Link Building for SEO in 2014: Starting a Campaign

This article is the second part of my series on Link Building for SEO in 2014. If you aren’t familiar with link building basics, I recommend you read part 1 – Link Building for SEO in 2014: The Basics.

Link building for SEO is far from dead; like everything else involved with search engine optimization it must evolve with increasingly sophisticated search engine algorithms.

How to Start a Link Building for SEO Campaign

The first step in starting a link building campaign for SEO is the same as any internet marketing campaign: define the strategy or strategies you want in order to meet your goals.

Choosing strategies is not a completely straightforward task. The reason for this is because search engines do not share the formulas for the mathermatics of their link value metrics. Even so, link building SEO professionals tare able to use their experience to provide some general guidelines on important “link signals” used by the search engines.

What to Avoid When Link Building for SEO

When it comes to SEO, it’s just as important to know where you should not put your link building efforts as it is to know where you should.

Buying Links Is Risky at Best

While it is impossible for them to detect and discredit all paid links, all major search engines actively strive to remove the influence of paid links on their search results. Websites that are found to be buying links or participating in link schemes risk severe penalties that will drop their rankings into oblivion, meaning the link you pay for will not pay off for either SEO or referral purposes.

Earning Editorial Links as Part of Link Building for SEO

Natural (i.e. not paid or otherwise received) links are the most valuable kind of link to receive when it comes to the search engines. To earn them, you need to focus on creating great content that is link-worthy.

You Have (or Should Have) a Blog – Use It Effectively

All WordPress websites built by InsideOut include a blog and it’s not because the website is built in WordPress. We know from experience that effective blogging should be the priority of internet marketing efforts because it creates the fresh content search engines reward and gives you a great platform for earning natural/editorial links as part of your link building for SEO strategy. All of our WordPress website include an SEO plugin for pages and posts that will make your efforts at optimization easier. Our managed web hosting service include free blogging webinars to help you get going and refine your efforts. We also offer a blog writing service to provide you with content if and when you need it.

There other ways to generate great share- and link-worthy content on your website besides your blog, including:

Specials & Packages are a great way for bed and breakfast inns, boutique hotels, dude ranches and other distinct lodging to offer content that is link-worthy. If you have a static set of specials than rarely, if ever, change, it’s time to step up your game with regularly changing offers that deal-finders and other sources can link. If the effort to manage these offers on a standard website page is too time-consuming we offer a Specials & Packages plugin for WordPress websites that allows you to write up the special, make use of our images or upload your own, set as an ongoing or specific date range, set to display 2 weeks or 1 or 2 months prior to start date, enter pricing details and add/modify/delete specials categories.

Recipes are a highly-searched, shared and linked topic for our clients that offer dining service. Are your recipes remarkable and/or award winning? Integrate them into both your blog and your website with our Recipes plugin for WordPress.