7 Ways Link Relevance Improves Search Engine Optimization

link relevance

Page rank used to be a determining factor for ranking web pages so webmasters focused on only getting links from high page rank websites. This no longer works because Google now uses other factors to determine the value of a backlink.

Andre Weyher who was a former member of Google’s web spam team, gave an interview in which he revealed several factors that can be useful to improve your search engine optimization campaign.

One of the most important factors he mentioned was
Link Relevance…

“Getting a link from a high PR (pagerank)page used to always be valuable, today it’s more the relevance of the site’s theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR.”

This means getting a link related to your own website is more important than getting a link from an unrelated high PR webpage. Using automated link building tools for rapidly building unrelated links to your website will put your website at risk. Instead a link building campaign should really be called a relationship management campaign.

Google judges your link profile by the quality of pages linking to your site so getting 3 links from authentic pages will do much more than getting 1000 links from splogs. Instead of investing your precious time getting hundreds of non-relevant links invest in acquiring relevant links.

So how do you find relevant links?

First create an Excel spreadsheet that lists 100 websites related to your niche. Use this list to add comments (containing a link back to your website) to a variety of relevant sites in your niche.

Here Are 7 Ways To Find Relevant Links To
Improve Search Engine Optimization

1. Blog search

Use Google’s blog search (http://www.google.com/blogsearch) to find the top blogs in your niche. Visit each one of them to look for visitor engagement. For example if a blog contains recent posts with multiple comments means it’s an active blog worth adding to your list.

Example
Say you build a website on fitness, then simply search blogs related to fitness, health, etc.

2. Social media search

Utilize Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+, YouTube to interact with people that have the same interests. Google and other search engines use social signals to rank websites. If your website has a lot of visitor engagement it will help out rank your competition.

3. Google alerts

Create a Google Alerts account in your niche to receive instant notifications on new developments in your industry. These may include press releases, all posts, news, etc. It will help you keep abreast of what’s new and add new sites to your list.

4. Niche directories

Avoid getting links from unrelated directories. Instead search for good quality directories related to your niche. The best niche directories are one’s that are constantly updated. Don’t discount local directories because the more links you get in them the better your chances of attaining high rankings for your website. To find niche directories enter keyword+directory in Google’s search box.

5. Press releases

Submitting a release on the topic of your website is a great way to build a lot of relevant links in a very short time. Many news websites have high visibility in the search engines so getting a link on their website will boost your rankings.

6. Quality content

Creating quality content naturally attracts high-quality backlinks (even when you’re not seeking them). If you provide solutions to the biggest problems of your target audience they will not only read your content but want to share it with their friends.

7. On page optimization

Even though off page optimization is one of the key factors for gaining high rankings on page optimization is still very significant. For example make sure you put your main keyword phrase in the title tag, create a captivating meta description, utilize H1, H2 for your content titles and subtitles.

Note: Don’t place more than 2 commercial keywords in
your titles or Google will frown upon it.

Tip
When writing your web copy don’t write based on pleasing the search engines. Google penalizes sites for over optimization. Instead write as if you are speaking to a person sitting opposite you. This will make it read naturally to your visitors.

Resources (PDFs)
Cheat Sheet: Linking at a Glance
Linking How To Guide

Effective Link Building Strategies – Top 7

Link popularity
If you’re an online business owner you know that generating traffic to your website and converting that traffic into sales is the lifeblood of your business. One of the best ways of generating free traffic is getting high rankings in the search engines. In order to achieve high rankings you need lots of inbound links. The quantity, quality and relevance of these links are the main factors why search engines will rank one site ahead of another. Incorrect link building will lower your rankings and kill your traffic.

Recently many websites lost their search engine rankings after the Penguin Update because they didn’t acquire their links naturally. Webmasters who subscribed to automated link building software, link farms or received all their links from a single source lost their rankings resulting in lack of sales. Their website was no longer on the first page of Google.

Top 7 effective link building strategies

[Read more…]

What Is A Link Wheel and Should You Use It for Building Links?

link wheel
Link building is a necessity if you want to gain high rankings in the search engines and attract traffic to your website. The quality and quantity of links determines how well your website will rank. For instance if the number and quality of links is greater than your competitors you will outrank them.

What is a link wheel?

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What Does it Mean If a Link Has the “Nofollow” Attribute?

no follow attribute
“Nofollow” links are primarly used to stop search engines from following a specific link. This means no link juice gets passed on. For instance if I implement a “no follow” link on my website it will prevent passing on pagerank to the destination link and it will prevent the destination link from being crawled by the search engines.

The amount of “nofollow” links on the web are only a small percentage compared to the total number. Google, Yahoo, and Bing all include nofollow links in their site backlink counts however they don’t show all the backlinks from your site.

How to implement the “Nofollow” Attribute?

[Read more…]

Contextual Link Building – What Is It And How To Build Them

If you want to gain high rankings in the search engines you need to focus on 2 crucial factors. The first one is to make sure all your web pages are optimized to enable the search engine spiders to easily index and rank your site. The second most important factor is building incoming links (backlinks) to your website. The quality, quantity and variety of links will determine how quickly your rankings increase.

Some of the most popular link building methods website owners employ include commenting on blogs, forums, submitting to search engines, directories, social bookmarking and sharing content through social media sites. One little known but highly effective method is contextual link building.

What is Contextual Link Building?

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3 Tips For Creating Your Backlinking Strategy

The desire of most website owners is to gain first page rankings on Google, Yahoo and Bing. Some think that just building a website and uploading it to the Web will guarantee it will immediately appear when someone enters their primary keyword in the search box. More savy website owners know you not only need to optimize your website but also need an ongoing backlinking strategy to see your rankings grow over time.

3 Tips For Creating Your Backlinking Strategy

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Automated vs Natural Backlinking – Which Method Is Most Effective?

You’ve probably seen offers saying something similar to “100 edu backlinks for $50” or offering software that promises you a No 1 ranking on Google with automated backlinking software. The question is…

Should you buy backlink packages or automated backlinking software?

Most websites owners know they need backlinks to improve their rankings. The problem is they don’t have time or the energy to engage in conversations on blogs, forums and social media sites in their niche so they opt for an easy way….automated backlinking.

What is automated backlinking?

[Read more…]

How to Backlink – 7 ways to build natural backlinks

In my previous article I discussed the benefits of backlinks but did not explain how to build them. If it’s not done correctly your website could be penalized by experiencing a drop in search engine rankings.

How not to backlink

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Benefits of Backlinks and Their Importance

How do backlinks affect search engine rankings?
Are all backlinks created equal?
How does link building affect traffic generation?

Just building a website and hosting it on the net doesn’t guarantee you’ll get any traffic. In fact you won’t generate any traffic if you don’t market it. Besides optimizing your web pages (called on page optimization) one of the most important factors for gaining high rankings is how many links point to your website from other web properties. Links can be compared to votes. The more votes (or links) your site receives the more popular it becomes with a resulting increase in rankings.

Are all backlinks created equal?

The short answer is no. High quality links carry more weight than low quality ones. For instance a link from CNN would carry more weight than a site that has just come online because CNN has 1000s of links already pointing to it and is constantly adding new content. Getting high quality backlinks may take more time to acquire however they will boost your rankings faster and higher than low quality links.

Top 7 benefits of backlinks and their importance

1. Increase search engine rankings

When you first build a site it starts off with zero backlinks and won’t be found in the search engines. If you consistently build backlinks to it over several months your website will not only be indexed by the search engines but it’s rankings will increase. If you want to outrank competitors sites get more links than them.

2. Traffic generation

If you get a link from a website or blog that receives thousands of visitors a day some of those will be redirected to your website. If your site ranks on the first page of Google it will receive much more traffic than if it’s on the second or third page as most people don’t search further than the first page for information.

3. Generate sales and/or subscribers

More traffic increases the potential for generating sales. This is why you need to start a link building campaign for your website. As the quality and quantity of your links increase so will your sales and subscriptions. Keep in mind you still need to convert visitors into customers. Gaining more traffic won’t guarantee sales if you have weak web copy.

4. Become recognized as an authority in your niche

As you attract more backlinks the popularity of your site will increase. Instead of looking for backlinks webmasters will naturally want to link to your website because you’ve established yourself as an authority in your niche. For example if your site is about worm farming it could become the “go to” site for anything related to that subject.

5. Increase Alexa ranking

Alexa is a search engine that shows where your site ranks out of all the sites in the USA and the world. It also provides traffic statistics. If you rank within the top 100,000 websites on the net you’ll have reached a great milestone. Webmasters will often check your Alexa ranking before they link to you.

6. Sell advertising

When your website attains high rankings and receives lots of traffic you begin receiving lots of offers from other website owners. One of these is to advertise on your site. This could be in the form of a a banner or a link. The banner could promote a product while a link would help redirect some of your visitors to their website plus improve their rankings (because they receive a high quality link). If you do accept advertising offers only accept ones related to your niche.

7. Joint ventures

These are website owners who want you to help promote their product. They’ll often offer you a commission in exchange for promoting their product on your website. Avoid doing joint ventures with unrelated products and make sure you both agree on the terms before you begin a promotion.

The key to building a highly effective link building campaign is to build the number and quality of links constantly and consistently. Your rankings will increase over time as Google and the other search engines index new links.

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What is the Difference Between Inbound and Outbound Links?

To achieve high search engine rankings you need to get lots of incoming links pointing to your website from other websites. The quality, quantity and variety of links determine how high your site will rank.

Should you just focus on getting inbound links or get outbound links as well?

[Read more…]