Okay this is a slightly ambiguous title but bear with me. Google wants you to know that it doesn’t consider link building “illegal” and in this article we look at a few useful link building nuggets from those in the know (namely Matt Cutts and Eric Enge) along with our own link building experiences over the years.
Google’s Matt Cutts did an interview with Stone Temple’s Eric Enge last week which was a real eye opener i'm sure for some link builders.
Matt Cutts tweeted out to his followers this interview as a reading recommendation.
Within the interview Eric Enge mentioned about people thinking link building is illegal to which Cutts replied:
“No, link building is not illegal,”
Matt Cutts
“It’s funny because there are some types of link building that are illegal, but it’s very clear-cut: hacking blogs, that sort of thing is illegal.”
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts
“It’s funny because there are some types of link building that are illegal, but it’s very clear-cut: hacking blogs, that sort of thing is illegal.”
Matt Cutts
Matt Cutts talks about the notion that a link from a press release would “probably not count” for SEO value but if that press release convinces an editor or reporter to write a story about it, then the editorial decision counts for something.
Matt Cutts agrees with Enge in his philosophy of building links via:
building a strong Twitter, Facebook and Google+ presence
build a strong following of engaged users on the 3 big social media platforms. use a tool like followerwonk.com to help you find these people within your niche. Think like a marketer.
create great content aimed at these users
push this great content out to your fans and followers who will likely share it, and start doing other things that cause visibility and help it rank.
diversify
look at content on your clients site - does it have linkable content - pictures, stories, news items, competition, info-graphics, videos? you shouldn’t rely completely on Google, and should diversify your way of getting to your audience.
focussing on sites with authority / relevancy / social presence
When asked about authority as a ranking factor, Cutts tells Enge, “I would concentrate on the stuff that people write, the utility that people find in it, and the amount of times that people link to it. All of those are ways that implicitly measure how relevant or important somebody is to someone else. Links are still the best way that we’ve found to discover that, and maybe over time social or authorship or other types of markup will give us a lot more information about that.”
take time to focus on quality and relevancy
What's frustrated us link builders and website owners is that the “new” link building of the past 12 months is much more challenging. It’s no longer as easy as finding some free directories or other link farm type sites and blasting out links. Real time and effort needs to be spent on link building and website owners need to be selective about the sites that they get links from. Again it comes back to the same trialled and tested link building of quality and relevancy.
Think about the reputation of your clients business and website. If the site doesn’t seem “good enough quality” it definitely isn’t worth getting a link from. (quality)
You want your client to be associated with the right types of businesses and websites (relevancy).
think like a marketer
To build good quality links that are going to have a positive impact on your clients Google rankings then link builders must think like marketers and stop thinking of search engines - think of the users.
You need to determine where your target audience members are spending time online and create great informational content that will achieve natural links.
