10 Link Building Strategies
The basis for good website ranking in search engines are pretty straight forward, from what I’ve experienced. Fresh content and the number of incoming links to your site can help you to stay on top of the competition.
WebMasterWorld has just published these 10 link building strategies:
Link Strategy Number One:
Old fashioned reciprocal linking between sites. Sometimes called two-way linking. Some SEO’s believe this method is diminished by Google. Others feel it is still a good strategy provided you link with sites that have related content.Link Strategy Number Two:
Triangular or three-way linking is when a site A links to site B for a link back from site C. This supposedly is considered better by some SEO’s than two-way linking. Their thinking is that two-way linking is no longer effective and that three-way linking “appears” to Google to be one-way links. But other SEO’s believe that Google can identify three-way linking and that you risk huge penalties.Link Strategy Number Three:
This strategy is similar to Number Two above. It is also a three-way link strategy. Instead of a link from site A, the SEO offers a link from the SEO’s site or a separate site such as a directory to site B in return for a link from site B to site A. The advantage is that site A doesn’t even need any of its own outbound links. Still, other SEO’s believe Google can detect a link cluster and punish site A.Link Strategy Number Four:
Four-way linking is also possible but with the same pros and cons as Number Two and Three above. More complicated and fewer webmasters willing to participate.Link Strategy Number Five:
Article links. Many SEO’s believe that what appears natural to Google is a link or two from the inside of an article about the theme which the site that is to receive the link is about. Usually the SEO will create an informative article with the links in the middle or end of the article. They offer the article to any number of webmasters for free, as content for their sites in return for a link to their client’s site. It could be said that this will backfire if the article is published on various sites as it is duplicate content and has the same link destination in each article. Also, a lot of these articles get submitted to “article farms” which can be identified by Google (if not now then at sometime in the future). The best way to do this would be to offer a unique article to each webmaster but the cost of producing a number of unique articles would be expensive.Link Strategy Number Six:
One-way links are the most difficult of all but the most effective in my opinion. There are a few sites that will link to you one-way if you ask them the properly. Some modest sites do not think like SEO’s. Some of them do not even know the meaning of the term SEO. It is hard work but well worth the effort (in my opinion) even if the links come from low or no PR sites. But many SEO’s believe one-way links from FFA’s and directories are identifiable by Google as spam so one must work hard to find honest and related sites willing to do this. The typical link request probably won’t work.Link Strategy Number Seven:
Buying links. Some SEO’s believe that if you buy links, banner ads will do no good as they do not contain keywords. They therefore believe that you need to buy text links with keywords in the link. Google mentions on its guidelines for webmasters that they do not like link buying and they even have a form you can submit to report sites that buy links. Some say Google does nothing about it. Others say differently. Perhaps Google creates fear so that people buy adwords rather than advertising elsewhere. In my opinion buying banner ads is safer than textlinks as Google cannot call that spam. Surely a site has the right to advertise. But text-based ads are probably a bad idea, especially if it says “Sponsored Links” somewhere near the links. Some say that without keywords in the link, it will do nothing for reputation. But if Google is smart, it could detect the reputation from the site the banner is on.Link Strategy Number Eight:
Let’s say that site A is the site you are promoting and also one you want to “protect.” Instead of doing any risky linking strategies on A, you could create a number of information sites with related content on various IP C-blocks to “take the fall” should Google decide to flex its muscle. In this strategy, site A does noting but receive links from sites B, C, & D, while B, C, D participate in various linking activities to create PR which they then pass on to site A. This could be considered spam depending on how you look at it. The junkier the information sites and the more risky the linking patterns of those sites (B, C, D), the greater the chance of A getting hit, I would think. This could also be quality work, again, depending on how you look at it. It could natural and it could be artificial.Link Strategy Number Nine:
Build a site naturally. Many SEO’s are now saying the only white-hat way to make a high ranking site is to develop excellent content. In my opinion, this is easier to do for a site that is purely an information site but is more difficult to do for a commercial site. It takes lots of time and most people are not successful at getting it off the ground. The concept is good but it is hard to come up with a winner. It is also most discouraging if you are beat in the rankings by sites that cheat. You could wait forever and not get anywhere.Link Strategy Number Ten:
A combination of all of the above. The problem with this is that Google can punish a site for any one strategy and you won’t even know which one it is.