A Suggested Approach to Link Building

Obtaining a portfolio of good quality links can be a time-consuming task. There are
proprietary software packages to help you in your task of tracking down web sites with relevant content. Many organisations work on a reciprocal basis. Sites with high Page
Rank may even charge for links. There are also link marketing and exchanging
specialists. However, according to Google, any attempt to exchange or buy links with the
explicit attempt to influence the ranking of your web site is considered link spamming.
My suggestion is to start close to home, exchanging links with businesses you may have a
trading relationship with. Do not rush into the link building process and do not trade links
with just anyone. Poor quality links may have a negative impact on your site.

Originating Site has been Crawled and Indexed

It may sound obvious, but for search engine purposes a link is not a link if the search
engines are not aware of it. The link will only exist in the records of the search engine if
the page on which it is situated has been crawled and indexed whilst the link was there.

Link Age

A long established link is deemed by Google to have more value than a recent link. A
rapid build up in links may also be deemed spam. However Google apparently makes an
allowance for a rapid build-up of links generated by news stories.

Anchor Text

Anchor text is the text that contains or sits alongside a link. This text provides additional
relevance to the quality of a link. Anchor text is written in HTML. On-screen part of the
text shows up as highlighted (usually coloured) or underlined type and part in normal
type. The anchor text for your site could be written in HTML code as follows:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com"> Your Site Title </a> - A short description of what
you do. <BR>

Link Density

Links from pages with fewer outbound links have more influence than from pages where
there are huge numbers of links – see FFAs. Additional outbound links dilute the value of
existing links on a page. My suggestion is to accept links from pages with no more than
10 to 12 links. Avoid pages with 20+ external links.

Site and Page Relevance

A link from a site and page carrying similar content would carry more influence than
from a site without the similar content.

Google Page Rank

For Google ranking purposes a link from a high Page Rank site has even greater
influence. A link from a PR 6+ site is extremely valuable. At the other extreme, I suggest
you are prudent when exchanging links with sites of a PR of zero. The PR0 category
contains a number of banned sites.

Key Factors Effecting Link Quality

According to SEO convention and the information gleaned from the Google patents, there
are a number of factors affecting the quality of your inbound links.

SEO 3 – The Off-Site Phase

The off-site phase deals primarily with inbound link building. Amongst the major engines
Google places the greatest emphasis on links. The relevance and quality of these links has a significant influence on the ranking of your site in all of the major engines. The search
engine algorithm interprets each inbound link as a “vote” for a site. Not all links are equal
and therefore the quality of the vote is important in determining the value of the vote.

CSS Format

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. It is a way of compressing HTML code, allowing
a site to load faster and, in the SEO context, improves the density and priority of
keywords.

Frames & File Size

Frames
Frames cannot be read by the major engines. So in terms of search they are an absolute
no. To find out if your site is utilising frames carry out the cache test on Google.
File Size
Do not make your opening page too large. Even if an engine can read your site many
internet users are still on a dial up connection.

Other File Formats

As at May 2005, Google claims that it is able to read 13 different file types apart from
HTML. The most common non-HTML formats are PDF and MS Office files. From my
experience documents in these two formats can all rank highly. I do, however, have
reservations about some of the other formats and, as mentioned above, particularly Flash.

HTML Code

As has been explained previously, search engines were originally designed to read via
HTML code or code related to it such as XHTML and PHP.

Technical Issues – Site Design and Construction

This section is about avoiding the technical mistakes or pitfalls that may hamper search engine visibility

Business Address and Telephone Number

It is believed that engines give an additional weighting to sites that carry an address and
telephone number. In many categories there are a large number of searches made using a
national discriminator in the search term, so include your country in the address.

Content Change

Engines apparently respond positively to a degree of content change – this is why some
blogs appear high in the rankings. Apparently, Google responds positively towards
“fresh” web sites and negatively towards “stale” web sites. If content has changed
between crawling cycles it signals to the spider to return again at more frequent intervals.

Site Map

Engines respond positively to site maps especially on larger sites with several levels. The
site map is also a useful way of aiding the navigation of a spider for deep crawl purposes.

Outbound Links (Forward)

These are apparently growing in influence as the engines realise that inbound links (IBLs
– see below) are being widely spammed. Rather link internal links, external links provide
the opportunity to include keywords in the hyperlink text.

Internal Links

Inbound links are important for two reasons. Firstly, their content is highlighted with a
hyperlink and this is given special emphasis by the search engines and secondly it is a
way of ensuring the engines can navigate and deep crawl into a site.

Bold and Cursive Script

Both bold and cursive script are given extra emphasis by the search engines. A subtle use
of bold or cursive script, when using a keyword, will enhance its presence.