The art of SEO link building is finally getting interesting

Search engines have become a new channel for consumers, communications and marketing. Google, Yahoo and MSN serve 213 million searches a day.

In fact, 9 out of 10 Internet users use a search engine to start their journey on the Internet. Therefore, if your website does not have visibility in the search engines, you are losing significant volumes of traffic.

What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO as it is commonly known, is an online marketing strategy that involves designing, writing, and coding your entire website with the intention of allowing search engines to easily index your site. and efficient. The only goal is for you to rank higher for keywords relevant to your business. Optimizing a website and building link equity are critical to gaining visibility on the organic or natural side (left side) of a search engine results page (SERP).

Two Parts of SEO: On-Page Optimization and Off-Page Optimization

SEO is done in two stages, mainly known as on page and off page. On Page involves the website itself and fundamentally evolves around the design, construction, and copy that is presented within the actual site. Off Page is related to building link equity for your site through what is known as Link Building. The latter is basically about getting third-party exposure for your website. Both activities are necessary to improve the position of a site in the natural listings of the engines, for relevant searches.

Two Types of Link Building: Passive and Active

passive link

Traditional link building to create third-party exposure and create link value has concentrated on passive links. We define passive links as creating links that will remain passively linked to your site, waiting to be indexed by a spider. This includes paid link directories and reciprocal links. With a new website, you should always start by establishing a base of links within general and vertical specific directories. The next step would be to develop a base of article submissions, using white papers or PR stories. However, the next step in your link building strategy has become much more interesting as there are many new and valuable ways to build links, such as active link building.

active link

Active link building is creating links that could lead to the creation of new links through active human interaction. Leaving comments on a relevant industry blog with a link to a relevant whitepaper on your site would be an innovative way to drive engine spiders as well as humans (consumers or savvy influencers) to your website. Many forums allow links to your site within threads. Keeping the conversation going on various forums and blogs with a good Page Rank is a great way to practice active link building. An industry has also sprung up around the creation of Facebook and MySpace profiles. If you keep up with rich, relevant content and value-added links to your site, this is another strong form of active link.

passive link building

o Free/paid directory submission

o Submission of articles and news

o Distribution of press releases

o Reciprocal link

o Sending videos and images

Active link building

o Forum Topics

or blog comments

or corporate blogs

o Social Network Profiles

or link bait

Link Building is getting more creative due to the arrival of Universal Search

Google has been experimenting with the look of its results page, as well as the types of results it provides for a specific search. The next version of Google will look a bit like the last version of ask.com. Go see it. When you type ‘Fraggle Rock’, it not only lists relevant websites, but also pictures of characters from children’s TV shows, as well as other interesting more specific searches and other related children’s TV shows.

Google calls it Universal Search. In the not-too-distant future, when you search for Madonna, you’ll see Madonna site listings, Madonna photos, links to buy Madonna songs, latest Madonna news articles, Madonna YouTube videos, all served on the same SERP. of Google. This is why link building has become more interesting in the last 18 months.

Google is assessing the value of new forms of links as they index not only websites, but also all available content, videos, music, images, news, etc. they will need to complete their new Universal Search SERPs.

Submitting rich videos with the correct file description to video directories can have a huge effect on your link building results. You can also place images, which are named in relation to your goal and linked to your site, on photo sharing sites. Fresh news is also of great value as Google gears up for universal search. And of course, updated blogs, forums, and website 2.0 are high on Google’s list of content providers for their new SERPs; therefore, active links from these sites are highly valuable in the newly invigorated world of link building.

For examples of active and passive link building, check out the case study below of a successful ongoing campaign developed and managed by Tug’s team of SEO professionals.

Search Engine Optimization Case Study: mrpaparazzi.com

Problem:

o Celebrity blog, Mr Paparazzi.com was launched in November 2007 in the competitive field of online gossip.

o Backed by Big Pictures, Darryn Lyon’s celebrity photography agency, Mr Paparazzi.com had the UK’s largest photo database, but no traffic.

o The website did not have visibility on any page of the major search engines

o Mr Paparazzi.com needed a cost effective way to drive high volumes of conscience traffic to ultimately monetize the new property

Solution:

o Since launch, Tug has developed a PPC campaign focused on generating cheap traffic from the Google content network.

o Additionally, the site was optimized for the keywords: Celebrity News, Celebrity Gossip, Celebrity Videos and Celebrity Photos, the most searched keywords in the vertical.

o Tug worked with the development team to optimize the site’s content and coding, as well as improve the content management system, to manage daily post optimization.

o In January, Tug began link building. The first 2 months were spent building a link base in general and celebrity directories.

o In the following months, Tug supported this with PR and celebrity article submissions, recent news posts on news feeds, links to other celebrity blogs, and discussions in relevant forums. Exclusive videos were also posted on video directories, encouraging people to visit the site for more information.

o Due to active linking, these links were spread by stakeholders and resulted in more exposure and even more good quality links.

Results:

o After 5 months, Mr. Paparazzi.com had a top 5 position on page 1 of Google, Yahoo and MSN for all targeted keywords.

o Over 60% of site traffic comes from Tug search activity

o Month-over-month direct traffic is steadily growing, showing that users who found the site through search are now coming on their own.

o Using only PPC and SEO to generate traffic, in less than 9 months, Mr Paparazzi now has over 6 million page impressions per month! Now it is feasible to sell advertising and monetize the site.

This white paper has been prepared by Tug. Tug, is a specialist search engine marketing agency, based in Shoreditch, London.