Thursday, March 25, 2010
Matt Cutts Suggestions for Link Building
As you may know from my earlier posts I have had a couple of hours to watch a few Google webmaster videos and thought I would summarise them on my blog. A particularly interesting video was on the best methods for link building apart obviously from the Golden Rule of excellent content.
The first point Matt made was to avoid ANY kind of paid for links. That does not mean however that you cannot pay for work by an SEO company, like ourselves, to help you build links, it just means that you should avoid any situation where the only reason someone has linked to you is because you handed over cash, either to them or a link building company.
I like Matt’s video because all of the methods he suggests are good honest “vote for me” type methods. Here are his suggestions together with my comments and observations;
The Occasional Rant!
Although you should not make a habit of this as it will soon turn people off, the odd rant about bad service or your own particular gripe, can because it is controversial draw people to your website and if you can manage to be humourous too then all the better.
Answer People’s Questions on Forums etc
Many have nofollow on any links so you will not get pagerank directly from the forum but if people like your help and advice then they will visit your website and bookmark you. I love helping on forums, webmaster help and Yahoo and find when I look at my analytics my websites get a lot of traffic from these sources.
Original Research
When Google announces a change in the algorithm for example, research how that affects your business and write a blog post on it. Everyone likes up to date stuff and many new releases will have glitches so find those out and let everyone know and they will love you for it.
Newsletters
If you keep your customers up to date with your business and offers they will click on the links in your newsletter, visit your website and possibly buy more from you. Don’t let their attention wander to your competitors.
Social Media
Use twitter, facebook, forums and blogs.
Try to Get an Invitation to Speak at an Event or Conference
The majority of the delegates will probably visit your website and bookmark your pages.
“50 Best” Lists
Although as Matt says these have been rather over-used they are still worth doing once in a while although less important than the other methods listed here.
Every Business Should Have a Blog
Use your blog to put on amusing stuff that helps define who you are, build a reputation for knowing your stuff and add useful tutorials on “how to do” whatever your area of expertise is.
Provide Free Useful Online Services
If there is apart of your business that you can put online and offer for free then do so as these online tools will often be bookmarked and used often. I, for example, visit a particular online image optimiser many many times a day when setting a website up. I do have other PC based tools that will do the same job but the online tool is so easy to use I prefer to return to that one each time.
Make Sure Your Website Architecture is Good and that it is Easy to Bookmark Your Pages
Make Useful, Funny or Informative Youtube Videos.
Gill Keeble
SEO Commercial- SEO For Your Business
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