© 2007 ibm corporation ibm search engine marketing center of excellence december 17, 2007 search...

© 2007 IBM Corporation

IBM Search Engine Marketing Center of Excellence

December 17, 2007

Search engine optimization: linking strategies

Content Quality Council: Schema and terminology work group

© 2007 IBM Corporation2 SEM COE

Introductions and Overview


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Where in the world are you?


About this course

This course:

Helps authors, editors, terminologists, strategists, site owners and others improve their approach to internal and external linking.

Focuses on organic search—how a step-by-step link building program can get trusted, relevant sites to link to your site. It does not address paid search—how ibm.com pays for position on external search engines.

Is the third in a series of courses about search engine optimization.

Tools like We Build Pages help you improve your site’s linking tactics and the organic search ranking on your pages.


Course outline

How search engines determine the ranking of Web sites in search results

Why search engines value internal and external links

How to create better internal links

How to create better external links

Some tools you can use for building links


How do search engines determine the ranking of Web sites in search results?


Relevance and page rank

Google relies on two main factors to determine where links to your pages end up on an organic search-results page:

1. Relevance: How closely the keywords on a Web page match the keywords a user enters into a search field. Optimizing pages for relevance is the subject of the Organic Search Authoring Basics course.

2. Page rank: Page Rank is a function of how the page is related to other pages within your site and on the Web. The more your page is interwoven into other relevant pages within your site and around the Web, the higher it is ranked by Google.

This course covers how to improve your page rank by cultivating relationships with trusted internal and external sources on the Web and persuading them to link to your pages.


Search engines evaluate page rank in four ways

1. Link quantity: How many links are there in and out of your pages?

2. Link quality: How highly do the pages that link to your pages rank?

3. Anchor text: How meaningful is the text within links to and from your pages?

4. Link relevance: How closely related are the pages that link to your page?


Why do search engines value internal and external links?


Why search engines value external links

Every link to your page is a vote for its quality.

Organic search engines tally the votes when they decide which pages possess the highest page rank.

This link on KnowledgeStorm.com drives traffic to the IBM page and increases its page rank.


Why search engines value internal links

Unlike external links, you control how you use internal links.

Effective internal linking not only affects ranking, but also page navigation, usability and customer satisfaction.

The goal of internal links is to facilitate navigation and usability for spiders and visitors.

Links to your page within ibm.com indicate that your page is an important element of the whole site.

This high-performance template enables descriptive anchor links in the content space.


How do you create better internal links?


Outbound internal links

An outbound internal link is a hyperlink that points to another page inside the same domain.


Creating better outbound internal links

Use descriptive anchor text to make your links more relevant to your users, and include keywords.

Vary anchor text to help target long-tail keyword phrases. Perform synonym search by typing “~” and your keyword within the Google search field. Use automated tools to help you locate related words:

http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/

Build pages with links within the content space area. Including links within the content space reinforces theme and category.

Use text links. Image links have a diminished search engine optimization (SEO) value.

Avoid using pop-up windows in links. Search engines typically do not index pages that open in a pop-up window.

Maintain your links and ensure they are in working order.


An inbound internal link is a hyperlink that points to your page from another page in the same domain.

Inbound internal links


Ensure that all links progress through the hierarchy of your site or content.

Avoid link orphans or navigation dead ends.

Create a link structure to ensure that you do not dilute URL strength.

If possible, avoid redirects and IBM SurfAid™ tracking codes in your URLs that point to your target page. Use consistent URLs throughout the user experience. For large, Eclipse-based sites, create a site map page with links to all the topics.

Take advantage of IBM peer organizations to create links back to your site from internal sources.

Creating better inbound internal links


Creating internal linking opportunities

Leverage linking possibilities from the home-page content and other home page main categories.

Place important links above the fold (where the user can see them) or in related links.

Leverage internal corporate blogs, wikis, and forums by ensuring that their owners link back to your page.

Find opportune internal pages with the most back links.

Use Yahoo Site Explorer http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com (more about this tool later in the course).


Quick quizUse the Centra text tool to enter your answers on this screen.

1. What are the two main factors Google relies on to determine where links to your pages end up in search results?

2. What’s the difference between an outbound internal link and an inbound internal link?

3. Which of the following is not a good way to create internal links?

Leveraging internal blogs and wikis Placing links below the fold

Linking to pages with many back links Creating links from home-page main categories


How do you create better external links?


Outbound external links

An outbound external link is a link to a page outside the same domain.

PartnerWorld links directly to stories on trusted sites about IBM Business Partner relationships. This is a captured opportunity.


Creating better outbound external links

Creating outbound links to trusted sites increases page rank.

Link out to such trusted authorities as industry associations, research organizations, nonprofit sites, industry news sites and industry journals.

By linking out to authority Web sites, it helps you become a “hub” authority Web site.

By creating a comprehensive list of resources on a topic, other sites will want to link to it.

Trusted authorities have these properties: Unique content Inbound links from other authority sites Outbound links to authority sites A long history of authority


Choosing outbound external link targets

When linking out to third-party external sites, consider these questions:

Is the site credible?

Is the content relevant to your page?

Does the site approve of your link?

Does the external site have privacy or legal statements?

If you answer “yes” to these questions, it is better to link to their site than get permission to copy the contents.

All these industry news links copy content from trusted sources rather than linking directly to those sites. This is a missed opportunity.


Inbound external links

An inbound external link is a link from a page outside the current domain into the Web site.

The IBM page on the SAS.com partner site contains no direct links to IBM content. This is a missed opportunity.


Building on existing relationships

IBM Public Relations (PR) Work with PR reps to get your

sites linked in their press releases. These links often end up in trade publication sites.

Business Partners Independent software vendors

(ISVs) Systems Integrators (SIs) Resellers

Industry events IBM sponsors many conferences

and expos, which have highly credible sites.

Educational institutions Leverage co-op opportunities to

get universities to link to IBM content.

IBM has an extensive network of existing relationships with:

Trade associations Encourage team members to

join and participate in trade groups, which have credible sites.

Content aggregators Sites like TechRepublic are

always looking for good content to link to.

Existing clients Case studies are an excellent

way to get customers to link to your pages.


Capturing social media opportunities

Participate in forums. Promote new resources, content or

products to attract external links.

Encourage user reviews. Provide a channel for surfacing and

addressing positives and negatives. Provide an interactive opportunity to

have users rate offerings.

Interview clients or industry experts. Provide self-promoting and viral

opportunities. Encourage additional links from

interviewee blogs and back links to you.

Social media, or Web 2.0, sites are the fastest growing source of external links on the Web. Build these tactics into your back-link plans:


Capturing social media opportunities (continued)

Submit your corporate blog to blog directories such as blogsflux.com.

Use RSS feeds and the track-back blog function.

Work collaboratively with a wiki such as Wikipedia. The IBM page at Wikipedia is an excellent place to promote your offerings and create external links in the process. Remember to only state facts here, do not use promotional language or sell IBM offerings.

Participate in corporate blogs and wikis:


Finding new external link partners

Find the top results for your keywords or related words and request links from “good fit” sites.

Sites might contain resource directories where you can discover additional potential back-link partners. Search quality directories such as DMOZ

and Yahoo. Find authority sites on human-edited

directories by using commands such as site:.edu.

Research your competitor’s back links. Determine who is linking to them and what

keywords they employ in their anchor text.

This Web search netted several potential link partners, including Wikipedia, xml.com, SOA, ZDNet, and Oracle.


Working with potential external-link partners

Send a personal e-mail. Start a conversation in the first e-mail. Include the person's name. Make the subject line unique. Find something unique about their site.

In this sample e-mail to the editor-in-chief of ZDNet, we use relationship marketing tactics to begin developing a relationship that we hope will result in a link to the ibm.com/soa site.

Creating new back-link opportunities requires old-fashioned relationship marketing tactics:

Keep e-mails short and to the point. Offer an incentive. Provide additional contact

information (phone number). Ask for a link to a page that will

benefit their users.


Auditing back-link partners

Determine which URL is ranking higher (the vanity or target).

Verify that the desired URL is being used by the back-link partner.

Verify that the anchor text is using the relevant keyword.

Contact the back-link partners to make any necessary changes to the URL or anchor text.

Perform a link audit of your page or site. (Note: Any method is just an estimate.) Type http://link:url in the Google search bar to find out which

pages in the Google index are linking to your page. Or try Yahoo Site Explorer: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Perform an audit to check your current back-link partners and then determine if they are using correct anchor text and URLs.


Preventing spam inflation

Be wary of obtaining too many back links from sites on the same Class C IP address. Search engines think you’re creating a link farm when you do this. Use the tool found at

http://www.ip-report.com to check for Class C IPs.

Avoid link-building software that automates e-mailing back-link requests to other site owners. Avoid the auto-create features

and just use the software to track e-mails.

Only obtain up to two high-quality back links per week.

Part of the Google algorithm checks sites for signs of unethical behavior. If it determines that your site uses these techniques, it will not be indexed. The following tips will help you avoid being blacklisted by search engines:


Working with sites that use the Nofollow attribute

The Nofollow attribute command was originally used to prevent blog comment spam. # <a href="http://www.ibm.com" rel="nofollow">IBM</a>

Search engines will still index, traffic will be sent, but no “link juice” will flow back to the site.

Don't ignore sites that use the Nofollow attribute because it might help you gain secondary back links.

To find page links that use the NoFollow attribute, use the FireFox Search StatusTool: http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus

The SearchStatus plug-in sits in the lower right corner of FireFox. It enables you to optimize back-link partners and determine Nofollow links.


Quick quiz

Use the Centra text tool to enter your answers on this screen.

1. What is a back-link partner?

2. List a few sources of back-link partners:

3. What are some common pitfalls in link development?


What are some link-building tools?


Using Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer can help you create internal linking opportunities and audit back-link partners for external links.

http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com

Type site:<yourdomain>.com (for example site:ibm.com) and it will provide pages with most back links in descending order.

Use this information to audit back-link partners and identify potential problem links.


Using Google Rankings to assist in link building

Check Google Rankings: http://www.googlerankings.com/

(The Google API is required.)

Potential third-party sites to target for links to your site should have these qualities:

A high Google page rank (six or above)

Few outbound links

Relevant to your page topic

Keyword included in the link text

Google Rankings is the most useful tool in determining your page rank and the page ranks of your back-link partners.


Using Yahoo Hub to assist in back-link auditing

Type in a keyword and see what comes up in the top 10, and then see which sites link to them.

For example, type the keyword “Infrastructure security” and see who is in the top 10 sites on the results page.

Then, check back links coming to them and compile a list of sites you would want to link to your site.

Yahoo Hub Finder can help you target your competitors’ back-link partners.

The tool is based on the keywords that you have identified as important to your page rankings.

http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php

Type link:URL in the search bar to find all the pages that are linking to your page.


Using SEOElite to assist in step-by-step link building

http://www.seoelite.com/acceptance-form-b.htm

Use SEOElite to research competitors and potential link partners:

1. Search for well-optimized sites for a particular keyword.

2. Analyze keyword usage by other third-party sites using allinanchor, allintitle or allintext.

3. Find relevant PR link partners.

4. Analyze back links to the IBM page.

SEOElite is a paid tool that enables you to analyze optimized sites for their keyword usage and replicate it.

SEOElite is a sophisticated tool for analyzing all keyword-based programs.


Exploring no-cost tools for the site owner

See SEO Google Gadgets for link analysis, competitive analysis, and keyword research: http://tools.seobook.com/google-gadgets/

See the back links you have in common with your competitors. Use Common Link Finder, located at http://www.randycullom.com/common_link.php

Use Backlink Builder, located at http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php This tools searches for Web sites of the theme you specify that contain

key phrases such as "Add link", "Add site", "Add URL", "Add URL", "Submit URL", and "Add Article". Most of the results could be quality potential back links.


Exploring more no-cost tools for the site owner

To check back links, use Hub Finder:http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php This tool can be used to check back links to you and competitors and find those that you have in

common. It also supports the Google API and allows you to export the results as a comma-separated value list for further analysis.

To build relevant PR links on demand, use Underground Link Building: http://www.undergroundlinkbuilding.com/?gclid=CP7Z_Ki30o4CFQUsPAodXDZ6-Q

To show what anchor text is linking into a page or site, use Back Link Analyzer: http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer/

To check your page rank, back links and much more, use Xinu: http://www.xinureturns.com/

To check for link popularity, go to: http:www.linkpopularity.com


Thank you!

Great job!


Search COE wiki and Content Quality wiki

Visit these IBM sites to view the most-current search engine optimization information and audio files.

ibm.com Content Standards site: http://w3.ibm.com/standards/internet/writing/

Content Quality wiki: https://w3.webahead.ibm.com/w3ki/display/ContentQuality/2.+Schema+and+terminology

Search Center of Excellence (COE): http://w3.webahead.ibm.com/w3ki/display/SEM/Search+Engine+Ma

rketing


Additional resources


Glossary: Linking strategies

Anchor text or link label The visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. Anchor text is the text a user clicks when clicking a link on a Web page.

Back link Third-party links that link back to ibm.com Web pages.

Back-link partner A third party site that agrees to link to one or more ibm.com Web pages.

Bad neighborhood Areas of the Web populated by link scammers and spammers. Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or page rank. In particular, avoid links to Web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the Web, because your own ranking might be affected adversely by those links.

C-Block address An address based on your IP. In general, Web hosts are given a different class C, so if you have a different C block, you are usually talking about two different Web hosts. Google assumes that sites hosted by two different hosts are probably separate, and therefore links between sites hosted on them are more likely to be from different people.

Canonicalization The process of picking the best URL when there are several choices; this usually refers to home pages. The canonical URL is often the shortest URL the Web site can successfully resolve. However, when choosing a canonical, or vanity URL, make sure that search-effective redirects are in place and this URL is used consistently.

Conversions In Internet marketing, the conversion rate is the percentage of unique visitors who take a preferred action upon visiting the Web site. The preferred action might be submitting a sales lead, making a purchase, viewing a key page of the site, downloading a white paper, or some other measurable action.

Deep links Pages that are beyond two links from the home page.

FFA Flagged for Ad Sense Ads

Inbound external links A link from a page outside the current domain into the Web site.

Inbound internal links A hyperlink that points to another page in the same Web site.



Link farm Any group of Web sites that link to every other page in the group. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called spamexing or spamdexing).

Link bait Something on your site that people will notice and link to. By linking to your site, other sites are saying they value the content of your site and that they think other people will be interested in it too.

Linking out ibm.com pages linking to other external or internal Web pages.

Link juice Jargon that refers to the quality of a Web site's link power, as in page rank, or number of link votes, which are obtained from back links. This expression was coined by SEO consultant Greg Boser.

Link popularity Generally refers to the total number of links pointing to any particular URL. There are typically two types of link popularity: internal and external. Internal link popularity typically refers to the number of links or pages within a Web site that link to a specific URL. External link popularity refers to the number of inbound links from external Web sites that are pointing to a specific URL. If you have more links than your competitors, you are typically known to have link cardinality or link superiority.

Link quality In general, webmasters can improve the rank of their sites by increasing the number of high-quality sites that link to their pages.

Link relevance The relevance of the link to the content of the Web page it links to. Link relevance will affect the value of a link to search engines. The more relevant the link, the more likely you will get link juice for this this link.

Long-tail keywords Those 3- and 4-keyword phrases that are very, very specific to whatever you are selling. Whenever customers use a highly specific search phrase, they tend to be looking for exactly what they are actually going to buy.



Outbound external links A link to a page outside the same domain is considered external.

Outbound internal links A hyperlink that points to another page in another Web site.

Reciprocal link Two different sites that link out to each other in order to ensure mutual traffic. Also referred to as cross linking. Non-reciprocal links are more effective. Excessive reciprocal linking might trigger the idea of some kind of linking scheme.

Run-of-site Run-of-site (site-wide) links are links on every page of a Web site. An example of a site-wide link is a link in a

persistent left navigation bar, masthead or footer. When buying ads on a site, this is the option in which ad placements might appear on any page of the site targeted.

Stemming The process for reducing inflected (or sometimes derived) words to their stem, base or root form. Allows search results to be returned for pages that include parts of words, rather than the exact version. Stemming should be taken into consideration when determining keywords (for example, diet, dietary, dietician).

Target URL The domain name where your V3 domain is pointing to, for example:http://www.geocities.com/membersite/index.html.

Thematic links Links to related material.

Viral marketing Viral marketing is a marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message voluntarily.

Vanity URL A domain name, typically created by a company to point to a specific product or advertising campaign microsite. In theory, vanity URLs are creatively linked to a product or ad concept and easier to remember than a company's general domain (for example, www.ibm.com/special).


What makes good or bad back links?

Positive feature of a link1. Anchor text

Links should contain relevant anchor key phrase in text.

2. Adjacent text Plain text next to a link is valuable if relevant.

3. Page rank The site overall should have a large number of external or back links.

4. Link popularity Link popularity is indicated by the number of pages containing the link.

5. Context of page Links are more relevant if the context of the page matches the link.

6. Run-of-site/run-of-section linkIf you can obtain a link that is run-of-site across all pages, this is most valuable because it provides many links.

7. Location of domainUK sites (co.uk) are generally most valuable since they will help boost position for UK local searches.

8. Destination of back link (deep links)The links that link directly to a category or product page are most valuable because these have context.

9. Site authorityMany SEO commentators believe page rank is unimportant compared to the authority of site. Authority is partially indicated by the number of links to the domain and the links out. High authority sites are known as hub sites.

Negative feature of a link1. Redirected links

These links use a redirection script possibly to an ad server.If there is a query string (?) or a script such as .pl, .php in the linking URL, then this is a sign of a redirect. Historical information such as page rank and link juice is not inherited when a 302 redirect is implemented.

2. Nofollow Links containing Nofollow tags have no value. View Source or use SearchStatus—a Firefox add-on—to identify sites which use nofollow.

3. Link exchange networkSearch engines will apply filters that exclude these links and harshly penalize those who participate in these schemes if identified.

4. Image links Text links are most effective. So if a link requires a banner or button, a text link in keeping with guidelines could be obtained. Alternatively, use Alt text to describe the site.

5. Bad neighborhoodsMost directories are simply created to make money through Google AdSense (Made for Adsense or MFA sites) or affiliates.

6. Reciprocal linksAsking clients, partners or strangers in related industries to link to your Web site and then returning the favor was a very popular tactic two years ago. Now, links exchanged between sites no longer have value.

7. Temporary linksLinks need to be present for at least one year.

© 2007 ibm corporation ibm search engine marketing center of excellence december 17, 2007 search...

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