Link Building Services
The basic concept of ranking a site based on the number of links coming to a site was first popularized by the search engine, Google. The philosophy behind this was that the most deserving site would have the highest number of quality links.
This of course led internet marketers to question how they could improve their link popularity thru different methods. And that's where Catanich Internet Marketing comes in. For the past 7 years, we have obtained high quality links for our clients from over 14 main categories.
Since all major search engines now utilize some form of link popularity as a factor in ranking, it has become one of the major components of Internet Marketing Program. That is to improving a site's link popularity.
At Catanich, our process for improving a site's link popularity will vary greatly from client to client, budget to budget, but it often takes on the following structure.
Link Potential Identification
The first step in the link building process is to identify potential link partners or opportunities that will link to your site. This process includes manually checking the "back links" for your Top 10 Competitors' sites that are targets of your Top 20 Keyword Terms. We enter your key search phrases in to each of the three search engines, click on each of the top ranking sites, and then review who is linking to them. After doing this for your keyword phrases, we will have a pretty good feel for where the best link opportunities lie for your site and the target number required. When this is complete, we present the link information to you for review and approval.
Common link opportunities include:
- Specialty Directories In addition to the major online directories like Bing, Yahoo, ODP, and Looksmart, there are thousands of directories or buyers guides for the major industry that provide online listings.
Most come with a standard "do-follow" link arrangement.
See Directory Submission Sites - Link Partners Many companies have subsidiaries, partners, joint marketing partnerships with clients, distributors, sales agents, and key suppliers who may link to their site. Does your parent company link to your site? They should! How about you vendors? Put it in your contract that they must.
- Article Submission Sites Other sites that don't compete with you but sell to your same target market are often interested in sharing traffic.
See Article Submission Sites - Social Bookmarks Sites Other sites that don't compete with you but sell to your same target market are often interested in sharing traffic.
See Social Bookmarking Sites - Blogs and Forums One of the top sources of text links to your site is from the Blogs or Forums that allow comments to be submitted. The signature links associated with them is the primary sources for most link building today.
See Blog Directories Sites - Complementary Sites Contact your non-competitor vendors or suppliers that don't compete with you but sell to your same target market. They are often interested in sharing traffic.
- Advertising and Sponsorships Many sites enhance their link building programs by creating banner ads that run for events, organizations or product advertisements that they sponsor.
See Classified Listing Sites - Online Media Link building programs can be integrated into press releases and submitted to PRWeb, PR Newswire or others standard public relations firms to gain exposure in online media.
See Press Release Submission Sites
Link Building
Having identified potential link partners sites, we can now turn to requesting, purchasing, or exchanging links for you. In an ideal world, every site would want to link to your site simply because it was informative, helpful, and useful to their readers. But in reality, links are often purchased or exchanged. Both concepts are discouraged by Google and Yahoo and must be done very slowly over a 6 month to one year time frame. It is widely known that rapid link building will result in a Google penalty.
Free Links
Our Specialty Directories Databasewill list qualified sites for free as they are looking to provide good content and attract more visitors to their own sites. They typically save the top spots for advertisers, but many directories can still provide some link popularity. Also, many of your distributors, agents and suppliers will often link to your site for free as they stand to benefit from your success. Your Press Releases work can also provide free links, but there are typically expenses associated with creating and distributing the news releases.
Paid Links
For most of our client sites, there are often numerous "on topic" sites that are willing to sell ad space, banner ads or just plain text links. The key here is in prioritizing these based on:
- The quality of visitors they will generate
- The quantity of visitors they will generate
- The current Page Rank of the link page
- The cost of the link campaign for at least one complete year
Many sites that offer to sell text ads or listings will offer absolutely no link popularity (page rank) transfer. The link will often show up on a page that is buried deep in their site, or has no assigned page rank.
Many of our new clients ask us if they've lost page rank, SERP position or traffic on Google because they were detected buying or selling links. Over the years, Google's generally never penalized sites for selling links and in most cases would only prevent the links from passing Page Rank.
In year 2008, this has changed. If you sell links, Google appears to penalize your site in the SERP rankings and drop the Page Rank score of your site. The reasoning for this is simple, a web site that has no page rank will have no links of value to sell. And if you have bought these links, then you have bought a link that now has no value. Try and get a refund.
Reciprocal Links
Complementary sites, partner sites, and directories are often willing to exchange links in order to improve their own site's popularity. This is a very gray area of search engine optimization and must be done carefully to avoid joining a "link farm", or "cross linking" or other "link exchange programs" that are not accepted by the search engines. At Catanich, we will help execute this part of your link program safely.
Resource Page Development
In order to implement a reciprocal linking program, we will need to create a "Resources" or "Links" page that outlines your linking guidelines and serves as your own resource page(s).
Education & Support
As part of our program, we also train and advise clients on how to best structure their linking campaign (so as to complement their on-page optimization) and run their ongoing link building effort.
List Of Ideas
For a complete list of linkbuilding ideas, visit our link building tactics page.
