Link Building from a frustrated SEO Expert’s point of view.
The never ending quest to find links, and by that I mean good links.
Let’s begin with some info/basic knowledge:
1. Links Are Important
Well that goes without saying. Links are like votes for your site. The more you have the better. But now, more than ever, it has become important to ‘know’ where your links come and also to choose them very very carefully.
2. Thousands and Thousands is not enough
Having a ton of links sounds good but it is no where near enough. And no I do not mean you should go out and make a ton more. Be more careful and be more efficient where and how you get your links
3. Directories are not dead
Directories are not dead. Well not yet. Directories can still be worth while if you find a niche directory or local or country specific. Look at how you get a link in that directory too. One that is easy to get into is usually less valuable. One that only allows entry by ‘buying’ a link is also less valuable.
4. Assessing Value
This is the hard part. The most obvious is to look at the Page Rank of a site and also the page where your link will appear. Secondly, use Open Site Explorer to study the Domain Authority and also how many out bound links that site has. A higher DA is what is wanted. Higher out bound links is not.
5. Do it Your Self or Find a specialist
This is much harder than it sounds. Yes there are hundreds if not thousands of link builders out there. Unfortunately if you do not have the time to do the link building, then you have to find someone or hire someone who can. Finding a company is hard and unfortunately trial and error. Give them one month trials, two at most. Switch over to another provider and make an educated guess who is the better. Same thing with hiring an intern to do this. Test them. One month Trial. Or only hire them part time. Better still, go to sites like ODesk or Freelancer or your local paper and advertise for one.
Doing link building yourself is time consuming. Bottom line. If you have the time, do it yourself. Study it. Use SEOMoz and all their tools. Maybe subscribe to the Pro Membership (It is worth it).
So that’s it. Not much in the way of basics I am afraid, just the nitty gritty stuff. Hopefully “K” will not be such a wait. Apologies for that.