Link Building 101. How to Find the Perfect Backlink Source

One of the toughest jobs a SE marketer deals with on a regular basis is finding quality webpages and domain names to embed their backlinks on. In this short article I try to provide an effective checklist to make the right choices when researching for backlink recipients

Seven Questions to ask yourself every time a new linking opportunity shows up:

1. Who links to that domain name?

In general well founded websites are listed in topnotch directories like DMOZ and Yahoo Dir.. In addition to this they're constantly referred to on social media platforms and communities formed around other respectable websites..

Then again, there are a bunch of webmasters that focus on getting backlinks regardless of the niche the recipient is in. Linking partnerships with these SEO novices should be excluded from the very beginning.

Good analysis for link structures are obtained fairly cheap with different SEO instruments available today.

2. Does their articles/videos/podcasts incite you to further explore the site?

Make a thorough inspection of their site in terms of information quality and check whether or not they supplement the info provided on your own website.

If they offer related and/or supplemental information to your own that contributes to both visitor's experience and improving traffic stats, then consider obtaining a link from that website.

You're primary criteria should be providing quality content for your readership. Once you have this taken care of, only then should you approach the SEO goals.

3. Does your future linking webpage has any PageRank assigned to it?

Do not just look at the PageRank assigned to the site's homepage, instead go deep and find out exactly what PR value has the webpage you intend having the link on.

Blogs are the perfect example for this SEO fact. Let me explain. As a new blog post is published it is placed on the domain's homepage, thus enjoys a high Pagerank. Once other articles or posts are published our particular post in pushed below until it slips to 2nd, 3rd... page that have a PR 0. Of course blogs are well dealt with by the search engines and this authority isn't passed and taken away so easily, but this is a general presentation to give you an idea of how PageRank flows.

The PageRank isn't of paramount importance if the site looks promising for future development. If the website scores high but that exact page lacks PageRank, go get the link.

4. Do these sites pertain to well established communities? Which are those?

Recognized websites form and are members of vibrant online communities.

They forever distribute and receive link juice throughout their web masterminds.. See if your prospect website has a hybrid collection of unrelated websites that it refers with backlinks. If so, know that it carries little to no trust both from the SE and visitor's standpoint.

If it doesn't link out to other themed websites, then it probably has no authority to share and it's not worth the effort of reaching out for a back link. Needless to say that Google is reluctant to assigning link authority to websites that conduct blatant PageRank sculpting or PageRank preservation tactics.

5. Are they cultivating back links to other sites?

If the answer is yes, they most certainly sell them.

I suggest not to entertain linking partnerships with them. The reason is twofold: Firstly, search engines assign no trust to these sites at all and 2nd they regularly whip out any link equity these sites gain, so your paid link equals rubbish.

6. Are they indexed and present in the SERPs?

Make sure the website you plan on getting a back link from ranks for your targeted or related keywords in the SERPs. To give a numerical figure, I suggest being placed at least in the first 4 SERPs.

Still even if it's placed on the 3rd page is not that efficient but there are chances for the rankings to improve overtime. To get the proper information use instruments like SEO Digger and Compete.com.

7. Do they have raving fans?

If the answer to this one is yes, then you stand a good chance of increasing the readership you currently have. Even though they're not SEO masterpieces, websites that enjoy high numbers of subscribers bring you a great deal of referral traffic. Use Google reader to find out the exact number of feed readers they currently have.


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