How to Get Links to Rank High
Posted on February 5, 2008
Filed Under Search Engine Optimization |
Got a request from Bob this week:
Hi I’m 19 and I’ve been making websites for two years. But the MAJOR problem is that they all can’t get traffic. What’s stopping me from making money is the obstacle of acquiring traffic. What do you recommend I do to get tons of links to rank high? I have SEO Elite as well but the webmasters most of them don’t want to give me a link. So therefore, it’s very hard to rank high. I have read about your success and I really think you are the right person for me to talk to. I have talked to many others and they all have said that I should ask webmasters to see if they want to link to my site but that simply doesn’t work well. Could you recommend where I should get links from? (Also where would I get links for adult related sites as well?) Thanks, Bob
Well Bob, you are right that step one is getting traffic and in my opinion there is no better source of traffic than ranking well on Google. Ranking on Google does take links and getting good links in some ways has never been harder. Here’s what you are up against:
- I like SEO Elite but frankly I don’t bother using it to try to find links. As you’ve discovered that is a tremendous waste of time - website owners don’t want to do much reciprocal linking anymore. There’s a reason for this as Google has publicly stated that it will penalize sites that do ‘excessive’ (that’s their term and they don’t define it) reciprocal link trades. Beyond that, Google has effectively stripped page rank from most sites’ link directories. Stripped of page rank, these directories are not worth the effort.
- There are tons of free directories that you can submit to. This can be time consuming and what I do is use a trusted inexpensive service (I like Directory Maximizer) to get it done on a schedule I prepare. But free directory submissions alone won’t be enough. For one thing free directories are also under pressure from Google in sustaining and building page rank. For another, they just don’t have the authority to transmit to your site.
- There are a few higher authority directories, some of which cost money to submit to, that can help your site rank. We list our favorites at here on LiveBlueprints.com along with all our favorite tools and resources. Look at the bottom of the page for the high authority sites we like.
One more thing, Bob. You don’t need TONS of links to rank well on Google. You need the right ones.
Now those of you who know me know that I often find what others consider ‘conventional wisdom’ to be worthless. Here’s just another instance. You will often find counsel that says you should reverse engineer the top 3 sites and mimic their links to get high rankings. That’s another waste of time. What you need to consider is that the top ranking sites tend to be there because they’ve been around for awhile. That gives them an edge in building sites that are bigger, older and generally more authoritative than yours. And their past linking practices may not be the most effective ones now with Google. So what do you do?
You should be watching the SERPs (search engine results pages) for movement on page one. When you see sites that move onto page 1 that are newer sites, take a look at their linking structure. Why? Because it’s fresh. It’s more respresentive of what Google is looking for now.
Bob, I’d love it if you could send me one or two of your sites and I’ll take a cursory view. And I’ll be back in a few days with more on this subject. Stay tuned…
Nancy
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