Link building is a critical component in SEO service to get good rankings. Yet with so many links out there, how can we evaluate the best type of link? Let’s discuss some metrics and see how high they score on the value chain – there are seven things to mark off your check list:
Let’s use a hypothetical scenario in which we would like to get a link back from Nedbank and FNB. How you would decide which site is better?
1. Page Rank
A good way to start when targeting a site to get a one way link is to look at the page rank of the site. This tool can be installed on your various internet browsers. By doing this you can get an indication of how Google views that site. The better the ranking the greater impact the link will have on your site.
2. Traffic
Traffic is key when analysing a site because obviously the more traffic on that site, the greater the chance is of that traffic being directed to you. And of course sites with high traffic normally rank well. There are a number of online tools that can be used to estimate what kind of traffic a site experiences. I personally prefer Google Trends;
Alexa is a good tool to see the actual Alexa Rank, along with traffic and sites linking in. Also, there is the option to compare sites, which is what we would want.
As we can see, FNB has far lower traffic rank than Nedbank and this would be a good indicator as to which link you would want to your site.
Google Trends shows a simpler way to read the traffic, so all you newbies out there would maybe feel more comfortable using this.
Using this we can see the search volume for FNB and Nedbank. Again, you’ll see that FNB is better and that we can even determine what regions these words are searched from as well as how different events affect key word searches with the fluctuations.
Other tools that can be used are Complete, Quantcast and of Course Social media impacts (rss, Facebook, Twitter, comments).
3. Trust
Trustis very important for search engines, thus I would want the most trusted link. Websites that have been around for a long time are trusted as we trust our grandparents. They are also seen to have authority. We can use a Domain age tool to check the age of the domain, as well as the Way Back Machine, also checking the domain registration details via www.whois.sc .
4. Authority
Another aspect to look at is authority,which goes hand in hand with trust. Here you can have a look at the back link profile. This tool displays all of the links which point back to this site. With this information you can determine the link authority of this page.
There are different tools which we prefer to use because of the amount of data and the simplicity of the interface. If you are new to SEO I would advise using this simplistic tool:
This site explorer is a little bit more complicated but if you know your way around computer jargon you should be fine.
With the rising popularity of social media, we have seen Google using social media reach as a ranking factor and the size of your “base” can vastly increase your authority online.
5. Relevance
This can basically be broken down as such – ‘if I want a link from one of these banks, it will benefit me to be in a related field’. If I am a travel agent it would add almost no value to my site, but if I am a personal finance manager, it is in a relevant field and would add great value.
6. Placement
- Keywords near the link
Tests have been done to determine if the text near the anchor text will influence the power of the linked keyword – and it does!
Placement of your link can make a huge difference, while the link (anchor text) positioning on the site can determine its value. Multiple non-related links on one page will be seen as link farming and will greatly decrease the keywords value.
- Page title
Placement on an appropriate page with a relevant title can increase link relevance. In the beginning, crawlers looking at your page will use the title tag and Meta Description to determine under which category your site will be placed. This will be used to determine the relevance of any content on your site.
7. Content
You’ve heard this over and over again, but Content really is King. Google is the most important search engine out there and if they say focus on content, you would be crazy not to listen! The better the content quality the more pages will be indexed by Search Engines. It also helps to see how often the pages are updated; this won’t hurt the relevance factor either.
