tuned into
marketing to be able to influence or manipulate people directly.
There
are ways to fake authority, and when you are new it may make sense to push the
envelope on some fronts. But invariably, anything that is widely manipulated is
not a strong signal of authority.
Here is an advertisement I found in
Gmail (Google’s email service):
Google wants to count real
editorial votes. Consider the following:
•
It is not common for news sites to link section-wide to an online
bingo site.
•
Most of the ads are irrelevant to the content of the pages.
•
There are a large number of paid links right next to each other.
•
The site has amazing authority.
Given
all the above, it makes sense that Google would not want to count those links.
When I posted about how overt that PageRank selling was, Matt Cutts, a leading
Google engineer, hinted that Google had already taken care of not counting
those links.
And
since UPI is a slow moving, 100 year-old company, the fact that they are
selling PageRank should also tell you that Google’s relevancy algorithms have
moved far beyond just considering PageRank. I have PageRank 5 sites that get
100 times the traffic that some of my PageRank 7 sites do, because they have
better content and a more natural link profile.
If
you do buy links, think of the page as though you were an editor for a search
engineer. Does the link look like it is a natural part of the page? Or is it an
obviously purchased link?
What if
instead of thinking of ways to try to create false authority, you looked at the
web in terms of a social network, where the best ideas and the best marketed
ideas spread? Now that might get you somewhere.
