 |
| |
|
|
All the software available on this site is developed by enthusiast professionals and distributed for free ("as is").
If you like our site we would appreciate if you place our banner or link on your website.
Read more... |
|
|
SEO Tips: The 3 Magic Ingredients of a Really Good Link
Author: Ernie Schwarcz
Readers and e-mailers ask me pretty frequently what makes a link
a good link.
I am talking here about external links (back-links), not
internal ones. This does not mean in any way that internal link
building is unimportant or easy. Au contraire. But the hectic
yet hazy world of back-link building has always been the subject
of much more scrutiny and bigger hype than the one of internal
links (Most likely because successful external link building is
so much more dependent on other parties, i.e. on potential link
partners).
Whenever the topic of external link building comes up, I
sometimes pull an old analogy of mine out of the sock drawer.
(Those of you who know it, please stop yawning and scroll down
until you see uncharted territory).
All others might be interested to hear that I like to compare
external link building to social interactions which happen in
real life.
How so? Well, simply imagine 2 people, we ll call them Jamie and
Terry (both unisex names ). They live on the same block but
that s all they have in common. Let s compare:
Jamie: relaxed and quiet, has one email account, seldom goes to
party and not sociable;
Terry: hectic and hyper, has tons of email accounts, has tons of
party invitations.
Which of the two is more popular? A no-brainer, isn t it?
I am not suggesting that a quiet life is inferior to an active
one, or that a phone that rings off the hook is a good thing.
Also, being hyper isn t necessarily being happy, and a low
e-mail count doesn t mean Jamie is a nerd. We are not labeling,
just recording facts.
And the fact is that Terry is more popular, in the sense of
getting much more attention by friends and other humans than
Jamie does. If you were to assign a value to Terry s level of
popularity, you would say, for example, Level 5, while Jamie s
might be Level 1.
The practical consequence is that to be at Level 5, Terry
doesn t have to actively search for friends and to reach out to
a great extent (some effort is of course needed to actually keep
all those friends), while Jamie would need to work very hard to
reach it. The corollary is of course that to reach, say, Level 7
(even more contacts), Terry would need to put in some work - but
Jamie would have to make superhuman efforts to ever get there -
if he ever gets there.
A similar situation applies to websites. Here, your friends
are your inbound links, and popularity is measured in Google
Page Rankings. The difference between people and businesses is
that while in social life some people like it less hectic, I
have yet to see a business website that s satisfied with getting
just the occasional visit.
We all know that inbound links to your site are an expression of
recognition, of wanting to be connected to you. But what are the
most important characteristics of a good link?
Let s first use common sense. Would Jamie or Terry like to
receive unimportant mail, or befriend unwanted, unpopular
people? I don t think so. How about getting sorry, wrong
number phone calls, mistaken invitations, or other irrelevant
contacts? No. Finally, would they like to be called names or
titles which make it impossible to identify them? No way.
Our analogy is back again:
Importance of friends / contacts= Quality / importance (=PR) of
linking site; Relevance of mail or calls= Topical relevance of
links; Correct Name = Keyword-rich text links (anchors);
These 3 factors are generally considered to be the most
important components of any good inbound link.
Some SEO colleagues and link building specialists advocated
other factors in recent interviews. Link expert Eric Ward
attaches importance to the identity of the linking site, the
intent of the link, and the linking site s own back-link
pedigree. Another link expert, Debra
Mastaler, says the age of the page which hosts the link is
significant.
In my own humble opinion, Eric s and Debra s points are, while
well-taken, essentially variations on the main theme: the
quality of the site from which a link points to you.
So, get to work. Build link relationships that will give you
relevant, quality links, tagged on your link partners sites
with keyword-rich text. Google will reward you.
Any questions? You are welcome to contact me via my SEO Consultant site for free tips.
About the author:
Ernie Schwarcz, Founder of www.seotrump.com 2195 Ekers Avenue,
#201, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3S1C6 514-793 6661
|
|
|
|
Copyright © Urikor, 2007. All Rights Reserved
E-mail: admin@soft-seo.com
|
|
|
|
|
Home