On Link Building and SEO – How does it even Work?

In following with our series on SEO related topics this month on the blog, I’d like to talk a little bit about link building. For those of you who are at all familiar with SEO, I’m sure you’ve heard the term before – and sometimes the connotations aren’t all that great. Because of spammy link building practices and techniques throughout the years, the term has kind of gotten a bad name. However, if you go about it the right way, you’ve got nothing to worry about. Link building is an important and helpful tool to have in your SEO arsenal, and definitely something worth learning how to do correctly if you’re looking to grow your business online.

What is Linking?

But first, what qualifies as a link and why do they apply to you? Let’s answer the question with an example. Say you write an awesome piece of content about gardening techniques. Like, it’s incredible. And then let’s say you promote your content on social media and share it with all your gardening friends (which you should definitely do). They read your content, recognize its amazingness, and decide that they’d like to share it with their readers in a blog post of their own. Maybe they’d write a blog post about “best gardening practices” and link to your piece within their content. Or they might create a resource type page on their site with links to their favorite articles and blogs for tips about gardening, and they may link to your content from there. Either way, they are linking to your content, and you’ve just earned a new link to your site – congrats!

The more quality links your site receives, the higher it’s going to rank in Google. There are a smattering of other factors (like those we’ve been discussing over the past few weeks) that influence page ranking, but the presence of quality links pointing to your site has long been a constant and effective way to give your site a boost.

That being said, you’ve got to place an emphasis on quality links. It doesn’t pay to have a bunch of spammy sites linking to you – in fact, this is something that Google penalizes. They want the links to make sense to readers, enhancing search queries to better meet the needs of the searchers. The same goes for linking out from your own site – only link to quality, useful and trustworthy sources. It’s better to have a few quality links than many spammy ones.

Types of Links

So, that’s essentially what a link is – but did you know that there are also different types of links? It’s not too complicated, I promise. Basically, link types are determined by the way in which they are created. Going back to the example above, when your friend links to you because they enjoyed your content, that would be one kind of link – a natural link. They found your content useful, so they decided to link to it. Easy as that.

However, sometimes SEOs will email other bloggers, webmasters, forums, etc. to promote their own content, aka asking these individuals/websites for links back. It’s not an uncommon practice, and it can be very effective if you don’t go overboard. Like, don’t bombard the same poor blogger with requests for links multiple times a day. Do some research within your industry, pinpoint some blogs/sites/forums that seem to fit the theme of your own website, then send a nice, tactful email to the bloggers requesting a link. You could even ask to do a link exchange or something like that. This type of link requires a little more effort on your part to obtain, but it’s no less useful once the link has been made.

Additionally, links can also be created through comments on blogs, forums, etc., creating a path back to your own site. While this is relatively easy and quite limitless, these links don’t count as highly as the others. They’re sometimes even considered to be spammy, so definitely don’t go overboard here.

Other Tid-bits

Some important tidbits to keep in mind before we get into some strategies – first, as I said earlier, links from higher quality pages are much more effective and powerful. Think government pages, news sites, educational sites – Wikipedia is a great example of this done correctly. So many people link to various pages on Wikipedia daily – just think about all those quality links! That’s why it always pulls up so highly in the search results for those random terms you type into the search bar.

Also, if you’re targeting a specific keyword within your content (which you should), try to get links from sites that are already ranking for that same keyword. That way, Google will know that your sites are related by that keyword, and you know it’s a higher quality site if it’s already ranking for said terms. You can also try looking at your competitor’s backlinks to see who is linking to them. You might try and target those same sites for a link in the future – if they were interested in your competition, they might also be interested in you.

One more thing – search engines like Google tend to value links differently based on a number of factors. Instead of me trying to explain this, go and check out this awesome blog post on Moz.com. It’s very helpful!

A Few Strategies

Ask your customers to link to you. Ask them to put a partnership badge on their website, or maybe write a review about your company and link back to your site. If they have a resource page, or a page dedicated to providers they use and trust, see if they’ll link to you there.

Create a blog and produce good quality content regularly. I’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Goggle loves fresh, quality content on a consistent basis, so if you’re producing it and others are sharing it, you’re more likely to achieve higher rankings. Do a little keyword research, try targeting a few key phrases in your content, and keep plugging away even if you don’t see results right away. It can take a good chunk of time for Google to recognize your consistency so don’t give up early.

Produce viral or newsworthy content. You know those blogs or videos that just seem to take off? Try to create some of those. I know, I know, easier said than done. But at least try! Do some research and see what types of content seem to go viral within your niche. And then do something similar – with your own personal flair of course. The same goes for newsworthy content – if there’s something big happening within your industry, form your opinion on the matter and then blog about it. Sometimes being a bit controversial can go a long way too. Try to get people talking about the things that matter most to them. The more convincing and honest you are, the more likely others will link back to you.

Conclusion

Link building doesn’t have to be difficult, but it can be a bit awkward or challenging until you get the hang of it. But don’t give up! It’s important, and the more you practice, the more successful you’ll be.

But – how do you define link strategy success? When you start to see an increase in search traffic and higher rankings, you know you’re doing something right. Keep doing what you’re doing, but always be researching and trying new methods. As with anything in the SEO world, strategies change, so make sure you’re constantly evolving.

Have you tried any of the strategies listed above? Did you have any success? What’s worked for you?

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**This post is the 5th in a series on all things SEO. If you missed the first 3 posts, you can check them out right here:

What is SEO and Why is it Important?

Best Practices for On Page Optimization

The Perfectly Structured Blog Post

How to Improve Site Structure for SEO

SEO is an ever-evolving field, but when it comes to site structure, there are a few things you can count on to make sure that your site is easily accessible and navigable for both humans and search engines alike. Here’s a short list of some of the things you can do to improve your overall site structure from an SEO and general usability standpoint:

1. Create Content that is Indexable

You can create the best content in the world, but if the search engines can’t see it, they won’t be able to understand what it’s about, and therefore won’t be able to index it appropriately. The solution? Make sure your content is indexable. Here’s what I mean by that – instead of using graphics, images or Flash-files to display your text on the page, just use plain and simple HTML text format. Search engines can read the HTML, which means they will be able to understand your content, recognize the keywords that you use, and then index it appropriately.

You can still use images to enhance your content – in fact, I would recommend that – however, just make sure you’re using alt tags for your images. (Alt tags are just a text tag attached to your image that explains what it’s about – you can easily add these in WordPress.) That way, search engines will see your images as well as your HTML text – double bonus!

2. A Site Structure that is Crawlable

It’s one thing if the search engines can’t see your content, but what if they can’t find it either? When search engines crawl your site for content, there has to be a path for them to follow. So if you have pages on your site that aren’t connected to anything, the search engine crawlers (let’s call them bots) aren’t going to be able to find that page – you have to leave a trail!

But how do you do that? It all comes down to the way you lay out your website. For example, let’s say you have a website that offers different services, resources and you also have a blog. You might have three pages then – Services, Resources and Blog. All of those pages connect back to the home page. So that’s two levels of pages in the hierarchy. Then let’s say you want to talk about a specific service you provide in more detail. You would create a page about the service, but link it back to the main services page, i.e. MySite.com/Services/Specific-Service. The same would be true for resources or blogs that you post on your site – MySite.com/Resources/Specific-Resource of MySite.com/Blog/Blog-Post. This way the bots can tell which pages are related, how they all fit within the overall structure of your site, and most importantly they can find your content because you’ve left a trail for them to follow.

Another thing to keep in mind – don’t keep creating branches in the page hierarchy. It’s a well-known SEO best practice that you should keep pages within 4 clicks of the main page. If it takes upwards of 5 clicks to get to a single page, the bots (and your readers for that matter) most likely won’t be able to find the page. So remember to keep things simple and clean. Choose well defined categories and pages before you start your website so that you don’t run into problems later on down the road when you start accumulating more content.

One thing I like to do when laying out a website is create a map of where all the content will go. Start with the home page, then branch out and see where everything might fit. Then once you’ve got clearly defined pages and categories, you can go ahead and start building!

3. Clear URL Structure

We already know that site structure is important, but did you know that the URL structure you use is also very important? In most cases, the shorter the URL, the better off it will be. And keep out all the crazy numbers and letters – search engines and people should be able to get a general idea of what your page will be about just by the URL. It also helps if you can use the keyword you are targeting within the URL for that particular page.

For example, if you’re writing a blog post about the best chocolate cake in Dallas, you could use the URL – MySite.com/Blog/best-chocolate-cake-dallas. It’s clear what you’re writing about and there is a path (Homepage > Blog > Chocolate Cake in Dallas) for the bots to follow when they index your site. And if someone chooses to link back to your page, they may use the words “Best Chocolate Cake in Dallas” within their own content (their anchor text) to link to your page. This only helps the search engines better understand what your page is about, and in turn helps your rankings over time.

So – make sure you clearly define a URL structure for your site. If you have a blog, all your blogs should appear under MySite.com/Blog/Whatever-Topic. If it’s an event that you are promoting, set up the structure to read something like MySite.com/Events/Whatever-Event. Be concise and clean in your URL’s. Avoid things that look like MySite.com/page323343w3ds. You’ve seen them – they aren’t pretty. And they are difficult to remember as well. You want to make things as simple as possible for search engines and readers alike, and short + clean URL’s are the way to do it.

4. Utilize Internal and External Links

I’ve talked about this one before, but that doesn’t make it any less important! Make sure that you are linking out and in within your pages and posts to relevant and helpful content. Linking out, or external linking, will take readers to a resource outside your website where they can find more information about a certain topic. It’s good to link to credible sources, and readers will find the information useful. They’ll appreciate the fact that you sent them to a trustworthy source where they could learn more about the topic at hand.

Internal linking involves linking to your own content within your posts or pages, whenever and wherever you deem it could be useful to do so. It might help to create a few pieces of content that deal directly with topics that you talk about often. For example, if you frequently talk about various uses of herbs in cooking, it might be a good idea to create a really good piece of content (also known as Cornerstone Content) that discusses the topic in great depth. Then, whenever you mention that topic elsewhere on your site, you can link back to that one really good article.

Search engines will be able to see that you are repeatedly linking back to that one page, and over time they will begin to recognize it as the most important page on your site about that particular topic. This is great because it will eventually help to boost your rankings in the search results for that topic/keyword. And it will also give your readers a solid resource to explore. The more you link, the better search engines can understand what your content is about, so make sure you are linking back to relevant content within your own site frequently!

BONUS – Go Mobile Friendly

Last but not least on this list – make sure your site is mobile friendly. No one likes to pinch and squint at screens on their phones, and with more and more people using smart phones in today’s world, it’s more important than ever before to make sure that your site is mobile friendly.

There are a lot of responsive/mobile friendly WordPress themes out there that will do this automatically for your site. When you’re deciding which theme to choose for your site, I would recommend picking one that is already mobile friendly. This will save you time in the end, and will make your readers happy as well. Make it a priority from the get-go!

 

So, to sum in all up, there are a few things you can do to improve your site structure for both search engines and your readers:

1. Create Content that is Indexable
2. A Site Structure that is Crawlable
3. Clear URL Structure
4. Utilize Internal and External Links
5. Go Mobile Friendly

Follow these tips, and your site will thank you! And while I try my best to explain these things, here’s an awesome post that goes into more depth on site structure at Moz.com – take a look and see for yourself!

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**This post is the 4th in a series on all things SEO. If you missed the first 3 posts, you can check them out right here:

What is SEO and Why is it Important?

Best Practices for On Page Optimization

The Perfectly Structured Blog Post

How Does One Create a Perfectly Structured Blog Post?

SEO isn’t only about the search engines. You can write for Google all day long, but if you ignore your readers, it’s not going to make a bit of difference! Here’s what I mean by that. Think of the last really interesting blog post you read. Was it easy to read? Or was it really long and drawn out without images or even breaks for paragraphs? I’m guessing it was easy to read, easy to follow along with, and probably contained a few of these key factors as well:

 

1. Headlines

For SEO reasons, it’s important to include the keyword you’re targeting in the headline of your article/blog, but you also want to make sure that the headline is a true description of what’s coming up in the following blog post. In other words, you don’t want it to be misleading. If your blog post is about the best ways to entertain kittens, make sure that the post is actually about entertaining kittens and not about gardening techniques. That seems like it should be self-explanatory, but sometimes people write a title jammed with hopeful keywords, hoping to rank in the search engines, when the article in question really has nothing to do with the keyword in the title. This isn’t going to help you in the long run, or in the short run for that matter. Just be honest and create interesting, informative and helpful blog posts about the things your audience wants to learn.

Also – try to make the headline eye-catching; something that your readers will care about. Here are a few techniques to try:

• The “How To” method – answer a question that your readers want to know in “how to” format, i.e. how to plant a garden, how to adopt a kitten, how to create a content marketing strategy that works.
• Add buzzwords and modifiers – instead of just saying “How to create a content marketing strategy” say something like “The secret to creating a dynamite content marketing strategy that really works” (the words in bold being the added buzzwords to catch the eye of readers)
• Add numbers – those usually catch the eye of readers. For example, “7 Revolutionary Ways to Create a Content Marketing Strategy that Works” (be honest – you want to know the 7 ways now)

I’ll do a whole post about this in the future, but those are just a few ideas to get you started!

 

2. Headers

When used correctly, headers can break up your content into smaller sections that make the article easier to read. For example, the words “Headline” and “Headers” and “Use of Bold + Italics” are all headers in this particular article. They give you a clue as to what is coming up in the next section, and also help to break up the page a bit. Also, for readers who skim, headers will give a general idea of what the article is about. Then – if readers are in a time crunch – they can decide for themselves what sections they might want to go back to and read in more detail.

 

3. Use of Bold + Italics

If the entire blog post is just plain text, it’s going to be difficult for readers to skim. And let’s just be honest for a minute – you know you skim things. I know I do. When I read a blog post and I’m a bit pressed for time, the first thing I do is read through it quickly, looking for the terms and phrases in bold.

So, use bold and italics for emphasis – but don’t overdo it. Just make sure to use these on the most important points within the text. Use them to draw your readers’ eye and to tell a story. If someone were to just read the portions in bold, they should be able to get the gist of the article. Italics won’t be quite as easy to spot as bold will be for the quick skimmer, but it can also be helpful when used to emphasize certain terms and phrases. Again, use this sparingly, but effectively.

 

4. Images + Alt Text

We live in a visually-driven culture, and while words are important, a picture is still worth a lot of words (I’m not sure I’d go so far as saying 1,000 words though!) Regardless, images can be used to illustrate the point you’re making within your article, complementing the words you use. Images can also be used to break up the monotony of the text. Because sometimes staring at a full screen of text is a bit hard on the eyes. But make sure the images are relevant to what you’re actually talking about. And for SEO purposes, go in and create an alt image tag that relates to the keyword/topic you chose for your article – that way the image has a chance to help your article rank for the keyword too!

 

5. Bullet Points

People are drawn to lists. They’re easy to read, easy to understand and effectively highlight the key points you are trying to make. You can also use bullet points to organize your content into different sections. Below, I use bullet points in my conclusion to this blog post. In that instance, I am trying to draw your eye to the most important information presented within the text. In case you missed the entire post and skipped to the end (which actually isn’t all that uncommon) you’d still get an understanding of what the post was about just by reading through that bullet pointed list.

 

6. Gripping Intros and Conclusive Conclusions

Why would someone want to start reading your blog post? Is it interesting? Does it draw readers in right from the first paragraph? Just like a great novel draws your eye from the first page, so a great intro should draw readers into your blog post. Some ideas for introductions:

• Start with a question – make sure it’s one that readers want to know the answer to.
• Tell a story – if you tell a story throughout your blog post, the intro should set up that story in a way that makes readers want to keep going.
• Use an unbelievable statistic – have a number that will blow your readers away? Use it! The more shock and awe you can create the better – just make sure that the stat is accurate.

In the same way, make sure that your conclusion efficiently and accurately summarizes the blog post. Often times, readers will skip to the ending to see if the article is actually worth reading – make sure that you grab their attention and prove that it really is worth reading. Summarize your main points, but don’t go overboard – just give enough information to bring your points together in a way that makes sense to those who have read the article in its entirety, and will whet the appetite of those who have yet to go back and read.

 

7. Engaging Middles

So you’ve got the intro and conclusion down, but what about the middle? As I said earlier, a lot of times readers will skim through your middle section, just catching the text in the headers or in bold font. And that’s ok. Not everyone has the time to read through a full article. However, that should not tempt you to skimp on the middle section. If the content you create is solid, informative and engaging, you increase your chances of someone actually reading it. Try to write for your audience by using words that they would understand – don’t go over their heads. You may be an expert on your particular topic, but your readers might not be. Your job is to educate them to the best of your ability, and if you do this in an engaging way, chances are that your audience will read and appreciate your article.

 

8. Not too Long, Not too Short

Not too hot, not too cold, just right…something like that. But really, the length of your blog post is important. For a thorough, well-researched and in-depth article, 1500 words is a good length to shoot for. Try to at least get above 750. This not only helps your rankings in Google, but makes the article worth your readers’ time. Unless you want to write an in-depth guide or e-book, don’t go overboard with the word count and write a novel. But don’t skimp either. Try to find that happy median.

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So there you have it – the recipe, or I guess guideline would be a more accurate term, for the perfectly structured blog post. When writing your next post, be sure to think about:

• Headings
• Headers
• Use of Bold + Italics
• Images + Alt Text
• Bullet Points
• Gripping Intros and Conclusive Conclusions
• Engaging Middles
• Not too Long, Not too Short – Just the Right Length

When you include these elements, your blog post will not only appeal to search engines, but your readers will find it easy to follow along with. And when your readers are happy, when they learn something useful from your blog, they may decide to share it with their friends. And that only helps boost your standings with the search engines even more. It’s a win-win really.

What about you? Have you tried any of these elements in your own blog posts? Have any of your own strategies to add to the list? Let us know in the comments below!

**This blog post is part of an ongoing series on SEO – if you missed the first two posts, you can catch them here:

What is SEO and Why is it Important?

Best Practices for On Page Optimization