Link Tools and Tactics from SES New York 2007

An informative session at SES New York 2007 titled "Link Building: The Basics" presented useful information about this traffic-building strategy. The program was presented by Debra Mastaler of Alliance-Link and Detlev Johnson. Highlights from this discussion are presented in this article.

Link popularity is one of the largest factors in determining rank and is used in some degree by all of the major search engines. Tips for building effective links include:

It's not necessarily about quantity anymore. It's more about quality. You need a lot of links from quality sites to rank well.

Anchor text links used on other sites linked to your sites that use the same text as titles or file names will result in a higher page rank. This is true because search engines read words around anchor text and throughout the page looking for on-topic and subject relevance. They want sites relevant to the query and theme.

When using links to build rank, avoid links that that use rel="nofollow" Use Firefox SearchStatus tool to point out pink links = quirk.biz/searchstatus). Also, don't use links that are irrelevant such as links in Javascript code, image links, redirected links through 3rd party sites - affiliate links and tracking codes. Affiliate marketers, can still pass link popularity through tools by searching for Naked Links. Stay away from link farms.

Email-based communications with over 100k subscribers are an excellent opportunity to take advantage of the residual effect of linking.

When using outbound links, link to people who mentioned you and back to similar industries and established sites.

TouchGraph offers a tool where you are able to input a keyword to find out who has been linking to your site by term. This tool points out topically relevant websites.

Place links on your site to press releases, directories, award sites, affiliation listings, associations, and articles.