Gaining back links is essential to good SEO, but hours (in many cases weeks or months) can be wasted building thousands of terrible links when maybe all you needed was a hundred good ones.

What makes a link good? In terms of value, you can throw out image links right away. The most valuable links are the one that replicate themselves and come from a decent site. The easiest way to get a link like that is to acquire a piece of digital real estate on the sidebar of a good sized blog. If you can get a text link in the sidebar of another site, that link is usually replicated on every single page of that site. Translation: 1 sidebar link = as many links are there are pages of that site. This is huge. Footer links typically function much the same. The only difference being that they are not quite as prominent.

A well rounded link building campaign should consist of building several types of links. Go ahead and submit to directories, bookmark your site pages, and get text links embedded wherever you can. However, remember to put the most effort where it will do the most good. Make deals with other site owners and do whatever you have to to acquire some of those valuable replicated links. As always we’re here to help if you want to pass on some of the work.

When beginning your SEO campaign or even just expanding your current one, it’s important to define your goals and not move onto lofty ambitions before you’re ready. We recommend the three tier approach.

The three tier approach means separating your campaign into three major areas and then committing your resources to them in sequence. For example: Lets say you run a paragliding school and your ultimate goal is to obtain a top three Google spot for the term “paragliding.” Paragliding would become your third tier keyword, and you would set that on the back burner until you had reached your first and second tier goals. What are those you ask? Well a good idea for a second tier keyword in this case may be “paragliding school.” It is significantly less competitive than just “paragliding” alone and much more specific to what you are doing. The volume of searches may be far less, but you have to work up to your ultimate goal and this may be a good via point.

Now we just need to establish a starting point and choose a first tier key phrase. A good idea in this case may be something like “best paragliding school” or “paragliding school {your state/city}.”

Your campaign tiers should now look something like this:

1st Tier – Best Paragliding School
2nd Tier – Paragliding School
3rd Tier – Paragliding

As you are building links and optimizing be sure to follow your plan in sequence and exercise some self control in not going after your highest tier until you have achieved your goals for the lower tiers. When you have dominated this set of keywords you are ready to take on a new set. You could then take on a new third tier goal like “extreme sports” and come up with some new first and second tiers to help you get there.

SEO has been and always will be about strict methods and patience. If you have questions about your campaign, please call us and we would love to talk.

Website content is one of the big 3 when it comes to search engine optimization. The search engines love websites that have alot of unique content on them.

What I mean by unique content is the copy on the site needs to be original to your website only. Many website owners try to build content on their websites by going out and getting articles that have been written that are free for distribution. Read More »

Link building is an important aspect of off site SEO. In many cases, once the site is optimized the only possible method of increasing search ranking is by link building, which can be difficult. Not only do you need to build links to your site, but you must make sure they are relevant and they are built consistently. Additionally, many links have to be built pointing to your site to succeed against the competition. Read More »

Most Internet marketers have a habit of following only traditional and ordinary link building methods. They neglect the many other ways of building links that require new and clever ideas. These strategies can be used to increase page popularity in a way that your competitors will not be able to mimic. Read More »