Best place to start link building
-
I am new to SEO and want to start doing some link building using SEO moz to help. I am looking for pointers on where to start. Our business is www.hairbowcenter.com and we sell ribbon and hairbow supplies. We are lacking a lot of good links and I wanted to start focusing getting more. What tools should I use and where do I begin. I noticed our Pagerank is only 1 for our site and I want to get that up as well.
-
Are directories still a relevant way to start with link building after the latest google changes?
-
I usually don't use shortcuts when I research Mommy Blogs. The quality ones get a ton of requests for reviews and giveaways. You have to find a way to stick out from the bunch. I usually read a handful of posts and the "About Me" page before sending an email. That way I can personalize it, and possibly even find a good pitch (ie - if they do a product of the week, etc). Most good Mommy Blogs have a page devoted to PR or you can just use their contact form.
I haven't used them so I can't vouch personally, but http://momsparkmedia.com/ might be a good option for you. Looks like they act as a liaison between bloggers and companies.
I hope that helps!
-
Can you recommend some sites that you contract mommy bloggers from? It seems like from sites like this http://goo.gl/tJFSG, you cant easily find the contact info to ask for a review, and also seems inefficient to keep asking one by one.
Is there something like payperpost.com, specifically more for mommy bloggers, that has good quality blogs?
Thanks for your help
-
As mentioned above spreadsheets are the way forward or a simple word processor page. Adding all the information such as email contacts etc
Another good one is to check out whois information on sites and be like "a dog with a bone" be persistent day in day out and make sure you get in touch with the webmasters. Skype is a good tool to initiate conversations also.
-
I agree with the Twitter follow suggestion, but don't consider it even "a little grey hat."
My team and I have been able to get about one in five people we follow to follow us back. And we've seen more than a few convert into valued customers.
The best strategy is to be both selective and transparent. Don't go on a blitz where you follow hundreds of people from a few sources on a single day. Be very targeted. Follow people slowly and incrementally, after first providing something of value on your own Twitter feed....and jumping into discussions where you can provide expertise.
Too many people go on fishing expeditions in which they randomly follow people from targeted Twitter feeds. The targets may click over to your Twitter feed out of curiosity, but be turned off by one marketing message after another, but no real content. Or they may follow you -- and then have nothing more to do with you ever again.
-
As has been mentioned - links pointing to you need to be relevant and related. The place to start is look in depth at your competitors. Ascertain who they are - and see who links to them. If you can gain links from the same places that are relevant and regarded as authorities, and leave out their spammy links it will give you a good start.
Once you have found your competitors - read this post on using googles custom search engine for potential link mining here on SEOmoz, and delve into the world of search parameters to get your search for potential links on target.
When you are seeking links - avoid specifically going for just links to your home page - link diversity is key. If you are approaching an authority site about a specific product and you have a guide on how to use it or positive reviews on it, ask for a link to the deep page to ensure the relevancy is there.
-
You've received some good advice above and there's only one suggestion I would make. Although, I'm not a huge social networking fan I do think that Twitter can be a very useful tool. Although a little grey hat, the strategy is to follow users who you would like to follow you. A fair percentage will follow back. Then, mention them in your tweets, which they usually appreciate, followed by any other means of building a relationship. Once you have some sort of rapport opportunities can arise for back links.
-
I have a feeling you would do well with Mommy bloggers. Offer a giveaway to their readers or send them product for review. It's an excellent way to get exposure and links back.
Not sure where to start? I suggest finding those sites that rank well for the keywords you want and see who links to them. You may find a lot of great opportunities there.
-
Before you even start on trying to get links for the website, just ask yourself why others would link to you. You are an e-commerce website and it makes it even more difficult to get quality natural links - so being creative is important here - think of different strategies you can pursue so it makes your content more "linkable".
Could you provide any free tools or widgets that your readers might find useful? For a real estate guy, a free mortgage calculator might work well.
You could run a contest targeted towards women audience - have viral impact by social sharing - this usually ends up with several links from "mom blogs" and other portals.
As James suggested, go for Directories - those are easy links - but make sure they are thematic and relevant. There are very few general directories of value.
-
A good way to go about this is to create a spreadsheet, find niche related resources that you could possibly get a link on. Directories, Blogs, Related Websites, Guest Post Areas, etc. Organize them, than once you have a good list built, go after the links using common practices, calling, emails, social areas like Facebook and Twitter.
Once you've gone through the list you've created, target a new area in your link building campaign, and start the process over. Just keeps things a bit more organized
-
Dont worry about PageRank is is not a solid measurement of ranking anymore. In the first place you need to do up a plan of what you want to rank for as though you say you are looking for good links you are not clear as to what exact keywords you want to rank for. Look in the SEOMoz training under keyword research for some good tools on how to do this. Then I would as James suggest below start some organic and slow link building building over time.
Along with the tools here the simplest of tools is an excel spreadsheet where you build up a list of those keywords (start with the long tail ones mentioned on the page). Then go out an research what sites are speaking about this blogs, business sites. Build real relationships, work your social media strategy and over time you will get links - not lots of links but good links -
Your aim should be to be the authority in this area but in the first place work on above and even read the rest of this training page.
-
Hi,
Here are some ideas to get you started
1. Look for related directories online where you can submit your business.
2. Type in your related business keywords, then look at which competitors are ranking for these terms then go to OSE and research the links the competitors have built, you can pull a report.
3. Possibly start a blog and get fresh content related to the business on the blog each week, then syndicate the content via social media.
4. If you have social media channels for the business, start link building via them you can build links via Twitter, Stumble upon, Delicious and a host of other social website.
5. Think to yourself do you have any suppliers who you currently use, ask if they want to link to you or want to add a badge to their website which is for your business for example a partner of your website.
For further ideas here is a fantastic post:
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Plan for Analyzing and Optimizing Internal Link Structure
I've noticed that our site has what appears to be a poor ratio of external-to-internal links. I know there are no hard and fast rules in SEO but generally I've come to understand that this ratio should be relatively balanced, and in some cases I've seen some correlation of high-performing/ranking sites closer to 70-30 (external-internal). I'm not going to get into specifics, but our ratio is well-below 50-50 (heavy on internal links compared to the volume of inbound external links). My hypothesis is that this is diluting the link equity/authority for the domain. Moz's tools don't really provide any data beyond the initial data point of the volume of internal links compared to external. Being that I've never really gone down this rabbit hole before, I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced anything similar and could point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for any assistance or guidance!
Moz Pro | | IWaldron0 -
Links not appearing in Moz tool
Hey Guys I am finding that my Moz tool isn't showing links that are definitely there like from social media etc. Also links that are there about 4-5 months are not showing either! am i doing something wrong?
Moz Pro | | Johnny_AppleSeed0 -
Safe places from which we I can use pics?
I have been running a blog where we add about 6 posts per day.We are facing issues with images.I need to know a good source from where I can take free pictures but most important point they are not Copyright protected. A few days back we have two emails where owner of pictures thretean to sue us but still safe.So need to know some good sources for finding copyright free images.
Moz Pro | | csfarnsworth0 -
On Link Analysis tab I my best pages are 301 and 404 pages.
I looked on my redirrect file and found that /* redirects to /v/404.asp.
Moz Pro | | sbetzen
However if you look below at the link analysis the 404 page is getting a 404 error.
The homepage ecowindchimes.com/ is getting a 301 (but I don't know where it is going to).
The third one is also redirected. 1. [No Data] ecowindchimes.com/ ||| 301 ||| 2 ||| 36 2. 2. [No Data] ecowindchimes.com/v/404.asp ||| 404 ||| 2 ||| 34 3. [No Data] 3. ecowindchimes.com/index.html?lang=en-us&target=d2.html ||| 301 ||| 1 ||| 33 So I have 2 questions: 1) should this be fixed? and 2) how? This is a volusion site and I believe the "catchall" redirect was done by them0 -
NoFollow Links from Subdomain to root domain better than DoFollow Links?
Our service at fotograf.de is a shopsystem for professional photographers. The customers can build their own website with our tool including an onlineshop to sell their pictures. Here is my question: One part of the customers use subdomains of our site like photographers.fotograf.de. On each customer website we include a backlink to our homepage www.fotograf.de. From SEO view is it better to set these links as NoFollow Links? Or should we put one Follow Link on the starting page on each site and on the other pages only NoFollow Link? Are these links bad for our SEO regarding link diversity because they all come from one root domain? Thanks for the answers! Sebastian
Moz Pro | | Sebastian230 -
Competitive Link Analysis not showing links.
Hate asking such a vague question, but my SEOMoz link analysis report is not showing any backlinks for a client of mine. I loaded the information the same way I did my other clients, which show all links. www.domain.com is being forwarded properly to domain.com. I know there are backlinks because I put many of them there myself over the last couple of months. Clearly this is affecting my Moz score. Not sure how to troubleshoot this. Can anyone offer suggestions? Grazie mille! Regards, Dino
Moz Pro | | Dino640 -
External Links through Open site explorer
I have just ran an Open site explorer query on our site due to having one of a constant ranking keywords drop, and found that we have 48 new links appear on the report under the anchor text 'home' These are not normal links, and I cannot see where or how these have been connected to our site for example: <colgroup span="1"><col span="1" width="696"></colgroup>
Moz Pro | | hickboy5
| http://regvac.com/TrIsland.swb <colgroup span="1"><col span="1" width="696"></colgroup>
| http://meteonorm.com/fileadmin/tmy3/722066ndry3.rdm | <colgroup span="1"><col span="1" width="696"></colgroup>
| http://www.sexintheshower.net/downloads/SS960-12-pack.psd?ActDo=ShowArt&Information_ID=2396&Parent_ID=&type=&Langue_ID=An&rubID=3068473 | My question is how and why are these appearing on the seomoz open site explorer report? What are they? How can I get them removed, and let google know this was nothing to do with us? Thanks S |0 -
Missing back links in Open Site Explorer?
I'm looking at the Open Site Explorer for my site, and it shows 9 links to my site, all from 2 domains (showing all links from all pages and for both www and not www version of my domain name). But I know for sure that there are other sites linking to my site. Are they not there because they are not important or because the links have not been crawled yet?
Moz Pro | | jsoldi0