Link Building
Other sites linking to your site is another vital factor in achieving good search engine rankings. However as any site owner will know, the process involved for soliciting good quality, relevant inbound links can be time consuming and arduous.
Although there are no guarantees because the search engine algorithms are not in the public domain, there is endless empirical evidence that linking WHEN MANAGED CORRECTLY is extremely effective. As with many natural search activities, results are generally measured over months rather than weeks. That said, there are occasional "quick wins" - we recently saw a client go from virtually unranked for a target search term to number one out of 500,000,000 results! We must emphasise that such results are the exception, not the rule. However, we have yet to work for a client for whom we have not achieved strong ranking improvements. We have endless practical examples of clients’ sites that are now #1 for a whole host of search terms because they have been optimised and linked properly by us.
Due to our years of experience in this sector our link building team has built up a database of thousands of websites categorised by sector and market. We can therefore actively target link partner by link topicality and relevance. This is arguably the hottest conversation in linking. The choice of link partners matters a great deal when trying to get good rankings for particular subjects for our clients. Accordingly, we adhere to the following guiding principles when identifying potential link partners for a client:-
- On-theme - link partners MUST have a close logical association with the theme of the client's site. Inevitably there is a degree of interpretation involved here but the association should be intuitive.
- Focus on the user experience - links should add value to our clients’ visitors.
- Complimentary not competitive - there is little or no point in soliciting links from direct competitors to the client. Firstly they are unlikely to return the link and secondly the search engines are likely to see these links as "artificial" – after all, why else would two competitors trade links with each other? Rather, we focus on partners that have complimentary sites.
Link Quality:
Since we drive our activities by the presence of sites in the search engine results for relevant terms, there is an implication that sites must meet the search engines' quality criteria to appear there in the first place. That said, there are numerous further checks performed in "future-proofing" our clients' link equity. The search engine algorithms don't stand still and, whilst some of them don't always practice what they preach, the day will come when they will so we adhere to a number of best practice guidelines when assessing the quality of potential link partners which must:-
- Be on-topic based upon the complimentary theme approach described above.
- Have relevant content – sites comprised entirely of links or with very "thin" content are of little value.
- Avoid link trickery - including "nofollow" tags, internal redirects and a host of other tricks which will result in little or no value to any links obtained.
- Avoid excessive or off-topic linking - many sites have either been poorly advised or have adopted old fashioned approaches to linking with "anything with a pulse" resulting in endless, often off-topic links. Some deliberately employ these techniques in an effort to spam the search engine results. The more links there are on a page, the less the value of each link.
- Avoid spamming techniques - many sites still employ keyword stuffing, hidden text, cloaking, redirects and a range of other techniques designed to fool the search engines. Some have been around long enough for these techniques to be overlooked (we can explain why if requested) but are unlikely to remain so indefinitely and represent a risk as a potential link partner.
- Avoid participating in visible linking schemes - this may sound a little strange coming from a provider of linking campaigns but many low rent campaigns use so-called link farms or exchange sites from which to return a link and tend to add code to the site which is visible to the search engines and screams "I'm desperate to link" - which isn't a positive. Our linking technology was specifically designed at the outset to avoid creating this effect.
The Linking System:
We believe that our Linking System is one of the best in the world. When you choose to run a link building campaign with us you will be given a login and password to our client portal where you can check the progress of your campaign at any time. Benefits of the linking system include:
- Full visibility of your linking campaign 24/7/365 days a year.
- Instantly see the status of all your inbound links.
- Review your inbound links, see Google Pagerank and Alexa data for the sites hosting your link.
- Built-in best practice: handles linking the way the search engines want it.
- Extremely configurable: all client campaigns are deeply customised to ensure the best possible results for you.
- Huge knowledge base built up over many years of running successful linking campaigns: a massive head-start.
Number of solicitations per month |
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
1000 |
1500 |
2000 |
3000 |
|
| Content-for-links only | By special arrangement only |
|||
| Reciprocal links only | £450 |
£575 |
£675 |
£900 |
| Combined linking campaign (CFL and RL) | £550 |
£725 |
£825 |
£1075 |
Linking Campaign Types:
- Standard Reciprocal Linking – the most common and widely accepted form of linking in which we exchange links on your behalf with other relevant, good quality sites.
- Content-for-links – some clients may not have the ability or space in which to publish links in order to exchange links. In these cases we offer third parties some relevant website content which we create specifically for them, in return for which we ask for a link back to our client’s site. A powerful approach since, in many cases, your link will end up on its own page rather than on a links page, surrounded by relevant content: it doesn’t get better than this from a search engine perspective!
- Combined – here we offer potential link partners both options - reciprocal linking or content-for-links. This maximises conversion rates and combines the benefits of both approaches.