One of the keys to becoming a successful blogger or web master are good, targeted traffic. No matter how beautiful or ornate your blog or website is, if nobody is around to see it then it’s all for naught. Wait, isn’t there an analogy about a bear in the woods that would fit here?

Traffic comes from all over, but some of the best comes from search engine traffic. You know. You have a blog on baseball. Someone puts “baseball” into Google and, voila, here comes your traffic. Search engine traffic is free and usually quite targeted. There’s a problem, though. Millions upon millions of other websites all competing for that same traffic. Your “baseball” blog probably showed up at around page 49 of Google.

So how do we move up the ranks? How does your blog ascend to the top of the Google heap? The answer to that can be both quite complicated or quite simple, depending on what tact you take. It’s complicated because engines like Google use a series of complex algorithms in order to ascertain that order. This makes it hard for you to know exactly what needs to be done. Those algorithms don’t always make sense to us common folk.

So, with this in mind, you can see how vitally important it is to get other blogs to link to your blog. This is a surefire way to increase your rank and your traffic.

So how do you get others to link to your blog?

There are all kinds of different ways, actually. Some are obvious. Some, not so. Here are some of the ones we’ve found most effective.

Quality Content

This one is a no brainer. Write quality content, no matter your subject matter. Good content and good blogs go hand-in-hand. The best thing about this approach is if you play your cards right, you’ll produce the kind of content other bloggers want to link to as a service to their readers.

How many times have you read a blog and spotted a roundup of the author’s favorite blog posts of the week? This should be your goal, to appear on a few of these. After all, it only takes a few of these lists to convert return viewers of the linker’s blog to your blog. Think about it.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is sort of like when an up-and-coming rapper appears on a track by a more famous colleague. Being a guest blogger involves you writing an article for another blogger who places it on their blog. In return for giving them a free article, they include a link back to your blog. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours kind of thing.

If you want to find blogs that accept guest posts, head on over to Google and search for your blog’s subject matter along with the words “guest blogger” or something similar. For instance, if your blog is about internet marketing and becoming a successful blogger, you might type in:

• internet marketing guest blogger
• internet marketing submit a blog post
• affiliate marketing guest blogger
• learn to blog guest blogger
• blogging guest blogger
• blogging submit a blog post

Also, keep in mind whoever you find will want to take a look at your blog first, to make sure you will write some quality content for them. Make sure you have a set of recent quality posts to show off. If not, write some before you send out an email. Generally, a good rule of thumb is be sure to have 8-10  strong posts on your blog.

And one more thing. Make sure your blog doesn’t look sketchy. If it at all resembles a spammer’s blog, nobody will want to link to you. If so, clean it up.

Make Friends

This kind of goes along with the last one. Blogs don’t exist in a vacuum. You need friends. This not only provides a network of people who you can regularly connect with, it’s also possible they will link to you. This could be either in a blog post or in their blogroll. Other benefits are that they are more likely to add your posts to social networking sites like Digg, Twitter and Facebook. The plusses go on and on.

A great way to make friends is to start commenting on other blog posts. Wait until you are knowledgeable about something and let loose. Stay away from overtly negative comments and vague terminology like “good job!” etc. Write the kinds of comments you’d appreciate reading on your own blog. That is key.

Also, this is difficult to achieve with the bigger, more popular blogs. They are the belle of the ball and everybody wants to be their friend. Focus your energies on bloggers who are in a similar position as yourself.

Just Ask

This is another no brainer. If you want a link, ask for it! The success rate isn’t high for this approach, but it does work sometimes. Think of yourself as the creepy guy in a singles bar. When one girl turns you down, move on to the next.

But how do you ask? First of all, simply send an email to the blogger in question. Tell them about your blog and say you would love to be added to their blogroll. Make sure to note they have been added to yours. Also, make sure to actually do that. They’ll check.

You could also email them a link to your latest blog post. This could save them the time of trolling the web for content. Be sure it’s a top quality post, however. They aren’t going to link to middle of the road nonsense. Unless, of course, that’s the point of their blog.

Blog of the Week

This is where it gets a bit sneaky. One great way to get some targeted links is to offer one up yourself. Do a “blog of the week” post in whatever subject you write about. Find a blog and write it up. Mention the great content, and the pleasing look. Whatever you want.  Then leave a comment in their blog directing them to your post. The blog-owner will usually be so pleased about the writeup that they’ll mention it on their blog, thus achieving a targeted link to your blog. Get it? It’s not entirely unscrupulous. It’s more like paying it forward! Yeah, that’s it!

And Finally…

Sorry to beat a dead horse here, but you really gotta take a long look at your blog and figure out if it provides values to it’s readers. If not, try to make it so it does. That is the golden rule for linkage. If you provide value, the links will come faster than you can keep track of. This is most assured.

How does Google decide how much a particular link helps your rankings? That one question has plagued link builders since the dawn of  time 2002.

Before we get started on the list, let’s talk turkey. You may have noticed search engines have become more and more dependent on metrics about an entire domain, rather than just an individual page. It’s why you’ll see new pages or those with very few links ranking highly, simply because they’re on an important, trusted, well-linked-to domain. The Internet is changing, and in a way becoming more homogenized. But don’t worry, you can still make money with your site by understanding the nature of search engines and how they judge the value of a link.  Here are 17 examples:

#1 – Internal vs. External

Search engines value external opinions more than internal. This is a simple fact, and it makes sense. If you are in a band and you go around telling everyone how great you are, not many ears perk up, except in annoyance. However, if Spin Magazine begins telling people your band is great, that changes things quite a bit. Search engines work in the same way. Internal links (links that point from one page on your site to another) do carry some weight; links from external sites matter far more.

This doesn’t mean it’s not important to have a good internal link structure, or to do all that you can with your internal links (good anchor text, no unnecessary links, etc.), it just means that a site/page’s performance is highly dependant on how other sites on the web have cited it.

#2 – Anchor Text

An obvious one for those in the SEO business, anchor text is one of the biggest factors in the rankings equation overall.

This, of course, comes with a question. Is “exact match” anchor text more beneficial than simply including the target keywords all hully gully? In a word, yes. We’ve conducted many experiments, much to the dismay of our interns, and we’ve conclusively decided that anchor text that features an exact match is the winner, no contest. However, the engines won’t always bias in this fashion. It seems to me that, particularly for generic (non-branded) keyword phrases, this is the cause of a lot of manipulation and abuse in the SERPs.

#3 – PageRank

Whether they call it StaticRank (Microsoft’s metric), WebRank (Yahoo!’s), PageRank (Google’s) or mozRank (Linkscape’s), some form of an iterative, Markov-chain based link analysis algorithm is a part of all the engines’ ranking systems. So, it’s important. All of the services use the analogy that links are votes and that those pages which have more votes have more influence. Pretty simple, right? Well, sort of. Here is a quick PageRank primer:

1.Every single URL on the Internet is assigned a tiny, innate quantity of PageRank.

2.If there are “n” links on a page, each link passes that page’s PageRank divided by “n” (and thus, the more links, the lower the amount of PageRank each one flows.)

3.An iterative calculation that flows through the web’s entire link graph dozens of times is used to reach the calculations for each URL’s ranking score. The calculation is too complicated to replicate here, either that or it’s magic. It might be magic.

4.Representations like those shown in Google’s toolbar PageRank or SEOmoz’s mozRank on a 0-10 scale are logarithmic (thus, a PageRank/mozRank 4 has 8-10X the link importance than a PR/mR 3. Get it?)

#4 – TrustRank

The basics of TrustRank are described in this paper from Stanford – Combatting Webspam with TrustRank. There will be a quiz later.

If you are long since college age and got tired from just reading the word “Stamford,” then here is a quick primer. TrustRank, basically, says that “good” and “trustworthy” pages tend to be closely linked together. Think PayPal and eBay or something. It follows, then, that the spammy and dangerous stuff is located outside of this safe “center.” By calculating an iterative, PageRank-like metric that only flows juice from trusted seed sources, a metric like TrustRank can be used to predictively state whether a site/page is likely to be high quality vs. spam. So, the lesson? Don’t take candy from strangers. The candy might be laced with spam and phish.

#5 – Domain Authority

The phrase “domain authority” is thrown around all over the SEO world, but a concrete definition remains elusive. Most people use it to describe that wonderous combination of popularity, importance and trustworthiness that is calculated by search engines and based mostly on link data.

Search engines likely use scores about the “authority” of a domain in counting links, and thus, despite the fuzzy language, it’s worth mentioning as a data point. The domains you earn links from are, potentially, just as important (or possibly more important) than the individual metrics of the page passing the link. Our advice? Practice the term “domain authority” for your next SEO gathering but be prepared to hide behind the punch bowl if people get too curious.

#6 – Diversity of Sources

No single metric has more positive a correlation with high rankings than the number of linking root domains. This is also, incidentally, a very hard metric to manipulate for spam. So, that being said, it tends to indicate true, broad popularity and importance. How to rack up those linking root domains? Diversity. Empirical data suggests that a diversity of domains linking to your site/page has a strong positive effect on rankings. Getting a link from an entirely unique domain is more important than getting a new one from a previously linked domain. So get your name out there and start making those contacts. A few of them might turn into new links. Thank us later.

#7 – Uniqueness of Source + Target

Those crafty search engines have a number of ways to judge and predict ownership and relationships between websites. These can include (but are not limited to):

* A whole lot of shared, reciprocated links
* Domain registration data
* Shared hosting IP address or IP address C-blocks
* Public acquisition/relationship information
* Publicized marketing agreements that can be machine-read and interpreted

Anecdotal evidence that links shared between “networks” of websites obtain very little value from search engines. This is particularly referring to the classic SE strategy of “sitewide” links. So, again, diversify those links.

#8 – Location on the Page

Microsoft was the first engine to reveal public data about their plans to do “block-level” analysis (in an MS Research piece on VIPS – VIsion-based Page Segmentation). If you lack the patience to read that long form piece, or are simply out of ADD medication, then read on.

Simply put, internal links in the footer of web pages may not provide the same beneficial results that those same links will when placed into the top or header positions. This is based on of our own experimentation(Gotta keep that intern working) and much empirical data brought to us via Google and Yahoo! This seems to be based on an algrorithim that seeks to dismiss pervasive link advertisement by diminishing the valu that external links carry from the sidebar or footer of webpages. Links from the actual content of the piece, as always, remain the most sought after links.

#9 – Topical Relevance

The search engines have a myriad of tools at their disposal to determine if two pages or sites cover similar subject matter. Years ago, Google Labs unveiled an automatic classification tool that could predict, based on a URL, the category and sub-category for nearly any type of content. This worked for conents in a wide array of subject matters, from  medical news to real estate and back again. Engines may use these automated topical-classification systems to identify “neighborhoods” around particular topics.

However, there are arguments to be had on both sides of the field here. We are of the opinion that if you get a link from a topic-neutral site such as NYTimes.com or a specific blog on an unrelated subject, then they’ll still pass positive value. Perhaps the engines use these classification tools to predict spam, more than passing judgement. After all, it does look fishy(phishy?) if a site that’s never previously linked to anything in the pharmaceutical field, suddenly does so.

#10 – Content & Context Assessment

Sure, topical relevance can provide some useful information for engines about linking relationships. But, isn’t it possible that the content and context of a link may be even more useful to said engine? Of course it is! Content is king, after all. In content/context analysis, the engines attempt to discern, in a machine parse-able way, why a link exists on a page.

For instance, links positioned for editorial content create certain patterns. They tend to be embedded in the content, link to relevant sources, use accepted norms for HTML structure, word usage, phrasing, language, etc. Through a series of pattern-matching algorithims, it’s possible for search engines to analyze the editorial links and determine their value and liklihood they were added authentically.

#11 – Geographic Location

The geography of a link is, obviously, highly dependent on the purported location of the host. However, the engines(Specifically Google) have been amping up the sophistication in their quest to pinpoint the location-relevance of a root domain, subdomain or subfolder. Here are some of the things they look for:

*  The host IP address location
* The country-code TLD extension (.de, .co.uk, etc)
* The language of the content
* Registration with local search systems and/or regional directories
* Association with a physical address
* The geographic location of links to that site/section

If you earn links to a page or site that is targeted to a particular region, that does mean it should help you perform better in that region’s searches. However, if your profile is tied too heavily to one particular region, it may make it harder to perform in other regions. Keep that in mind as you set out to build links.

#12 – Use of Rel=”Nofollow”

Although in the SEO world it feels like a lifetime ago since nofollow appeared, it’s actually only been around since January of 2005, when Google announced it was adopting support for the new HTML tag.

To put it simply, rel=”nofollow” tells the engines not to ascribe any editorial endorsements or “votes” that would boost a page or site’s ranking metrics. It is an attempt to filter out some noise. Linkscape’s index notes that approximately 3% of all links on the web have the “nofollow” tag attached to them.

#13 – Link Type

Google recently announced that they’re not only crawling this third group, but passing link endorsement metrics through them (which has many upset about the reversal in policy about using Javascript as a way to delineate paid/advertising links).  The mega-engine has also, for years, treated the text in an image’s alt attribute similarly to how anchor text is handled in standard text links.

Not all links are created equal, however. We made our tired, forlorn intern run some more experiments and it was decided that straight, HTML links with standard anchor text pass the most value to engines, followed by image links with keyword-rich alt text. Coming in last, however, were Javascript links, which are not universally followed throughout the web. So, to all of you admins out there, for now it’s best to assume the engines just aren’t that good at passing value to the “quirkier” links. Keep that in mind as you design your sites and put an emphasis on straight HTML links.

#14 – Other Link Targets on the Source Page

When a page links out externally, both the quantity and targets of the other links that exist on that page may be taken into account by the engines when determining how much link value will be passed on.

As mentioned way up on topic number 3, PageRank, algorithims from all of the engines divide the amount of value passed by any given page by the number of links on that page. Additionally, the engines may als consider the quanity of external domains a page points to. They do this as a way to judge the quality and value of said endorsements. For example, if a page links to merely a few external resources on a particular topic, spread out all over the content, it will be perceived differently than a long list of links pointing to external sites. One take is not necessarily better than the other, but the engines may pass greater value through one or the other. However, this is subject to the rest of your page/site and the links contained therein.

Also, the engines are going to be looking at who else your linking pages endorse. If they go  for anything shady or spam-filled, the value of your link is going to go down. It’s kind of like being scene with your one friend who always clears the room at parties. Nice guy, but…

#15 – Domain, Page & Link-Specific Penalties

Nearly everyone in the SEO world can agree on one thing, search engines apply penalties to sites and pages. These range from the loss of the ability to pass value and endorsement all the way up to a full on ban from their main index. If a page or site has received the former punishment, then links from it provide no value for search rankings. Beware, though, engines occasionally show penalities publicly but this is not always the case.

#16 – Content/Embed Patterns

As content licensing & distribution, widgets, badges and distributed, embeddable links-in-content become more prevalent across the web, the engines have begun looking for ways to downplay these tactics. It’s not that Google et al. don’t want to give proper value to the pages or sites that employ these tactics, it’s just that they are a bit wary about over-counting or over-representing sites that simply do a good job of distributing their licensing deals.

It’s likely that content pattern detection and link pattern detection plays a role in how the engines evaluate link diversity and quality. If the engines see the same link with the same content on thousands and thousands of sites, this is sure to signal a decrease in endorsement. To say it yet again, diversity is key here. The engines place more stock in a variety of links from a variety of sources featuring a variety of content. It makes sense, after all.

#17 – Temporal / Historical Data

Timing and data about the appearance of links is the final point on this rather long list. As the trusty engines crawl along the web, they see patterns about how sites earn links. They use this data to fight spam, identify authoritative links and to pass endorsement on rising Internet stars.

Of course, what the engines do with these patterns of link attraction is the subject of much debate. One thing isn’t, however. The data IS being consumed. It is being analyzed and it is being used to help algorithims do a better job of showing the best results and reducing the abilities of spam.

This list had a lot of information, but it certainly was not a be-all end-all list. Please feel free to suggest your own additions in the comment box.

It can be tough to navigate the ever-changing landscape of SEO. We all can use all the help we can get. Enter DailySEOTips. This website does exactly what it’s URL purports: It offers up daily SEO tips. Nothing fancy, just useful information at your fingerprints. Take today’s tip, which lists 4 link building tips, for example:

” The world of social media is an ever growing one. New sites are popping up every day, and so-called gurus or experts in social media marketing are aplenty, but we rarely hear about link building experts utilizing social media marketing to help in their efforts. There is a known connection between social and search, but how about link building?

The obvious let down with social media links are the fact that many are nofollow. On a rare occasion you might find a dofollow social media link, but it’s highly unlikely. A Google search for dofollow social media sites yields old results that are outdated, but one post by WebQuirk has a few niche sites that might prove useful to you. The fact that most social networking sites are nofollow should not discount the fact that you can still use sites for link building.

Profile Links

Almost every social networking profile will allow you to add a link to your website. Utilize this on every profile you make. In addition, look at integrating links on your profile with anchor text when allowed. Don’t forget, many individual profile pages carry PR. Build up the PR of your social profile by commenting on blogs with a link back to your profile, putting badges on your site with links back to your social profile, or through other link building techniques. Pretty soon you’ll build up the PR on your profile site, and while the links are nofollow a PR 5 nofollow link still does carry some weight.

Contextual Blog Links

Import your blog whenever possible. Did you know that Facebook’s import your blog functionality populates into the notes section of your page, and that information is cached? Contextual links in the original blog post are imported and can be utilized when building links. The links, of course, are nofollow but still provide that little added benefit from a strong domain.

Short URLs

Search engines have begun caching and ranking individual tweets, and if you are utilizing a short URL that 301 redirects your links you can utilize Twitter to build links to your site. As an added oomph to your link building efforts try customizing the text in your short URL using your keyword or keyword phrase. Also place your keywords in the tweet, as Google has come out and stated that they indeed look at keywords in a tweet to ‘rank’ them.

Indirect Link Building

Utilizing your social media profiles to drive traffic and buzz around a piece of content is the best use, in my opinion, of using social networking for link building. Get people excited about a piece of ‘link worthy’ content, and they’ll be drawn to link back to you. These organic links are extremely valuable, and increases the likelihood of receiving high PR dofollow links from strong domains.

While link building through SMM may not be the desired route, this technique can provide you with valuable backlinks. ”

Not bad guys!

The simple days of Link Building have come and gone.  Poaching competitors link partners don’t cut it anymore.  The founding basics were evaluate competitors, directories, link lists, solicitation, and purchasing links.  The next evolution was reciprocal linking.  This then led to doing business with link pimps.  Vendors that had in their control, several sites and the ability to spam forums, blogs, and guestbooks.  These paid text link services  used to help.

Google is older and wiser now.  Those shenanigans won’t cut it anymore. The webspam team is aware of what is out there and are penalizing for it. The emphasis is on quality now. Google’s team has the resources and skills to decipher what is quality and what is a shoddy attempt at building backlinks. The next phase in the evolution is the linkbait method. Social bookmarking is a powerful tool for linkbaiting. The traffic from this sector is great and relevant in terms of SEO building with quick and potent progress.

The next step past that was integrating tactics like content syndication and training editiorial staff to earn links and participate in social media. Branding and keywords are more important then ever. Finding ways to link to deep pages with longtail searches have also helped.

Here is a time line of the evolution of link building.
2000-2002: direct buy links, email link requests, link exchange
2003-2004: paid text links, link networks, comment spam
2005-2007: linkbaiting, quizbaiting, social media
2008-2009: content licensing, editorial content links, UGC incented links

Now search is getting smarter, and as an online marketer you can see it in the result of the search engines now. Both Bing and Google are really working hard to keep up with this evolution and striving to stay one step ahead.  It is our job to beat them to the punch and learn of more ways to link build and leverage SEO potential.

Observations:

• Twitter is a lot more important that you think
• The effects of a link building campaign probably are not penalized by growing too fast anymore
• Branding and keywords are more and more important
• The average internet user is blind to random ads and are only identifying relevantly targeted ads.
• Search providers are using data mining to make search smarter, analyzing all the user patterns