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Links aren’t so bad after all

For quite some time now there has been a rather intense debate within the SEO community regarding links. Exactly what is their value? What does Google think about link building?
The list of questions goes on, and there are always multiple views on every issue.
Perhaps in an effort to set the record straight (as much as Google can or will) or for some reason unknown to us, Mr. Cutts has shed a little more light on the subject of links and their relativity to web rankings.
According to Mr. Cutts, links are still a viable ranking factor. He did not comment on exactly how much links influenced rankings, but getting this level of information from anyone of his influence in the search field is definitely a big deal.

Link building is okay!

As if this wasn’t exciting enough, Matt Cutts goes on to talk about Google’s stance on link building. As it turns out, link building itself is not the problem, but rather the way many people approach the concept is flawed. The idea is not to focus on getting people to link to you or building links simply for the sake of doing so. Instead, the focus should be on creating the kind of content that people want to link to all on their own. Sure you can include social sharing buttons and other elements to make sharing easier, but the content should be able to stand alone and be awesome with or without incentives or opportunities for easy sharing.
He also spoke about a few content marketing / link building practices that could use a different approach as well:

Press releases – Press releases shouldn’t be thought of as link building vehicles first, and information sources last. Instead the focus should be on attracting the attention of media outlets and journalists who might be interested in promoting your story. Though press releases often allow for a link to be included, make sure that any links you make a part of the release are relevant to the information in the release and on the page of your website you’re linking to. Make your press release more about information than purely about SEO.

Guest posting – Because it has been identified as a way to build links, guest posting has gotten off track and has promoted the creation of blogs and websites that aren’t all that dissimilar to the bloated low-quality article directories that were hit hard by the Panda algorithm update. Essentially a trend of submitting less than amazing content to blogs of less than stellar reputation just for the sake of gaining a link or two has become common practice, and that isn’t the way things should be. Instead guest posting should be about generating more awareness and exposure for your brand, and reaching out to new audiences while networking with other bloggers and businesses in your industry. There needs to be more focus on quality content and building relationships, leaving link building as a pleasant side benefit, not the main event.

Guest Blogger – Kris Dietz

I love creating something amazing then spreading the word about it! My mission is to develop and mold SEO into an amazing outlet of sharing valuable resources. I enjoy networking and meeting like minded individuals.

With Penguin 2.0 upon us you should be adjusting your inbound link campaign accordingly. Matt Cutts (Head of Google Spam) has given us plenty of warning about Penguin 2.0 and how you should tacking your link building.

You Will Not Get Ranked With Links Alone

Internet Marketing is not just about link building anymore; you need to focus on various other factors as well if you want to perform well on search results. If you take a look at the below graph, inbound marketing does play a large part in search engine rankings, but you cannot just focus on link building.

If your website has poor onsite SEO, no regular blog posts, no social signals and no brand signals, you will never rank. Every section in the above graph is as important as the other. Do not think of Internet marketing as ranking high on Google, instead think of it as earning high traffic volume as your goal.

In this article I will be only discussing about inbound links, Brand vs Keyword. I thought I would add this note and graph so website owners wouldn’t think creating backlinks alone would earn them more traffic!

How Your Links Should Be Created

For those of you that are not 100% keyed up with inbound marketing, I will quickly go over it. Do not do any of the below:

Pay for backlinks.
Waste your time adding links in headers, footers or sidebars.
Join any link scheme or automated service.
Include your link in spammy content.
Have your link on irrelevant, untrustworthy sites.

Basically keep your links looking natural by guest blogging quality content with your link included naturally.

Keyword Backlinks

For many years now having keyword backlinks used to play a huge role in the positioning of your website on Google, not so much today. A keyword backlink is your targeted keyword used as an anchor text and usually pointing back to your homepage.

I believe keyword backlinks are important, but something you shouldn’t focus all your attention on. You should never only focus on your homepage, you should always build links to all web pages within your website. Every page is important, not just your homepage so build links to all.

If you wasn’t already aware, you should only try and optimize 2 main keywords for each web page, anymore than 2 will start looking unnatural. From these 2 keywords you need to build a list of variants using Google Keyword Tool and Trends. If you are using the same keyword backlinks to your pages, it will start looking unnatural. This is why having a list of variants will keep your links looking natural with the added advantage of being ranked higher for more key phrases.

Brand Links

Brand backlinks are anchor links that contain your company name, website address or a company employee. Branding is huge with Internet marketing at the minute and will be for many years.

Creating brand backlinks will increase your websites traffic on search results in the long run. The key is creating the quality content surrounding your backlink. If your end goal is to get ranked for keywords along the lines of ‘Builder London’, your content should be focused around that theme. For example, you could write an article on how buildings have evolved in London over the past 100 years. This content will be high value and of interest to users, at the same time, 100% focused on your keyword. Instead of using a keyword backlink, use a brand backlink. This way Google will connect your brand and website with the theme of your article (Builder London), thus increasing your sites authority and trust, which will then lead to higher rankings for this keyword, amongst other variants.

Brand backlinks will give your site more authority over keyword backlinks as your content will be connected to all text within the article. Not around the targeted keyword link.

Maintain A Ratio

Before reevaluating your inbound link campaign, have a company generate an internet marketing strategy for your business, not only for your links, but for blogging and social signal. If you are promoting all of these sections, your site will see a return on visitors. I would suggest creating 5 brand links for every one keyword backlink. This way your inbound links stay looking natural.

By Kev Massey – Kev is the Sales Manager at SixtyMarketing and writes the majority of blog posts for SixtyMarketing giving free, useful Internet marketing & web design tips. Please follow Kev and his team on Facebook for their latest posts.