Advanced Link Development Tutorial :
Making the Most of Your Link Development Efforts
Now that you are familiar with the basic process of hunting for links, it is time to improve upon your link development skills. With some advanced tips, you will be able to obtain higher quality links that are actually more valuable in the eyes of search engines than a large quantity of links.
The Google Toolbar
Go to http://toolbar.google.com This will lead you through an installation process that will add search and other features to your Internet Explorer toolbar. Unfortunately, the toolbar is only available for I.E. currently. Among other cool features, there is a pop-up blocker to stop those annoying non-relevant ads. After proceeding through the installation process, your toolbar should look similar to this:
If you click on the “Google” dropdown at the left of your new toolbar you will get an “options” box.
The options that are important to this tutorial are the “page information” options. Please be sure that “PageRank display” and “Page Info menu” are checked. PageRank is a “litmus test” for link popularity. It gives link developers a rough idea of a site’s reputation in regards to search engines. PageRank should not be held as gospel, but it does provide valuable information when looking for links.
When hunting for links, pay attention to the “PageRank” of a site. The most valuable links to your site will be those that come on pages with few other outgoing links, and high PageRank. This means that a link from a page with a PR6 and only 10 links will most likely be more valuable than a link from a page that has a PR7 and 100 links on it. We will examine the benefits that can be derived from using the “page info menu” later in the “additional tips” section of this tutorial.
Maximizing the Benefit of Your Anchor Text (link text)
The text that is used within the anchor of your link is very important to which phrases you will be found for in the search engines. (Example: <a href=http://www.yoursite.com>This is anchor text</a> ). By using your keywords in your anchor text, you improve your likelihood of attaining good search engine ranking positions (SERPS). Anchor text is an important variable to search engine rankings, and should be used to your site’s benefit as much as possible. As an example of this, if SAMSA were to use “SAMSA SEO Services” in our anchor text, it would be more valuable towards the likelihood that we will come up for the phrase “SEO Services”, than if we were to just use “SAMSA” in our anchor text. Makes sense after you hear it right?
Deep Linking
Many sites get into the bad habit of only linking to their homepage. While your homepage will most likely hold a lot of “weight” in the search engines, it is important to divert some of that importance to your sub-pages, which probably hold the more valuable information in the eyes of both users and search engines anyhow. Since your site is divided into logical categories, you can link to those specific areas of your site when applicable.
For example, SAMSA offers many different services enabling us to be listed in a variety of directories. When being listed on a Website hosting directory site, we would link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/hosting.html with the link text, “SAMSA Website Hosting”.
This associates the link text of “website hosting” with that individual page. With the combination of optimizing our on-page factors of that page (I.E. Making the title “Website Hosting” or a variation), we are able to increase the likelihood that we will come up in the search engines for the phrase we are hoping to come up for. Since “Web Hosting” is a highly competitive phrase with a lot of national competition, we are more likely to do well for “Michigan Website Hosting”, and our page would be better optimized around that. Find your site “niche phrases” and design your site structure and linking campaigns around those phrases. Examples for description writing will be discussed further in the “additional tips” section of this document.
Deciding if a link is “Straight text”
Links to your site that use javascript or CGI will not benefit your sites link popularity. Now before you shutoff your brain and say, “I don’t understand that fancy coding stuff” just wait a minute. Below is an explanation of how to decipher if a site is using “straight-text” to link to other sites.
1. Turn on your “status bar” in Internet Explorer. You can do this by clicking “view” then checking “status bar”. If it is already checked, leave it that way.
2. Identify a link in the same category of the page you
will potentially be listed on, and put your cursor (mouse/ arrow)
over the link. Look in the bottom left hand corner of your browser.
If this looks like the message in the address bar when visiting
that page, then the link is probably “straight text”. If the
link contains “cgi”, any strange looking symbols or strings of
numbers and letters, or is extremely long, the links are probably
NOT text links, and NOT valuable in the eyes of search engines.
Focus on getting as many “straight text” links as you can, and
you will improve your link popularity. Links that are not “straight-text”
are valuable only for their click through traffic, and
not in the eyes of the search engines.
Additional Tips
Another way of finding sites to link to yours is to find sites that accept site submissions. To find such sites, visit a search engine, such as Google, and search for:
"add url" "your keywords"
Try variations of these words including quotations and without quotations. Also try replacing, "add url" with one of the following phrases:
add site, add link, submit url, submit site, submit link
You can also find site submission pages by searching for the actual page names. Try changing the "add url" search phrase with one of the following webpage names:
add-url.html, add-site.html, add-link.html, submit-url.html, submit-site.html, submit-link.html, addurl.html, addsite.html, addlink.html, submiturl.html, submitsite.html, submitlink.html, submit_site.html, submit_link.html, add_url.html, add_site.html, add_link.html, submit_url.html
Another good way to find high PR sites is to search for: "Your term here" -asp -pdf -cfm -html -htm -php -txt -doc
Spying on Your Competition
After searching your industry for links, you will get a good idea of which sites are getting the highest listings for the phrases that YOU want. A good part of their success is due to their popularity from sites linking to them. Fortunately, there is a way you can discover how your competitors achieved their success by peaking at their backlinks.
In Google, you can check the number of sites that link to any page by using the command
link: http://www.yoursitehere.com/yourpagehere.htm. Please note, however, that Google will only display the pages that link to a page that are a PageRank 4 or over. The same command can be repeated on the search engine Alltheweb.com to display ALL links to a webpage.
This can be accomplished in the same fashion that was used above to check your own backlinks (using the link:www.yoursite.com command). An even easier way is by using the Google toolbar “Page Info” menu. This menu is on the white letter “I” surrounded by a blue circle. Choose the “backward links” option, and your competitor’s high quality backlinks will be displayed. Now you can go and request links from these same sites!
Organize and Document Your Campaign
Keep your linking campaign organized. Maintain a spreadsheet that lists when, where, and how your link requests were submitted. Some of the best elements to include would be: Date, Description, URL of Link, URL of submission form, Date verified, URL verified, and Notes (For things like subscription price of the link). This will keep you from submitting multiple times (some requests may take months to process), and ticking off website owners.
Keep a word document of the variations on your descriptions. This will save you from having to re-type, and change your descriptions for every submission. The requirements for submission can be very different from site to site. Some sites may allow 250-word descriptions; others may only allow 100 characters. Be sure to get your best key-phrases included in descriptions and in your anchor text if possible. Don’t only link to your homepage! Here are some examples of variations of description text for SAMSA.com: (feel free to link to us;)
199 character general description:
A full service IT firm offering website design and hosting, seo services, programming, and database development. SAMSA also provides computer hardware and network support, and certified data cabling.
150 character general description including spaces:
SAMSA offers web design and hosting, programming services, database development, computer hardware and network support, and certified data cabling.
160 character web design description listing
SAMSA offers website design and hosting, Flash design, as well as search engine optimization and pay-per-click management, and other Internet marketing services.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/web_design.html
Networking Description:
SAMSA offers computer networking management services including network cable installation, network computer maintenance, hardware and software configuration and support, and much more.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/products_services/network.html
Website Design Description:
SAMSA offers website hosting, web design, and programming and Internet marketing services including: java programming, cgi programming, perl and php programs, search engine optimization, pay per click management, e-commerce and shopping cart development, and much more.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/web_design.html
Internet Marketing/SEO/SEM Description:
SAMSA offers a variety of Internet marketing services including search engine optimization, pay-per-click management, data-feed creation and much more.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/seo/index.html
Web hosting description:
SAMSA offers a variety of webhosting services on both Windows and FreeBSD platforms. All hosting plans include a listing at our Localareaguide.com website.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/hosting.html
199 Webdesign and Hosting Description
System and Market Services of America offers website design and hosting, search engine optimization, pay-per-click-management, database development, accessibility reporting and development, Internet programming and much more.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/web_design.html
160 Webdesign and hosting
System and Market Services of America of Saginaw, MI offers web design & hosting, search engine optimization, pay-per-click-management, database development, Internet programming and much more.
Link to: http://www.samsa.com/internet/web_design.html
100-character description:
SAMSA offers website design and hosting, computer repair, database development, and network cable installation.
50-word description:
A full service IT firm offering programming, website design, web hosting, search engine optimization, Internet marketing, Pay-per-click Management, e-commerce, database development, and custom programming services in php, perl, cold fusion, and many more. SAMSA also provides computer hardware and network support, and certified data cabling.
Networking with Other Webmasters
Behind every website, there is a webmaster. Find that webmaster and be nice to him or her. One of the best ways to get good quality links is to e-mail webmasters and be polite. Many webmasters are happy to hear a genuine compliment about their site, and will be happy to provide you with a link if it is appropriate to their site. Be polite, and personalize your e-mails. Keep a few drafts of link request e-mails, and customize them to fit the site that you are e-mailing. Find a format that works and run with it!
Shoot for a link a day, or a couple links per week, and in no time you will have the link popularity that your site needs. Remember you need quantity AND quality links. Happy Hunting!
More “Starting Points”
· http://1st-spot.net/topic_directories.html
· http://www.absolutewebaholic.com/
· http://www.spheri.ca/directories.html
· http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/General_Directories/
· http://directory.google.com/Top/Business/Resources/Directories/
· http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/
