Over the years, many people are writing about link building strategies both good and bad. It’s no secret the Internet can make you a lot of money and those on the first page of Google generate enormous money through ads and selling products. However, this has led to many people taking part in manipulative link building strategies against Google’s guidelines. It might produce results short term, but long-term, it’s bad link building and can hurt your bottom line. Once you get banned from Google’s SERP’s, you’ve destroyed your online business. With time and the expansion of the Internet comes the ability to try different things. When I first started blogging, we often talked about 3-4 link building strategies but now, I can think of over 15. It’s important to note that some are good but a majority of them will do more harm so it’s important to focus on the ones that matter, producing results. Here’s something else…
Some link building strategies simply need to be tweaked to be effective. In other words, bad link building can be transformed into effective ones by making a few changes along the lines. I’ll like to discuss 3 popular link building techniques and their alternatives that yield huge results. You’ll be surprised how they can boost your rankings within the SERP’s when you make some slight adjustments.
Let’s get started…
Link Exchanges
I can’t stress how ineffective link exchanges are for boosting SERP rankings and much of it has to do with the way people utilize these networks. For example, people start buying irrelevant bulk backlinks, pointing them to their page without doing any research. When you point poor quality backlinks to a page, you’re doing more harm than good. This is why Google introduced the Disavow Tool, so you can control what links point to your page. However, making a few changes to the way you use specific networks can produce the opposite effect. Here’s what I recommend going forward…
First, if you’re starting out, then join only the best link exchange websites and always set the approval to manual so you have complete control. If you leave the interface to automatic, then all requests will be approved, good or bad, and you should try to avoid this from happening. Next, when you get a link request, you should research the URL it’s received from by heading over to OpenSiteExplorer.org or Ahref.com. Paste in the URL of the website and skim through the information generated. Here are some of the factors to look for:
- Domain Authority
- Page Authority
- Anchor Text
- # external links
A clear report on these factors will tell you the value this URL will provide to your website. Compare it to your current DA and PA and if it’s above yours while being relevant, then you can benefit from a link exchange with them.
In short, instead of building bulk links, use this alternative:
- Join popular link exchange networks
- Always approve manually
- Research link exchange requests
- Spread out your link exchange campaigns
Buying and Selling Links
Google is getting smarter and they know when you’ve bought links to boost your rankings within the SERP’s. There are a few reasons why you should avoid this link building technique. First, it’s very difficult to find high quality links when directly buying them because NO authority bloggers will ever sell links on their page. They know how it will degrade the quality of their blog and hurt their overall bottom line. Google pays close attention to internal and external links on a page so if you’re linking to a low quality page, it’s not good for SEO. Secondly, you’re often getting websites with poor content and irrelevant to your niche and links from these pages add NO value. Third, they are NOT genuine links and will often be removed from the blog owner or when the website is removed by Google. However, there is an alternative to buying and selling links that I recommend everyone should utilize instead.
Focus on writing high quality content and/or guest blogging opportunities. Google has put enormous emphasis on providing quality, rewarding this type of content with higher rankings. Guest blogging is a great way to build links and generate traffic to your blog, leading to more links from niche relevant readers. In the end, there is no substitute for high quality content so focus on this instead of buying links.
Utilizing Keywords Effectively
Always using EXACT match keywords within your content and building links will no longer have the same impact as before. The user search pattern is changing and people are using LSI, long-tail, and related keywords to find what they are looking for. When building links, we tend to focus on stuffing our content with EXACT match keywords and building links to our page using the same strategy. However, we need to start looking at the alternatives available to us in terms of keywords. For example, going forward, you should focus on the following:
First, research and create a list of LSI and long-tail keywords so you can utilize them when building links. Start mixing your anchor text when you build links. A great way to find a combination of keywords is by researching your competition and the anchor text they use. If these competitors are ranking on the first page of Google, then their keyword diversity is a great match for you. The strategy is very simple because all you’re doing is tweaking your anchor text from EXACT to branded, related, URL, and long-tail. You have to do some research so you get the right ratio of each, however, this strategy is very effective when boosting your rankings through natural link building.