UPDATE: Webinar audio and video recordings are now available. They’re free, so enjoy!
It’s no secret that link building is the key to any successful SEO campaign. If you want to get traffic from Google, Yahoo, and Bing, getting linked to is crucial. The more links your site gets, the stronger it will become and the stronger it becomes, the easier it will be to get search engine rankings.
In theory, this all seems to be quite simple – get a bunch of links and that will lead to a bunch of traffic. The reality of the situation is that this isn’t always the case. It’s a lot more complicated than that. As soon as you start doing the work that’s required to get links, you will become aware of a lot more questions than you initially anticipated. I talk to people all the time who have worked hard to create hundreds of links that are providing minimal value and minimal benefit. This happens because there are a lot of variables in play, variables that need to be understood and used when you work on your sites.
Here are some of the questions/issues that need to be considered:
- Which URLs are the best ones to point links to? This question is very closely related to ‘Should I point links to my home page or sub pages?’ and ‘What percentage of links should I point at my home page versus my other pages?’.
- How quickly can I get links and does timing matter?
- Where do I get links from and does this matter?
- How do I get the best links?
- Why will no one trade links with me?
- I have some links, why do I not have any traffic?
- I have quite a few links, why do I still not have PageRank?
- How can I get high PageRank links?
- Are PR0 links worth the time it takes to get them?
- Should I spend more time creating content or trying to get links?
- How many links do I need to get before I will see results?
- Why do my tag pages with zero links rank better than my post pages that have back-links?
- I am using (insert method 1 here) and (insert method 2 here) for getting links? Is this enough or are there other methods that I should be using to get links?
The bottom line here is that there are a lot of things to think about when you are building links. The tricky part is that some of the theory that’s out there matters and some of it doesn’t.
Google, Yahoo, and MSN/Bing Have All Changed
In the last year, I’ve noticed some fairly significant changes in the way search engines weight links and rank pages. Don’t get me wrong, they haven’t turned the world upside down but by making a few simple tweaks, they have been able to filter out a lot more weak sites than they did in the past.
One huge change that I have noticed in the last year is that in some cases, links will make rankings get worse in Google. If you have multiple sites at varying levels of age and strength, chances are you have seen this happen. At first glance this seems to be quite contrary to how it should be but once you understand why this happens, it actually makes a lot of sense. This is just one of many issues in play.
Things Have Become More Confusing
While the SEO landscape is mostly the same as it’s been for a few years, small changes have made things become significantly more confusing. If you get a link and your ranking gets worse, it can definitely throw you for a loop. We all know that links help your site to get stronger and it’s REALLY weird when this doesn’t happen. However, once you understand what’s going on it isn’t that big of a deal and it certainly isn’t a ‘death penalty’ for your site.
The key to overcoming the current obstacles is understanding them. If you know what to expect, understand everything that needs to be done, and are executing, you can expect to see great results. If you don’t have all of your bases covered, who knows what will happen.
Knowledge is key. We sometimes work one-on-one with a few clients (right now we’re not taking on more clients – sorry) and it’s safe to say that our average client who we work with is able to make at least ten times as much income as the average member of our program. This is primarily because we are able to teach them what really matters while extracting what doesn’t. We teach them how to get the right links and point them at the right places, with the right timing. We have clients who are doing amazingly well based on these concepts in fact we have multiple clients who are making more than $10,000 per month with these strategies. We have others who are making $5,000+ and then some who are making $1,000+. Everyone is making at least some money. Considering the fact that we haven’t worked with many people, I’d say the results are outstanding.
I’ve been thinking about the differences between what they know and what the average visitor to The Keyword Academy knows and want to do what I can to bridge that gap for as many people as possible.
10 Crucial Linking Strategies For Creating Website Authority
With all of this in mind, I have been working on a 2-hour webinar called ‘10 Crucial Linking Strategies For Creating Website Authority’. It will teach you the strategies that you need to know to create traffic by getting the right links, from the right places, with the right timing. It will also help you to toss out the bad strategy and theory that can lead to inefficiency and confusion. I can promise that those who join us will have a fresh outlook and will understand what’s happening with their sites significantly better than they did before the session.
The webinar will be held on Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 6:00 PM, US Mountain time. All are invited to attend. You can register for the webinar here:
