Link building strategies to drive traffic to your online website

Link building strategies to drive traffic to your online website

A lot has changed about internet marketing and website traffic growth strategies over the past year or so, and…a lot hasn’t, but if you find yourself bewildered and wondering why one (or more) of your sites that was formerly prosperous, is struggling this year, maybe it’s time for a top to bottom review!  Or, maybe you’re new to the game, and have no idea where to even begin in terms of marketing your site. Either way, we've got you covered.

So let’s start with the basics.  The internet is still, and will be, for the foreseeable future, a textual medium.  Yes, increases in bandwidth have allowed for massive growth in still images and video streaming on the web, but by and large, when people want actual information (as opposed to cute kitten videos), they look for something written.

This is not to say that you can’t incorporate digital imagery and/or video into your marketing efforts (you can, and it is, in fact, recommended), but bear in mind that the bread and butter of the internet is still the written word.  That means that now, and for the foreseeable future, article marketing still has a strong place in your marketing efforts, but before we even spend much time talking about that, let’s talk about our old friend, SEO (or, Search Engine Optimization).

SEO can be summed up like this:

It is a system of best practices that optimizes a page of web content so that search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc), can:

a) readily identify the page’s subject matter

b) rank and display it appropriately in search results when a user types in a given key word or phrase into the search box

SEO is comprised of two factors.  “On page” factors, and “off page” factors.  That’s it, but of course, there’s more to be said about each.

Relevant On-Page SEO Factors

• The presence of a site map – Bottom line: Google loves site maps. If you have one, you’ll score slightly higher than sites that don’t.  Add it.  It takes like five minutes of your life and provides some good internal link building for your site.

• Good intra site linking that makes sense – Your pages should not exist in isolation from one another.  If you have a blog that’s on a fairly narrow (niche) topic, then when you write a new page, odds are good to excellent that the new page will relate, in some way, to other pages on your blog.  Where there is overlap, and where it makes sense to do so, link your pages to one another.  Improves the user experience, and builds link juice for you automatically.

• Keyword placement and optimization – A lot of people obsess over this, insisting on a certain, fairly exacting “keyword density.”  Don’t bother.  The algorithms in use today are heads and shoulders smarter than they were a year ago.  Write naturally and Google and the others will figure it out.  Use keywords, yes!!  Just don’t obsess over them.

• LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) - Ever wonder why, when you do a search for the term “apple iPad” you don’t get apple pie recipes?  LSI is the answer.  Because the search engines “know” that if you’re talking about the apples you put in pies, they can expect to see words like “sugar” and “crust” and “tasty” and the like, associated with that use of the word “apple.”  On the other hand, if you pair the word “apple” with “ipad” or “istore”, the search engines are smart enough to know you probably aren’t talking about grandma’s dessert.  You can use this to your advantage.  Since the search engines already know how to interpret a search, rather than obsessing on keyword density, how about insisting on better writing quality from your content creators, using LSI terms to reinforce what your page is about?  Better reading for your users and it makes it easy for the search engines to work out what your site is actually about. That’s win-win!!!

• Meta tags and descriptions – Another thing not to obsess over. Back in the nineties, this was a Very Big Deal.  It’s barely a blip on the ratings RADAR anymore, so spend time on it, yes, but don’t obsess over it. In fact, if you run a WordPress based site, there are plugins (Yost, etc) that will do almost all of the heavy lifting for you here. Use them and move on.

Relevant Off-Page SEO Factors

• Link building strategy (in general) – As mentioned, for the foreseeable future, article marketing still has a place in your strategy, but here, don’t obsess over use (or overuse) of the exact keyword in your links. Use LSI, use related terms, and heck, sometimes even use “for more info” or “click here” as your linking text. The other big thing to remember is link diversity.  You want a broad spectrum, and you want natural (in body) links, versus resource box links whenever you can get them.

• Social media component strategy – Increasingly, search is becoming about community.  If a stranger recommends a restaurant to you, you may or may not take the recommendation, because after all, what does the stranger know about your likes and dislikes?  On the other hand, if a friend recommends a restaurant to you, you’re likely to take that recommendation much more seriously.  Search understands that, and is moving in that direction.  That’s why it’s important for you, as a marketer, to build and maintain a strong community presence in at least two social media platforms (FaceBook and Twitter, Twitter and LinkedIn…something).  You need it now, and you’ll need it more in coming years.

• Visual media component strategy – Not necessarily applicable to every market, but given today’s free software, it’s laughably easy to create quick informational videos and use these for marketing purposes. If it fits your niche, do it.  The written word is still king, but video is sexy and attracts lots of eyeballs. Take advantage of that.

• Strategic Partnerships and Associations – This is especially important if you are in a highly competitive niche.  Buddy up with someone bigger.  Offer to do free guest blog posts for an honorable mention.  If you can get even a few percentage points of a much bigger site’s traffic volume looking at you, that’s dollar signs.

Contained within these nine bullet points are everything you need to put together a comprehensive strategy for your website (whatever its topic) that will help you drive traffic, but of course, what’s just as important as these is the Golden Rule, not mentioned above.

“Say something worth reading! All the marketing tips on the planet won't help you if you're not adding value. If nobody wants to read about whatever you're trying to tell them, you're just wasting everyone’s time. Don't do that. That’s the kiss of death.”