How-To
Link Development Basics
How to start working with link programs by Todd Malicoat
Jan 22, 2004
Writer’s note: This tutorial is written as a tool for SEO professionals who would like to educate their clients on how to start an effective link development campaign. Passing some of the work to the client helps keep the cost of a project down, and improves the overall value of the client’s investment.
Link popularity is one of the most important variables in current search engine algorithms. Without too much depth into technical details: your site needs links. Basically, each link from another site serves as a vote for your site in the search engines. You WILL benefit from them. Buy, beg, borrow, and steal for links to your site. (Please do not take this literally. We do not advocate link theft.)
Below is a quick starter tutorial on how to increase your site’s link popularity and ultimately your search engine rankings. To get lots of links to your site, you need to be able to find where to get good links. This is a break down for link searching in a few simple steps in order to allow any intelligent “Internet surfer” to become a link developer.
Understand what type of pages you are looking for
This is important to the effectiveness of your search. This is a general tutorial, but the types of links you are looking for will be industry specific. If you are selling custom hot rod accessories, you will be looking in the automotive type areas in directories. If you are selling plumbing services, you will be looking for regional listings or business listings.
Find your starting points
We are looking for quality links from relevant sites. Directories provide the best listings, but there are many other places that are potential link givers. There are several places to start looking for potential link givers. Some of the best places to start looking are the “top” directories. A list has been provided below of some starting points for finding your links. Each directory or site should have a category of other directories giving you even more possibilities.
Establish if a site is applicable
There are billions of webpages on the Internet. This leaves you a lot of options for getting links. Don’t spend too long hemming and hawing over whether a site will give you a link. If it is a large directory or site that is in the same theme of your site, then go to the next step. If your site is about dog food, and the site you are surfing is about car parts, then keep moving to the next site. Don’t get slowed down reading; keep your mission of link building in mind. Open lots of windows and bounce around. If your site wouldn’t fit, keep moving!
Find the best category to be listed in
Directories often have hundreds or thousands of categories. Start at the “top” of the site, and work your way through each relevant category. Commercial product selling sites should often look in the “shopping” or “business” categories. Service-based sites should normally go for regional based listings. Each directory that you find may lead you to another directory, but you may also run into dead ends. This is why it is nice to have the above mentioned starting points to go back to when you hit a point where there are no more relevant options (and trust me, there is no “end to the Internet”).
Locate where to submit your site
Once you’ve established that your site fits on the site, and found where it should go, locate the method to submit your site. Oftentimes, there will be verbage such as “add URL," “list your site," “submit a site," “add link," or “add a resource." These links are normally located close to the top or bottom of the page. Keep an eye out and scan or do a “page find” for these words. When none of these are available, find an e-mail address to contact the webmaster. DON’T contact the webmaster directly if there’s a submission form available.
Write a good description and document your submission
Each site will have specific submission guidelines. Some sites may allow long descriptions - some may allow no descriptions. Be prepared for a variety of different scenarios. Keep your descriptions in a word document so that you can re-use them on occasion. Make sure that your descriptions fit within the guidelines of the site you are submitting to. After submitting, document your submission. This way you can go back and verify that your link was added without bugging the webmaster. You will also come across the same sites (if they are good) in lots of different places. You probably won’t remember every directory you submitted to, so it is important to keep your work well documented and organized. Be patient, and keep searching...there’s a lot more pages out there that your site could be listed on!
Starting points
http://directory.google.com
http://directory.yahoo.com
http://dmoz.org
http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/General_Directories/
http://www.jayde.com