Search Engine Marketing Blog: piloSEO

Link Juice is not the only important consideration

When I first began building links for SEO purposes my only thought was how will this link help my sites rank better. While it is still a central consideration I have learned that just building links for link juice can limit overall Internet marketing success. I still want to find links that will pass value to my sites but now I look for sites that not only pass value but also enhance my sites reputation and authority in their niche. These links should also direct qualified visitors that may be more likely to buy.

As my link building techniques have evolved to consider these additional factors I have found that the links I get not only direct more qualified visitors, enhance the businesses reputation, but they also tend to end up being more beneficial in terms of passing link juice to the site. Finding link sites with a high PR or Alexa score is worthless exercise. It is much more productive to find sites that add value to the web and provide useful information to users who may be interested in your service. They may not have a lot of juice right away but as they get attention they will become more powerful.

Maximize Link Building Efforts

• Reach Out to the Leaders: Find out who the big players are in your niche and interact with them. Don’t be a spammer. Make useful comments on their blogs and when they discuss an issue related to what you are offering discuss what you are doing. Tone down the marketing angle and provide useful and interesting commentary. This even works for traditional newspapers that have not adopted Web 2.0 technology. Some of the best links I have procured have come from simply emailing writers for news publications who wrote articles related to the site on which I am working. The emails did not ask for a link or even a mention. By simply discussing the points of the article and offering my own ideas has lead to some writers researching the companies I am working for and writing a story with some juicy links. These links continue to provide link juice as well as regular visitors who are very interested in what the sites are selling.
• Link Out to Useful Resources: Linking out to high quality and relevant content makes your sites more useful to visitors and can help bring attention to your site. I know when I am checking my Analytics programs I like to check out the sites that send me visitors. If I find them to be useful I may throw them a link either in a blogroll or even writing an article or blog post about them with a link or two. These may or may not be reciprocal links but either way they are natural. Reciprocal links get a bad rap because they have been abused but natural reciprocal links like this are an inegral part of the World Wide Web. On top of that when other visitors find your site to be a useful resource they will link to you on their related sites and blogs.
• Be Active: Join relevant forums and social sites and interact. Make sure you include your sites URL in a signature and/or profile if it is allowed. These links generally do not pass value but they can attract interested visitors as well as quality links. You have to participate though. Help those asking for advice and discuss relevant topics about which you are knowledgeable. Other users and visitors will see you as a useful contributer and will look to you when they need your expertise. They may also link to you on their sites providing your site offers relevant and useful content on relevant subject matter.

There are many ways to get links that both pass value and generate quality traffic. Some niches are very link friendly while others are not. What works for the technology niche may not work for someone selling office chairs. It is a good idea to explore a variety of link building opportunities and figure out what works for you. Just remember that building links for traffic, authority, and link juice will be a much more successful endeavor than trying to build links just to increase your position in the SERPs.

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