What Types of Back Links Should Your Off-Site Optimization Campaign Be Geared Towards?
Everybody should know that building links towards your website is an extremely important piece of search engine optimization, as well as growing your presence around the web as well.
But what exactly are the types of links that you should seeking, and what’s the difference between all of the available options?
You can break down types of links into several different categories based upon what you’re trying to achieve with them, how much control you have over them and how much value they really provide.
+Links that Boost your Search Engine Rankings
Most people build links to help them rise through the search engines. Of course, an incoming link acts somewhat like a vote for your website in the eyes of the search engines, and the more of them you have, and from better sources, the more value you can see with them.
To see the most value from links that boost your search engine rankings there are a few different items to check off.
First of all, the links should be dofollow to make sure that you are getting full Page Rank value from them.
Secondly, the higher the Page Rank of the site with the link, the more that incoming link is worth to you. A few PageRank 4 or 5 links are worth more than dozens and dozens of links from PR 0 or 1 sites.
Other factors that provide you with more value for your SEO results from links include the relevancy of the website in relation to yours, and the anchor text that is used within the link.
A relevant backlink will be one that is highly related to your own industry or niche. If you repair bikes, a bicycle manufacturer is surely a more valuable and relevant link than a grocery store your Mom works at across the country.
The anchor text used within the link is hugely important, because it will align your website with the specific terms and phrases that you’re trying to rank for. The anchor text tells the search engines what you’re page is all about, and it makes you credible and relevant for those terms.
Sometimes you can control the anchor text, such as when you participate in article marketing, or perhaps with amiable webmasters participating in link exchanges. In other occasions though you will have to hope that the links used are as relevant as possible, and it will be out of your control.
+Links that Directly Lead to Traffic
Some kinds of links may not boost your SEO value that much, but they can help to provide you with a huge stream of traffic. This might be a link from a website that NoFollows it’s outgoing links as a rule. Or it could come from a social bookmarking or networking site that gets a ton of traffic but whose links won’t really boost your rankings.
Either way, the direct traffic is valuable and with the right content and links in the right places, you can help find a whole bunch of clients and prospects that you would not have found otherwise, with or without the search engines.
+Links that Grow Your Presence
Finally, sometimes you will be building links that are really in place to grow your presence and build your reputation. They might not send a ton of traffic to your site, or provide a whole lot of SEO value. However, you will be growing awareness for your brand, your website and your business, and helping to spread the word.
A popular example of this might be a Facebook profile page. Surely you will produce some direct traffic from your link, but it probably won’t be that much unless you really have a huge presence on the site.
But what you are doing is getting your website’s name and out there, and when you make a positive impact and offer help, assistance or simply friendship to others it can and will be remembered.
Of course, never forget that many links can help to do all of these things. A link from a relevant, high ranking and highly trafficked blog to yours will boost your SEO, provide you with a direct stream of traffic and grow your presence as well.
The more backlinks the better, and a varied strategy that gives you all of the above kinds of links will produce the best results.