How to go about Building a good Link Profile

The launch of the Google Penguin 2.0 in 2013 brought about a significant shift in the SEO landscape leaving organizations baffled as to why some of the old SEO practices were no longer producing the same search results. In order to understand this change, it is first important to understand what Penguin is all about.

Google Penguin basically is an algorithm, or in other words a mathematical calculation that factors a set of data points to come out with a score or rank for every website which is displayed through search results. The factors on which the algorithm scores the ranking keeps getting updated by Google in its bid to reach as close to accuracy as possible in displaying results based on the search entered.

The Penguin updates mean that Google’s algorithm now factors in inbound links to your site and scan them for an over-optimized inbound link profile. Links are certainly not everything in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services, but the Penguin updates have brought them center stage as it is now evident that factors based on links are now part of search engine algorithm.

Google’s search engine is now using the number and nature of backlinks to assess not just the popularity of a site but also its trustworthiness.

However building a link profile does not only mean creating backlinks, rather creating backlinks is just one component of it. In fact, there are 2 essentials prerequisites of what constitutes a good link profile

back_links

Audit Current link Profiles:

So how do we go about building a good link profile? Begin as they say at the very beginning by auditing your current inbound links. You can also take the help of professional agencies who can help you identify gaps in your current and desired link profile and action steps for the same.

A professional agency can help you put in place the essentials of a good link profile

Reach out to your vendors, business partners as well as your customers to get them to talk about you or simply to demonstrate their trust in the relationship by displaying icons on their site that link back to your site.

You can also register with reputed trade and commerce associations as well as other associations related to your sphere of work to ensure your website is listed in their directories.

Content Marketing:

Content continues to reign and especially for a new site, the best way to build link worthiness is to ensure unique, relevant and good content updated on a regular basis. Create content that is naturally shareable and linkable with the potential to go viral.

Blogs are another way to ensure that your site is updated with fresh content on a regular basis as well as provides great linking potential. Blogs can be updated not just on the company website but on other blog directories as well and can backlink to blog sources as well as serve as a source for others to link their article on.

Anchor texts:

Perhaps the single most important component of a good link profile is anchor text. A page with the right set of keywords which has a number of links directing towards it with those same keywords stands a very good possibility of ranking high in search related to those set of keywords.

A link profile with a variety of branded anchor texts is likely to receive higher search ranking. A link is referred to as branded anchor text when the author of the article incorporates the company brand name.

A good link profile will ideally include a good number of such anchor text, in fact including 20-30% of such anchor texts is a good thumb rule to go by.

Simply put the whole SEO process runs this way:

anchor_textHowever, there is no one plan fits all when it comes to building a link profile as link building needs to take into account the current status of the website in terms of links and work out the plan forward from there.

For instance, a site with good content needs to plan how to get its content is published in other authority sites or a site with spam links needs to first rid of the same before doing anything else. So analyze your unique situation and plan forward from there.

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Amit Mishra

Amit Mishra, the co-founder of Media Search Group, loves to pen down about marketing and designing. Be it search engine optimization(SEO) tips and strategies, Social Media Optimization, Increasing Engagement, and Traffic Score, Web Design and Development, Mobile Applications, Conversion/Sales, he covers it all. Been in the business for a long time, Amit Mishra knows some of the best strategies on how to expand and grow a Business Online.