With Google cracking down on poor or mediocre links and content, your website needs to be up to snuff or you're going to feel the wrath from the big search engine. Nobody wants to deal with that because it could mean losing hundreds of thousands of views, losing your rank on Google, or even being taken out of their search engine completely (which can ruin some businesses altogether). Instead of stressing over these sorts of what ifs, why not be proactive and use our steps to successful organic link building?
Link building is a vital source of exposure and SEO for your business, which means more revenue for you. However, messing up the process of link building can mean a disaster in the future. Read on for the best steps to better link building that Google will approve of.
1. Get Rid of the Link Building Websites
If you're still utilizing link building websites that have endless archives of random links or pings to your website, then you need to stop immediately. Google began cracking down on such websites as well as businesses using this type of service. This is especially true if said business has been paying for such link building techniques. Like your content--and a farmer's market--Google wants your links to be really natural and organic, no imitations or short cuts. With that said, bookmarking websites like StumbleUpon and others are not being penalized by Google. Rather, the lower quality link building websites are the ones being shut down or ranked lower.
2. Get Cozy With Fellow Sites
When doing organic link building, you will want to take a page from your social media and marketing strategy book. In particular, finding like-minded or similar professionals with websites in your industry and being active in their communities while also providing links back to your own website. This means blog post comments, social media replies, the works. Be social and get cozy. This is one of the most organic link building strategies you can build up that will bring in more warm leads for your business.
3. Link Within Your Own Blog
A common but easily fixable mistake that many businesses do is making their blog and website completely separate of one another. You will want to cross promote and link back to your website as much as possible because this is the type of organic link building that Google really likes to see with businesses and their websites. Always link to different pages of your website throughout your blog posts and you will see a marked improvement. This is also a great opportunity to turn readers into loyal customers, so why not link back to your website?
4. Make It Blend Into Content
Try to avoid cues in your content such as "click here" or "go here for more info," as this can easily be ignored by Google and other large search engines. You don't want to try and make anchors in your text that are obviously made for links but rather naturally fit them into the text so that it is completely seamless. Rather than saying "click here," replace it with "you can email us/find a download on this study" without having to be obvious.
Contrary to what you might think, link building doesn't have to be this mysterious enigma when it comes to your marketing and sales strategies. There are easy solutions to any issues you might be having with online exposure, all it takes is knowing some of the professional tips and being able to apply them to your own business. What link building strategies have you been using to build branding for your business?