Steps to Building Links

Zenergy Internet Marketing - Internet Advertising
"Steps To Building Links"


In a recent discussion with a client, I explained the importance of link building for search engine optimization, I asked a few peers to share how they build links to their website. Here is a brief overview of what I got back.

In this brief blog, I will explain how I go about building links.

Link building is not easy. And it's not that intuitive until you do it. There are also many different techniques and methods that will have varied results. Below is how I recommend clients start and master link building.

I tell people that there are 4 Levels of Link Building Excellence. And it usually takes 4 years to master it - just like high school:

1st Year. Links You Can Build Yourself That Require Little Time Investment

Before I get into this, I'd like to stress that you should have a really good keyword strategy and make sure you've optimized each page on your site around a different keyword phrase. Any link you're building should be designed to help a specific page rank high in the search engines for a specific keyword.

That said, the first set of links that every business should get are the ones that don't require anyone else's help. There are lots of business directories out there where you can just submit your URL, company name and a description of your business. Some of them require approval. Some of them require a fee. Yahoo's directory, Joe Ant, Aboutus.org are some of the ones you should do right away.

In this class of Level I links, there are also many social media sites where you can simply build links to your site. Most of these no longer pass SEO credit, but they're still good links to get, assuming your target audience visits the site or these sites rank high for your keywords already.

It's arguable that you should hire someone to do (or start) this stuff for you. It's low level work that generates low level returns. Just make sure that you don't hire a firm that will get you 2,000 links for $1,000 dollars. If it's too good to be true, it is.

2nd Year: Links You Build Yourself that Require Effort

Before I get into this level, I'd like to stress that launching a business blog should be done before doing this. Without having a blog on your site with lots of good well optimized content, you don't really have anything to link to.

That said, there are two very common link building techniques that work well that don't require you to be a "thought leader". Yet. These activities require a bit more time investment and a small financial investment. They are article marketing and press release optimization. With both of these methods, you have to create relevant content that will appeal to your market. So, it requires more time than Level I. Also, the process of getting your articles syndicated and your press releases submitted and picked up - takes effort. You might consider hiring a wired pr firm or a strong seo firm (Like Zenergy Internet Marketing) to do some of this stuff for you.

If done correctly, both of these methods can significantly increase the links to your site. Also, if you write your articles and press releases with a keyword strategy in mind, and with links that support your keyword strategy, it can significantly raise your rankings for specific keyword terms. Run your press releases and your articles through press release grader to determine whether they're going to help.

11th Grade: Links You Network For that Require a Significant Time Investment

This part of link building is kind of like sales. Cold calling can be done effectively with persistence. But, networking, getting referrals, giving first, the law of attraction, etc is a better way of getting new clients.

Link building is the same way. If you're more of a cold caller type, and there are lots of potential places you can get a link, you might consider just creating a list of webmasters and asking them for a link.

If you're a natural networking junkie and you're in this for the long haul, I'd recommend being a bit more patient. Apply your persistence and spend your time building relationships.

No matter what route you take, the goal of this level is to make yourself visible among people interested in the same topics as you. This process is a bit self promotional. But, you must promote yourself in a way that you're adding value. You master this level by acting like a resource for people in your industry. How do you do this? It's all about networking and building meaningful relationships. The first step is reading other people's blogs. Then, commenting on them. Then, eventually starting a relationship where you're communicating 1 on 1 with them. I recommend you take the leap from reader to 1:1 with a blogger, by pointing them in the direction of other people's content that might be interesting to them. In the non marketing world, this usually happens through email. In the marketing world, this usually happens through Twitter. If you're techy, this might happen through Delicious. If you use StumbleUpon or Digg, those are great platforms to share things with peers. Even google reader lets you do this kind of networking. But, it can certainly happen through any social networking platform or system that enables 1:1 communication.

From a link building perspective, the ultimate goal of this level is to get invited to write a guest article for other people's blogs or website.

4th year: Links Other People Give You Because You Create Remarkable Content.

This level is like the last month or two in high school when you've already passed mid terms and you've been accepted to the college of your choice. You've done the hard work already. Now, it's time to go to parties and enjoy being the care free big man on campus.

You don't necessarily halt the activities above. But, you spend more of your time just creating remarkable content. (And some link bait.)

At Zenergy, I am in the process of doing seminars and workshops. Writing content to be used for my clients to help them spread their word.
None of this happens overnight, so be patient.

Lessons learned for Internet Advertising.

The Importance of Google PageRank: A Word to Business Owners

If you’ve spent time learning about online marketing, then the topic of search engine optimization (SEO) usually comes up. And, no discussion of search engine talk is complete these days without someone mentioning Google. This insert provides a brief overview of how Google ranks search results with a look at their Page Rank™ algorithm. I'm an not a programming expert (that is the bad news) The good news is that I am not going to describe Google Page Rank in complex terms but rather a simple terms (such that you can impress your friends and family with your new-found knowledge).

Quick Intro To S.E.O (Search Engine Optimization)

Put quite simply, SEO is the process of optimizing your website for the search engines (like Google, Yahoo, AOL, and MSN). By “optimizing”, I mean attempting to make it such that searches for specific key word phrases rank your website higher in the search results than other websites. There are lots of good reasons to want to rank higher, but for businesses, the primary reason is to generate good leads and traffic for your product or service. Hundreds of Millions of people use Google looking for a product, service, or information. Some of these people might be potential clients looking for your particular type of company. There are two ways for you to show up on the results page when users are doing a search. The first is paid advertising (I’ll talk about this in a future blog) and the second is what is known as “organic” (or “natural”) search. The natural search results are listed free and are dependent on Google’s estimation of how relevant and credible your website is. Natural search results are my favorite kind, because you don’t have to pay money for them, and they often works better than paid advertising. I liken this to the difference between getting mentioned in a magazine article and purchasing an ad in that same magazine.

If you can rank high on the free (organic) search results for Google, it’s like getting potential hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of free advertising in the most relevant trade magazines, trade show, radio, tv, or print for your industry. I’m not sure about you, but that’s pretty interesting to me. It’s a great way to grow your business and find new clients. So, how do you get all this free, effective advertising in the search engines? Well, to do that you need to understand the Google algorithm and how it determines who gets listed. And oh yea, hire someone like me to get you there. That, unfortunately, is not free.

Google’s Search Algorithm

First, let’s establish a simple example which we can use to frame our discussion. Let’s assume you are the owner of a large background checks firm. Lets further say that your specialization is providing custom solutions to big business. Now, you could probably identify a number of search phrases that your potential clients might use when interested in this particular topic. Users may search for something like “background checks”. Or, they may just start by looking for content (instead of consulting) and search on “how to get hire a background check company”. In either case, Google has an algorithm that figures out which websites of the hundreds of millions out there should be displayed in rank order on the results page. These are the organic (i.e. non-paid) results. You want to rank high on these results.

Though Google’s algorithm is extremely sophisticated, it boils down to something like this:

Search Ranking = Relevance * PageRank

Relevance is basically the measure of how your website (or more accurately one of your web pages) matches the search phrase the user has entered. Measuring relevance is a relatively sophisticated process, but it boils down to some fundamentals like the title of the page, words on the page and how frequently they occur, etc. So, if your home page has things like “background checks”, it drives up the relevance for this particular search. Basically, Google figures out what your page is “about” by looking at it’s content (and by looking at other sites with similar content that are linking to yours). It then uses this to figure out how relevant you are for a particular search phrase.

Page Rank is an independent measure of Google’s perception of the quality/authority/credibility of an individual web page. It does not depend on any particular search phrase. For the public (you and me), Google conveniently reports this as a number from 0-10 (10 being the best). So, assuming for a second that your web page and your competitors web-page has the same relevance – then whoever has the higher Page Rank gets the better ranking – and shows up at the top of the results page. This is why Page Rank is so important. Your relevance is based on your content (if you’re a consulting company specializes in performing background checks, your relevance for high powered lawn mower searches is going to be understandably low). Your Page Rank is what counts.

How Page Rank Is Calculated

There has been a lot written and a lot debated about Google’s Page Rank, but on one point there is near unanimous agreement. PageR ank is primarily determined by how many other web pages are linking into you. Google considers this kind of inbound a link a vote of confidence. But, here’s the trick: Not all inbound links are created equal. Web pages with more credibility that link to you have more “value” to your Page Rank than those with less credibility. How is this credibility determined? Why, by their PageR ank, of course! So, let’s take an example. Lets say you have your Best Friend linked to you from his blog to your small business website. Let’s also say that Best Friend's blog has a Page Rank of 3 (this is being a little generous because all your Best Friend writes about is his Hot Rod and has limited inbound links). This link from your best friend will certainly help you – a little bit. It will help you more if you can find 100 such websites with a Page Rank of 3 and get them to link to you.

However, if you get a single link from a website with a Page Rank of 8, it’ll help you more than a 100 best friend websites. Why? Because a site with a Page Rank of 8 is 100 times more powerful than a Rank of 3. I divide up Page Rank into these broad categories:

0-3: New sites or sites with very minimal links
4-5: Popular sites with a fair amount of inbound links
6: Very popular sites that have hundreds of links, many of them quality links
7-10: Usually media brands (NYTimes.com), big companies or A-list bloggers.

Now, it’s important to note that Page Rank is believed to be calculated on a logarithmic scale. What this roughly means is that the difference between PR4 and PR5 is likely 5-10 times than the difference between PR3 and PR4. So, there are likely over a 100 times as many web pages with a Page Rank of 2 than there are with a Page Rank of 4. This means that if you get to a Page Rank of 6 or so, you’re likely well into the top 0.1% of all websites out there. If most of your peer group is struggling around with a PR2 or PR3, you’re way ahead of the game.

What’s Your Page Rank?

There are two ways to figure out what your approximate Page Rank is. One, you can download the Google Toolbar (the Page Rank feature is not turned on by default, so you’d have to enable it after installation).


Quick recap: Organic search is like free advertising. It’s worth the investment to try and get a high ranking by the major search engines. To rank high you should do two things: First, make sure your site has the right relevant content for the types of searches your potential clients are conducting. Second, try to get the highest Page Rank possible. To do this, you need to get as many inbound links from as many high Page Rank web pages as possible.