In many cases, we as SEO engineers know how to evaluate a potential link or directory to get the maximum benefit for a website. Many of these sites are broken up into very specific sub-categories. Sites such as DMOZ, the Yahoo Directory, Go Guides and many others are called authority sites. They have been on the web for many years, some from as early as 1997. With the age of the site, the search engines have found that these are not fly by night Spammer sites that just want to host Google AdSense to make money. A lot of directories are human edited so not every site will get in on the first attempt. These are the sites that are worth going after in your linking efforts. They are the kinds of sites we recommend people submit their sites to.

At first glance, a directory or link site may not look like much, but if you dig a little deeper, you can probably find a category that will fit every business type. The key to submitting to these types of sites is finding the most relevant category for your company. And, remember, even if there is a category that is similar but not exact, it is worth submitting to.

Read the rest of this entry »

Linking and link building can be scary stuff. Constantly, I hear people talk about being penalized for aggressive linking or getting into trouble by using link farms and link exchange programs that are just bad news. The question here is “How do I know if a link is one that will improve my rankings, or one that will end up causing irreparable damage?” In an effort to bring some clarity to a frustrating situation, I have listed below some things to look for when considering a link.

The thing to consider above all else is relevancy. In other words, is the site that I want to link to me somehow related to the content on the page? If not, forget it. Links from pages that are not related to your content in some way, are not going to be counted. Other things to consider include:

Read the rest of this entry »

Recently we have putting a lot of energy into our “Link-Building” program. While working on this program, several questions have come up. Below is my attempt to answer them as thoroughly as possible. I invite everyone to add more questions or comments where you can.

1. What is linking and why it is so important to my search engine rankings?

When someone links to your site, they are essentially telling people “Hey, I like this site, it’s related to what we talk about on our site and you should check it out”. In other words when someone links to your site they are voting for it. Some votes are counted more than others (hey no one said this was a democracy).

2. Why would one link to your site count more than another?

When it comes to SEO ranking, it’s all about relevancy. In other words, is the site that is linking to you a trusted source for information in your particular field? For example, if you have a site about financial investment, a link to your site from http://money.cnn.com/ is going to be given more weight than say, stevesstocks.com, because it is a trusted source for financial information.

Read the rest of this entry »