Building Links
As you may know, backlinks to your website are essential to Search Engine Optimization. Something you may not know is some links are better than others and some are actually bad or worthless. Before we get into where you should get links from we're going to go over some general guidelines for building links.
Link Building Guidelines
When building links it's important to keep in my mind that your link profile should appear as natural as possible. Why? Because your websites link profile can hurt your rankings.The search engines spiders will take notice to unnatural linking patterns and possibly put more hoops for your site to jump through to prove itself.
Diversify Your Link Sources
You should be getting links from completely different websites, old and new websites. You can get 100 links from the same website
but they won't be as valuable as 100 links from 100 different websites. Links from directories are OK to get but make sure you
get links from other sources as well(most directories are losing value to their linking pages and in some cases they
are even getting de-indexed, if the link page isn't indexed the link is almost worthless).
Vary Your Anchor Text
You should have multiple different keyword phrases to target for each page your trying to rank. When building links make sure
you rotate them. If every link to your site has the same anchor text it will be caught and those links might be devalued. Links
that don't have the anchor text you want(for instance: click here or website) are still good to get.
Build Links at a Natural Speed
Getting too many links too fast can also trigger a penalty. Build your links slowly over time. I wouldn't recommend getting
more than 50 links a day for real estate websites. That may be a little high of a goal to set so just do what you feel comfortable
with. Getting 20-30 links a week would be good, but you can go much faster if you feel like it.
Get Links from Related Pages
Pages that are about the same topic or similar topic are believed to carry more weight. For instance: a link from a site
with your desired keyword phrase in the title would be better than a link from an off topic site. For real estate websites
it's good to get links from local websites as they are, in a way, related.
Get Links to Your Internal Pages
You should be building links to your internal pages and not just your homepage. I would say the majority can be pointing to
the homepage but there should be a good percentage pointing to internal pages. This can be a little more difficult as directories
usually won't link to internal pages but all your links shouldn't be coming from directories anyway.
Five Reasons Why some Links Better than Others?
- Links from pages that have a high PageRank generally carry more weight.
- Links from related pages generally carry more weight.
- Links from trusted and authority sites carry more weight.
- Links from good neighborhoods generally carry more weight.
- The location of the link on the page can play a role in the value of a link. Links near the top of the page are better than links on the bottom of a page. Links in the content area of a page are better than links in the footer.
Where Can You Get Links From?
The burning question you've all been waiting for, Where can you get links? Use the guidelines above when building links so you can build the most natural link profile to get the best results. When building links watch out for nofollows, redirects and pages that are not indexed.
Directory Links
Links from directories are generally the easiest to get and therefore considered to have the lowest value.
But that doesn't mean they are worthless. Just as some links can be more valuable than other, so can directories.
The most authoritative directories are dmoz and the Yahoo! Directory,
dmoz is free and Yahoo! Directory is $299 a year. There are other directories that are worth submitting to, some are free and
some are paid, although most of the other paid directories are a one time fee. Some of them will have a reciprocal link exchange
which is less desirable but sometimes better than paying a ridiculous fee. When submitting to directories make sure the page
your link is going to be on is indexed by Google, especially when there is a fee involved. Also you'll want to watch out
for nofollowed links and redirect links, as these will pass no value(with the exception of Yahoo! Directory which does pass value).
Other directories you should look into are real estate agent directories. You can find these by searching for them in the search
engines. Search for things like: (your city) real estate agents, (your city) realtors, real estate agent directory, etc.
Article Submissions
Article links can be very valuable and you can usually get more than one link per article. And, you
can submit your article to multiple article directories for multiple links. Another good thing about these articles
is sometimes, if your article is good enough, other websites will use them and you'll get even more links. The only downside is
that you have to write an article, or pay someone to write one for you. Be sure to follow the submission guidelines of
the article directory you are submitting to (some allow links in the content and some only allow links in the resource area).
To get the most value out of article links You should:
- Write an article on a local or real estate topic.
- Include anchor text optimized links to multiple pages in the article or resource box. No more than one link to a single page.
- Write a keyword rich and compelling title.
- Write an informative article that shares your expertise.
- Submit you article to the proper category.
A good article directory to submit to is EzineArticles.com. You can also search for other directories to submit to. There might be some real estate article directories out there, do a search.
Social Media Sites
There are different types of social media sites that you can get a link from. Some are nofollowed and some are not, but
don't worry to much about that in the social media area. If your content is good enough other website owners will see it
up and you might get a link. You can also get a lot of direct traffic to your site from these sites.
There are social news sites like Digg.com where you can submit a link and some text. When
submitting to sites like Digg you want to submit to an internal page that has some valuable content on it. At it it's best
Digg can get you lot's of traffic and lot's of links, at it's worst you will get a link that goes no where and drops off
the site.
There are social bookmarking sites where you can bookmark webpages including your own for the world to see. These are
all generally nofollowed links. On the other hand these sites can sometimes rank for your keywords and bring traffic that way.
You can add descriptions and keyword tags to this sort of site, and some of them you can add reviews. When using a social
bookmarking site it's important to actually bookmark other webpages and not just your own site.
There are purely Social/Professional sites. Facebook is purely social and if you use it I would recommend using it
to connect with friends. Keep in touch and don't go around shoving promotional material in their faces. Facebook has groups
where you can and should participate(find a local or real estate group to participate in). You can also look for a purely
social site on a profile that you fall into, I believe there is one for Mother called CafeMom and there are probably many more.
LinkedIn is professional and has a place to put links. This site
is like a resume with a lot more added in. It also ranks very well for your name in the search engines.
ActiveRain and Localism
are two very good sites you want to look into. You can sign up, set up a profile and add your links. Localism is an external
part of ActiveRain where you can write posts and with links to your site. I'm not sure how you get your content on there but I
think you have to do it through the ActiveRain website blog. Unfortunately they are now charging a fee to get a blog. If you
are already a member and have posted to your ActiveRain blog you should be OK and won't need to pay a fee. The only real
to ActiveRain is it's a big nofollow fest in most places. They don't nofollow profile links at the moment but a lot
of their other internal links are nofollowed(which is probably not helping them any).
Microblogging on sites like twitter have become very popular. The links are nofollow and the whole community is a little hard to get used to. Can be useful if you figure out how to use it properly.
Video and Photo sharing sites such as Youtube and Flickr are good places to put virtual tours and listing photos. You can put a link in your profile which I believe is nofollow but the videos themselves can rank well in the search engines. In your videos it's good to put a slide at the end with you websites address and some text that stating for more info or to see more virtual tours or homes go to: yourwebsite.com.
Reciprocal Linking
You can build links with a reciprocal linking program. This is where you link to a website and they link to yours.
Reciprocal linking is believed to have been devalued in the major search engines but I have used it successfully since then.
The key is to not go overboard and to keep it relevant. I wouldn't suggest reciprocal linking with more that 20 or 30
sites. Also you want to make sure the link pages are not hidden, and check back to make sure the pages are still the same and
still linking back.
To do this you need to set up a link page where you will be placing the links to your partners. Name it whatever you like
but refrain from naming it reciprocal link partners, or link partners. Put a link to this page somewhere on your homepage.
You can put it in the footer or sidebar if you like but it doesn't really matter. After your page is up let the search engines
index it(you can build a few links to the page to get it indexed faster). Then you need to go find link partners
by searching for ""real estate" + link exchange" or + submit link.
When choosing possible link exchange partners make sure to look for link pages with a small amount of links. If
the site in question is linking to 100 other sites it will be of little value. Make sure the page is indexed, and
the links aren't nofollowed. You can also add a submit link page to your site and a link to it from your link partner
page here you give instructions on how to request a link exchange and review any submissions as they come. Choose the
sites with the fewest links and most relevant content and you should be OK. Do not link to gambling and pharmaceutical sites.
Find Article or Blog Partners
This is a really good technique where you look for potential partners to exchange links. But istead of just exchanging links
you exchange articles or blog posts with high quality links in them. Not many people are doing this but if
you look enough and explain the benefits I'm sure you can find someone for this.
To do this you will need to find potential partners. Talk to local website owners or other real estate agents in neighboring markets that are not your competitors. Search for there websites and find some high ranking sites for other local real estate keyword terms and give them a call or email them. Take em to lunch or whatever you have to do to talk to them about it.
When you find someone interested you can either write an article about the other persons site or about your own and exchange them. Be sure to include keyword optimized anchor text and an optimized title. You can get links to your homepage as well as your internal pages. once the articles or blog posts are in place, your done. You might want to keep in contact and share ideas, about marketing maybe even send eachother referals.
Write Testimonials or Reviews
Write a testimonial or review of your website host provider, web designer or any company with a website that you
do business with. Some of these places will use your testimonial and provide a link back to your site.
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