It’s the Holy Grail of SEO’s. They are also great channels to drive relevant traffic to your site outside of search. What are they? Authoritative Links!
The “Authority” of a site is calculated by the value of the sites linking in to it, as well as the quality of the content on those sites. Many “A-List” blogs can carry amazing link value, along with huge readerships (so they drive traffic directly to your site as well). How do you get a link from a top blog? Content.
Writing great, relevant content is the best method to get links, get search rankings, and create and keep a dedicated readership. It also helps to know how to network with bloggers, and how to create relationships with them.
Other top sources for great links are .edu and .gov sites. These links can be hard to come by, but are worth the effort. The SearchEngineWatch Blog has a great post on how to get authoritative links:
- Focus on links from authoritative sites that are relevant.
- Be prepared for the fact that success in a campaign to get a link from an authoritative site might take many months.
- Be prepared for your strategies to fail more often than they succeed. If you do a really good job, perhaps 1 in 4 of your campaigns will work.
- Be prepared to invest in building a relationship. Your first communications with the authoritative site may not include a request for a link.
- It’s a campaign. You need a strategy, and it may have multiple steps. Be prepared to invest in the strategy to make it work
- Know that they won’t link to you because they want to help you make money
- Know that they will link to your site because your content is valuable to their users (and because they actually care about their users).
- Meet their needs.
- Study their needs. Figure out what they need, and then figure out which of their needs you can meet. One way to do this is to review things written in the past by key contacts at the site. They may have expressed a need, such as “I wish I knew how to …”, “The web needs a resource that …”, etc.
- Be opportunistic. Your target site may identify a need that you can address. Jump on it as quickly as you can, and then fill the need completely.
- Invest more in your first 2 or 3 killer links than you will in the ones that follow it. Your first authoritative link will simplify obtaining the ones that will come later, as that endorsement makes all the difference in the world.
Thanks to Eric for providing that guide!
Technorati Tags: Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, Blogs
Spread the Word: del.icio.us Digg Reddit