Take Your Time and Plan Your Link Building Carefully
So your site is ready and has been live for enough weeks for you to gain the confidence to start a link building strategy. You have probably been on all sorts of forums reading about this method and that method. All this information gets soaked into your brain and before you know it is just a blur. You know what you want to do and you know what you want to achieve but finding the starting point can be tricky. So what do I do when it is time to start building those all important back links? Well first of all I switch my computer off and grab some paper and a pen.
Let’s forget about all the exciting techniques we read about and all the quick quality link creation methods. You will use them, but to get it right you need to be taking part in a marathon and not a sprint hence the link building strategy. SERP’s are getting more real and more human and they can pick up patterns and diversity in back links and have the power to devalue your hard work if something looks artificially made. So the first thing you should do is write down your website address, its title and what it is about. Look at what you have written and think to yourself where you would imagine seeing those links. For example e-commerce sites will most often be seen on social bookmarking sites due the nature in which people like to share bargains they may have bought, where as how to and information sites will perhaps have smaller blogs on web2 properties. Whichever one you think your website is more connected to, write it at the top of your list because these are possibly going to be your most frequent kind of link that you will want to create with an air of quality. Using this method you can decide which link sources belong where on your ladder; this includes links such as blog comments, guest blog articles, forum profiles, forum posts, article sites, social networking sites and even video sharing sites.
Now that you have rated your link sources in popularity you can come up with a realistic time table that you can work to. This is also an important factor because search engines do not appreciate sudden burst in links, it sets their black hat detectors off. So come up with a rotation system that you can stick to and realistically complete. The best approach to any link building though, is slow acceleration just like a marathon. No one gets 100 links overnight other than perhaps a video that has gone viral. So start off with maybe 10 per week, then 15 the next. You could increase by perhaps 1.5 times per week or even month. Whatever suits your ability just remember this steady acceleration is key to links being viewed as quality because it looks natural.
Okay so we have a nice base and method to build a good range of quality links that following a time table will keep increasing over time. What else can be done to strengthen our link building strategy? Well if we are constantly gaining links for ourselves maybe we should look at offering outbound links to people in our niche. I believe this is often over looked by the selfish SEO players. But if you think of all the serious sites you visit not one of them goes it alone they all have somewhere outbound links to other sites. How can this help you though? Easy, link exchanges that’s how. Whilst you are constantly operating your link building method you can also be hunting for quality sites you can exchange links with. Here you can really take your time as you are not looking for hundreds you want just a few, and the better quality they are the more value you will gain from them. This can also be done by offering guest posts on your site in exchange for a feed from their website. The SERP’s know this happens but do not worry about consequences, this is social, it is sharing and sparingly it is of course genuine.
I hope this has given you a different insight into link building and also how important the planning stage is. Forums are great for information but they also give you that cause to rush on. Links are hard work so by making each one quality and diversified they will maintain maximum value giving you maximum results. One final note I will mention to finish on is why have I not mentioned do follow and no follow? The answer again is diversity, I do not even check what is do follow or no follow and that way I know I am keeping it realistic.