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Link Building: Where to Start?

How to Start Your Reciprocal Links Campaign

Originally Published: April 2003

If you've been a subscriber of MarketPosition for long, you've probably read some of our past articles regarding how to build Link Popularity. I've discussed the importance of link building. I've also discussed many strategies of gaining links to your Web site from third parties. Examples of these articles include:

• Do's and Don'ts of Link Popularity
• Improving Link Popularity Through Awards

Editor's Note: See the index at the bottom of this page for a complete list of link popularity articles

One common link-building tip calls for trading links with companies offering information or products compatible or synergistic to your own. These should not be Web sites directly competitive with your own, but instead be complementary. Sounds simple enough, right? But, the question then arises: "Where do I start?"

For the well informed, there's a gold mine of strategic linking and partnering opportunities out there. You just have to know where to look. There are multiple ways you can locate companies who are well suited to send you targeted traffic while at the same time improving your link popularity and rankings:

1. Link Check Your Competitors

Take advantage of free services like www.linkpopularitycheck.com to find all the sites that link to your competitors. Click the Details link to view the list. If your product or service is stronger than your competitor, then consider visiting some of these sites and approaching them in regard to linking to you as well, or as a replacement to your competitor depending on the situation. These sites have already demonstrated an interest in linking to Web sites similar to your own, so many will be ideal candidates.

2. Search Catalogs for complementary Sites

Major category-based engines like Yahoo!, Looksmart, and Open Directory divide their content into topics. You can often find a neatly organized list of sites that are complementary to your own by browsing these categories. Visit the sites you find and contact them in regard to adding a link to your site, or to specific content you offer.

3. Link Check complementary Sites

If you have strong competitors, or simply prefer to not go head to head with your competitors, link check complementary sites! A major site that is complementary, but not competitive to your own may offer an array of links that are also complementary. Find Websites that cater to the same audience you do, but do not sell the exact same things.

Using these methods, it won't take long before you have a huge list of sites that may be willing to link to you. You'll soon discover that taking advantage of relatively inexpensive tools to narrow this list to the most important candidates is well worth the money.

For example, OptiLink is the most extensive link analysis tool on the market to my knowledge. It will not only analyze your own link structure, but that of complementary Web sites. It can then rank these sites by the ones that are the most popular. That way you don't waste valuable time on relatively unknown sites that will not significantly improve your link reputation or deliver much traffic. Visit Optilink directly for more information.

In addition, many engines such as Google calculate link reputation for all sites that link to you. Therefore, linking sites having a greater popularity or link reputation will affect your own link reputation to a much greater degree. Once you have a decent link reputation, you'll find it to be much easier to obtain top rankings when you go to optimize your content.

1. Be sure you have developed genuine content on your Web site of interest to the trading partner. Take the time to point out specific articles that would be of interest to THEIR visitors. Tell them they can host the article on their Web site if they'll simply credit you as the source and add a link to your site. Do all the work for them. E-mail them the page with a discrete credit at the bottom. Be sure the link to your site contains your important keywords to bolster your rankings on those keywords.
2. Explain the advantages to the potential link partner and the advantages your site has to their visitors. They must clearly understand how linking to you benefits them.
3. If you plan to link back to them as an enticement, consider telling them where the link will be placed, or set the link up in advance with the stipulation that you'll be glad to leave it there if they'll be kind enough to link back to you.
4. Take the time to look over their site and then suggest where a link to you might be appropriate. Consider supplying example text to make this easy for them. Look for pages with relatively few outgoing links. Your link reputation, at least on Google, will be reduced in relation to the number of other links on the referring page.
5. Most importantly, personalize your e-mails! You must distinguish yourself from all the spam most Web site owners are swamped with daily. If the link is particularly important to you, call them personally on the phone, write them a letter, or send a fax to show them you're serious.

Anytime you do achieve a link to your site, consider submitting the domain or the page the link resides on to ensure that the search engine sees it and updates your link popularity score. If the page with your link is never indexed, then your link popularity score will never improve. Of course, links also benefit you through increased traffic, so link popularity and improved rankings are not the only benefits you'll receive.

This article is copyrighted and has been reprinted with permission from FirstPlace Software, the makers of WebPosition.
FirstPlace Software helped define the SEO industry with the introduction of the first product to track your rankings on the major search engines and to help you improve those rankings.

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May 17 2008 14:13 UTC