Here are 10 very useful tips on links and linking architecture for anyone with an interest in SEO, and if you’re involved in marketing of any kind over the Internet, then that’s you. 
Think About Who Links to You
You’ll already know the value of reputation when it comes to marketing your product or service. If sites that are associated with good quality products are clearly seen by users and search engines to link to your own then this will reflect well on you. Pay close attention to the number of .com and .co.uk sites that link to you, for example, and think carefully about ways in which you can encourage others to do likewise.
Think About Who You Link to
The same rules as before. Linking to good quality sites reflects well on your own. Keep up to date with innovations and developments and stay relevant with fresh links on your pages. Try to develop a balanced portfolio of links on your site.
Avoid Broken Links
As part of ongoing site maintenance for SEO you should be aware of any links that are no longer in use and remove them from your site.
Think About Relevance
This is very important. Link to sites with a clear relevance to your own only. Search engines pay special attention to this, as do users, and every irrelevant link on your page is detrimental.
Internal Links
Think about internal links and whether your site is user friendly. Make the most of internal links and get some advice from SEO experts about ways to link internally that will benefit your site’s ranking.
Maps
Think about linking back to homepage and site maps. Make your site as easily navigable as possible. This will encourage users and benefit your site as search engines see these links when they probe it. A map is a useful way to introduce internal links and make the site easier to get around.
Link Building
Think about the use of exact match terms for link building. Build links using exactly matching anchor text. Remember though, don’t get carried away – an excess use of keywords can be as bad as a lack. Using terms you want to rank for and that summarise the topic referred to, in moderation, can strengthen the ratings of your site by search engines. Find a balance and use your senses. If you feel that you’ve gone overboard with repeated words or phrases in your internal links then you probably have.
Avoid Cloaking
Search engines are increasingly sophisticated at detecting ‘black hat’ or unscrupulous SEO techniques. While it may be tempting to improve your popularity on the net by attracting unwitting visitors to your site, be aware that techniques that accomplish this can get you into trouble. Users and search engines are alike in their approach to cloaking – they don’t accept or tolerate it. Stay within the boundaries to avoid problems.
Look at Where Your Competitors Link
This is legal and it can give you an advantage or at least level the playing field somewhat when it comes to links. Go to Yahoo and type in link: www.competitorsite.com to get access to useful tools for viewing your competition’s linking activity. Remember that knowledge is power.
Strategise
Have a solid strategy for linking to, from and within your site. Think before you link and use every intelligent strategy at your disposal. Getting advice from website optimization specialists can really help.
To conclude, it’s hoped that some important considerations about link building were highlighted for you here in our list. Some areas were only touched upon, and in an environment such as computing where change is a constant, it pays to stay abreast of developments. Remember that if you’re short on time, search engine optimisation specialists are available for SEO and improving your ranking and your profits.
About the Author: Sam Desilwa – Seoconsult.co.uk provides Seo and Search Engine Optimisation Services. Visit http://www.seoconsult.co.uk/ for more information.
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{ 37 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the reminder. I am always slow to fix or remove broken links from my website. I still need to learn more about linking to bad sites. Is paying for links a good or bad thing?
Try use wp plugin to remove broken links. it will auto find broken links.
Mr Tinh recommends me to use Broken Link Checker plugin and it really fix tons of links on my site. I still see many bloggers buying links, I think it doesn’t have any problems with SEO.
i agree your post just like a checklist for any seo expert. you have posted your content on a very right time because i am going from the same activities right now so it really helpful to me….thanks for this nice contribution.
Thanks for showing me of these tips, i really need to start building on my seo, i have done very little. :S
Hi Peter. do it every day, its really good for promote your blog. you can use some tool to help you do SEO blog this pages http://www.cafeblogger.net/best-choice/
broken links are the main cause where we loose traffic. we should take a closer look at these
Good tips. But it seems that so much of link building is about building relationships with the owners of other websites. Any tips on how to develop these relationships?
Alway make comment to other website and chat, mail with owners of other website . what do you think ?
Nice Tips – Strategies Always Plays Great Role, But most of the People Including me Dont gave too much focus on Strategies – Thanks for Reminding …. Good Work !!!
Thanks for Sharing Such Awesome Tips, I may Use them for my Blog Post for Gaining Better results ….
Glad you like them. Try use it for yourself. good luck
That is an interesting article there. Got it retweeted, but I wasn’t able to find those Yahoo tools you’ve mentioned. Tried to do exactly as in the article, but it didn’t work out.
Nice set of tips for SEO. If you don’t do much SEO, you can at least spend a few minutes to one hour each day on working to promote your blog, and then sooner or later, things will go well for your site. Also, welcome those who comment on your own articles, so they would be happy to come back next time.
Great tips! I definitely need to think some more about my linking strategy.
Nice tips for link buildingm but i don’t really understand about cloaking, can you please explain more
Great tips. This was something I didn’t know about it when I first started blogging.
Very nice tips for SEO. I believe that all of the above mentioned are what it takes to get some good traffic even though it means a lot of effort. Thanks for sharing!
Broken link on a site, irritates visitors and look unprofessional. Then internal linking is great, some webmasters prefer to link directly to internal pages anyway because those links send visitors directly to useful information.
It was a great post for beginner blogger. I wonder why referred to Yahoo to find out the linking strategy of competitors. Do you have any othe method to find linking through other search engines?
Thank you for a very informative post. This article is ver well-wriiten and will be checking out other posts as well in this site. Thanks again.
awesome post , very well good idea ,linking strategy tips you will keep it
Broken links are just like a disease in the field of optimization.
I so agree with you!
I wonder writing articles and posting it on article websites like ezeline etc, how can it help increasing the traffic ? Is there any other advantage for SEO for this ?
Hi, I have a question. How would I know that broken links exist in my blog and if there is any, how do I fix it? Thanks..
Hi Michael,
I think there is a plug-in available to let you know if a link is broken. If you see that a link does not work in your post, then edit the link to fix it. Hope this helps.
One needs to look at the links of the blogs that are ranked higher in a particular niche. If they get 100 links on a daily basis it is likely that after a month the new blog will have a PR of 3 or more.
I don’t think one can possibly have broken links by using wordpress, also there are several plugins for internal links. Rest of the tips are very informative.
Overall, strategies must always come into game. Without the right strategy, it would be very hard for your site to get the result that you really expect. Linking is very important in websites that’s why it must not be eliminated in your strategy.
Yes Broken Links should be avoided. Thanks for the the SEO Tips.
I agree with you, whenever I come across a broken link, it kind of disappoints me, especially if I really would like to find out what important information that link could’ve provided us if it weren’t broken.
That was a good stuff. Could any one explain in brief about creating feeds to website?
Thanks for the tips. One question though, is buying back links ever a good idea? If so, who is trusted to do the best job?
Hi,
I appreciate your post and I agree with your tips here. I do believe it is useful for SEO Link Building. Thanks for the post.
All the points are valuable….. thanks for the write-up…
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