In the first part of this post, I discussed the importance of link relevancy and consistency to a link building campaign. In this part, I will discuss the type of…
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The importance of links to a Web site’s search engine position is no longer a secret. As search engines have evolved, link building has become critical to search visibility. Today’s search engines are looking for new ways to provide searchers with the most appropriate content possible and link analysis is currently the method of choice. Simply put – without paying attention to link building, your site will never meet its ranking potential. But, before you run off to find as many links to your site as possible, keep in mind that there are good ways to build links and there are bad ways.
Link building must be tied to your overall Web site strategy. It is the most tedious and time consuming component of the SEO process – but it is well worth the effort. Because link building is such a broad (and important) topic, I decided to split this post up in to a series of installments. For this part, I will discuss the importance of link relevancy and consistency.
The difference between link popularity and link relevance
Link popularity refers to the number of other sites/pages that link to your site/pages. This used to be the focus of link building, but with the evolution of modern “theme-based” search engines, and the amount of link spamming that has taken place over the past years, it has now become much less important. Link relevancy is determined by the context of a site that is linking to you and the content found on that site. If a search engine is able to identify a common theme between your site and the sites that are linking to you, it will consider your site to be much more relevant to related search terms.
Think of inbound links as endorsements for your site. When other site owners choose to link to you, they are basically telling the search engines (and their users of course) that they feel your site is valuable. This is exactly what search engines are looking for. One well-positioned, highly relevant link from a quality/authoritative source is worth hundreds of low quality links from unrelated sites.
4 CommentsIn the “first part of this post”:http://www.onedegree.ca/2006/10/10/keyword-strategy-seos-most-critical-element-part-1, I outlined several places that you can find good keywords for your website. In this post I will provide some keyword selection tips and outline how to group your keywords and position them on your site.
*Keyword Selection Tips*
When selecting keywords for your site, it is best to look for phrases that describe your products/services in the most clear and logical way possible. Below, I have outlined a number of selection tips for you to consider.
*_Evaluate the market for your keywords_*
In order to select the best keywords for your site, you have to be able to evaluate how competitive the market is for each term and determine whether you have sufficient resources to compete.
You can gauge the level of competition and projected traffic for your keywords/keyword phrases by using some of the keyword suggestion tools that I outlined in my previous post. However, I highly recommend that you try out the “Keyword Difficulty Tool”:http://www.seomoz.org/tools/kwtool.php developed by SEOmoz. This tool will provide you with detailed information about the top ranking sites for a search phrase and give you good idea about what you will have to do with your site in order to compete. You can use this tool to compare terms that you are interested in and determine which ones are the most suitable for your keyword efforts.
*_Keywords vs. keyword phrases_*
It is often said that shorter keyword searches represent shoppers and longer keyword searches represent buyers. Single keywords (or short phrases) are not highly targeted and are much more difficult to rank well for. Longer, more targeted keyword phrases can generally be associated with greater purchase intent and will typically yield much higher conversion rates.
The goal of your keyword strategy is to drive qualified traffic to your website. Avoid using too many overly generic terms. Try to select *2 to 5 word phrases* that are specific to the contents of the page that you are optimizing.