Getting the Perfect Link

Getting the Perfect Link by Guest Author Tim Grice

There is much talk about what makes a low and high quality link to your site, some argue that low quality links are not worth the trouble, others say that a mixture of links is needed in order to increase your search engine rankings. In this post I really want to focus on some of the things we should be looking for when building links back to our sites for SEO purposes.

In my opinion there are 5 main elements you should aim for when building links, they are:

• PageRank
• Relevance
• Anchor Text
• Authority
• One way

Let’s get clear on what these mean exactly.

PageRank
When we say we want links that pass PageRank or PR, what were really saying is we want our links on a page that has some authority. Now in the early days of your blog or site getting links from high PR pages is going to be tough, unless you have some good friends.

Look to submit to some of the better directories at first, ie DMOZ and the Yahoo directories. These will give you good authority. When your pages gain some PR then start looking at some high profile link partners within your niche.

Relevance
For me this is the most important element of link building and that is to make sure your inbound links are from related pages. For example if you run a clothes store your not going to get any relevance with a link from an internet marketing blog no matter what PR it carries. Remember links pass on relevance as well as PR and it is relevance that ranks your site in the SERPs not PR.

Anchor Text
This is another very important factor and is one of the main difference between sites that dominate and sites that struggle. You should ensure as many links as possible are anchored with your targeted keywords, however there is one word of warning here, make sure your anchor text relates to your page and that they are as varied as possible.

OK, two words of warning, you see if your anchor text does not relate to your page Google will see it as anchor manipulation and ultimately spam, this will have a damaging effect on your site. I also like to use different variations, when targeting a keyword I like to use at least 10 – 20 variations, I find this generates the best results.

Authority
Authority refers to the page your getting the link from and applies to 2 aspects.

(1) How far up the page your link is and (2) How many other links are on the page.

If your link is at the bottom of the page it will pass on little authority, however if it is at the top Google will give it great significance. Also if you have a link from a page that has 30 – 40 other links, the authority it passes will be meaningless. Look to get unique links from authoritative pages.

Oneway
I am sure most of you will be aware of this but it’s always worth going over it again and that is what you should be looking for are “oneway” inbound links to your pages. Reciprocal links carry very little in terms of relevance or PR and there is a good reason for this. Google wants natural links pointing to your pages, reciprocal links are artificial and therefore Google does not want to give any weight to them.

Make use of article marketing, press releases and other forms of content distribution. If you write quality content other people will want to link to you, I know this sounds unrealistic but I wrote a post a week or so ago which attracted over 50 links, this is 50 links to a deep page which is awesome.

Well there you have it, try and implement the above and your links should pass on the quality you need to rank high on the SERPs.

If you want to learn SEO free please visit my blog SEO Wizz.

Related posts found in this blog:
SEO Basics for on Page Optimization
How to select and use anchor text effectively
Understanding Backlinks
Understanding Reciprocal and Non-Reciprocal Links

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