How do you market your heavy-duty business online?
Some of you might have noted that Google recently sent out a bunch of penalties to a fairly large number of websites, basically warning them about their linking practices. These sites were accused by Google of linking to unnatural websites and not following the best linking practices. The linked websites contained content matter that was found to be in no way related to the content of the linking websites. This not the first time Google has pointed out link building mistakes of websites and warned websites about external links. We look at some ways to avoid link building errors here.
External Links
Google is famous for its PageRank algorithm which used to count hyperlinks as votes for a websites popularity. The pages with the most links pointed at them are considered popular. Although this algorithm has become much more complex today, it is more than likely that it still includes the notion of external links as votes. Major search engines use many metrics to determine the value of external links on a page. Some of those metrics are shown below.
Best link building practices that add value to your content can give a boost to the relevance to your website and even to your rankings. Websites that link out relevant information tend to earn more back links. They are more helpful for people and serve as better resources. Manipulative linking, on the other hand, can prove to be dangerous. If you link to websites which do not provide relevant content, probably because you own them, or someone connected to you owns them, or you are receiving benefits from them, it may be a bit suspicious for the search engine. It might be possible that such practices could be penalized or could be perceived as violating trade commission rules if there is no advertisement or advertorial message present.
Internal Links
Internal linking is helpful as it aids in website navigation, defines the architecture and hierarchy of a website and distributes page authority and ranking power throughout the site. It strengthens the search-optimized value of your websites by providing clear paths for spiders, prolonged sessions for users and a tight-knit network of pages and posts. They tend to have the largest impact on already authoritative websites.
But an internal link building error that is commonly made is that they are loaded into footers and jammed in every word reference, which can be perceived as manipulative. For example, if you have an auto repair website and you link each and every mention of the word ignition to one of your internal pages that has content about why is your car having ignition issues. This might be relevant in some cases but in most of the cases it would be seen as manipulative. It would not help the ranking of your website rise and probably might do the opposite.
Internal and external links, which follow the best linking practices, will always prove fruitful for your website. It is not very complicated to stop making link building mistakes and if done correct you will experience a strongly linked profile with better SEO. Just remember that if you cannot find a way to justify how something that you do for SEO will also benefit the visitor, it is best to reconsider.
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