Canadian Marketers Still Falling Short On A Strong Online Linking Strategy
Having a strong linking strategy for your Website might sound so 2001, but it’s still a vital component of your Website development and online strategy. I know it’s not sexy, but I’m finding too many Marketers letting it slide.
Don’t make the same mistake.
While Google may, indeed, be putting less relevance on inbound (and outbound) links, I'm standing strong that a good linking strategy is what's still pushing Blogs to the top of a search engine's organic results. You'll notice significant (and consistent) traffic boosts when a well-respected Blog puts you on their Blogroll, and even more action when you reciprocate the love by placing them on yours.
Having a resource page on your Website is one of the easiest ways to make this work. One simple way to start is by doing a search that looks like this on Google:
link:www.YourWebsiteAddress.com.
What you'll get back is a list of Websites that link to your site. Some of them will be valid, some will be mediocre, and some will be plain ole' spam. The trick is to take the valid ones (and even some of the more mediocre ones) and create a unique Web page with a list that includes a reciprocated link back to these Websites and sources. If you can't make it work within your navigation, at the very least, add it to your text-driven redundant navigation at the bottom of your Web pages.
If you couple this with a strong sense of linking for your Blog strategy, my guess is you'll notice a significant rise in traffic (and maybe even PageRank). And while all of this may seem like Online Marketing 101, I'm consistently amazed at how often a core linking strategy is overlooked in places like RFPs for Website development, while Search Engine Optimization (including tactics for keyword development) seems par for the course.
Marketers are falling short on a good online linking strategy, and the reality of it all is that you can't have a strong search engine optimization plan if you don't have an even stronger linking strategy in place. We're lucky, some of the best people in understanding links and link building (I'm, of course talking about ethical - or white hat - linking techniques, and not those pushing link farms or link baiting), are based in Canada. A simple search will find you a list of capable individuals. That being said, understanding the depth of proper RFPs for Digital Marketing initiatives, I'm still unimpressed with the level of understanding that the majority of Web Development shops in Canada have when it comes to topics like link strategies or organic search engine optimization for their clients.
This is not an indictment of the industry. Things are healthy and the overall work has been amazing, but we still need to remember the basics. No matter how nice a site looks, it's going to be the engine under the hood that makes it really boogie on the Information Superhighway.
Linking is a core part of the engine.
