Understanding Links

Understanding Links

By Mert Sahinoglu

@mertsahinoglu

http://mertsahinoglu.com

Feel free to link to me

SEO 101 Pyramid by SEOMoz

What is a link

• Is HTML really the only link?

What else can you consider a link?

Address & Phone # is a link?

• Place your business name, address, phone number, full website address where ever you can.

• In local search every mention is a link.

Reviews can be links

Did you know reviews matter as much as links for Local SEO?

Reviews = Free Amazon Search Exposure

5 questions

Map out your strategy

• Who• When• What • How • Where

Every link building strategy

needs to answer five major questions:

Who & When

• When is the work going to start?

• Is the work ongoing? or

• Is there a date that the work should be finished?

• Who is going to do the work? (you, consultant, agency, overseas?)

• Who reports to whom? Is there a reporting process?

What & How

• How will the content/websites to get links be found?

• How to approach the content/websites to gather links?

• What web pages are the links directed to (in importance)?

• What keywords (anchor text) will be used in each webpage?

• What types of content/websites will be targeted to get links?

Where?

• Why is “Where” Important?

• The location/theme/anchor text of your inbound link is important

• A natural link chart gets links to deep pages on the site

• Links to your site is not always the best option.

Here are a few examples of other places…

For manufacturers Channel partner brand names

What about you?

For Reputation Management

• It could be your social media channels

• Positive Articles (especially the ones that link to you)

• Positive Images and Videos for Universal Search

Traditional Link Building 101• Friend Beg Network and Your own websites• Sales Force or Affiliate Program• Competing websites• Vendors (ex: Web Designer, Plumber)• News sites/Expert Service • Relevant Forums & Blogs• Related specialty sites (ex: Chamber of Commerce)• How-to sites• Social sites/groups/lists/profiles• Directories• Guest posting in other blogs and white paper opportunities• Reviews & Testimonials• Local and business links (mentions as links for local business

search results)• CSS Galleries (if you have a great design)• Charities & Universities

Search queries are your Friend for Manual Link Building

• So how do we locate these places?

• Check out this tool

• http://ontolo.com/link-building-tools/LinkBuildingQueryGenerator (free)

• There is also a paid version.

Example of a search query

• "service no longer available"

• "service no longer available" [keyword]

• "service no longer available" inurl:.edu "no longer available [keyphrase]"

• "site no longer available"

• "site no longer available" [keyphrase]

• "site has been taken down"

• "site has been taken down" [keyphrase]

Content Syndication

If you have content/value on your website let others know through content syndication,

Any website property can be syndicated: • Blog/RSS• Wiki, • Newsletters, • Podcasts, • Downloadable files/applications • Photos • Tutorials• E-books• Widgets

BLOG/RSS/XML FEED SUBMISSIONS

• BLOG RSS FEEDSList: • http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories (links

from scraper sites count. • Provide XML Product feeds to Google Base and other

Comparison Shopping Engines• Video XML submissions to Google Search Engines• Career page xml feeds to Indeed.com, Simplyhired.com

and other job aggregators. Save money on Recruiters.

VALUE SYNDICATION

• Coupons,

• Jobs

• Freeware/Giveaways

• Contests

Special Not For Profit tip=

Every donation call to action: if you can’t donate us, Link to Us.

On the web Links are Money.

Advanced Link Building - Videos

• # of video embeds and inbound links help you rank in Video Search• An optimized source video file placed in a properly optimized

webpage with proper AVI or MP4 video data, targeted keyword named file name

• A video sitemap is a must to tell search engines about the video.• Link to/embed videos in email signatures, forums, guest blogs,

press releases, social media releases, article sites, etc.• What about regular HTML Links from Video Embeds?

Advanced Video Links

• How to place a http://www.distilled.co.uk/blog/seo/getting-links-and-seo-

value-from-your-youtube-videos/

Advanced: Affiliate Programs

Before http://mysite.com?affID=12&CampaignID=53

Dynamic Links do not carry much value for SEO and cause duplicate content issues.

The basic solution is adding meta canonical tags

googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html

Canonical tags act like redirects which cause Page Rank attrition.

AfterStart your own affiliate programhttp://mysite.com#affid

Or create a code similar to (not same)

http://mysite.com/#prtp://http://mysite.com?affID-12&CampaignID=53

Below Code by Martin MacDonald

Others’ Broken Links

• Are your new links• Investigate other sites’ broken links to see opportunities.• .EDU, .GOV are great sites to get. • http://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ is worth the

money.

• Great review at

http://www.seo-scientist.com/seo-spider-review-xenu-on-seo-steroids.html

Advanced Google Suggest

How did Brent Payne do this?

Widgets

• Twitter would be a failure without widgets.

• User Generated Content is the King of SEO.

• User Generated Links are the queen.

• What can you create as a widget?

• Image, Buttons, Flash Apps are all Widgets,

Advanced Widgets

• Distribute Relevant on-topic info-widgets

• Advantage: Scalable hands off link building.

Traditional vs. New Widgets

The Traditional Way• You lose control• Can’t modify anchor

text• A lot of webmasters

remove links• No flexibility to

change existing links.

The New Way• Serve links from

cloud.• Update anchor text &

links in real time• Point link equity to

where you want.

Dynamic Link Embed Code

Future of SEO

• Public Relations

• Personalized Direct Marketing

• Advanced Coding

For any questions

• Mert.sahinoglu at gmail dot com

@mertsahinoglu

http://mertsahinoglu.com