Linking Update – the importance of strategic linking within your search marketing campaigns

Since Google’s ‘Big Daddy’ update, which has been rolled out over several months, many sites have seen their ranking drop, some of which can be attributed to the way incoming links have been gained. Therefore we are revisiting an article published in Marketing Karma over 2 years ago, to remind you of the importance of strategic link building.

Link building (getting relevant sites to link to yours) still remains a key element of website promotion. Search engines rank web pages not just according to their relevancy to the search terms typed into a query, but also by the quality of incoming links to the website.

The internet is built on links, so gaining links is a natural process. Over time, websites will link to your website if deemed to be a good source of information, and relevant to their industry sector. However, just waiting for this to happen is not enough. You need to be proactive about gaining strategic links that will send targeted traffic to your website. The following activities will help you get started:

1. Get listed in the appropriate directories
Directories are the first place to start when building up links to your website. There are hundreds of directories out there, all attempting to classify the millions of websites in various ways. Start with the general directories, then carry on to the niche ones. Free directories include Open Directory, Yahoo.co.uk, Great-British-Pages.co.uk and Splut.com.

It's also worth researching 'niche' directories - those which are relevant to your industry sector. For example, if your business is involved in manufacturing, get a listing in Kellysearch and Applegate. There are plenty of directories specialising in sectors such as travel/tourism, computing, shopping etc and should be relatively easy to find in the search engines.

2. Find out who links to your competitors
Identifying the sources of your competitors' incoming links can save you a great deal of time. Not only can it show you the best places to request links, it can also shed light on their promotional tactics. To do this, go to LinkPopularity.com and type in your competitors’ domain names. Click on the links in the results page to go to each competitors listing in the search engines.

You will often find the number of links varies from search engine to search engine. The most accurate is Yahoo!, but Google often shows the smallest number of incoming links - possibly because it views some link sources as insignificant and therefore does not show them.

If directory-type websites show in the results, it's worth requesting a link from them. If you find a website that's a particularly useful resource, or which targets the audience you would like to reach, consider researching their incoming links too.

3. Ask for links
Simply asking other relevant websites for links will also play a part in your link building activities. When you come across a site which is related to your industry sector which targets your target market, then ask for a link. However, you need to make sure your email highlights the benefits of having a link to your site, and why it would enhance the visitor experience on their site. You may need to ask more than once and approach several sites this way, as not all sites will want to link to yours. You don't have to offer a reciprocal link either - this used to be part of the etiquette, but search engines will not boost your link popularity if you have a link back to every website that carries a link to yours. In fact, this can be detrimental to your link popularity. Some sites have seen their rankings drop in Google through the ‘Big Daddy’ update as reciprocating links to websites was the basis of their link building strategy.

4. Make the most of online PR
One of the objectives of online PR is to get links back to your site. It goes without saying that all press releases, particularly those posted on the web, should carry a link to your site. Penned articles distributed on other websites should also carry links back - and remember, many of these are permanently published on the web. It all helps to raise the profile of your business as well as the link popularity of your website.

5. Make it easy for other websites to link to you
Finally, when requesting links, make it easy for the other sites to do so by providing them with a text link and description. You could also offer a small image or logo together with a description. By providing the link, you make it a quick and easy process for the webmaster to copy and paste your link into their web page. Just as importantly, it puts you in control of how your site is described/presented (although some sites will have editorial style guidelines and may not display your link as you would like). As a last point, let the webmaster know which page on his or her site you would like your link to appear, particularly if you have a number of pages.

6. Link Baiting
On a final note, you can bait sites to link to yours with some clever tools or calculators, high profile comment or activity your company has done (e.g. for charity), even a video clip or photos.

The importance of gaining links should not be underestimated, however, it's often overlooked as it does take time and effort. A good idea is to treat it as an ongoing activity, putting aside an hour or so per week, every week, to do link building.