If you are trying to get your site ranking higher in Google, then one activity you will still need to factor into your marketing mix is link building. Link building is still one of the major SEO factors to help get your site more exposure but it is also one that can lead to a penalty quickly – especially with the latest Google live updates.
This is one reason a lot of sites are simply not building links any more as they don’t want to risk a penalty. The issue here is that these sites will hit a bit of a glass ceiling as there is only so much onsite and technical SEO will do for your rankings.
Link building is a valid activity if you bear a few things in mind:
- Hyper relevance of links
- Not all link keyword focused
- Not all links homepage focused
- Linking for traffic and not just rankings
- Ability to remove a link if added
The big one right now is the ability to undo any link you had added. If you are building links and using services that can build you 200 – 300 links at the push of a button – the feeling is as it was easy to add them, surely there is an undo button that can unpublish them just in case something goes wrong and you trip a penalty.
Sadly we have found from experience with clients we have rescued that this is not the case. And those 200 – 300 links just got a lot more expensive as we now want to find a way to have them removed.
So tip number 1 – if you can’t see a way to have a link removed – don’t add it in the first place.
Link Building Activities
There are still a number of valid ways to build links for traffic and rankings. Here are a few ideas:
- Guest Posts – yes, relevant guest posts can help with rankings
- Sponsored Posts – clearly marked advertorials can again help
- Niche Directory Submissions – hand picked directories can be a great way to boost lists
- Relevant Forum posts
- Relevant and detailed blog posts
- Member organisations and trade body links
- Resource Page links
These are just a few ideas to give you some ideas to build links in the right way. Take some time to research your industry and use Google to carry out a wide range of searches to help find and identify link opportunities.
Or alternatively, feel free to give me a call or drop me an email. We have been link building for traffic and rankings for over 10 years. I am sure we can help boost your link building profile and help drive quality traffic.