Link Building in the Age of Google Search Plus your World

This is a guest post by Jason Acidre from Kaiserthesage.

Google Search Plus your World has forever changed the search game. But did it really change the game of links?A lot of practitioners are saying that it’s the end of the traditional methodologies that most of us have been accustomed to, particularly in manipulating (or helping search engines to have better) search results through link building, but I don’t think that it’s permanent.

The value of merit-based links will never die, and that’s for sure, as it’s still the best way to characterize and qualify credible pages over the web. At this stage of search, I believe that any link that generates traffic can and will still yield rankings, attract more natural linkers and grow a brand’s online presence. 

This kind of maturity that we are all seeing from Google is only proving that everyone (from businesses, marketers to users) has to evolve and adapt according to its own progression. So where should your link acquisition campaign focus on:

• Getting as many highly relevant traffic sources as you can.
• Focusing on branding (to cultivate branded search and direct traffic).
• Acquiring links that can get you traffic (click-through visitors).

Link building is not dead. Its role has only shifted to a broader perspective in terms of marketing a website/brand, where rankings will only be a fraction of the objectives of a whole strategy – as very well explained by John Doherty in this post.

Below are some of my ideas on how you can promote your website, develop brand awareness, build your domain authority and improve search visibility all at the same time through link building.

Build Web Content Partnerships

Content contributions and/or collaborating with others to generate content on different mediums, especially on blogs and news websites related to your field of expertise, is one effective way to continuously build a strong brand presence, grow readership and generate constant traffic (well-targeted audience) for your site.

You can target blogs/websites that specialize in a closely-related area of your specialization (ex: SEO and Social Media, interior design and architecture, etc…), and offer your expertise by adding content to their site regularly as a blogger and/or columnist for that particular category (your expertise).

There are many methods that you can use to identify blogs that will qualify for you to be associated with in terms of constant content contributions, by simply basing it through site metrics such as:

1. The amount of new or unique visitors of the target site per month (you can use Compete.com to retrieve this type of data), because when you’re publishing content regularly to their site, with very visible link placements to your site, you are then able to absorb some of those unique visitors.
2. The quality of the content that they are providing, as the more they are producing great content, the more that they’ll be able to pass through high value traffic to your website.
3. Your own Analytics, and by finding domains (blogs/websites) that are already linking to you and sending high percentage of new visitors with low bounce rates. This can help you improve how you base your link qualifications/acquisitions through the most common link positions and the contexts of your existing links that have high click-through rate. You can also choose to make these blogs as your next content partners (you’ll have higher approval rate since they are already linking to you).

Know who’s linking to you, and re-optimize the value of your link partnership by suggesting a linkable asset or launching a link bait on their site. If this page/approach succeeds, it can definitely boost the value of the link that you’ll be acquiring, the chances of getting constant traffic and in having your brand more exposed.

Example: Becoming a columnist on Technorati or a regular contributor on small/medium sized, but niche-targeted blogs, and then submit your content once or twice a month.

Build an Authoritative Brand in Communities

Become known in your industry by actively participating and genuinely contributing on high-traffic communities such as blogs and forums. Sharing your thoughts and giving useful ideas to your community will more likely make people interested in your business and would want to be a part of your network.

Being more visible and engaging through these channels resembles a trustworthy brand, and investing your efforts to build online relationships around your business will definitely help you create a scalable structure for your site’s marketing campaign.

Few tips on building your brand through community discussions:

1. Capitalize on useful comments and contributions, because they have high CTR.
2. Be consistent with your gravatar, as it helps with brand retention.
3. Share the content that you’ve commented on through social networks to help the page get indexed, and also to help promote the page/post, which can develop your relationship with the author.
4. Build great, relevant and socially engaging content on your site/blog, so that when people start checking out your site it will be much easier to get them to share or link to your content. It also demonstrates your expertise, which will make you more authoritative in your industry.

Content Marketing 

Keep on generating great content internally and externally, because it’s simply the best marketing tool at this stage of search, social and inbound marketing. Educating your target audience through content and diversifying the reach of your content/cause through different platforms can induce greater results particularly in:

• Making your brand more recognized in your industry.
• Generating branded search and citations.
• Getting more referred traffic/visitors to your website.
• Assimilating competitive industry keywords through the volume of branded links.
• Getting more social network followers (especially on Google+).

Here are some of the most popular methods that you can use in making your content marketing campaign more productive:

• Creating comprehensive blog posts based on extensive research.
• Submitting guest posts on relevant and high-traffic blogs.
• Launching rich-media content such as infographics, slide presentations and videos.
• Offering free whitepapers or Ebooks.
• Curating and crowdsourcing content.
• Sharing useful content on different social platforms that you are actively using.
• Organizing events such as awards, contests and/or live Q&A’s.
• Creating compelling images and promoting them through Pinterest, Flickr, Stumbleupon and other image hosting/bookmarking sites.
• Heavily promoting the content that you’re launching through email outreach and social media.

Getting +1s and shares on Google+

Plus ones and shares on Google+ could be a big part of the future of great links, and preparing your marketing strategy towards this approach is just necessary, knowing that it can possibly give more impact on search rankings this year.

Here are some methods that you can implement to improve your content’s social traction on Google+:

1. Make the Google +1 button more visible on your site, like placing it on your content’s call to action or above the fold.
2. Use this linker outreach method to pursue natural linkers in your industry. Then let them know how you’ve found them, as they are more likely to share your content on sites where you have found them.
3. Build your authority on Google+, by increasing the number of people adding you in their circles as well as the mentions to your Google+ page/profile and also by continuously sharing useful content to improve the numbers of re-shares and +1s within Google+.

Build links to your Google+ Page 

Whether you build links through the content you distribute externally or the conversations you build from communities, when you’re building links to your Google+ page, you are leading people to a webpage where they are cornered to take a single action – to add you in their circles.

You can build links to your Google+ from your author profile when sending out guest blogs, establishing connections through blog comments, your forum signature and from promoting it directly through your website and other social networking sites where you already have a following base.

If you liked this post, you can add me on Google+.