Sorry for posting such an obvious question to the most of you, but I currently own a PR2 eCommerce / Catalog style website and I am trying to improve my SERP.
I have put a big emphasis in the past few weeks on page content, title, description and keywords - so I think I am fairly clean in regards to those issues.
Now I am trying to get to the next level and I think my next step is link building (which I have basically done nothing with)... but I am unsure of what link building means because it seems like it can mean many different things.
Questions: Most posts I read emphasize on submitting 10 to 20 links per day as a goal. What does this strategy of submitting links mean exactly? Submitting my site to a directory that is SEO friendly? Will this really help my SERP? To me linking means referring one content to another or referring one site to another site.It is mostly used in SEO world. Directory submission is one of the common link building methods... it will your website gain more web presence and can also help your website improve in SERP especially if you will submit to the good ones.
Link building is not only with directory submissions, you can also do different techniques such article submission, blogging, social networking and more. Linking is simply getting other sites to link to yours. There's endless ways to do it but you need to make sure they are legit ways. Many people try to find shortcuts to creating lots of fast back links but that type of activity will get you banned or black balled from the search engines. What you need to do is start creating valuable content and networking with other sites that are interested in your content. Getting one back link from a very popular site is better than getting 50 back links from a site that no one goes too. What everyone has said is true, you can use articles, blogs, forums, and other sites that are relevant to the content on your site to provide a link to your site. Authority sites, .edu, .gov, etc. or sites that have been around for a few years are the best sites to provide you with these links, because, when a bot / spider (whichever you choose to call it) trawls the web to find links, it will find links to your site from these authority sites, and this can help you to boost PR. You could look into link partners as well, where you find sites on the web that are in an industry or area similar to yours, and ask them to link to your site, and you would then in turn link back to them. Quality inbound links as well as outbound links can only be good for a site. There has however been a little debate as to whether reciprocal links are actually worth it, but I feel that if these links either link to, or link from an authority site, its worthwhile. Find industry related website and ask them for link exchange. Post comments on blog. Write article and press releases and submit it. Referring one site to another site is called linking, it's mostly gives by the anchor tag.
Majority it will used in SEO, with the link exchange, directory submission, Social Bookmarking etc... Linking means that you have keyword and on that keywords you create your links for that website which you want to promote. By this you can generate the traffic to your website. Link building is not only one method or one source. The area of link building is wide. There are lots of methods like -
directory submissions
article submissions
RSS submissions
blog comments
forums
etc. forum post, blog walking, submit se, etc. u will get backlink from onother site or u can using seo software, eg: scrapebox Link building is exactly as it sounds really building the amount of links you have pointing to yours.
There are various methods:
Lint Baiting (Basicly having such good content people link to you anyway)
Forum posting (Please dont spam them though, be a useful part of the community)
Advertising directly on website
Article writting and submission
PR writting and submission
Guest blogging
Blog commenting
Directory submissions
Social bookmarking
And more Linking means creating a keywords that directly connects to the site your promoting whenever they click on it. On johnevas list above... I'd describe "link baiting" a little differently. Link baiting to me is best exemplified by bloggers that post on some topic that is a guaranteed draw. That has nothing to do with content being " good", cause in some cases terrible content is excellent link bait.
Link bait sample 1 - the volatile topic
The writer mentions a topic where those on either side are entrenched and volatile. He could write a post praising ( or vilifying) a world leader or religion that many feel strongly about for example, or a company or organization that has both strong fans and opponents. Such posts bring flames, but they bring traffic. This is one reason forums tend to put up with p&r sections. They are search magnets and steady sources of traffic.
Link bait sample 2- the hot search item
I wrote a blog post on a law affecting photographers taking candid shots in public. In the post I mentioned a certain professional cheerleading squad and made references to hot cheerleaders and a few related body parts. The references were all tame but those references generate search engine hits every day. The blog isn't monetized, just a personal blog, but I know a couple of topics that'd be perfect traffic magnets.In this case the link you're gaining is a common search link. It'll be referenced by WP search, the SE will find it, etc....
That's my understanding of the term link bait. May not be exactly as others see it.
As for the question at the top of the thread... No idea who passed out a magic 20 link number. Not all links are created equal, so that seems like a meaningless number. One link in a spot that generates direct targeted traffic may be more important than 200 (that's a randomly chosen number btw) links in obvious link farms.
Don't focus on numbers of links, focus on quality. It's better to work really smart than really hard. Face it, there are people that make hundreds of times more money than others. They can't have hundreds of times more hours in their day, they just use the ones they work more effectively. Thank you all very much for taking the time to reply, all of your responses are much appreciated.
A couple of more questions
1) What is the rule or educated guess in regards to creating a “links” page on a website nowadays? Is it beneficial at all to create such a page to gain better SERP? Or is it more of a risk to have one at all? If it is wise to have one – what is the right way to build one?
2) How about the No-Follow rule? Seems like I have read a few things on that – would that be applied here on a links page? Again – only if it is wise to build a link page at all?
I have other sites to do link to my site, would it be a good idea to only link to those that link back to me? yes, building links will help your website to have a good position in major search engines. Bear in mind that the number of inbound links is what search engines look at when ranking a site.
I have put a big emphasis in the past few weeks on page content, title, description and keywords - so I think I am fairly clean in regards to those issues.
Now I am trying to get to the next level and I think my next step is link building (which I have basically done nothing with)... but I am unsure of what link building means because it seems like it can mean many different things.
Questions: Most posts I read emphasize on submitting 10 to 20 links per day as a goal. What does this strategy of submitting links mean exactly? Submitting my site to a directory that is SEO friendly? Will this really help my SERP? To me linking means referring one content to another or referring one site to another site.It is mostly used in SEO world. Directory submission is one of the common link building methods... it will your website gain more web presence and can also help your website improve in SERP especially if you will submit to the good ones.
Link building is not only with directory submissions, you can also do different techniques such article submission, blogging, social networking and more. Linking is simply getting other sites to link to yours. There's endless ways to do it but you need to make sure they are legit ways. Many people try to find shortcuts to creating lots of fast back links but that type of activity will get you banned or black balled from the search engines. What you need to do is start creating valuable content and networking with other sites that are interested in your content. Getting one back link from a very popular site is better than getting 50 back links from a site that no one goes too. What everyone has said is true, you can use articles, blogs, forums, and other sites that are relevant to the content on your site to provide a link to your site. Authority sites, .edu, .gov, etc. or sites that have been around for a few years are the best sites to provide you with these links, because, when a bot / spider (whichever you choose to call it) trawls the web to find links, it will find links to your site from these authority sites, and this can help you to boost PR. You could look into link partners as well, where you find sites on the web that are in an industry or area similar to yours, and ask them to link to your site, and you would then in turn link back to them. Quality inbound links as well as outbound links can only be good for a site. There has however been a little debate as to whether reciprocal links are actually worth it, but I feel that if these links either link to, or link from an authority site, its worthwhile. Find industry related website and ask them for link exchange. Post comments on blog. Write article and press releases and submit it. Referring one site to another site is called linking, it's mostly gives by the anchor tag.
Majority it will used in SEO, with the link exchange, directory submission, Social Bookmarking etc... Linking means that you have keyword and on that keywords you create your links for that website which you want to promote. By this you can generate the traffic to your website. Link building is not only one method or one source. The area of link building is wide. There are lots of methods like -
directory submissions
article submissions
RSS submissions
blog comments
forums
etc. forum post, blog walking, submit se, etc. u will get backlink from onother site or u can using seo software, eg: scrapebox Link building is exactly as it sounds really building the amount of links you have pointing to yours.
There are various methods:
Lint Baiting (Basicly having such good content people link to you anyway)
Forum posting (Please dont spam them though, be a useful part of the community)
Advertising directly on website
Article writting and submission
PR writting and submission
Guest blogging
Blog commenting
Directory submissions
Social bookmarking
And more Linking means creating a keywords that directly connects to the site your promoting whenever they click on it. On johnevas list above... I'd describe "link baiting" a little differently. Link baiting to me is best exemplified by bloggers that post on some topic that is a guaranteed draw. That has nothing to do with content being " good", cause in some cases terrible content is excellent link bait.
Link bait sample 1 - the volatile topic
The writer mentions a topic where those on either side are entrenched and volatile. He could write a post praising ( or vilifying) a world leader or religion that many feel strongly about for example, or a company or organization that has both strong fans and opponents. Such posts bring flames, but they bring traffic. This is one reason forums tend to put up with p&r sections. They are search magnets and steady sources of traffic.
Link bait sample 2- the hot search item
I wrote a blog post on a law affecting photographers taking candid shots in public. In the post I mentioned a certain professional cheerleading squad and made references to hot cheerleaders and a few related body parts. The references were all tame but those references generate search engine hits every day. The blog isn't monetized, just a personal blog, but I know a couple of topics that'd be perfect traffic magnets.In this case the link you're gaining is a common search link. It'll be referenced by WP search, the SE will find it, etc....
That's my understanding of the term link bait. May not be exactly as others see it.
As for the question at the top of the thread... No idea who passed out a magic 20 link number. Not all links are created equal, so that seems like a meaningless number. One link in a spot that generates direct targeted traffic may be more important than 200 (that's a randomly chosen number btw) links in obvious link farms.
Don't focus on numbers of links, focus on quality. It's better to work really smart than really hard. Face it, there are people that make hundreds of times more money than others. They can't have hundreds of times more hours in their day, they just use the ones they work more effectively. Thank you all very much for taking the time to reply, all of your responses are much appreciated.
A couple of more questions
1) What is the rule or educated guess in regards to creating a “links” page on a website nowadays? Is it beneficial at all to create such a page to gain better SERP? Or is it more of a risk to have one at all? If it is wise to have one – what is the right way to build one?
2) How about the No-Follow rule? Seems like I have read a few things on that – would that be applied here on a links page? Again – only if it is wise to build a link page at all?
I have other sites to do link to my site, would it be a good idea to only link to those that link back to me? yes, building links will help your website to have a good position in major search engines. Bear in mind that the number of inbound links is what search engines look at when ranking a site.