How to Invest in a Link Building Campaign
MikeCP’s first post over at SEOmoz is rich with information about building a successful link campaign and the cost associated. We’ve summarized it for you here, so leave feedback in the comments.
Free links just don’t exist. Some cost money, some cost opportunity lost and some just cost time, but it’s important to know how to valuate any given link, especially for a small business looking to create a link building portfolio. Hypothetically, let’s say we have $2000 and 60 hours to start our link building…
Budget Set
If your boss or firm has agreed to spend money on SEO or class c hosting upfront, you’re already ahead of the game. Many people don’t understand the value, so it’s hard to get over this first hurdle in some cases. It’s important to spend this investment well so you’re gifted with more to play with in the future.
How to Spend It
The way to spend the money greatly depends on what kind of business you’re working with and what the site’s existing link profile looks like. The following questions should be answered honestly before you go about creating any kind of new link campaign:
- What have we done in the past? Exactly what are our easy opportunities to go after?
- What’s the realistic goal? Increasing conversion or rankings in the SERP results?
- What does the competition look like? What will we have to do to outrank them?
Directory Submissions:
Wasting all $2000 on spammy directory submissions would not be smart, so weigh your options here. Invest in the big guys like Yahoo.com, Best of the Web, Business.com, and JoeAnt should all be submitted to as they actually pass juice and have value. Once this is done you’ll have only about $1200 left for the remainder of your initial efforts. You should submit here if you’re not already in any of the top directories, but make sure your site is top quality so it won’t be declined. Try to submit slowly so as not to set off a link spike alarm bell…
Asking for Links:
This method is inexpensive but costs time. Having interns call or email potential sites that may provide links is a good idea, but you’ll have to train them. Give them an SEO 101 lesson and teach them the difference between a good site and a spammy one. Costs can rise if you decide to offer samples or product, so be careful. Tracking this time and money is going to be fuzzy, so keep good calculations.
Buy Links:
Tricky, but worth it in the short term. It’s likely that purchasing a few, high quality links will garner higher search rankings at least in the short term so if you have the cash and the site equity, consider it. Long term, though, this is not a good strategy.
Viral Marketing:
Garnering links the natural way, through content that’s passed around for its value is the best way to get links, bar none. It’s only going to cost as much money as you spend to create the content, and the links will be wonderfully natural and long lasting. Remember to report your results when all is said and done in the initial stages of your linkbuilding campaign!
This is not Heather Hendrick’s first article, but she summarized it for us…
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