Value of SEO Links

For a long time search engines relied almost completely on webpages content for ranking. One of Google’s unique approach was to use links as a determination for site rankings. It makes SEO links very valuable because this ranking approach is more effective and fair and began excluding sites with spammers.

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Google, Yahoo, Bing, and most other search engines nowadays consider a link as a vote of relevance. Search engines consider the context of both pages, the page with the link, and the page the link points to, as well as the anchor text, which is the text of the link itself.

Trying to get links is called Link Building. Before we discuss how to build strong SEO links, let’s examine what makes a strong link. Several factors determine whether a link is strong or weak. A few strong links can help your search rankings much more than many weak links. The major factors that contribute to the strength of a link are:

• Anchor text
• Location on a Page
• Relevance of site
• Backlinks of site

Anchor Text

The displayed text others use as the link back to your site is a very important aspect to the strength of a link and how the search engines will rank the site being linked to.

Anchor text gives context to the subject matter of the linked page. If you write an article entitled “How to Fix a Leaky Faucet,” others might link to your story with a link using the exact title of the article, or just fixing a leaky faucet. When a search engine finds the link to your article, it takes the link text into consideration for the ranking of that page and gives it more weight in determining the rankings for that keyword.

When building links, you have to take any opportunity to determine the anchor text of a new link to your site. When submitting or contacting a site owner for a link, you should have the HTML code for a link ready to go, increasing the chance of your preferred anchor text being used.

Keep in mind that having all anchor text the exact same is unnatural and may be devalued by search engines. Mix it up by adding a word, changing from singular to plural, or stemming a word differently. Google considers “Consulting” and “Consultant” to be very related, so much so that they would highlight the other word in a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) even though it doesn’t match our search term exactly.

SEO Links Location on a Page

Generally, a link within the main body of a page has more value than a link on the side menu or at the very bottom of a page, like in a footer. After understanding these important factors for strong links, the next step is to take these factors into consideration when searching to find potential link opportunities. Several link tools are available to help you.

Relevance of The Linking Site

Getting links from sites whose content is related to your site contributes to making a strong link. If your site is about “digital cameras,” we recommend getting links from any site dealing with photography, electronics, and technology, all of which are related to digital cameras.

Backlinks of Site

A site with many quality backlinks of their own makes for a strong link opportunity because search engines give links from these sites higher “authority” or “value.” A few good links from an authoritative site, with well-designed anchor text, can have a positive influence on your rankings. Conversely, links from sites with hundreds or thousands of links from spammy gambling or prescription sites won’t provide much link value, and could even hurt your site’s rankings. Linking from these types of sites should be avoided.