How Not to Link Build

April 7^th 2011 Sally Ormond copywriting tips, link building, search engine optimisation, SEO copywriter

You’ve done your keyword research, you’ve designed your website so it’s easy for your readers to navigate, you’ve even found an SEO copywriter to write some great, targeted copy that your visitors will want to read. So what’s next?

That is just the start of your search engine optimisation strategy, if you want it to continue to work and bring in great rankings you’re going to have to become an active link builder.

How do links help?

Let’s go back to the beginning. Every web page is given a Page Rank (a number ranging from 0 to 10 to illustrate your page’s value with 0 being the lowest).

When another page links to you (using a follow link), a little bit of that Page Rank filters through to you (link juice) because it’s seen as a vote of confidence in your page. So the more quality links you get to your website, the higher your Page Rank and the more authoritative you are seen by the search engines.

So how do you get links?

First off, gathering links can a slow and lengthy process (and a continuous one). The best way by far to link build is by doing it organically.

How do you do that? Well it’s by:

Writing interesting content that people will want to link to
Submitting your website to directories
Blogging and linking back to your website through your posts
Article marketing

It’s time consuming and slow, but you won’t get Google’s back up.

Is there a quicker way?

Yes there is but I wouldn’t recommend it. Short cuts are never a good idea so don’t buy in links you could be asking for all sorts of trouble especially as you’ll be going against Google’s guidelines and could risk your website. If you don’t believe me take a look at Julie Joyce’s post on Search Engine Journal entitled “4 Huge Mistakes to Avoid When You Build Links“.

If you’re serious about SEO, your website and your reputation, go organic – it’s the only way.