How to Earn Natural Links with SEO?

If you read the above title carefully, the answer to building natural links has already been given. In case you still did not get it yet, then you will want to read further.

First, what are natural links and why have they become so important?

Search engines want to give the users the best possible experience and the most relevant results. In the early SEO days, link building (number of links to your website) was critical to achieving high search rankings. In the future, link building will be just as important, but the way the links are being valued by search engines has evolved.

The new metric for “link value” is based on certain qualitative measures that are becoming more and more critical to long term online business success.

Link Value = [Relevancy + Credibility + Participation + Diversity + Popularity]

Is the site linking to your website?

Relevant – Getting a link from a football ecommerce site for a Pets site is not relevant? Getting a link from the website of a Vet doctor is!

Credible – Getting a link back from a new domain, or a website which offers little or no value, or a website/webpage that just has outbound links or from link farms is of NO value, even if they have decent page rank. Getting links from industry related sites, blogs, local associations or in the communities you participate in (article sites, social sites etc) is considered credible.

Valuing you – Good websites reward users who participate in their community. The more you participate, the better reputation you have and better the link juice passed. Participating in select 10 to 15 article submission sites, and 10 to 15 social bookmarking/ social media sites, and 2 relevant blogs/forums is good. More is not always better.

Diverse – Getting 1000 web directory links is NOT as good as getting diverse 200 links from relevant web directories, article sites, social sites, video submissions sites, blogs, industry related sites, forums, PR sites etc.

Popular – Getting a link from a website that is popular with good traffic is better. This is just common sense. A relevant and popular site = targeted traffic for your site. I am not sure if there is any “link value” worth mention here.

So the number of credible links from relevant and diverse web, user and social communities is one of the important parameters search engines are evaluating while ranking a website/ webpage.

For a moment let’s get back to the title of this blog post “How to Earn Natural Links?”

The operative word in the title is “Earn”. In the new link playground of the future you will have to ‘Earn” the links, and not buy, exchange, barter or trade for them.

While buying, exchanging, bartering for links worked in the past, and your website is not getting penalized for it, sooner or later these links will become obsolete like the dinosaurs. The top search rankings will eventually be dominated by websites that are getting linked-too based on the merit of their content or value they provide.

To earn links you have to create “reference worthy links” by creating content of value that the users will find informative, unique and resourceful. Creating 2 to 3 new blog posts a week, and syndicating and promoting that content across relevant social, web and user communities is a good SEO strategy to build natural links based on merit.

The biggest bonus with creating great content (and making that content visible) is that webmasters around the world like linking to relevant and informative content as it benefits their users.

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Be Consistent, Be Immediate, Be Successful at SEO

The online business model is changing the way we do business in the 20th century. The search engines played a big part in bringing about this change, enabling millions of users to have access to real time information on news, products, services, businesses, entertainment and people. This presented smart entrepreneurs with an opportunity to sell products and services, information and entertainment, in a way that would never have been possible with traditional business models.

SEO too has seen many changes over the decade, and much to my surprise is still veiled in secrecy and confusion as to the standards and values that are applicable for the success of your online business and brand. In my previous posts – What I have learnt about SEO so far, and Seperating SEO Myths and Reality, I had covered some very important misconceptions about SEO and Lessons learnt. It will help you get bigger picture before I delve deeper into the not-so -known “value” attributes that search engines are paying more and more attention too.

What differentiates one SEO professional from another? if both could help you achieve search rankings in the same time, at the same rate? The answer lies in the “value” that’s being created for the users.

Your online business is a reflection of your values and business ethics. And in delivering consistent “value” your online business is on a path of success.

BE CONSISTENT

1. Be consistent in creating unique, compelling and resourceful content in the form of articles/ blog posts - 3 to 4 a WEEK.

2. Be consistent in syndication of the same to 10 – 15 relevant and popular article submissions sites a WEEK (Build Author Reputation, Traffic, Natural Links).

3. Be consistent in promotion of the same content links across 10 – 15 relevant and popular social bookmarking sites a WEEK (enhance Social Reputation, Traffic, Natural Links).

4. Be consistent in attracting 3 to 5 user thumbs up/ reviews for same content each WEEK(enhance Social Reputation, Traffic, Natural Links).

5. Be consistent in participating in 3 to 4 relevant blogs, by blog commenting and forum postings each WEEK.

6. Be consistent in ALL OF THE ABOVE each WEEK

BENEFITS: Enhance Social, Web (Page Rank) and Link (Natural and Diverse links) Reputation by participating in relevant social, user and web communities. Increase Traffic. Higher Ranking for your Keywords.

BE IMMEDIATE

1. Be immediate in syndication of your 3 – 4 articles to the selected and relevant article submision sites.

2. Be immediate in promoting the same articles to select and relevant social bookmarking sites.

3. Be immediate in posting the link to Twitter, and Stumble Upon

BENEFITS: Faster delivery of your content/brand/message across relevant channels. There is no news lie fresh news.

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