SEO Tips - Link Building

04 February 2011

One of the best methods of SEO (search engine optimisation) is Link Building. Link building is the cornerstone of any SEO campaign and is defined as the generation of back links to your website from other websites with quality, relevant content and a high page rank.

Links are one of the most valuable attributes according to both the search engines and SEO companies alike. Attempting to optimise your site without considering a link strategy will result in poor natural rankings on the SERP's (search engine results pages) for your site and therefore affecting the return of investment on your website, after all your website is a business tool to generate enquiries so its performance has to be maximised.

Search Engines value links so highly because they view them as votes or references for your business . It is the modern day version of word of mouth advertising, so the more quality references your website has from other high ranking websites the more trustworthy your site becomes and the search engine will grant you a higher ranking than your competitors.

Links can be obtained by various methods. The most successful and reputable methods are

Article & Press Release Marketing producing and submitting articles for search engine optimisation is a fantastic way of producing high quality links. Articles must be written with your keyword strategy in mind and should always provide links to your website for more information. Articles are a focused teaser campaign enticing the reader to want more and therefore visit your site.

Blogs comments and references to your website from Blogs can create quality links but are only of value if the content being linked from is relevant and of sufficient quality to your website. It always best to try and get your keyword in the anchor text that links to your website.

Reciprocal Links reciprocal links are when two business's decide to add links to their websites for mutual benefit. The best way to do this is through contact. Some sites generate reciprocal links automatically, these are always to be used with caution as the relevance and page rank of the site providing the link is of upmost importance as it can have a negative effective on your websites natural ranking.

Social Media the use of social media is today one of the most increasingly important methods of SEO. The network of links around your website from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the other social media platforms are again considered as votes for your websites content & with the expected changes in Google's SERP's in the coming months to include social media feeds in place of natural ranking positions these will be invaluable links to obtain.

One way Links one way links are the most valuable of links in terms of search engine optimisation. Links from established high ranking websites & blogs are of maximum value and are held in the upmost regard by the search engines.

In summary over time the benefits of building a network of high quality links to your website from various sources with quality content and of good page rank will be of tremendous benefit to your own websites page rank.