SEO Link Relevancy

Link Relevancy

As search engines matured, they started identifying more metrics for
determining rankings. One that stood out among the rest was link
relevancy.

The difference between link relevancy and link popularity (discussed in
the previous section) is that link relevancy does not take into account the
power of the link. Instead, it is a natural phenomenon that works when
people link out to other content.


Let me give you an example of how it works. Say I own a blog where I write about whiteboard markers.
 (Yes, I did just look around my office for
an example to use, and yes, there are actually people who blog about whiteboard markers. I checked.) 
Ever inclined to learn more about my
passion for these magical writing utensils, I spend part of my day reading online what other people have to say about whiteboard markers.




On my hypothetical online reading journey,I find an article about the
psychological effects of marker color choice. Excited, I go back to my
website to blog about the article so (both of) my friends can read about it.
Now here is the critical takeaway. When I write the blog post and link to the
article, I get to choose the anchor text. I could choose something like “click
here,” but more likely I choose something that it is relevant to the article. In
this case I choose “psychological effects of marker color choice.”
Someone else who links to the article might use the link anchor text
“marker color choice and the effect on the brain.”

People have a tendency to link to content using the anchor text of either
the domain name or the title of the page. Use this to your advantage by
including keywords you want to rank for in these two elements.
This human-powered information is essential to modern-day search
engines. These descriptions are relatively unbiased and produced by real
people. This metric, in combination with complicated natural language
processing, makes up the lion’s share of relevancy indicators online.
Other important relevancy indicators are link sources and information
hierarchy. For example, the search engines can also use the fact that I
linked to the color choice article from a blog about whiteboard markers to
supplement their understanding of relevancy. Similarly, they can use the
fact that the original article was located at the URL
www.example.com/vision/color/ to determine the high-level positioning and

Relevancy of the content. 

Beyond specific anchor text, proximal text—the certain number of
characters preceding and following the link itself—have some value.
Something that’s logical, but annoying is when people use a verb as
anchor text, such as “Frank said . . . “ or “Jennifer wrote . . .“, using “said” or
“wrote” as the anchor text pointing back to the post. In a situation like that,
engines have figured out how to apply the context of the surrounding copy
to the link.

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Link Building Opportunities in E-Commerce (Infographic)

Link Building Opportunities

In this section I cover ways that the client can build links based on content they already have on E-commerce site.

Why Is This Section Necessary?

This section is important because it shows clients how to leverage their current assets to build more links and thus 

get higher search engine rankings and ultimately sell more products.

I have heard many SEOs complain that link building is the hardest part of

SEO. Though I think this can be true, I don’t think it needs to be. When you

already have something link worthy all you need is to get it in front of the

right type of people to earn easy links. This section helps explain how to

craft content to do this.

How Do You Do the Analysis for This Section?

To do the analysis for this section I use SEOmoz’s Open Site Explorer.

This tool gives me all of the link information I need for the client’s website

along with its competitors.

What Are the Common Suggestions You Make in this Section?

This section is broken down into two categories chosen to help the client

understand their own link profile.

Current Inbound Link Types

The most common suggestion I make in this section is to improve inbound

anchor text. The most common anchor text for a website is almost always

its domain name and its brand name. This is helpful for making it rank for

those terms but not for better converting terms.

Competitive websites need to leverage their link building abilities by

diversifying their link profiles (multiple keywords) and focusing their

energies on anchor text that will help them rank for well converting

keywords.

Content Currently Attracting Links

This section covers what content is currently doing well from an SEO

perspective. My most common suggestion is to figure out why this content

is working and spread these winning attributes to other content. Most of the

time these sections are working because they offer content that is

desirable to web searchers and is formatted in a way that makes it easy to

consume.

Link bulding in e commerce

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Long-Term Perspective in SEO

When you read the news and opinions of the experts in the preceding
section, you’ll find very few instances of exaggerated, hyperbolic claims
that some new policy or algorithmic change is going to turn SEO on its
head or somehow drastically alter the way we do business in the industry.
In the history of SEO, tactics frequently change, but strategy rarely does.
In other words, the specific techniques you implement will evolve, but the
goal is always—and probably always will be—to increase the number of
qualified visitors to your site. Here are some additional examples:
The tactic may have changed from directory submission to linkbait,
but the strategy is still focused on accruing new links.

The tactic may have changed from repeated site submission to XML
sitemap generation and RSS pings, but the strategy remains getting
your site’s changes crawled as quickly as possible.

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Riskier Link Building Technique

While I don’t recommend any of the following techniques, I am including

them because I have seen them work. I strongly believe that these do not

make good long-term strategies because they are likely to be caught and

discredited. That said, I have seen many websites rank highly (at least in the short term) using these techniques.

Buy links from directories

If you choose to go this route, be sure to only buy directory links from pages that both pass juice and are highly ranked. 

(I recommend a mozRank of 5.00 or higher.) 
You want your link to be as few clicks from the homepage as possible and

appear as legitimate as possible. Remember to measure the

authority of page that will actually contain your link, not that of the

home page of the site, and not that of the top category page that your

link will be assigned to. If the category has 12 pages of links already,

you’ll be near the back, and the page is less likely to be authoritative

and crawled frequently.

Buy links from link brokers

Link brokers sell or lease space on highly trafficked and linked-to websites.

 This means they potentially can be helpful for both SEO and driving traffic.

Buy the help of social media influencers

 This is my favorite of my “not recommended” link building practices. 

Most of the popular content on social media websites is controlled

 by a relatively small group of content submitters. 

These powerful people can often bebought, 

and while success of getting content on the homepage of

popular sites is not guaranteed, it is likely.

Buy natural links

 Do you have connections to someone at an important website?

 If so, you could potentially buy links from them. I don’t recommend it,

 but if kept quiet, it will most likely help you.

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Low-Risk Link Building Technique

Start a blog: Your life is a story. Building a blog is extremely easy,
and if you are able to find a way to differentiate yourself, you will have
a limitless supply of link opportunities. Find something that you think
other people (not just yourself) will find interesting and share it with
the world. (Creating a business blog is similarly helpful if you are part
of a large organization. Getting content approved adds some
bureaucratic headaches, but it can be worth it if you stick with it. An
honest, insightful blog about the inside of a corporation is relatively
rare and is rewarded with quality links.)

Help bloggers: Bloggers are great link suppliers. It is a natural part
of their job. You can tap into this by helping them find the information
they need. The easiest way to do this is to find recent articles where
the blogger has made a mistake and send a polite e-mail with the
correction. Many times the blogger will choose to link back to you out
of appreciation.

Sign up for HARO (Help A Reporter Out): Similarly, you can help
online reporters do their job. This service connects reporters and
content producers with the people who can answer their questions.
You can be the expert they are looking to interview.

Contact business partners: If you are running a business, you will
undoubtedly have business partners. These partners will likely have
links. Consider taking a link rather than payment for a simple task
with a partner.
You can make this process easier by providing customers with the
code to do this.

Ask customers: No one likes your products more than your
customers (after all, they paid money for them). Many times these
customers have websites or blogs of their own. Try including a polite
request for a link in receipts and confirmation e-mails.
Ask friends and family: Just like your customers, your friends and
family likely have websites or blogs. These are some of the easiest
links to acquire because the providers are likely to be more willing to
help than general strangers.

Find links that your competition has and request linkers to
consider your site: This tactic is good for two reasons.
First, the links are easy to find with tools like HubFinder and
SEOmoz PRO.
Second, these links will be considered relevant by the search
engines because they are all from the same Internet
neighborhood.

Write articles and submit them to content aggregators: Many
services online need content. Specifically, I have heard good things
about About.com. After building up a reputation at these websites,
feel free to include some links to your website when relevant.

Offer to write a guest blog post: In my experience, professional
bloggers always feel the need to post new content. Many times, they
are willing to post other people’s guest posts to fill this need. This
has the benefit of building your credibility and link profile.
Do charity work and ask for a link in return: This is a win-win
situation. You get to help a charity with its website and you get a link
from a trusted domain.

Link building infographic.

Code a simple calculator: Calculators are deceptively simple to
code in either JavaScript or PHP. Pick an equation that you know
(human years to dog years, weeks to plant petunias, time to cook the
perfect turkey based on size, price of a car after depreciation, and
so on), build or contract someone to build the calculator, and
optimize the page so it ranks for the term. People love to link to
helpful resources.

Write a how-to: Odds are you know how to do something that other
people don’t. Be it sewing a button, or optimizing engines, how-tos
are great link getters.

Write a tutorial: Similarly, to how-tos, tutorials are excellent link
getting sources. Tutorials tend to be more technical than how-tos,
which is great because more technical readers are more likely to
link.
Make a screencast: Screencasts are the lazy man’s tutorial. They
are easy to create (Quicktime 10 has a screen recorder built in) and
even easier to consume. Also, due to their file size, they are more
likely to be linked to rather than flat out copied.
Make or host a funny video: This is easy to do and has the
potential to spread virally.

NOTE Don’t host the video on Vimeo or YouTube, because you won’t
get the link benefits. Instead, sign up for Amazon Web Services
(relatively inexpensive cloud computing) and host it yourself. Make sure
that the video is embedded on a URL you own, not one owned by
Amazon. (Amazon doesn’t need any more links.)

Make or host a funny image: Making and/or hosting an image is
easier than doing the same for a video. Many reasonably priced
hosting plans can handle the bandwidth, and for many funny pictures,
the image editing quality doesn’t matter.

Create a best-of list: Even better than creating your own picture or
video content is finding the best that other people have made. This is
better for two reasons. First, it is easier because you don’t have to
come up with original ideas.

 Second, “best-of” lists attract more links
because they are more useful than a simple list of resources.
Interview someone noteworthy: If you have the resources to get
in contact with someone famous or someone with a particularly
interesting job or experience, you have the makings of a great blog
post or article. These are great link sources because they tend to
rank for the term that makes them interesting and thus drive a lot of
traffic of potential linkers.

Aggregate helpful content: Have you encountered a problem that
after a lot of effort you were able to fix? 
Aggregate helpful content: Have you encountered a problem that
after a lot of effort you were able to fix? If you have, post the solution
online! It is surprising how many times people reinvent the wheel
simply because the solution to the given problem is not readily
available.

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