Let's Talk About Link Building...

[Vita_Vee]

Hi,

Here's a video I just recorded about Link Building. Would love to get your feedback!



And here is a transcription attempt (and food for search engines)

Look at the video to get more details:


* Hi... In this video I want to talk about link building. I'm not going to give you a blueprint to follow, or try to sell you anything. I just want to clarify some points about link building in general and would also love to get your feedback.

* In order to rank well you "just" need 1 single thing:
-> **Popularity**

This is done by having awesome or very useful content on YOUR site and have others know about it. Yes I know, it's not easy at all. Especially if you monetize your site with affiliate offers. It can be done, but this is not the topic of this video.

Ok... So... before going further I would like you to think for a moment about what the ideal situation is when link building.

In my view here is the ideal situation... hmmm, for simplicity let's take an example, let's say we want to rank for "how to find a job".

Go to google and search for this keyword phrase.

The top 10 pages you see there are the cream of the cream - the ideal situation would be to have all those 10 pages talk about us and link to the page we want to rank with that exact keyword phrase in their anchor texts! Of course the link would be in-content, not in the sidebar or footer.

**THAT** would be an ideal situation

It would do 3 things:

1 - those sites would send us a ton of visitors interested in what we have to offer
2 - other people would talk about our page on forums, blogs etc...
3 - the search engines would rank our page highly when someone searches for our keyword (plus a lot of long tail variations as a bonus)

But more often than not, we CAN'T be in that ideal situation, no matter how hard we try or how awesome our content is. Let me give you an example...

Let's say you're promoting a product as an affiliate, my Ultra Spinnable Articles for example. Do you think the other webmasters talking about Ultra Spinnable Articles would link to you? If your content is awesome and the other webmasters do not promote these articles on their site, then yes you might get such links... but how many will you get? 1? 2?... And certainly not from those in the top 10 who are pretty much all affiliates. Getting links from pages that are exactly, I mean exactly on the same topic as your page, is tough - it can be done, but on a limited scale and it happens more often for pages that have no commercial intent. This is why professional SEOs broaden their backlinking campaigns to include sites that have some kind of.. hmm... what we call "tangential relevance".

* What is tangential relevance.
The idea behind these 2 words is that every topic you can think of can be made relevant to any other topic. Take an article about golf for example. You want to link to a site related to... ipads! You will agree with me, golf and ipads have absolutely nothing in common. On a relevancy scale from 0 to 10 I would give it a score of 0 relevance ... at least at first glance...

Let's ask Google! Let's search for golf ipads.

Interesting results... now I can see that the relevancy is not that bad actually! I could talk about golf apps for ipad and link to my ipad related site! Why didn't I think about it before?

Ok... I must admit that it's quite easy to find "tangential relevancy" between one-word keywords but it's a little bit more difficult when you try to do it with longer keyword phrases. It requires some thinking but I'm convinced there is not one single case where we wouldn't be able to find some kind of tangential relevancy between 2 phrases.

The important point to remember here is this:

* Would Google devalue a link to your ipad site because it would come from a golf related article?

In other words, are links coming from non-relevant content effective?

-> I have NEVER seen any evidence that these links are not effective. You might not get direct trafic from that golf related article but on the SEO side this is perfectly fine and this kind of links WILL help you to increase your rankings (if the link is a quality link of course, more on that later).

-> Now, I know many SEOs will tell you that having links coming from relevant content is CRUCIAL to your success and to NOT listen to anyone telling you otherwise.

-> Let's see why it would be stupid from the search engines to devalue those links... Because of the tangential relevancy concept that the search engines are aware of, everything is somewhat related to every other things. As a professional programmer myself (with 20+ years of experience) I know that it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to create an algorithm telling you "this content is not related to that content in any way". Pretty much everything in our world is evolving and something that has no relevancy today with something else might get completely relevant with it in the future. By creating such an algorithm the search engines would inevitably flag legit related articles as not related. For example, why an article talking about your latest vacation in Africa would not be relevant to another article related to hair loss? It's possible that during your vacation someone there introduced you to some natural treatments that would be super effective. Why wouldn't you link to a site related to that natural hair loss treatment from your article related to Vacations in Africa? I personally do not find any problem with that, nor the search engines. And this kind of links is already everywhere!

-> In reality, from an SEO point of view, these links are just as effective as links coming from 100% relevant content - all other things being equal and nobody has been able to prove it wasn't the case.


* So what kind of links do you need to get?

Well... actually it depends on the goal you want to achieve. Someone trying to build some buzz around something will have different criterias than someone wanting to increase his Google rankings. For ranking improvements here is the kind of links you need to get:

-> Contextual links - I'm repeating this for many years now but it's even more important today than it was back then. Your backlinks MUST be inside the articles themselves. Not in the sidebar, not in the footer.

-> Your keyword must be used as your anchor text but it's good to have some kind of variations. From times to times a good thing to do is to use the topic of the article linking to you and the topic of your page in the anchor text. With the vacations example I mentioned a few minutes ago a good anchor text could be "African's natural hair loss treatment". That anchor text contains both topics - the one from the page linking to you and the one from your page. It reinforces the tangential relevancy between the 2 pages.

-> Now I also want to mention something that may sound retro to some of you. But having your link coming from a high PR page is definitely better than having links coming from low PR pages. If you're following the discussions on some professional SEO blogs you will surely think that what I'm saying here is outdated. But believe me it is not and I just had the confirmation of this a few days ago when Google updated the PR values we see in the Google toolbar. These last months I have been experimenting with something - My assistants have been building daily links, or almost daily, from pages that were PR0 or even no PR at all but that had high page authority values according to seomoz's linkscape (you can get the seomoz metrics from opensiteexplorer.org). First thing I noticed: I didn't get traffic from these pages - 2nd thing: My rankings didn't increase that much - 3rd thing: Now that the PR has just been updated I can see that Google gave them PR0 and even let some of them with no PR at all. So I definitely trust PR more than any other metric.
Getting links from high PR pages is definitely more helpful than what professional SEOs want to make you believe. Sometimes I'm wondering if these guys are not working for Google... really!

Now I also understand that there are several problems with PR.

1st problem: the value we see in the toolbar is not updated regularly - it has been updated a few days ago but now we don't know when it will be updated again.
Maybe next month... maybe in 6 months, maybe later. So when you find a page that has a high PR value in the toolbar, that value might be outdated - the real PR value that Google knows can be higher or lower. This is why getting links from PR0 pages or pages without any PR at all can still be a good bet if you have good reasons to think the page deserves a high PR. Who knows? Maybe at the next PR update you'll have a good surprise. On the other hand if you find a high PR page that is spammed with links to casino or pharmacy sites, don't put your links there.

2nd problem: it's tough to get contextual links fom high PR pages that are clean and not spammed. So a better approach is to build links from low PR pages that YOU control and increase the PR of those pages yourself. How? Simply by building links to those pages. About 1 month ago one of my Ultra Spinnable Article customers created a brand new site - he only posted my Ultra Spinnable Articles on that site and used 2 services to promote it: Nuke4me and the free Authority Link Network. You know what? Today his site is already a PR5 site! Awesome achievement if you ask me.

So to recap, here are the elements that make the perfect backlink for someone trying to increase his Google rankings:

-> Contextual Links
-> Keyword as Anchor Text (Do not forget Tangential Relevancy)
-> Links on high PR pages - find existing ones or build them

There's another common mistake I would like to talk about that is related to copyscape. If you want to know more read that other forum thread:

http://vitavee.com/forums/thread-2187.html

Hope to talk to you soon!

Vita Vee

[Nik]

Thanks Vita, as always you provide information that's strait to the point. I like the new look of your videos with the new recording software. I had to rewind a couple of times because I was entranced by the effects, I think I'm used to it now though . Makes it look more professional.

[peter]

Great info again Vita

[Rep Ola]

Thank you very much Vita! As usual, you made another great presentation for us! Regarding to the power of contextual links, I have a question and would like you to answer it.
If I insert one link inside Article A and insert 3 links inside Article B, will the link in Article A be much stronger than any of the 3 links in Article B?
I have this question because I checked backlinks of my competitor and found the competitor did lots of contextual links. And most of articles have only one link.
Thank you so much!

Besides, I love your presentation with the new software prezi. It looks fresh. I am also going to study how to use that software for my video creation. Thank you again!

[donsuth]

V2

As usual you have presented valuable information in a clear an concise manner, albeit somewhat hard to understand with the accent. The inclusion of the transcript was very helpful in getting the words correct and fully understanding the discussion. Thanks for that.

I also enjoyed your new enthusiastic delivery of the message.

Well done V2.

Donald

PS: As a suggestion, would it be an advantage for all of the USM, and USA participants to have/allow other participants to have in context links in their articles on their Highest PR sites in exchange for the same from their highest PR sites. A sort of lending library of great sites that will all benefit one another. You have the makings of a singularly large group of talented active individuals all with a common goal in mind. This would also have the added benefit of having a widely dispersed IP location.

Donald

[stevephan]

"About 1 month ago one of my Ultra Spinnable Article customers created a brand new site - he only posted my Ultra Spinnable Articles on that site and used 2 services to promote it: Nuke4me and the free Authority Link Network. You know what? Today his site is already a PR5 site! Awesome achievement if you ask me. "

This can be lucky, for example , I have created a blogger and only have 1 link from PR 4 site to this blogger , after 2 week , google update page rank and this blogspot also updated its page rank to PR 4 .
FYI : The PR 4 website is product site, and the blogger content very related to this product.

[mentortodd]

Hi VitaVee, Great info as always!

As a loyal subscriber to your Minis I read and put into use all of your teachings. I do have one question though, you stated in your post:

"About 1 month ago one of my Ultra Spinnable Article customers created a brand new site - he only posted my Ultra Spinnable Articles on that site and used 2 services to promote it: Nuke4me and the free Authority Link Network. You know what? Today his site is already a PR5 site! Awesome achievement if you ask me."


I thought google only ranked their sites a couple times a year with regards to PR?

Thanks for all you do!

Todd
-Migraine Home Remedies

[Nik]

@Todd

Hi Todd, the PR of a site is a number that is constantly changing. It's only during a PR update that google lets everyone know what that number really is. There was a PR update a few days ago, and this is what Vita is referring to.

[smarster]

It is really give me an clear idea why so many marketers like to use USA and it is so effective to rank site greatly. I will try to do it as your advice, hope I can get some great results soon.

Thanks vita

[youproblog]

haha loving the new animation! Interesting video vita

[Jack]

Incredible information as always V, thanks a ton.

[Vita_Vee]

(11-15-2011 05:25 PM)Nik Wrote:  I had to rewind a couple of times because I was entranced by the effects, I think I'm used to it now though

lol, I should have included some subliminal messages

(11-15-2011 06:14 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  Regarding to the power of contextual links, I have a question and would like you to answer it.
If I insert one link inside Article A and insert 3 links inside Article B, will the link in Article A be much stronger than any of the 3 links in Article B?
I have this question because I checked backlinks of my competitor and found the competitor did lots of contextual links. And most of articles have only one link.

Honestly I don't have a definitive answer to that question as I have not run this kind of test.

The majority of people say that a part of the power a page has is distributed between all the links it contains, so the less outbound links the better.

But other people like Terry Kyle for example claim that it's not the case, with some good proof.

The problem is that it is quite difficult to test as many other variables must be taken into account.

(11-15-2011 06:14 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  Besides, I love your presentation with the new software prezi. It looks fresh. I am also going to study how to use that software for my video creation. Thank you again!

You're welcome! Yeah I love prezi too

(11-15-2011 06:31 PM)donsuth Wrote:  V2

As usual you have presented valuable information in a clear an concise manner, albeit somewhat hard to understand with the accent. The inclusion of the transcript was very helpful in getting the words correct and fully understanding the discussion. Thanks for that.

I also enjoyed your new enthusiastic delivery of the message.

Well done V2.

Donald

Thanks - glad you liked the transcript I will not be able to do it for all my videos as it takes quite a lot of time

(11-15-2011 06:31 PM)donsuth Wrote:  PS: As a suggestion, would it be an advantage for all of the USM, and USA participants to have/allow other participants to have in context links in their articles on their Highest PR sites in exchange for the same from their highest PR sites. A sort of lending library of great sites that will all benefit one another. You have the makings of a singularly large group of talented active individuals all with a common goal in mind. This would also have the added benefit of having a widely dispersed IP location.

Donald

I also thought about this but something similar has already been done by Maulana - Authority Link Network. And his network is very powerful! Thousands of high PR and somewhat aged domains.

(11-15-2011 08:01 PM)stevephan Wrote:  "About 1 month ago one of my Ultra Spinnable Article customers created a brand new site - he only posted my Ultra Spinnable Articles on that site and used 2 services to promote it: Nuke4me and the free Authority Link Network. You know what? Today his site is already a PR5 site! Awesome achievement if you ask me. "

This can be lucky, for example , I have created a blogger and only have 1 link from PR 4 site to this blogger , after 2 week , google update page rank and this blogspot also updated its page rank to PR 4 .
FYI : The PR 4 website is product site, and the blogger content very related to this product.

Don't minimize your achievement - what you did is awesome! The reason you got a PR4 page is because you got a strong PR4 link - so you did something. Don't credit "luck" for this!

(11-16-2011 07:50 AM)smarster Wrote:  It is really give me an clear idea why so many marketers like to use USA and it is so effective to rank site greatly. I will try to do it as your advice, hope I can get some great results soon.

Thanks vita

I hope so too With the Unspin-iT tool that is in the USA members area you will be able to insert in-content links in a matter of seconds

[donsuth]

V2

Until your video above I didn't understand the reason why the SEO Nuking Service worked so well. Almost all of the links are in articles that are not related to the links that are inserted. So this is the power of "tangential relevance". It's awesome, I have a whole new appreciation for the USM's and the USA's. The value received is far greater than one might assume, especially after viewing the above video...

Thanks for being such a good and patient mentor V2...

Donald

[Vita_Vee]

Thanks Donald

[Rep Ola]

(11-15-2011 06:14 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  Regarding to the power of contextual links, I have a question and would like you to answer it.
If I insert one link inside Article A and insert 3 links inside Article B, will the link in Article A be much stronger than any of the 3 links in Article B?
I have this question because I checked backlinks of my competitor and found the competitor did lots of contextual links. And most of articles have only one link.

Honestly I don't have a definitive answer to that question as I have not run this kind of test.

The majority of people say that a part of the power a page has is distributed between all the links it contains, so the less outbound links the better.

But other people like Terry Kyle for example claim that it's not the case, with some good proof.

The problem is that it is quite difficult to test as many other variables must be taken into account.

(11-15-2011 06:14 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  Besides, I love your presentation with the new software prezi. It looks fresh. I am also going to study how to use that software for my video creation. Thank you again!

You're welcome! Yeah I love prezi too




Thank you a lot for reply, Vita! I watched your video again and read your transcription as well, I am not sure if I really understand 'Tangential Relevancy'.

For instance, my target anchor text is dog training. I insert 1 anchor text in a USA article talking about homeschooling. Then, I am going to publish 20 spun versions to 20 different blogs. So totally 20 anchor links.

My question is how many 'Tangential Relevancy' anchor texts you will recommend me to use?

Thank you a lot again! I appreciate your reply very much!

[Anne]

Hi Vita,

this is great stuff! Tu es un grand maitre

I do agree with you about PR pages, and I think it is better and easier to take a page that I control from PRna to PR2 or PR4 than it is to find "clean" pages with PR. I did both methods and I highly prefer the first one (take my own pages to a high PR).

Anne

[Vita_Vee]

(11-17-2011 11:49 PM)Rep Ola Wrote:  Thank you a lot for reply, Vita! I watched your video again and read your transcription as well, I am not sure if I really understand 'Tangential Relevancy'.

For instance, my target anchor text is dog training. I insert 1 anchor text in a USA article talking about homeschooling. Then, I am going to publish 20 spun versions to 20 different blogs. So totally 20 anchor links.

My question is how many 'Tangential Relevancy' anchor texts you will recommend me to use?

Thank you a lot again! I appreciate your reply very much!

Most often you should use the keywords you're trying to rank for as your anchor texts. For example make 5 submissions with your exact keyword and 1 submission with a variation. Do not take these numbers as fixed Just make sure that the majority of the time you're focusing on your keywords.

(11-20-2011 09:55 PM)Anne Wrote:  Hi Vita,

this is great stuff! Tu es un grand maitre

I do agree with you about PR pages, and I think it is better and easier to take a page that I control from PRna to PR2 or PR4 than it is to find "clean" pages with PR. I did both methods and I highly prefer the first one (take my own pages to a high PR).

Anne

Hey Anne,

Thanks

The obvious advantage of making your high PR pages yourself is that not only you control the content you put on them but you also build a very powerful asset for all your future promotions. Way to go

[Muneeb]

What you think about linkbuilding now in these current circumstances ? With the panda 3.4 and lots of other updates coming up what are your thoughts now with linkbuilding ? is the old senuking methods? wiki postings? low pr so call quantity of the backlinks with link diversity gone ?

[Jack]

(04-07-2012 05:54 PM)Muneeb Wrote:  What you think about linkbuilding now in these current circumstances ? With the panda 3.4 and lots of other updates coming up what are your thoughts now with linkbuilding ? is the old senuking methods? wiki postings? low pr so call quantity of the backlinks with link diversity gone ?

Hi Muneeb,

More than ever it is important to diversify your link building. All of the traditional link building methods still carry some weight. But the important thing is to get as many different kinds of links that you can. Social media links are more important (like Facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc.). Also blog commenting, press releases, videos, etc. are important to have. The more you diversify your backlink profile, the more you will be protected if one of those methods no longer carries the weight it once did.

[Marketingtools]

You mentioned a client who did well using Authority Link Network. What would you recommend in place of ALN which has been de-indexed?
thx