Professional Link Building

Linking is one of the most confusing, misrepresented and important aspects of a true SEO campaign. There are so many tales and stories of what is the right link strategy, what is the wrong, whether it is white, grey or black hat and in fact what even is paid links and what isn’t. The truth is quite simple really, all links are back links, whether that be internal links that link your pages together or whether it be external linking where a link is placed on a third party site and links back to your website.

What we have learned over the years is that linking is a must, there are no in-betweens, you have to utilise some form of link building to create a higher authority in Google’s eyes. What we must avoid is link building without a strategy, adding links here and there in the hope you get traction is a very gung-ho way to approach what in essence is a very integral part of your online presence. You should also avoid patterns, 100 of this link or 10 of that link and then repeat that each month, the same way we should do all the linking on the 10th of each month or 50% in the first week and 50% in week 3. The search engines have resources beyond comprehension and will already know and utilised every trick you think you will get away with. Linking isn’t about manipulating the search engines, it’s about building credibility, similar to a voting system. The more votes you have from credible sources the more chance you have to be elected to the first page.

It is this strategy that Fifty2one has been using for many years whilst involved with other agencies and one we will ALWAYS use moving forward. A simple but sensible way of link building, tracking and tracing all links sourced and a continuous health check on those sites we link on have allowed us to ensure the continued success of our client’s websites.

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Types of Links

There are many types of links being offered all over the web and not all are bad links, we have found however that unless you can control the link it isn’t worth having at all. No longer is there a need for hundreds of links all at once so stay away from anyone offering you 2000 PR (Page Rank) 8 links for £450.. These will be links on very poor sites that at best won’t be cached but at worst will have been identified as link farms and potentially will pass the penalty to your site. The safest and best links we use currently are as follows:

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Press Releases

Well written PR's from leading news agencies.

Guest Blogs

Trusted websites writing about you and your services.

Directory Links

Get your business listed to boost rankings locally.

Themed Links

High-authority links from within your sector.

PRESS RELEASES

And why is it a good investment?

Whilst there are a million ways to get a PR out to publish it has to be said that some press release companies are better than others. To understand which are good and which are bad usually starts with the press release itself.

No press associated pr company would accept a poorly written pr that is self-promoting and non-informative or with bad grammar etc. No, a press release that will actually assist your site in the SERPS will be a well written piece that is accepted to the best associated sites in the world of journalism and better still will be published in Google news.

After all if it is Google we are trying to drive our site in to then surely this has to be a deciding factor in the work we do.

There is no such thing as a cheap press release! DO NOT associate your website to these PR companies… Once it is out there, there is no turning back!

GUEST BLOG POSTS

What do they involve and how are they different?

With guest posting you have the ability to have something well written and self-promoting about your business. A good quality site to post on should have good trust with Google that is marketed in its own right and not on a network of other blogs. It should have a DA (Domain Authority) of more than 30 + and actually be cached in Google. Usually consisting of around 400-600 words and incorporating a keyword link or URL link back to your site these are paramount to building your offsite strength.

Posting on these sites you have to consider many factors and due diligence is always needed. If a site has too much variation of industries across them this can lead to your link being devalued or worse still it could actually have a negative impact on your site.

THEMED LINKS

A little more detail…

Thematic links are those linking to other sites in associated industries. One of the biggest misconception is that ALL links have to come from a website that supplies the same service or product as your site. However, this is wrong, would you allow your competitor to link from your website? I hope you are shaking your head right about now!

Themed links are simply that, a link that has an associated theme. So if I were a plumber and I wanted a themed link then any link in the building trade would be ideal.

That is it, there is no black magic just straight forward common sense. The biggest thing to remember here again is the site that links to you? If it is of poor quality, has bad link practices coming in to the site or are linking out to sites that are irrelevant then we can’t utilise that site at all.

DIRECTORY LINKS

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Directories or citations are very powerful for our local searches but give us strength within our sites in the search engines eyes too. The mere fact you have placed your website on directories confirms to the search engines that the physical address of your business is true and therefore you build up your trust score.

If you have multiple locations, then this should be done as per the relevant page within the site that relates to the area in question and directory links should be sourced accordingly. Again caution has to be applied here, too many at once or low quality directories can have an adverse effect.

Things to look for here are mainly if the directory is actually cached by the search engines? You will be surprised how many “Top Directories” have never been actually indexed by a search engine!

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01200 898 501