Basic Links that Every Site Should Have

Writing by Brick Marketing in Link Building

Arguably the most difficult part of an SEO campaign is the ongoing link building component. It’s a manual, time consuming process to find locations in which to build links. This is especially true now, as the search engines pay close attention to the quality of links as opposed to the quantity of links. Basically, the links that hold the most value are the ones that are the hardest to acquire. However, there are still some basic links that every website owner should have that aren’t hard to attain but still hold value.

Here are 4 basic links that every site should have:

Local links

Even if your business sells to a national or global audience, local directories still hold value. There are many quality local directories that allow a brief description of the business, contact information, and a link back to the website. The priority local directories are the ones owned by the 3 top search engines: Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. They are all free to submit to. Local profiles typically show up for branded search terms. Potential clients or customers may go directly to your website, but they might decide to click around to see what other kind of “stuff” is out there. Having a presence on many local sites minimizes the risk of content showing up in a branded search that wasn’t created or authorized by your organization.

Social profile links

Every business should have an active account on all of the major social networking sites. People are turning to social media for information and if your business isn’t a participant, it could raise a red flag. Current social media tools allow you to hook up all of your accounts and post one message to them all simultaneously so there shouldn’t be as much of a worry about time. Each of the social networks allows businesses to include information as well as links to their website and other social properties. If a prospect lands on a social media profile, you don’t want that to be their final destination. Ideally, visitors to your social profiles will also become visitors to your main website in order to convert.

Press release links

As long as you have something newsworthy going on within the business you should write and distribute a press release to be sent out via a paid service. You are able to include anchor text and full html links within the body of the release. Best practice is to include one link per 100 words within the release. These press releases can get picked up by news providers. In addition to building your link portfolio they can also help to generate traffic back to the site. Press release distribution costs vary, but it’s important to select the paid option that allows links within the body.

Internal links

Inbound links aren’t the only types of links that matter. Your website should also have a good internal linking structure that makes it easy for website visitors, and the search spiders, to navigate the site.