| Identifying linking opportunities is always a
challenge for experienced search engine marketers
and novices alike. Increasing the number of incoming
links from related web sites to your company web
site can have a significant impact on your search
engine rankings. Many of the most experienced
search
engine optimization firms have developed their
own proprietary tools to help automate optimization
tasks. Fortunately, there are several freely available
tools that I can share here to help make uncovering
linking opportunities a little easier.
Marketleap Link Popularity Tool - This tool checks
incoming links from 7 search engines and allows
you to compare your site to 3 competing web sites.
Basically, find out who's linking to your higher
ranking competition and try to get links from
the same sources. You can also view link popularity
trends over time. This data comes from your previous
uses of the Marketleap tool and is not a complete
history.
For an excellent general resource on Link Building,
visit the Incoming Links and Development Guide.
This site offers a directory of industry specific
directories as well as a guide to link building.
Link analysis tools can help you analyze your
competition's linking relationships and uncover
many new linking opportunities for your own site.
Be sure not to focus entirely on links from directories
and "resources" pages on other web sites.
Links from authoritative web sites in an editorial
context are the most valuable.
| Examples of good incoming link sources: |
- Press releasesArticles
- Case studies
- White papers
- Testimonials you've given for other
products
- Job postings
- Internet Explorer Bookmarks
- Bookmark archiving web sites
|
| |
Competitive intelligence through link analysis
can give you an advantage with search engine visibility
over competitors that are not using it. Watch
for trends and use the information to work smart
with your own link building campaign. |
