Link Building To Increase Your Visibility Online

A patent was awarded to Google in May that many are calling the Reasonable Surfer Patent. The patent was filed six years ago and granted on May 11, 2010.

I question the relevance of the patent since so much has changed in the past 6 years in regards to Google search and Automotive SEO strategies. Not that this patent isn't important but I think that Google has already been using this strategy when consider link value for years.

The patent highlights:

• Ranking documents based on user behavior and/or feature data
• Invented by Jeffrey A. Dean, Corin Anderson and Alexis Battle
• Assigned to Google Inc.
• United States Patent 7,716,225
• Granted May 11, 2010
• Filed: June 17, 2004

SEO gurus have differing opinions on the specific value of this patent but to save you the silly banter, I will try to restate what I think is most important. This patent is focused on how Google will “weight” links on a web page and my existing strategies seem to mirror the intent of this patent.

The Google scoring of links may include predicting what a consumer would most likely click on a web page. So a text link in the first paragraph of a blog article, with interesting anchor text, could have more “weight” than a link in the bottom page footer.

High Quality Links

Links are critical in the overall visibility of any website and this patent is part of that discussion. The discussion that has surfaced pertains to where is the best place for links on a page and how do different types of links “rate” with Google.

For example, a link from the home page of ADM to any dealer’s website is a great link to have since that site is a recognized authority in the automotive industry. This link would have more “weight” than a link from a brand new microsite or a friends landscaping website.

Car dealers who have launched effective off-site SEO campaigns that produce high quality inbound links from well ranked websites normally have an edge over their competition with all other things considered equal.

However, it is difficult for dealers to independently create hundreds or thousands of high quality links to their websites. Dealers can obtain high quality links from press releases, Automotive Social Networks, car forums, article syndication websites, document publishing portals and business directories. Increasing links is like an annuity of good will and create a digital marketing foundation.

If you have been considering increasing the links to your website, you should understand some of the basics of link building. Some of the questions you may have are:

· How many links do I have directed to my website?

· What is a good link?

· Where can I find places to create links back to my site?

· Where should that link be located?

· Are image links better than text links?

Getting Your Link Counts

To find the number of inbound links pointing to your website, and to make it easy for anyone to get a correct count, I recommend that you go to www.websitegrader.com .

Type in your domain name and then click on the “Generate Report” button. The free report and analysis includes the number of “inbound links” summarized at the end of the report.

Dealers who want to be competitive in online search should seek to have a diverse set of high quality sites linking to their website.

I bring this up because often I see hundreds of links coming from only one website and so the number of links masks the problem of low diversity. The total recommended links will vary but I would like to see over 1,000 links to the dealer’s home page and hundreds of links to key inside web pages like service, parts, and used cars.

A good link is one that comes from a reputable website that has real content, real visitor activity and relevance to your business. The site can also be unrelated to your business but one that has a high Google PageRank. There are many link building scams on the market, so be careful that you don’t waste your money.

The Reasonable Surfer Patent emphasizes what I have been recommending for years. Content based SEO strategies that include blogs, press releases, article publishing, posting articles on technical forums and social communities can deliver high quality links. The key is to place that link in such a way that enhances the page and that links to the right page on your dealer website.

An example would be posting an article, outside of your website, about the different types of Nissan extended warranty plans available to a consumer. In the article you would place links to the extended warranty page on your dealer website or even Nissan brochures on your website. Car dealers who have been blogging for years or participating in automotive forums already know this.

Where Are My Links Coming From?

Do you know how many links are pointing to your website? How about your competitor’s website? Do you know where they are coming from?

You can see inbound links on any website by going to Yahoo and typing in your competitor’s domain name or your domain name with the “link” parameter. (see example above)

For example, if you wanted to see where ABC Ford (www.abcford.com) was building links from you would go to Yahoo and type in the search box:

link:www.abcford.com

No spaces. This will bring up the Yahoo Site Explorer and it will show you the first 1,000 inbound links to any website. The report page will look something like this:

There is a debate whether a text link will not be as strong as an image that is linked because a “surfer” may be more likely to click on a photo or banner that is above the fold. There is no uniform agreement on this matter. Should you bold the text anchor? Should you use larger fonts for the anchor text? That is where the art of link building and testing comes into play.

What is most uniformly agreed is that a list of links in a sidebar or footer will not be as strong as links inside an article. Of course I am talking about a well written article with links on anchor text that point to relevant pages on a dealer’s website.

If you want to target high value keywords that you want your website to appear on Google Page One, then a combination of good on-site content and a few hundred links from external sites may be just what you need. The strategy for off-site links will be to use the keyword in content and hyperlink that keyword to an appropriate page on your website. It’s a two part strategy that must be in place to win.

If your keyword goal is very competitive you will most likely need thousands of links. The point is that over time, you can compete and win against your local competitors if you have a strong content writing and off-site link building strategy.

Brian Pasch, CEO

PCG Digital Marketing

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