How can we get links that comply with Google's guidelines? | Weboptim
If you've ever been a victim of Google Penalty, you know how 'painful' it is to identify the problem and then get back up again. And if we haven't been punished before, we're scared of the punishment.
But how can we avoid punishment when unnatural links are lurking around every corner?
While it's much harder to get links that comply with Google's guidelines than unnatural links, there are some types of links that Google experts recommend that can have a really positive impact on rankings.
1. Request a link
The number one solution is to ask people. Some people might say that they think this is not a natural link. But some people will certainly be willing to help, link to our website, and if we don't have to give anything in return, then it's a good link.
So ask family members, friends or better still, employees "if you have a blog could you mention that you work for us and give us a link?"
If they're just hiding a link somewhere to make you happy, then it's not the best relationship. But if they're happy to mention us and link to us, that's a good natural relationship that Google will appreciate.
2. Link directories
People will probably say that catalogues are not natural links, they are links of their own making. But we're not talking about free or spammy aggregator sites where anyone can create a link.
We think of those where there is a barrier to entry; those that we expect our company to list and people actually use.
There are also niche directories that take a little time and searching to find. For example, let's say you are a wedding photographer. We want to be featured on a local aggregator site where people can find wedding bands, venues and photographers. That's a really good link, and it's the kind of link that brings traffic, which is one of the characteristics of a good link. A good way to find these opportunities is to look for competitor phone numbers.
3. Industrial relations
The majority of companies have different types of contacts: suppliers, manufacturers, customers, partners. If you can compile lists of these contacts, that's a good thing. Because these are all places where you would expect your business to be listed. A good way to find out which lists your competitors are on is to look at their link profiles.
4. Inappropriate brand/name mention
This is the place where someone mentions our business, our website, maybe even our name, but doesn't provide a link. That's perfectly fine, but let's try to reach out to them and say "thank you for mentioning us, could you also provide a link?" It could be a long time before this becomes a real link.
Every month it is worth doing a new search for the brand or website.
5. Fix broken links
To find broken links, go to Google Webmaster Tools and look at Crawling Errors.
What we're talking about here is someone linking to our website, but they probably typo'd the URL. We have 2 options to fix it. The first is to contact the site "thanks for linking to us, but can you fix the typo?". The other method is to create a redirect that points from the typed URL to the good URL. If you do this, you may lose some link value due to the redirect, but it's still better than having the link point to a broken page, because a link that goes to a 404 page is worthless.
6. Be impressive
Journalists are always looking for what to write about. If we have something newsworthy about our business, that's fantastic. What we can do is create an event or do something good - journalists love to write about that.
Let's say we are a hair salon. Search for local hair salons and click on news. You'll see all kinds of news. Maybe a local hair salon has offered to cut veterans' hair for free. That's something worth writing about, for example, and worthy of good news.
7. Do you need a press? Get more!
We can contact people who mention our product but do not link to us. "Can you give me a link? In return, we'd be happy to give you an interview, we'd be happy to give you a new angle on the story." So if we do something that goes viral, it can be picked up by the press, which often means that people are very interested in this new angle and with a little work we can get more links.
8. HARO
Which means that help a reporter out. HARO is an e-mail list that connects journalists with businesses and professionals. Journalists are looking for sources. If you are a dentist, for example, you may have a journalist who is writing an article on teeth whitening. They may want to use us as a source and link to us.
9. What content already gets links?
A good way to find this out is to go to Google Webmaster Tools / Links to your site / Most linked content / More. Here you will see a list of URLs showing how many domains are linking to that URL. If you download the list, you can see the exact URLs from which the links are coming.
If you have content on your site that is already attracting links, it may be worth promoting this content to reach more people and therefore more links. We can also contact people who link to us "thanks for the link, is there anything else we can do?" This can often provide new ideas for content development.
10. 10x content
Create content that is ten times better than anything on the internet. It doesn't have to be expensive. It can be a problem-solving article that answers people's questions about your product or business. Create content that's the best of its kind, that answers all the questions, can be accessed and can be linked to. If that's really the case, you've really created 10x content, and that kind of content naturally attracts links.
These are 10 ways to get links in ways that meet Google's guidelines and can really boost your rankings. True, it's harder than just signing up for free link aggregators or using spam techniques, but doing it this way can get you real results. No need to worry about the Webspam team. We can be proud of the links we get.
Source: moz.com