Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds

Guest Post: By Paul Marshall

You probably don’t need to read the latest advice from the online marketing consultants to figure out the basic idea behind link building. Without links, your site won’t develop authority. Without authority, it won’t move up on the search engines. But even the most savvy online marketing consultant would have to admit that doing that is just not as easy as it sounds.

More Is Not Better In Link Building

Just going out and getting a bunch of links won’t necessarily help your site. You need quality links to get higher search rankings. But sometimes figuring out what makes one link better than another is tough. This is where you do need to keep up with what the online marketing consultants are recommending or you may just be wasting your time.

Targeted Anchor Text Is A Must

When you start pursuing links on sites, you need targeted anchor text. However, you don’t want to use the same text everywhere. Google will notice that in a bad way. You want to use two or three different phrases and the proper name of your website. If you can’t get anything but an image link, make sure the site owner puts your anchor text or the name of your site in the ALT tag of the image.

Pay Attention To Links In And Out

Google looks at the site where your link appears and decides how much benefit your site gets back. A site with a lot of inbound links passes more authority to your site. At the same time, being linked on a site full of low-quality, outbound links probably won’t help you much.

PageRank Isn’t Everything

Don’t be one of those site owners who sees nothing but PageRank. A site with high PageRank can still have low link value. This is especially true of sites that sell links. Steer clear of sites that use phrases like “sponsored by” or “paid for by.” Google may not let that site pass PageRank at all. Move on. They’re not worth your time.

Concentrate On Site Relevance

Let’s say your site is about red widgets. You get a link on a site about purple doohickeys. That link isn’t worth as much as one on a site about red widget management. Make sure you’re pursuing links in relevant places and look at how those places are optimized. If a site owner gives you a choice of having a link on a page titled “About Us” or one with the title “About Red Widgets,” which one do you choose? The link on the optimized page, “About Red Widgets,” has more value.

An Online Marketing Consultant Checks What’s Not Obvious

Take your cue from the pros and check sites in ways that aren’t obvious. For instance, in any search engine, you can type in “cache:” followed by a site url and find out if the site has been indexed and when it was last crawled. But what do those dates mean?

Chances are good that if the site hasn’t been crawled in 30-45 days, it’s not a good place for a link. But some domains have more value than others. For example, links from .edu domains are better than from a .com, but .info is worth less. All these factors should be weighed in judging a site’s worth in your link building efforts.

Does Social Networking Matter?

We’ve all seen the little link bars under blog posts and in forums asking people to Digg or Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, or StumbleUpon. Do you need to try to get links in places where social networking can happen? Yes. Alone those links may not have a lot of value, but Google is increasingly looking at the “active Web” in determining site authority.

It’s time consuming, but participating in forums and social sites and getting blog owners to run your articles with your linked anchor text included can be worth your time. But remember, relevance is a basic rule in online marketing consulting.

Are You Getting Clean Links?

When you get a link on a site, do you go look at the page’s source code? Is there anything extra in the “href” tag on the link? Is the site using redirect code? Is there a “nofollow” in the site’s meta data? If there is, the link is useless to you. It won’t pass any authority to your site because that code tells the search engines not to follow the link. Make sure you’re getting clean links.

When you’re on a tight budget and trying to develop your site and get higher search rankings, it can be a tough decision to work online marketing consulting into your thinking. The Web used to be pretty much a do-it-yourself place. That all started to change in 2004 when people began talking about “Web 2.0.”

It’s harder than ever to judge quality link building in the new world of Web applications and social networking. You can do it, but try to stay up to speed on what the online marketing consultants are recommending as good strategies. The Web is changing all the time. Good link building takes time and effort; you don’t want to waste those any more than you want to waste money during hard times.

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Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consultants expert offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

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MadViral online since 2005, MadViral Enterprises, LLC can help you market your business with Email Advertising, Professional Unique email design services

Link Building in Online Marketing: Tougher Than It Sounds

Online Marketing Consultants Say Content is Key

Guest Post: By Paul Marshall

Websites with more content rank better with the search engines. Any online marketing consultant will emphasize, however, that “more” isn’t enough. For successful SEO, your site needs a steady stream of fresh, relevant content.

Above all, know your audience. Understand what your readers want and give it to them. More content:

1. Feeds the search engines.
2. Encourages return readers.
3. Serves as a keyword platform.
4. Helps distribute PageRank (through relevant internal linking.)

Online marketing consulting emphasizes the need to build site authority. Information rich, relevant text is the most affordable SEO tool at your disposal to achieve that goal.

People Read Differently Online

Monitor resolution, color quality, available light, and the fixed distance and angle of the screen all cause eye fatigue. More importantly, links encourage distraction. Readers routinely jump ship in the middle of the paragraph with no guarantee they’ll ever come back.

Use Inverted Pyramid Structure

To compensate, put the most important information in the first paragraph. Journalists have been doing it for years, well aware that almost no one will read their entire story. Arrange the rest of the material in descending order of importance.

Write To Your Links

If you include a link in a paragraph, continue to control the narrative at the link’s destination. Regardless of where a reader goes in your site, make sure you are presenting a coherent message.

Repeat Without Copying

Don’t be afraid to repeat information, but don’t just copy the same chunk of text. Rewrite repetitive material to vary your keyword phrasing and anchor text. Every page on the site should appear fresh and dynamic.

Forget The Five-Sentence Paragraph

Online readers need more white space to make skimming the text easier. Forget the five-sentence paragraph structure you learned in English class. Keep online paragraphs to three sentences or less whenever possible.

When possible, use a mix of bold, italics and underlining to make skimming easier for the reader.

Keep An Active, Direct Voice

Action verbs create strong web copy. Don’t write that you “have been taught.” Tell the reader what you “learned.” Speak authoritatively, not passively.

Keep Your Text Concise

Work for a length of 500 to 1000 words per page. When an article runs long, pay special attention to paragraph length. Use subtitles to highlight main ideas and to create more white space.

Consider that the average reader reads at about 200 words per minute. Keeping them on a page for more than 5 minutes (1000 words) often isn’t possible.

Choose Common Vocabulary

Write your text on a 9th to 12th grade reading level. There are numerous tools online to measure the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level of your text. Most require nothing more complicated than copying and pasting the material to be measured.

Proofread Your Copy

Misspelled words and poor grammar scream “amateur.” Ask someone you trust to proofread your copy. Writers get too close to their words and easily miss mistakes.

Avoid Common Grammatical Errors

Don’t be guilty of the most common grammatical mistakes. Making glaring errors will harm the reputation of your site and tell readers you don’t know what you’re doing. In particular avoid:

• Loose for lose. You lose your car keys. Your Hawaiian shirt has a loose fit.
• Lay for lie. When you have a headache you lie down. You lay your papers on the desk.
• You’re for your. “You’re in for trouble if you don’t mind your grammar.”
• Of for have. “I would have set you straight about this error if I could have.”
• They’re for their. “They’re suffering from the consequences of their bad manners.”
• Effect for affect. “A computer problem affects your ability to work. The effects of the situation may delay the project.”

Know When To Break The Rules

There are always situations that require that the rules be broken. This relates directly to the need to know your audience. Some topics call for a more in-depth treatment and more complex language.

Introduce deeper, more complicated material with a brief synopsis. Make it clear that following the link will take the reader to an extended treatment of the topic.

Formatting is even more important for in-depth material. Try to treat one idea per page with a clear indication of how many pages will follow. This lets readers find logical stopping points and encourages them to bookmark their place and return to finish reading later.

Always Remember The Basics

In composing text for your site, never forget the different mechanics of reading online. Focus on the wants and needs of your audience. Believe the online marketing consultant wisdom that content is king.

Keep the most important information in the first paragraph. Use sub-headings to improve visual scanning. Choose active verbs and clearly understood words.

Control the narrative throughout your site. Repeat without copying. Proofread and correct your work and update frequently to feed the search engines and encourage repeat visits from your readers.

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Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall can help you market on a realistic budget. He’s an Online Marketing Consultant offering professional marketing services (and d-i-y Coaching). He also offers Paul Marshall

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• Advertising, Opt-in Leads, Email Marketing service helps small businesses market their products more effectively. We provide everything you need, http://www.madviral.com Phone: 256-778-8350 (9am-5pm CST M-F) MadViral Enterprises, LLC 171 Early Rd. Hartselle, Al. 35640

Online Marketing Consultants Say Content is Key