On the web, it’s not about “who you know,” it’s really about “who knows you.” What I mean by that is this: from an SEO and content strategy perspective, it’s all about the inbound links to your website. There are a lot of reasons for this and SEO experts are continually adjusting their approaches – and their techniques – as SEO continues to evolve. Inbound links form the foundation of any best-practices SEO strategy. With such importance placed on this facet of SEO, it pays to keep your links game solid. Here are a few “easy wins” that you could be doing right now:
Keep your Customers Close. Keep Your Competition Closer?
Especially if your competitors are placing above your website in search rankings, you’d better be checking out what they’re up to. While you probably did your competitive due diligence at the start of your SEO effort, you know SEO and all it aspects is an ever-evolving game. With so many areas to cover for proper SEO, when was the last time you did some serious work in the link-building arena? Taking a peek at your competitors’ links will give you new ideas to explore and targets to go after. Our CTO, Erik Jensen, explains. “Here at ASTRALCOM, we use a myriad of tools to evaluate SEO for our clients. One of the best tools we employ is the “Open Site Explorer” from Moz.com. We can actually research and compare links with a client’s competitors for a much more intelligent and targeted link-building effort.”
Drive Traffic. Drink Juice
It used to be that getting inbound links from high domain authority websites (sometimes referred to as “link juice”) was top-of-the-list. Another evolutionary SEO change in link analysis is how Google is valuing the domain authority of sites. Or, rather, devaluing it. Instead, higher value is now being put on the amount of traffic the site draws and not its domain authority. So, getting inbound links from high-traffic, popular websites is critical.
Put One Link In Front Of The Other & Soon…
Because website content is so central to any SEO effort, it makes sense to build content in layers. That means ensuring that each web page’s content helps to deliver each subsequent web page of content, in a hierarchical fashion. No doubt, over time, your website has grown and added more content of all types. But does this new content help support your original content, navigation, keywords, etc? Is it linked to previous and subsequent pages appropriately? Go look and ensure that your web pages link deeper into your site, to more relevant content. It’s good for SEO and it’s good for customer experience, too.
Funnelize Your Blog Posts
While we’re talking about how important content is to SEO, let’s not forget about how to leverage blog posts in the same manner as web page content. If you’re tracking stats on your pages, then you’ll be able to see which posts are drawing the most traffic or interactions. These posts are the “secondary gateways” that will drive visitors (and search bots) further into your site. This is critical if your site has an e-commerce component. Additionally, you should be cultivating relationships with your link sources on your shared content.
Listen to Your Feet on the Street
Your sales staff and other frontline people in your company are invaluable because they are ones who are actually dealing with prospects and customers regularly. They know what kinds of things are working with your target audience and what things aren’t. They also can help uncover the various touch points and marketing messages that are working the best. Work-in periodic team meetings with these folks and they’ll help generate engaging new messaging ideas and inspiring calls-to-action.
Feed Local Media Outlets
You’re probably rolling your eyes at the thought of issuing press releases and news statements. After all, you’re thinking, who’s going to pay attention? Well, certainly media sources are always looking for fresh and relevant information for their audiences – some of which are your future customers. Wrapping your information in a “newsworthy” way helps create interest (and additional valuable links) from local and regional media sources.
There are plenty of local and regional low-cost and even free news sources that are always looking for reliable and engaging information. Why not help them help you?
This is a topic definitely worthy of deep understating and if you’re into it, you will absolutely want to read Jon Ball’s article over at Search Engine Land. Jon’s article covers Danny Sullivan’s (founding editor of Search Engine Land) interview with Google’s Matt Cutts and it’s definitely worth reviewing. Or, you can contact us and we can put together a solid link-building strategy for you.
