Link Building Strategy

Kick the Orphans Out

You gotta be cruel to be kind (to your website). When requesting free or paid links from compatible websites, don’t accept the lonely orphan link to your site. Instead, request links embedded within a family of rich text words related to the content on your landing page. Make sure the links are surrounded by rich content that works in concert with the optimization strategy of your landing page. You won’t be a lonely orphan with the Sponsor Program from LifeTips.

No Fishy Links

The words around a link phrase help the search engines resolve questions of ambiguity and equivocation. For example, in the sentence, “I’m a fish out of water here, but I’m learning how the place works,” the isolated link phrase, “fish out of water,” could refer to a salmon or to a newcomer. The other words in the sentence resolve the ambiguity and validate the meaning. When you’re engineering link strategy, craft words around link phrases that support the SEO strategy of the landing pages. The links from the Sponsor Program at LifeTips are always a good catch!

Links: Think Inside the Box

Too many websites miss the opportunity to build link strategy within their sites that can support the optimization strategy of the landing page. Capitalize on this missed opportunity by making sure you have keyword-rich, contextual links to your internal pages. Contextual validation can start within your own website.

Links Build Reputation

Face it—you need to make your case for a top listing with the search engines. But how? Links from contextually relevant websites help you validate the content on your own site and secure top listing positions. The spider bots believe what other websites say about your site more than what you say on your own site, so find links from contextually similar, well-optimized, and content-rich pages. You’ll be proud of your links from the Sponsor Program at LifeTips if you can find an open niche.

Beware of Tracker IDs

Sure, tracker identification on links helps you measure conversion and sales, but the best links to your site are direct links without any tracker ID in the URL. Why? Because the spider bots quickly detect likely “profit measurement” from the link and lessen the value in comparison with natural links— a major disadvantage. In order to get something (more organic traffic from the search engines), you may have to give something up (accountability of your links).

Seek Authority Links

Not all links are created equal. Links from authority websites are the best links you can have, but don’t confuse page rank with authority status. The best links come from popular websites that readers value and visit regularly. They are sites with bestselling authors—the root of authority. When popular authority websites link to yours, you help make the case that your site is important and worthy of a top listing.

Evaluate Links Carefully

You can't judge a book by its cover, and you can’t determine the link value of a website just by its Google Page Rank status, either. For a closer look at the deeper picture, check the Alexa rating of the site as well as the number of pages indexed at Google, MSN, and Yahoo!. It’s also essential to check back-link popularity as well. Try using Yahoo! Site Explorer at SiteExplorer.Search.Yahoo.com and browse sites like Suma-Tools, SEO Book, and other free online resources. Get back [links] to the basics!

Link Exchanges

One bad apple can spoil the whole bunch. Approach link exchanges with caution. Companies that do not comply with ethical linking standards can hurt your website if you link to them or if they link to you, so get the facts and perform some tests before you agree to a link exchange. Remember that link exchanges in general are farther down the link power chain and less influential to your listing positions in the search engines.

Link Exclusivity

Research proves that link power is diminished as the number of links off a web page increases. Link power seems to be further reduced when competing websites receive links from the same site, so the best links are exclusive links to your website—links that your competition doesn’t have. Find links that are off the beaten track; it’s the secret to improving your listing positions in the search engines.

Poison Kills

Improving your link popularity should have an impact on your listing positions in the search engines, but make sure your website is free of poison that can kill the boosting potential of links. Common problems include unreadable menus, poor meta strategy, broken links, temporary redirects, lack of site map, poor navigation structure, and unfriendly session ID URL strings. Tip your white hat too much, and it turns black.