Varying your linking strategy can be the very best way to not only get those great ratings, but to keep them. In our ever-changing world of the Internet and shifting SEO strategies, not to mention search engine algorithms which seem to change faster than the weather, the best advice to remember is that what works today may not work tomorrow. Make a concerted effort to experiment with your linking campaign, and search continuously for the holy grail of high-quality links. After all, if you want to land high up in the search engine rankings—and who doesn’t?—then getting links from other quality sites to your own is one significant way to do so. Yes, content is still king, and you should never, ever skimp on the quality of your copy, however if you have no inbound links on your pages, you may never reach your SEO goals.
The Perfect Link
Everybody in the industry has at least a slightly different opinion of just what constitutes the “perfect” link, and nearly all website owners are out there constantly, looking for that lottery winner which will have visitors pouring in to their site. While you may never achieve perfection, to get as close as possible, make sure your links come from high-ranking and high authority websites which come from sites which are highly relevant to your own. Your anchor text should always include very relevant keywords—which are related to the page topic. Avoid footer links as many feel they carry less value than those links which are more fully integrated into the content of your page. Deep linking strategies tend to appear much more natural to search engine, but avoid directing all your web links to your home page. Finally, the perfect linking system will have a wide variety of links streaming in from many high quality websites—this is much better than many links from fewer websites.
Consider Page Rank in Your Linking Strategy
Increasing your Page Rank is as simple—or as complex—as getting links from other sites who are, themselves, in the enviable position of having a high Page Ranking. In other words, don’t waste your valuable time and energy obtaining tons of links from sites which currently rank below you—there is literally no value in doing so. If you currently have a Google page rank of 5, then linking to a site which is struggling with a rank of 2 can only hurt you. Ideally you would only want sites whose rank was a six or above. Don’t forget link relevancy when you are considering Page Rank—if your site sells solar panels, then linking to a site which sells shoes for children will hardly help your linking strategy.
Using Anchor Text to Your Advantage
Anchor text is an often-overlooked linking strategy which can be highly beneficial to your overall linking campaign. Anchor text is the visible text in a hyperlink which is clickable. You know, the blue, underlined text you see scattered throughout websites, and which take you (hopefully) to an equally high-quality website which will offer your reader value and quality. Anchor text tells Google what your web page is all about and can ultimately determine your Page Rank. Google actually wants you to be able to find what you need in the quickest manner possible, and one great way to do this is by using anchor text throughout your site—judiciously, of course. Remember, that anchor text will only be effective if you have done your keyword research and are up to speed on what people are really searching for. Never, ever use the “click here” strategy, and make sure your anchor text is highly relevant. Anchor text can be used for main page links, external links from other sites, internal links, navigation maps and links to images, so use them wisely and increase your rankings.
The Trust Factor
Trusted sites rank high with Google, and those trusted sites will not have linked to any type of low-quality or spammy sites. Google calculates this trust by the number of quality links to a site, so make sure any links you garner are high on the trust scale as well as highly relevant to your site. Inbound links, outbound links, reciprocal links, internal links, site-specific software-embedded inbound links and offline links—the list goes on and on. Do your homework and understand the importance of each type of link, then use them together to create your ideal linking strategy.
