Link building can be very time consuming but like it or not, it is also an unavoidable part of any internet marketing strategy. Here’s some tips to help speed things up for you and make the whole process easier…

1. Know What Keywords to target 

From your keyword research have your top 5 or 10 keyword phrases ready to use these in your link anchor text
(you have done keyword research, right? If not stop link building and go back a step or 3 … do your keyword research! Here’s a nifty free tool to help http://www.wordstream.com/keywords/  ) 
 
So for example I would use Web Design Australia as a link rather than (say) the straight URL http://www.webdesignspecialist.com.au  or even the company name Web Design Specialist. Yes you want to rank well for your company name but unless its something that you know people are going to search for you’re better off concentrate on the keyphrases instead.

2. Focus your link building strategy

There’s a LOT of ways to build back-links.  Some of these are 

1. BLOGGING. (my favourite)
2. directory submission (Dmoz, Yahoo Directory, etc)
3.  article submission (ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com) 
4.  press releases (PRWeb.com) 
5.  social media outlets (FaceBook, Linked In)
6. bookmarking sites (Digg, Reddit, Furl) 
7. Forums (niche forums) 

 If time is limited (isn’t it always!) pick one or two from the list and really work at it. Focus on those 1 or 2 areas and build up an expertise in them.  (For me I find blogging gives the best return ). The key it to focus… otherwise you can spread yourself too thin and get no appreciable results from anything

3. Find Authority sites and get links from them.

Most Search engines see links back to your site as a “vote of confidence” for your site. But that’s not the whole story – if only it were !

The more relevant and authoritative the site providing the link back is, the more weight is given to the link.  
 
It’s not always easy (or cheap) try and get links from sites that are in a related or similar field to yours. But  it’s well worth it. It can count as valuable as a dozen or a hundred “not related” links.

Example of what is a “relevant link” : for me as a web designer a paid link in a web designer directory or a link from a hosting company would be valuable. To an online clothing store these links would be considerably less valuable ( since they are not thematically linked to the clothing industry)

4. Don’t waste your time in reciprocal linking

 Now this might be a bit controversial for some but unless there’s a real compelling reason to “exchange links” it’s generally not worth the effort. Especially where the same effort could gain you a more valuable one-way link!
 
 I am not saying don’t exchange links.  Just don’t expend a lot of effort in doing so.

If you don’t have the time -  outsource it

At this time link building is a necessary requirement for most sites. If you don’t have the time to do it then you should consider getting someone else to do it for you.  Just be sure your outsourcer is following the 1-4 steps above and you’ll be fine. 

I include link building as part of the search engine opimisation service I offer.  So you could start here if you like
 
 Richard Law
Web Design Specialist
 For website design you can afford.

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Tags: affordable SEO, Anchor Text, Article Submission, back-links, Directory Submission, easy link building, Focus, Free Tool, Goarticles, Internet Marketing Strategy, Keyword Phrases, Keyword Research, Link Anchor, Media Outlets, Name Web Design, Niche, Nifty, Search Engine Optimisation, Search Engines, Time Consuming, Vote Of Confidence, Web Design, Web Design Australia, web design SEO, Web Design Specialist, Yahoo

This entry was posted on Monday, September 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Search Engine Optimisation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.