Thursday, April 24, 2008
This is the last of a three part series on optimizing your EditMe site for search. The first post discussed keyword selection and the second covered content optimization. What's left? Your link strategy. This post talks about what a link strategy is and offers tips for building and maintaining yours.
Step 3. Build a link network
If content is the head of the SEO coin, your link strategy is the tail. You can't have one without the other, and search engines put a great deal of weight behind the number of relevant sites that link to yours.
Link building is the act of getting sites that talk about your target keywords to link to your site. For example, we wouldn't think of not being listed at wikimatrix.org (in fact, we're a sponsor) or in the list of wiki hosts at Wikipedia. Come up with a list of sites somebody looking for your site might use, and make sure they can find you there. Here are some specific strategies for link building:
- Wikis are great for this, because you can simply add the link yourself. Be careful not to appear as a link spammer though, or you're likely to be black listed. List your site along with other sites like yours and on page topics for which your site is a relevant and useful resource.
- Find blogs that talk about your site's topic and give them a reason to talk about your site. Make them feel special by sending them press releases, a free sample, early access to information or a new product, or asking their opinion. You can also watch the posts and sign up to leave comments that link to your site. But as mentioned above, avoid shameless self-promotion or your comments will be deleted and you probably won't get a second chance.
- Participate in forums where people talk about your site's topic. Sign up and put a link to your site in your profile or signature and actively participate by answering questions and commenting on other's posts. Most forums also offer a new member space for people to introduce themselves.
- Use social networks to get the word out about your site. Though search engines probably don't put a lot of weight into links from social networks (that site owners can easily add themselves) it does help people find out about your site, and perhaps talk about you in their blog or link to your web site.
- Create your own network of interlinked pages with your main web site at the center. For example, have your main web site, your personal and/or professional blog, profile pages on several different social networking sites and content on free publishing sites like Google Pages all link to each other. This creates a set of inter-linked web properties that each boost the relevance of the other.
- Make personal contact with sites you want to exchange links with. When exchanging links, consider adding the link to your site first. Then, make sure you're talking to the right person (the web master or site owner). Tell them that you've linked to their site, or ask them how they'd like to be linked to, and ask if they'd link back to you. Consider providing them with access to a logo or words to use, and where on your site it might make the most sense.
- Don't have a "Links" on your site that simply lists other sites. Instead, point to related sites where it makes sense within the content of your site, and link descriptive text, not just a domain name. This will show the search engines that you're linking to the site for a reason and what the reason is. If you're hoping for a reciprocal link, it will also help you get the other site to do the same. Being one in a long list of links tucked away in the back room of a web site does little for either party.
- Consider issuing press releases to prnewsire.com and similar sites. You often have to pay for these services, but if you've got interesting and important news to release, it can be worth it.
So that's the basic three-step process. There's certainly more to it (Google site maps, for example), but if you're following the steps in these posts, you're doing the right things and, in most cases, enough. Speaking of Google Site Maps, the latest Product Release: Modules, Page Counter & User Stats product release made maintaining one of these on your site a little easier. Stay tuned for a post on that topic.
