Search engine optimisation - link building ideas and off page optimisation

Off page search engine optimisation is the key to successful rankings with Google putting a lot of emphasis on what other sites say about yours and how they link back to your website. This article will give your website a kick start on its way to higher rankings, it is by no means a definitive list and there are many other ways to optimise, in saying that however it’s a good starting point. So let’s begin by splashing out a little…

Paid directories

There are a few paid directories that are worth being listed in. Below are a few examples of the directories I suggest being listed in, they hold a high PR and have been around for some time to gain authority.

* dir.yahoo.com – PR8
* www.business.com – PR7
* www.botw.org – PR6
* www.joeant.com – PR5
* www.ezilon.com – PR6
* www.incrawler.com – PR6
* www.kahuki.com – PR6
* www.stpt.com/directory – PR4
* www.mavicanet.com - PR4

For more paid inclusion directories I suggest you visit www.paiddirectorylist.com which hold up to date and current paid directory listings in order of Google PageRank.

Free directories with authority

Some free directories are well worth the time investment in submitting to. Ensure you do this by a manual process and don’t pay for 1000 directory submission in an hour! These should be human edited with good directory structure that your website fits into.

* www.dmoz.org
* www.zoominfo.com
* www.hitwebdirectory.com
* www.alexa.com

There are many other topical and niche directories that you can submit to for your business type. You should visit www.directorycritic.com where you will find quality listings of many popular free directories to submit to. This is a great resource and you can even search by directory type for your industry / content type.

Social book marking websites.

Try and make useful bookmarks to new content on each of our clients websites, if there is a new blog for example or something is updated then make sure and tell these sites about it. Don’t submit all at once though, make sure and do it over a 7 day period for example. Ensure to keep every account up to date and don’t just link to your website, link to things you find useful as well to give it a good mix and become a resource for other users.

Ask a few other people to DIGG items as well so it gets a few votes, this will give your link more authority and more people are likely to view it through DIGG. You might also like to show how many people have “dugg” your link by displaying the DIGG icon on your page.

* www.blogmarks.net
* bookmarks.linuxquestions.org/
* del.icio.us
* www.digg.com/
* www.fuzzfizz.com
* www.jumptags.com
* www.stumbleupon.com
* www.twitter.com
* www.linkroll.com
* myweb2.search.yahoo.com
* www.reddit.com
* www.blinklist.com
* www.web-feeds.com
* www.technorati.com/
* buzz.yahoo.com/
* www.kaboodle.com/
* www.mixx.com/
* www.propeller.com/
* www.fark.com/
* www.newsvine.com/
* www.slashdot.org/
* www.clipmarks.com/
* www.furl.net/
* www.faves.com/
* www.dzone.com/
* www.blinklist.com/
* www.ma.gnolia.com/
* www.simpy.com/

Other link finding ideas

1. Ask all suppliers to your business for a link back from their website to yours. Try to vary the keyword anchor text used if possible.
2. Get a link from local business directories, chamber of commerce and those well enjoyed business network meeting websites!
3. Try out www.craigslist.org and add a classified – it’s free!
4. Create a Google group and post some good content to it. Once you have built some worth while content specific to the group you might like to include a couple of links back to sections of your website.
5. Create a www.squidoo.com/ page for each keyword theme of the website, remember to write unquie content for squidoo that’s is not duplicated anywhere else within your off page efforts. You might like to also include some quality images, links to your favourite blogs (they could even be yours!) and some amazon books – remember to link back to your website within the editorial section as well as these links will hold topical weight as well.
6. Post questions in relevant forums with backlinks in the footer section of your post. Try to be helpful and regularly visit the forums to help others out, that way you get recommended and people visit your profile which can contain a back link to your website.
7. Hand in hand with forums goes blogs. You can post comments on other peoples blogs and include a link back to your own website, however be careful not to just spam other people blogs with your links as they will just get deleted. You should write a great comment which is topical and worthwhile to read. After a few comments on the same blog you can then look to add a couple of links where appropriate!

Online articles releases

1. Send an article to the www.isnare.com/ article distribution service. Ensure the article is written for the internet with good SEO copy and keyword distribution. You should include 2 backlinks within the text to your website or include a couple of links within the footer using keyword rich anchor text.
2. Create a list of authority editors in the industry and mail them the press release, do each one personally and tailor it to them and their particular publication. Try to include a topical image that you have captured (jpg format).

Building links back to your website

In order to ask for links from other websites which are one way, or indeed to get them without asking, you need to provide content which is unique, helpful, informative and topical! With these pages you can ask for links back to say a “Buy to let mortgage calculator”, “Investment profit analysis tool” or simply a “top 10 sites for bookmarking” article. These types of pages are much easier to build links for and you will see your link acceptance rate increase dramatically.

Example content you could build

1. Build a 101 list relevant to the industry
2. Build 10 x “10 easy tips to help you…” type articles
3. Create a top 10 myths article
4. Create a topical directory, tightly themed to that of the website, ensure the websites listed are well ranked and have authority – and don’t forget to ask for a link back from the sites that you list!

The back link code on your website

Make sure people can link to the website easily, include a how to link guide and easy copy / paste of the link code. Give a couple of linking options with keyword anchor text variation, you might like to include some banners to give a balanced portfolio of backlinks.

Conclusion

There are so many ways to build links to your website that if you had a team of 20 people working continuously on it you still wouldn’t maximise the potential! The key is to build interesting content and start putting the word out, once others see how great it is they will talk about it online and link back to your website without you even asking! I would suggest to build some links yourself to, keeping an eye on the anchor text you use so that you can target specific keywords that are performing well.

Happy linking
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