How to Achieve Link Building Bliss

Earlier this month we pointed out the dangers of creating content-less content for the sole purpose of furthering link building campaigns, so the question arises: How do you create effective link building campaigns when you do have excellent content? Text Link Broker’s Robert Sullivan recently published two articles with some excellent tips for users.

Sullivan’s first article entitled, “Using your Established site to help your new site build link Popularity” details just that – how to use your established sites to help your new site rank. The idea may seem obvious, but many companies can overlook its value. Simply placing a link in the footer of your established site (or sites) directing the engines to your new site will help it gain immediate authority. This is especially true if your established site has a high Page Rank of 6 or higher. Linking your sites and allowing them to ‘vouch’ for one another will help you to quickly establish expertness.

New sites should always be submitted to the following three directories: Yahoo, DMOZ (The Open Directory Project), and (if applicable) Business.com. These directories, especially Yahoo, are considered to have a very high authoritative status among the search engines, and are therefore imperative to your link building success. Listing your site in these three directories will help your new site establish expert status and achieve quick Page Rank. According to Sullivan, listing your site in these directories could help it obtain a Page Rank 4 almost immediately. Search Engine Journal does a good job of detailing each of these directories, so I won’t duplicate it here.

If you’re going to submit your site to one of these directories, we also suggest keeping accurate records of what URLs have been sent, on what days, to what directories, in what categories. This will help you to keep track of what has been sent and what you need to follow up on.

When starting your link earning campaign, remember the purpose of inbound links – to establish a vote of confidence for your site. With that in mind, it’s important to only solicit links from sites the engines identify as industry experts. How do you know who the search engines deem an expert? Well, beyond just typing in Google queries all day, Sullivan suggests utilizing clustering engines to pinpoint respected industry sites, specifically highlighting little known Japanese clustering engine, Clusty.

Now I know its Monday, but get those Simpson references out of your head, it’s Clusty and we’re not talking clowns. What is Clusty and how will it help your link building campaign? Sullivan explains:

“Clusty will organize results into groups called clusters. The following quote comes from Clusty’s site: “Thus a search for ‘pearl’ organizes the top 250-500 results into subject folders such as Jewelry, Pearl Harbor, Pearl Jam, Steinbeck Novel and Daniel Pearl.”

That means that not only has Clusty grouped results, but it has also applied similar ranking algorithms to those results ensuring that the “best” sites show up at the top.”

Cluttering engines like Clusty or Ask help users identify what sites the search engines have deemed to be authorities for your topic. Clustering search engine breaks its index into categorized hubs which, according to Sullivan, are considered the authority sites within the community. These are the sites you want to solicit links from. They are the sites search engines look to in establishing relevance and authority. Using these engines can also be valuable in keyword research, but that’s a different entry for a different day.

(Hat-Tip to Search Engine Journal)

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.

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