Building links and creating quality content go hand in hand, and you need both for a successful website. Without links, you will not be able to rank highly in the SERPs. However, without exceptional content, you will not get return visitors or you will have low conversion rates and low profits.
Here are some actionable steps you can take immediately to optimize your link building campaign:
• Using the right landing pages for link building
• Using varied link anchor texts
• Diversifying your incoming link sites
• Maintaining a steady link velocity
Using the Right Landing Pages for Link Building
Even if you are able to generate good incoming traffic to your web pages, it will not mean much if you are not converting your visitors into sales, registrations, subscriptions, etc. The most important aspect of high conversion rates is the landing page.
As you are building links to your site, you need to create proper landing pages for your targeted keywords. The page should be designed to hook the reader with eye-catching text and graphics. The layout should not be too “busy” that it confuses or frustrates the visitor. In particular, do not try to cram too much small text into the page.
Web surfers like pages that can be quickly digested with short paragraphs and plenty of “white space.” Create the landing page so that the eye of the visitor is quickly led to your call to action. Place more detailed information on pages linked to the landing page.
The call to action is an important part of the landing page. One big mistake that web designers make is forcing the visitor to browse through many pages before reaching the closing pitch that asks for a sale, registration, share or other action.
Using Varied Link Anchor Texts
The link anchor texts play an important role in SEO and your search engine rankings for targeted search terms.. Many web marketers use the same keywords or key phrases repeatedly thinking that repetition will improve rankings.
However, you do not want the search engine ranking algorithms to sense that your links are related or forced. For this reason, you should vary the anchor text as much as possible, not just because of that, but also to add more relevance authority to your pages. Of course, you want to use related keywords each time, but the links should appear independent.
Diversify Your Link Source Sites
In order to make your links look as natural as possible, they should come from as many different types of websites as possible. For example, solicit links from blogs, directories, social media, communities and specialized sites. By diversifying the sources of your links, you make your link profile appear as “natural” as possible rather than looking like the result of a marketing campaign.
One way to encourage links is to place sharing and rating buttons on your web pages and most importantly a simple link to us page, it is amazing how many great websites are missing that. There are amazing plugins that can help you with that, like the Copylink WordPress plugin. A Facebook “Like” button, for example, makes it easy for visitors to share your pages on their Facebook newsfeed. If others on Facebook also like the page, they can share it again on their own profile.
You can also place rating and bookmarking buttons on your web pages. For example, the new Google+ button allows you to give a thumbs-up to any page. The Facebook, Google+ and Twitter buttons are important also because they are used in search result social annotations.
Since Google’s SERPs are lead by personalization this is no more important than ever.
Creating great updated content is also essential in getting different sites to link to your pages. Add content that you know others will want to share on their pages. Of course, by being among the first to publish content, you will have better chances of having others link to your site.
Don’t forget though to solicit links from pages that have high ranking or authority. The pages and sites should have high relevance to the keyword topics.
Maintain Link Velocity and Stick with Your Plan
In order to wage a successful link building campaign, it is important to have a plan and to stick with it consistently. Most links go stale after a period of time and your page can lose ranking if fresh links are not appearing. If your pages receive links for a longer period of time that tells the search engines that the content there is evergreen and the rankings will stick or even improve if there is room.
The rate at which your pages and site gain and lose links is known as link velocity. The speed in which links lose “juice” will depend on the quality and the type of link. For example, links from blog sites are more likely to have a longer lasting positive impact than shares on social media. Because of the transient nature of social media, you will need a steady stream of shares to boost your rankings. While a link from a blog can get even more powerful with time.
In order to stay ahead of the competition, link building must be a continuous effort just like other types of marketing. Allot a certain amount of time per day or per week to maintaining your links.
Have a schedule for checking over each item related to your link building and to your site’s content. Remember that everyone is competing for the top spots in the SERPs, so you must be energetic and diligent to gain the top search engine rankings.
About the Author:
Zac Grace works as SEO Strategist and Link Building team leader at Dejan SEO Company. You can connect with Zac on Google+ and Twitter
