Link Building Strategies

Link Building is a broad subject and there are literally hundreds of ways to build authoritative links. We've compiled a list of some of the most useful tactics and strategies which you can integrate into your link building strategy and into your day to day routine.

What are the Link Properties We Want?

• Vary the anchor text of links frequently: we need to make the process organic. Building the same link over and over will cause the placed links to be ignored and given Google's Penguin and Panda updates, possibly penalize your domain.

• Vary target URLs: we want a good blend of links pointing into the site. Do not set every link to the homepage. This will appear unnatural.

• Find authoritative and trusted sites. What qualifies sites as authoritative?
  - Are content heavy
  - Have been online 3+ years
  - Influential / high profile industry sites
  - Have numerous quality inbound links
  - Rank well!
• Follow these general rules:

• Look at partner sites carefully, avoid those with excessive reciprocals and sponsored (site-wide) links.
  • Link slowly, add content at the same time.
  • Use several different linking tactics.
  • Spend resource on obtaining authority links
  • Focus on traditional content generation tactics
  • Notify the media when you’ve added sizable content
  • Find an alert service you like and use it
  • Use the social media sites to spread emotional content
  • Find your niche community and use it

• Search engines frown on things that look too manipulated. Don’t do all links with super-optimized anchor texts, doesn’t look natural.

• How fast is too fast for building links? Depends. It can be OK to have a large jump, IF things are in balance, like increased searches, media mentions, they understand things are cyclical, etc.

Now onto the good stuff, the Linking Tactics...

• Reciprocal Linking. We only use reciprocal linking for new site which do not have a long history. The reciprocal links must be hand submitted and come from quality sites.

• Avoid throwing up red flags. Don’t acquire too fast. Don’t use all the same anchor text. Don’t use same tactic over and over.

• Make links consistent (www vs non www). Use a library of links which are prewritten, rotate them and continually add to the library to ensure freshness.

• Get involved in forums. Use a footer which links to a number of sites not specifically the casino. Forum topics can include Internet Marketing, Gaming (Video Gaming) etc. Get involved in the discussion thread rather than spam the forum with irrelevant content. Many casino forums will not allow providers to post so avoid gambling forums.

• Use Hubfinder, Majestic SEO, SEOMoz.org to find new links and research link terms.

• Install the SEOMoz toolbar for firefox for domain information access and Nofollow hihglighting.

• Link building strategies using content generation tactics work best long term.

• Use the SoloSEO link search tool http://www.soloseo.com/tools/linkSearch.html

• Passive linking. Ask people to link to you! Give them a t-shirt, swag or free SEO advice (eBook).

• Find industry experts for product reviews, board seats, testimonials, article writing, spokesman. Associate your products with respected community figures. Key search term is expert witness directories.

• Regular directory submissions. dmoz, yahoo, business.com, aviva, best of the web. These directories let you submit one website one time. These directories are editorially run, all are reviewed by a real human. Do not focus too much time on regular directory submissions. Submit and move on.

• People don’t think about all of the different elements on their sites, like video, photos, downloads, coupons. Find niche directories that let you link to that type of content. Also consider new ways to add multimedia content to the sites, this is important for Google Universal Search.

• Traditional and link bait:
  1 Create an article resource center on your site.
  2. Pull topics from customer service / your stats
  3. Keywords in title, 2x in body
  4. Include a bio with each article, even those on your site.
  5. Write long version for your website, send out shorter versions.
  6. Issue press release announcing new content added.

• Sharing our content by adding a creative commons license to our sites.

• Article Dropping.
  1. Drop an article.
  2. Swap content.
  3. Drop a link.

• Submit to general “How To” sites (eHow, WikiHow, Instructables, etc.), Specialty tutorial sites (NewBaby, AmateurGourmet), Video (Expert Village, Teacher Tube)

• Guest blogging / E-zines. To find guest blogs, look for terms like “looking for writers” “submit an article” “contribute content” in addition to your keyword.

• Media Links. Three basic ways to attract media links:
  1. Target key journalists
  2. Issue press releases
  3. Develop and promote your onsite media and information (article) resource.

You get a lot of feedback from the media people. They’re competitive, if one person writes about something, it interests other people.

If you issue a press release, make sure you actually have news!

• How to find media contacts: Back link competitors, develop your own media database. Mine social news and bookmarking sites like delicious, topix. Set Google Alerts for “news” and add keywords (editor, journalist, reporter, blogger, etc.). Look on Twitter. http://mediaontwitter.pbwiki.com

• More Media Links: Cyberjournalist.net, blogcatalog, yahoo news, Bacon’s media directories good places to look.

• In addition to Digg, Reddit, Mixx, StumbleUpon, try niche sites like Fetch (small biz), Pick Station (music), and more. Continually find more niche sites, there are thousands online.

• Build credibility and links. Join industry-related groups like the BBB, chamber of commerce, industry associations.

• People link to what they like and trust. Who trusts you? Customers, Vendors, Association Members

• Find coupon and deal sites like http://retailmenot.com . Submit coupons, encouraging viral action, email-only contests.

• Create case study of a contest that we ran to build links. Join an industry association. Sent intro email. Month later, discount coupon, another month later offered bigger discount and contest, suggested links.

• Find .edu sites: job opportunity boards, forums, etc.

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