Recently there has been a crackdown on and deindexing of blog networks which has served as a great lesson to all those relying on a single method of link building. There are and have been numerous users of such networks and they have been truly and adversely affected in the post-crackdown situation. I per se, have nothing against networks but am writing this article just to illustrate a point in a non-judgmental manner.
All of us work with some clients who work with other link builders with separate types of link building activities that are distinctly different from ours. Similarly, we also work with a few clients who dictate what we should do while some others leave the job entirely to our discretion and judgment. The experience gathered from working with both client types gives us a fairly good idea of the full picture comprising what works and what doesn’t.
If I were asked to point out one thing that all our mostly successful clients have in common, I would definitely opt for link diversity. Sites with steady good rankings and traffic usually employ a plethora of methods, that either induce different groups to work on varying tactics, or those which seek and follow our advice on how to go about things so that they can avoid being reliant upon something that can create serious trouble for them should the algorithm change.
Diverse Link Campaign: An Introduction
A Diverse Link Campaign is basically much more than a simple combination of some nofollowed links, a couple of image links strewn about as also maybe a few sitewides here and there. It’s basically about analyzing all your opportunities and zeroing in on the one that you find most feasible and credible. It’s also ensuring that your visibility is the highest in the right places.
Where Do You Get Links
In order to have a diverse profile, the most feasible thing to do is to project your content through the appropriate social media, reviews, guest posting, and other interactive platforms.
You can pursue directory links, blog links and on site links which also list your competitors. Additionally, you could also check out some links on spam-centric sites because finding a link profile that doesn’t carry some spam is very rare. Trying out paid links that send you larger volumes of traffic may be tried also.
Anchor Text Variation
By breaking down your competitors’ anchor text into different categories on the client’s advice, rather than classifying those in your way will give you a whole new perspective about anchor text variation.
Anchor text is usually treated in broader categories like long tails or money terms and breaking or dissolving anchors further down helped me get a clear idea of the smaller picture and to identify similarities which were hitherto unseen before.
Top Level Domain & Geo Variation
Link building has some gold standards like .edus and .govs but I also love seeing other links from TLDs like .net, .info, and .biz among others. I also prefer seeing good country code top level domains (CCTLDs) which make sense to your targeted audience. However, a few sites do exist which don’t show any foreign links on their profiles.
But you could certainly do with them also if you don’t wish to look ethnocentric. While performing link outreach, if you’re locating targets through Google, some searches will generate results from a specific CCTLD or TLD only.
Link Types
Sitewide, Permanent, sidebar, footer, homepage links, directories, links rolling off a blog homepage, subpages links, profile links, blog comment and forum links, links on sites specific to press articles or releases, time-bound links image links and even flashing banner links are profiles analyzed by me during the exercise. Even though I don’t usually pursue certain link types all the time, for certain reasons, there is a host of varieties when it comes to analyzing profiles. I don’t necessarily pursue links like sitewides which are usually an integral component of a natural profile and can get you some great traffic if they’re correctly placed on the appropriate site.
I’ve worked on sites that were heavily reliant upon sitewides, and I don’t want to seek them out. As an alternative, I’d much rather prefer a blogroll link on a great, high-profile blog, which is relevant to my specific industry as against an almost inactive one which at best gets fifty hits in a month.
Some Examples From The Real World
Our SEO Chicks blog will be five years old soon and serves as an ideal example of a most natural link profile. Here’s why:
• A truly commendable percentage of nofollowed links that are getting us reliable, consistent and good referrals.
• Image and Text links.
• A good ratio in terms of homepage to deep page link.
• Links from .uk, .com, .net, .org, .us and .br.
• Link from Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, the US and Canada.
A quick peek at the company website reveals the following:
• Links from the UK, the US, France and Canada.
• Image links and Text links.
• Followed and Nofollowed links.
• .uk, .net, .com,.org and .me links.
This now happens to be a very comprehensive and simplistic summary of 2 link profiles that are completely natural and least semi-diverse ie., devoid of any paid links. There is of course substantial reliance on certain link types, particularly our website that hinges too much on .com links, for example.
Avant Greensboro, our local blog in the city is absolutely new and reveals the following:
• Substantially higher brand anchor percentage.
• Links without images.
• Links from .org and.com sites only.
• Links from the USA only.
Since we’ve just startedout and have not actively pursued links as yet, nevertheless a plan or wish list has been devised. This again is an extremely initial and simplistic method of analyzing link diversity, and its basically limited to a Link Research Tools report in my case. However, it’s a good way to get started at least and to see how varied your profile is in certain areas.
This quick analysis of course, won’t let you gauge the sufficiency of blog links or whether you are heavily reliant upon certain specific anchors. The moot point is to think diversity and to doggedly pursue it.
Concluding Remarks
You may be having a rare demographic that isn’t socially engaged as yet for instance. However, as the meteoric rise of Pinterest has shown us, the advent of new social networks are beginning to appeal to people who hitherto weren’t interested in them. In fact, those following me on Pinterest form a truly diverse group comprising high school classmates, a senior next door neighbor, mothers of former classmates and all SEOs.
So what’s next is anybody’s guess. We may get to see another Twitter or Facebook and promoting your site socially will be of primary importance. This can only be done if you get some strong links on heavy-traffic blogs having powerful social signals in order to march ahead in terms of building links. This wasn’t the case even three years ago.
In case your site rankings drop, it will be difficult to keep incoming traffic at a steady pace. So make sure to diversify all sources of your traffic.
