Search Engine Optimization Tips, SEO for Blogs, Search Tips

Links are a validation of the quality, relevancy and content of your site. Here’s how can you find quality link partners without spending hours on the net.

How to find Quality and Relevant link partners for your site or blog?
The smartest way is to go to human edited directories like DMOZ, Yahoo Directory
, and Business.com. Only dmoz.org does not accept payments for including sites and blog, the other two do. Although not every site or blog that pays a fee gets listed.

Why should you find link partners on sources like Dmoz.org?
They are edited by humans who abide by certain quality guidelines and choose only those that are worthy to be recommended as a resource. The editors also sort them according to relevancy.

Browse any of these directories and look for relevant sites and blogs to seek partnership with. Identify related sites too as that is also a good link partnership. If you are a recruiting firm, then you should also look at related resources for linking – hr software, job sites, job search engines, hr trainers, hr blogs, hr directories, resume writers etc. Since they are relevant to your audience.

Hit each of their sites and find out the quality of stuff or service the site offers. If you are satisfied that it’s good to link with, them get a mail id or use the contact form to send them a mail seeking link exchange. Tell them why you think it’d be beneficial for them. The link exchange mail should be no more than 6 to 8 lines.

Will blogs link faster than sites?
Yes, bloggers as a group believe in linking to good stuff. Search good blog directories, aggregators and blog catalogs. Technorati, Blogcatalog could be a good starting point.

Where else to find link partners?
Google to find link partners. This could be a very time consuming activity as you have to verify every site that comes up on the results page and them reach out for links.

How can I find other linking resources?
Each of the quality sites that you identify will have a links or related resources page. That should be a good starting point to continue searching for more linking partners.

Where should I start to build links?
Put up a Related Resources link on your site. And select the best of the sites in your domain and publish them, under different categories. This will give users a goo place to look at other resources. When this page gets a page rank, you’ll find it easier to fetch links from other sites.

What do I recommend?
If you want to build a quality site with authoritative resources, then be very careful while choosing link partners. Research and find out good resources before you recommend them to your visitors. Do not choose any site even if it is recommended by an expert. Read through the site and satisfy yourself that your users will find it useful and only then should you link to it.

When should you look for sites to link with?
Build a good site with nice quality content. Do atleast 50 quality postings before attempting to find link partners.

Teething troubles
When you have no page rank and little traffic, you’d find it difficult to get someone to link to you. But, let me assure you that good quality sites will attract links, come what may.

But don’t worry, keep publishing good quality links and you’ll be able to attract good links.

Hey, if you found this article interesting, start your “link karma” by linking to this post or blog.

Building links is a surefire way to good traffic on your site. Here are the best resources on link building strategies that you can confidently read and use.

Build great content.
Build links naturally.
Link only to relevant content.
Exchange links with high page ranked sites.
Link to useful content for visitors.

Linking Strategies Resources:

Eric Ward Linking Articles

Chris Sherman’s Articles in Search Engine Watch

Linking Matters

Link Building Basics by Eric Enge

Link Building Tips by Aaron Wall and Andy Hagans

Ethical Link Building Tips

Creating Compelling Links by Brian Clark on Copyblogger

Link Building Popularity on Google Webmaster Central

Eric Edward is not the typical Search Engine Optimizer or strategist. He insists on building quality links through Press Releases, seeking links from niche resources and webmasters/ bloggers who are passionate about their subjects. Quite simply, he began link building links when search engines were in their early stages. So he used traditional link building strategies that looked at quality of content rather than page rank.

He targets rich content sites, library sites and sites that instruct beginners on a subject. More importantly, he targets niche, fairly unknown sites and creatively works to get links.

Erc Ward suggests building creative content, strategies to get social media and influencers in a domain to review and link to your site. Not from the point of view of search engines, but human users who want good content and very good related content. And from a trustworthy source.

He believes that each of us trying to build links must act as if we worked for Google. Check out Eric Ward’s Link Building Site. http://www.ericward.com/

Best of Eric Ward’s Link Building Interviews

Linking interview
Wordtracket Interview

Audio Link Building Interviews

Traffic Pulling Link Tips

The Search Engine Guide’s Interview

Social Media Linking Discussion

Link Building Challenges

Link Building Myths

Gaining Link Popularityinterview on Marketing Sherpa

Linking Strategy Podcasts

Directories are a compilation of web site resources by category and region. Here are secrets to getting listed in human compiled resources. They are very useful since internet users can find at one destination a comprehensive list of resources on a particular subject of interest to them.

Human edited directories like Dmoz, Yahoo and About, are more valued and respected than spider based directories. And search engines give importance to listings in human edited directories. The reason being that each site listed there has been validated by a human editor, who is knowledgeable about that category.

Dmoz is the largest human edited directory project ever undertaken on the net. With a 80,000 volunteer editor team, Dmoz constantly edits and improves the quality of listings in order to provide users quality resources and better experience. This oped directory project powers some of the directories for the world’s biggest search engines including Google, AOL and Netscape.

How to submit your site or blog to Dmoz?
If you submit a site or blog to authority resources like Dmoz without reading their guidelines, you won’t get the desired results.

Step 1
Go to the home page of dmoz.org and search to find whether your site or blog is already listed.

Step 2
Submitting to the correct category largely determines your success on getting listed. Search and find out the right category to list your main url. Click the “suggest url” link and submit. Take care to describe your site accurately. Do not write descriptions that sound like advertising or promotional copy. The secret to getting a positive review is writing a neutral description as their editors may do.
Example: A description for a retailer site selling scarves should be:

Traditional handmade scarves made of silk and cotton from the weavers of Kashmir. Matching hats also available. (and the description should not be an advertisement: fantastic cheap handmade cotton and silk scarves at prices that could stun you)

Category: Shopping: Clothing: Accessories or Business: Consumer Goods and Services: Clothing: Accessories: Ties and Scarves.

Before submitting your site or blog, you must complete the site, have atleast 100 posts, categorise, provide contact information etc. Your site must be complete with all contact information and any other information required by a user or buyer. Daily newsletters, RSS feeds cal also be mentioned.

How to submit your site or blog to About.com
A New York Times company, this directory draws 38 million visitors every month. A huge team of expert guides work on recommending newer and useful sites to readers. A directory that has gained the trust of users and major search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL, About.com is a comprehensive directory where you should seek submission of your site.

Browse through About.com’s categories, select the appropriate category for listing and on the top left you’ll find the name of the guide. Hit that link and then email the guide seeking mention of your site.

I’ll talk about paid directories like Yahoo and Business.com in another post.

To link or Not? My answer is Google loves outbound links that offer value to users. It’s Google’s way of understanding what users think of the other sites.

Link out to relevant and good quality content. Readers always love authorities who refer the right resources. They like to read more about a subject they are currently browsing. Seo4google.org’s Outlink Tip: Linking is like a respected professor recommending some books to his students. Obviously, the professor won’t risk his reputation by recommending the irrelevant, low quality or unethical books.

Outlinks should be part of your strategy to develop authority on the subject. Links are a vote for the content, relevancy and quality of the other site. You can build your credibility by letting users know that you read the latest on the subject and are interested in keeping them updated by recommending relevant and good articles to browse.

Another advantage of linking to quality sites is that by sending visitors to other sites and blogs, webmasters who track traffic to their sites will find out and probably recommend your site in return. A mutually beneficial strategy in the long run.

Don’t link out to spammy sites
Spammy sites are those that are illegal. Sites that use black hat search engine optimization techniques to draw visitors are also spam sites. They sell links to all and sundry including porn and illegal sites. Sites that obtain data about users and share them with other sites, without user permission are also spamming. Excessive exchange of links is also considered spam. They may be downloading a virus or malware when you visit the site.

Selling outbound links affect Page Rank?
It’s not wrong to sell links. But if outbound links on a page are there because you have taken a payment, users must be informed. Remember, how Google shows paid ads as “Sponsored Links”.

Passing page rank to the outbound link page is not ethical. Kindly use rel=”nofollow” when you sell links. This way you inform search engines that you are not passing page rank.

Many webmasters and bloggers fear that outlinks will drive away visitors from their site or blog. That’s not true. Users will check out the other site, if it’s good they’ll respect your judgement. They’ll come back to your site for more. Wikipedia is the best example of relevant, quality outbound linking that helps create authority on the subject. Which is why users love Wikipedia, and Google shows Wikipedia pages for many search terms.

Links to your site from relevant and quality sites with high page rank are sure to increase your site’s Google ranking.

What do external links mean?
A link to your site from another site, blog or directory is called an inbound link. These mean that someone has liked your content and is willing to recommend it to his users. That’s why Google, as a search engine, which loves to give users good content likes this recommendation system. When it’s an editorial choice and voluntarily done, it’s a vote for your site or blog.

But when the vote is from a site whose content is relevant to your audience, then it’s viewed more positively. And the quality of the vote is best when the site linking to you has a high Page Rank. It should be from an authoritative site, relevant to your content.

Example: If you ran a site that sells toys, then a link from a childrens site (or parenting site) which recommends your toy store is more relevant than a link from a site selling cameras for wild life photography.

It’s easy for quality sites with unique content to draw a lot of inbound links from good sites. I mean, people naturally link to sites that offer useful or niche content since the site’s content is likely to be useful to their readers.

That’s how people link to sites normally, right.

How to get inbound links to your site?
The fundamentals are very simple. Find a niche. Write refreshing content. Make it useful to your users. Give readers the best on a subject. Tell them the latest in your domain. Interview those doing good work in your area of interest. Write compelling content. Make readers come back to your site by offering relevant and highly readable content.

Build your expertise in the chosen area. Write to news sites, magazines that cater to your site’s main theme. Participate in forums. Enter your site or blog in niche directories that are ranked well in Google. Offer useful downloads to users. Make videos, slides, audios and let visitors choose the mediums they like.

If you sell a product or service; or offer educative content to users, there’s no need to worry about seo. The inbound links, page rank and traffic will come naturally.

Links from other sites also mean more traffic to your site. And if it’s from a related site then the traffic is more qualified. And such users are likely to like your content and revisit. And perhaps make purchases on your site.

Growing traffic and improving your blog’s ranking is possible through natural linking strategies. A link is a validation of your blog’s content quality, newsworthiness of your blog and your reputation as a subject matter expert.

 

It’s like our own reputation in a community where we live. How would someone recommend us as a good doctor, consultant, accountant or businessman? Only when we have developed a reputation in our domain, would friends, colleagues and neighbors recommend us to someone. That’s exactly the way Google sees a link to your site – as a validation of the quality of content.

 

Your blog’s ranking on search engines like Google is in some ways determined by the links to your blog. The value of the links is determined by the quality, relevance and quantity of the sites or blogs linking to you.

 

Quality of the site that Links

The quality of the blog or site that links to you is important. The site must be focused on your subject; or atleast related to your blog content. The number of links into that site is also key to determining the quality of the link to your blog. How the site or blog links – whether it’s a small comment or complete review of your site, just a recommended link among many other links or a quote from your blog post.

 

So when you write to webmasters or bloggers seeking a link on their site, first find out the relevance of the site and its quality.

 

Beware of those who try to cheat search engines by using black hat techniques – submitting to a large number of sites using a software, adopting cloaking, scraping someone’s content, linking to porn or adult sites, linking to illegal sites or doing sneaky re-directs etc. Don’t touch them with even a barge pole. Don’t link to them.

 

Quantity of Links matter in Google ranking a blog

Yes, the quantity certainly matters in ranking your blog higher in search engine results pages. The best way to get a good number of natural links is to write good and original content, post frequently and build your authority on the subject. Once people see that you have quality content, they’ll start linking to your blog.

 

When you have built a fair number of pages of content, only then should you write to other bloggers and sites seeking a link.

 

Relevance of the link determines the ranking too

This means that if you have a blog that teaches users to play golf, then a link from a site that has news of the latest happenings in the golf circuit, sells golf accessories, a golf forum or a golf club is relevant. If it’s from a blog or site on Barbie dolls, self help, online money making, fashion or some personal ramblings of a blogger, it’s not relevant to users of those sites.

 

The inbound link should fall within the subject of your blog post or blog. Then it’s a relevant link. The reason being the link becomes useful to users who are looking for such content. For shoppers on a furniture site, a link to your golf blog is not useful or relevant; therefore Google and other search engines are likely to give it less weightage.

 

Seo4google.org Tips on Linking

 

The ranking of the site that has the inbound link matters a lot in ranking

The relevance of the subject and context of the blog or site

Where the link is placed – home page or inner page

The anchor text (the words used to hyperlink your blog url)

Whether it’s a review of your blog or just an article link

The number of inbound links to that site

The traffic to the site or blog

The number of users who click from there and land up on your site

The quality and relevance of other links on that page

 

While blogging, remember all these are important in getting a high rank on Google and improving traffic to your blog.