Chapter 4: Getting on the move: where your link building starts

You′ve done a whale of a job: now Search Engines easily crawl your pages and will never miss a single page you want to show. The keyword choice for your site is brilliant. And that′s not it! Also:

• Your landing pages have powerful content that encourages visitors to do what you want
• Your pages′ design and texts are well–optimized for Search Engines
• The landing pages you′ve got use only best practices of most successful websites in your niche

Now let′s see what I prepared for you this time:

• 4.1Words for talking link building
• 4.2What's the purpose of links?
• 4.3Sites vote for each other
• 4.4What links to get?
• 4.5Quality of links
• 4.6Link farms and FFA sites
• 4.7Factors that make up quality links
• 4.8Grow your links regularly and at a natural speed
• 4.9Look where the link can be placed
• 4.10"SEO after Penguin" checklist
• 4.11Summary
• 4.12Quiz

Now we′re fully–equipped and well–prepared to start with off–page optimization. And this is, in general, building links. Or more precisely, it′s building good links you will profit from.

When you were busy with on–page optimization, you put links between pages of your own site. And what you′re starting now — link building — is getting other people put links to your pages from their sites.

Good links are absolutely necessary for SEO, and while good keyword choice and on–page optimization are a head start, lots and lots of links you′re getting soon are the whole way to success.

Think what′s going on in real life: a friend of mine, James, is in charge of supplies at a kitchenware production. He′s got lots of good acquaintances among aluminum and steel suppliers, and thanks to that his company gets materials faster and on better conditions. This lets them complete clients′ orders faster — and thus they′re selling more and more each year. And James says that one of these acquaintances resulted in doubling sales within 16 months!!! That′s pretty much like off–page optimization — trying to make connections (links) with others that are useful to you. And some links are capable to literally skyrocket your sales.

Is running a business easy without connections? Hardly. An online business isn′t an exception: SEO does not exist without link building. Not sure yet? Read the next chapter and follow my directions — and you′ll remember my words soon, when your bottom line explodes thanks to a smartly–planned linking campaign. Let′s go!

4.1 Words for talking link building

There are some terms that I′m going to use. Good to know, even for an SEO newbie. When discussing link building we need these terms badly, to understand each other. Just like mama, papa, give or take for a baby.

First, inbound and outbound links.

Each page can have both inbound links and outbound. An inbound link is any link that points from another site to your web page. An outbound link is any link from your web page to another site.

Inbound links are also called backlinks, as they "link back" to you. Both inbound and outbound links are external links. So, External links are those that link pages of different sites.

Remember when talking about Mr.Robot I mentioned internal and external links? And I asked you to make internal links between your web pages.

Internal links are those that link pages of your site to one another.

Also, there′re incoming and outgoing links. They relate to web pages, not to websites.

An incoming link is any link that leads to a page. And an outgoing link is any link that stands from this page.

Too many link species for you? Don′t worry, this will soon get settled in your mind. And you can always check this page if you can′t remember what is what.

Now... connections, knowing people, steel supplies — that was a good example, right? But all these imagery aside, what good do links do for your SEO?

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