Natural" Editorial Links, Manual "Outreach" Link Building, User-Created, Non-Editorial

Benedict^? has been studying and researching backlink and websites for 13 years. Two reasons why a number of link building strategies fail is often because they are poorly executed focusing is on anchor text which is too similar or adding links to domains of no link juice or the now defunct page rank.

All of the strategies Benedict^? have undertaken in the last five years take into account THREE factors

• There must be a balance of internal, external and backlink
• The website MUST reflect the same 'quality of content' as the backlinks are adhering to
• All link building must be ethical, white hat and future proof

Internal Links

Internal links are links within your website. They are often 'the forgotten links' and little attention is paid to how and why your site links to its own pages. One popular misconception is that a blog will assist SEO. With every myth there is some truth.

A blog is usually a section of a website that forms a second level (domain.com/blog/index). Think of a website like a pyramid. The blog acts as the ground floor and often contains anchor text (link words) that use different language from the core first level pages.

The SEO strength of a blog is in the anchor text and upward linking of these web pages in relation to the website as a whole. The majority of the content is superfluous and can actually harm the SEO strength of the website through diluting core keyword optimisation. You may of noticed this website has NO BLOG. Instead if you look at your browser's address bar you will see the url www.benedict.co.uk/link_building/strategy/index.php. This has the same SEO benefit of a blog, whilst being retained as a 'money page', ie a page that can generate revenue.

An effective approach to internal links is to run simple software that lists the number of internal links and the anchor text it contains. We then repeat the process with the site's which rank #1 etc. When we have data we can create a plan of improvement. Interestingly correcting a websites internal link structure is often far better rewarded by Google than that of the external links or backlink.

External links

External links are links from a website to other websites. Contrary to current thinking reciprocal links can be beneficial when the links are appropriate.

An example would be to an Professional Association or to other websites in a client's portfolio. External Links - SEO Best Practices - is an example of an appropriate external link for this page and far from costing SEO strength it actually enhances and gives credibility to the information contained within.

Backlinks

Backlinks are sites linking to your website. Current thinking demands rigorous link building from websites that are on theme and have high link strength etc. see building better backlink