3. Links Defined
• In basic terms, links are the underlined words people click on a website to go to
another. Technically, they are called "hyperlinks" which is the foundation of how
the web works.
Image Link
Text Link 3
4. Why are links important?
• Links are the foundation of the Internet
– Links allow users to move site to site seamlessly
– Links connect pages with similar and relevant information
• Links are a source of targeted traffic.
– Links from similar themed websites drive relevant and targeted traffic.
– Links create exposure and a “referral” scenario from the other site.
• Relevant links raise your natural search engine rankings.
– Links connect you to search engines for inclusion.
– Search engines use links in their relevancy algorithms as a means of
determining “relevance” and “authority” of your site within the peer
sites of a similar topic.
5. Importance Of Links For SEO
Internal Links
• Ensures all pages are connected and findable via crawling
• Tells SE‟s what each page is about and how relevant they are
• Identifies primary keyword phrases
• Highly relevant links often used at SERPS as “site links” to internal pages
External/Incoming Links
• Drives traffic from relevant site to your site
• Allows SE spider to find pages naturally and in context
• Identifies key authoritative pages and site sections
• Creates a “contextual link” between similar content that increases relevance
for search engines resulting in higher rankings
5
6. Types of Linking
• Reciprocal (Fig 1) – Less important today due to past abuse; value
of reciprocal links is usually discounted
• Triangular (Fig 2) – Attempt to hide reciprocal linking – easily
detectable
• One Way (Fig 3) – One way inbound links are usually most
valuable
A
A B A B
Fig 1. B C Fig 3.
Fig 2.
7. Link Quality (Popularity + Authority)
Important pages are either linked to by a lot of pages or by other
important pages
– Page A is more important than page B
– Page C is more important than Page D
External “inbound” links
1 1 1 1
3 A 1 B
3
C 1 D
8. Link Quality (Popularity + Authority)
Page Importance (or “Link Value or “Link Juice”) counts…
– Page B is more important than page A
– Page D is more important than Page C
External “inbound” links
1 1 1 6
3 A 6 B
3
C 6 D
9. Google Page Rank
• Google PageRank™
– Google’s Algorithm for measuring a page’s importance
based on the quantity, quality and contextual relevance
of links
– Each “page” has its own score
– Scores are are from 0 – 10 – logarithmic scale
• Tool Bar Page Rank
– A simulation of Page Rank in the form of a “bar” and
“number 0 to 10”
– Not always accurate and should not be obsessed over
View Google PageRank in Chrome
Browser with PageRank Viewer Plugin
11. Current State Assessment
• How many links do we have to the following:
– Home page (and variations)
– Key categories
– Specific pages
• How many links do we have that are:
– Linking to broken pages
– Linking to the home page vs. category or page
15. Why should they link?
• Why would anyone want or need to link to you?
– Does your content provide topically relevant and trusted information to its
audience?
– Is your content solve a problem, save time or money?
– Is your content interesting or relevant to an audience?
– Is your content timely, relevant and/or entertaining?
– Would you read your content if it was not yours?
– If not, then you don‟t deserve links!
• Are you an Authority?
– Are you well known in your field?
– Are you active in committees, forums and blogs?
– Have you been quoted in articles, press releases?
16. Popular Content Ideas
• How to & Beginner Guides related to your products and
services
• Top 10 ways to... [Number + Adjective + Keyword Phrase]
• Surveys & Polls and Survey Data
• Handy Web Tools & applications that streamline tedious tasks.
• Expert Interviews on relevant and timely topics
• Awards or Recognition for your industry or customers
• Develop your Asset Matrix of valuable content
18. Content Distribution Strategy
• Companies create “transportable” assets each year yet doesn’t always
maximize their portability
• When using and distributing marketing assets, always ask yourself some key
questions
– Is my content linkable?
• Does this product, news release, event create interest where someone
would link to it?
• Have you clearly articulated the proper destination URL for more
information?
– Is my content portable?
• Do you have anything you can pass along? PDF? Video? Widget?
• Have you included “forward to a friend” or other social media capabilities on
the page?
– Have you syndicated your portable content?
• Do you have it indexed in Google and/or White Paper aggregators like
Bitpipe?
• Do you have videos in YouTube and Google with appropriate meta
information?
• Have you included the content in your Pressroom?
19. Digital Asset Distribution 101
• Enable RSS feeds.
– Potent permission marketing tool, RSS feeds provide an avenue for ongoing
distribution of assets in context.
• Enable social bookmarking.
– Ensure you’re using social media tags in footers.
– Submit the new page to social bookmarking sites with relevant tags so that others
can find it.
• Ensure all digital assets have meta data.
– Pull together your relevant words and develop a solid asset title and description.
– Update the Meta properties of digital assets.
• Develop social media tags.
– Pull together a list of most impactful and relevant tags for the individual asset.
– Investigate Technorati, Delicious, and other social media referral sites to identify
which tags are garnering maximum traffic.
21. Consolidate or Migrate
- Consolidate existing links from old or legacy pages or domains and properly
redirect them to the proper page or primary domain
- Free Management tools: Yahoo! Site Explorer or Google Webmaster Tool
You can export the results.
You can choose to see
only external links.
22. Fix Wasted Links
Check and repair any broken links – Webmaster Tools
Shows you pages that link to the Page Not Found.
23. External Links – Portfolio
Family domains
Identify all the domains that your company owns as well as key partner sites and acquisitions.
Example: http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home
http://www.telelogic.com/
International Sites
Identify your international sites and create links from them to each other for
relevant content.
Link “context to context” using your
international site navigation in the footer
or in a SEO friendly pull down
24. Maximize WW Link Architecture
Leverage the links between your sites where they are hosted in separate environments.
•Leverage enormous power of globally
located sites to build link equity
•Leverage Partners and Distributed content
to increase link equity
•Leverage different C block sites in your
portfolio
25. IP & Class C Blocks
• The IP address is a numeric address, providing a unique
identification of a computer and the network it resides, written as
a set of four groups of numbers separated by dots, for example
129.42.38.121
Typical IP Address 129.42.38.121
A block - 129
B block - 42
C block - 38
D block – 121
• Imaging “C block” as an apartment building and all of the
apartments are all “D blocks” this means the potential for
these people to know each other and “help” each other
achieve a goal is pretty high.
25
26. Leverage Business Relationships
Business partners
Review special deal partners, vendors, and channel partners
Conduct training or share linking best practices
Trade & Industry associations
Identify reputable industry associations, especially the ones where your
currently a membership.
Review the links you get to ensure they are relevant
Industry Events
Participate in industry events to get content exposure and links
Bloggers and online bios are often great places to get links
27. Business Partners
Confirm reciprocation from business partners.
Opportunity IBM Page
Request your business partners to add a link on the relevant page and use
the keyword in the anchor text pointing to the IBM small business resources
page.
28. Industry Associations
Industry associations are a great source of links but make sure they use the context
in the anchor text.
Opportunity IBM Page
Request the association to add a link
and use the keyword in the anchor
text pointing to the Point-of-sale
page.
30. Key Link Acquisition Concepts
Quality vs. Quantity
• Better from Relevant sites & Authority sites than many non-related or poor
quality.
Contextual Relevancy
• The measure of how well two sites are related in content and Theme
Authority & Trustworthy Sites
• A site highly rated by a search engine: size, importance, & relevance
• Age and perceived “trustability” of the site
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31. Choosing Quality Links
Authority Sites
Site Rated By Size, Importance, & Relevance
• Unique content
• Many inbound links, especially from other authority sites
• Many of outbound links
• Inbound links built gradually over time
• Usually an older site.
Avoiding A Bad Neighborhood
• Has been banned
• Under a penalty
• From a link farm
• From a shady industry
31
32. Start with Google
Review the top positions for key phrase and what links do they have!
33. Identify Quality Shared Links
• Identify relevant links with a high PageRank that are linking to top sites in search
results. Quality is more important than quantity.
* Below are URLs currently linking to the top ranking pages in Google's results for a specific keyword phrase. Sort linking by
Google PageRank and Link Score, which helps assess the validity of a site.
34. Quality Not Quantity of Links
Compare your links to those in the top positions of Google or Yahoo!
PR0 PR1 PR2 PR3 PR4 PR5 PR6 PR7 PR8 PR9 Total PR6+ %PR6+
app server 450 15 149 96 537 148 23 6 0 1
1425 30 2%
701 27 204 57 63 96 41 23 4 0
Google #1 1216 68 6%
223 10 45 31 36 145 143 30 11 28
Google #2 702 212 30%
613 38 120 191 100 121 35 3
Google #3 0 0 1221 38 3%
• While the IBM page as more links than anyone, only 2% were
links from high-quality sites.
35. Review the IP and Quality
www.seoelite.com offers this simple table after gathering links for a site/page
37. Search Modifiers
• Leverage “search syntax” in engines to find
relevant content:
Syntax Term Location Results
“digital camera reviews” Anywhere on page 1,180,000
allintext: “digital camera reviews” Body Text 1,150,000
allintitle: “digital camera reviews” Only Page Title 821,000
allinanchor: “digital camera reviews” Only In Anchor 922,000
Text
allinurl: “digital camera reviews” Only in URL 85,500
Note: Helps find “contextual relevance but not quality”
38. External Blogs/ Sites
Google Blog Search
Use target keywords to
find topically relevant
blogs.
Sign up „Blog Alerts‟ to
stay updated on potential
blogs.
39. Submission Opportunities
Directories
• General: Yahoo! & Open Directory Project (Google) Business.com
Local Directories
• Google
• Yahoo!
• City Search
• AOL
Yellow Pages
• Super Pages
• City Search
• Info USA and Info USA Business
• MSN Yellow Pages
• Yahoo! Yellow Pages
40. .Edu and .Gov Sites
• These are valuable since they don‟t just link to anyone
• Ways to get .edu and .gov links
– Provide valuable content to their audiences
– Speak at their events, seminars and provide resources
– Leverage memberships and alumni organizations
40
41. .Edu and .Gov Sites
Provide high-value and relevant information to be linked as a resource
41
43. Press Releases Prime the Pump
Release sent via digital announcement – 11,300 sites pick it up
and reference “exact” title of release – resulting in 100,000
references to “free online photo editor” in less than 3 months
45. Integrate Search and Social Media/PR
Priceline release announcing destinations
for Valentines day and Presidents
Weekend
1. 20,300 pick ups of digital release in
Google
2. 2,589 inbound links to release
3. 3,043 new links to blog
4. 1,500+ new links to destination pages
45
46. Buying Links
• Simple answer – Don’t buy them
– Ever from a link broker or link builder
– If your business depends on traffic from Google
• Complex answer – Buy them when:
– You negotiated the direct link from a highly
relevant site where you would benefit primarily
from traffic and there is not mention of the sale or
tracking.
47. Avoid Link Spamming Techniques
What to Avoid
• Link farms
• Reciprocal links
• Republished or poorly written articles
• Inconsequential or repeatedly used press releases
• Paid links
• Hidden image & text links
• Blog spam
• Forum spam
• Site wide links
47
48. Best Practices Recap
• Link Building is hard and cannot be faked or
rushed
• Quality and relevant content generates links
• Clean up and fix current links
• Research quality links from relevant sources
• Leverage digital press releases
• Leverage social media for real time impact
Editor's Notes
This is an example I Gave from Nestle – the grid is from Intuit.
