Building Links

I bet you might have heard this one: “Ranking on a search engine is easy; all it takes is content and links.” You might have even read it on this blog…

As true as that statement is, as most things in life, the devil is in the details. What kind of content and how much? What kind of links, from where and how many? How do you get them?

Links to your website are generally estimated as being from 60-80% of the reason for your natural search ranking. So building links is the key to where your website ranks. Building links is easy; except for the hard work part! You’re busy with your business – you really don’t have time or the expertise to build your own links in enough volume to dominate your niche on the search engines.

How Do You Build Links?

Where do you get links? Most important of all, since as a small business owner with “never enough time and never enough money” how would you determine who is a good candidate to build links for you?

Angela Moore at Link Princess recently wrote about Interviewing Potential Link Builders. She outlines some basics about interviewing to find someone for the long run. Her article assumes that you are an expert link builder. I would strongly recommend that you understand the basics of link building in order to hire someone to do it for you.

What I would add to what she has written, is to test your prospective link builder. Set them a task and see how they do; make it hard enough to be a fair but tough test — pay them fairly for their time! Did they complete on time? Did they get it all done? If it’s tough, some things will not be completed. What excuses were offered?

This test can tell you a ton about them and whether you want to work with them long term. Oh, and watch for our link building series upcoming…