Link-Building 101 for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Link-Building 101 for search engine visibility and optimization Jonathon D. Colman Search Engine Optimization REI [email_address] twitter.com /jcolman

Links Connect people with meaning online How? By creating trust, authority, rank, quality and relevancy

Discovery and discoverability Search engines index the entire Web by following link after link to page after page of content. Brand new pages can be hard for search engines to find because there aren’t any pre-existing links built to them. Strongly interlinked site with numerous inbound links New pages without links are isolated from search engines Search engine index

Links are signs of trust For a search engine, links from one site to another are like a vote of confidence and trust. If a page on Site A links to a page on Site B, the page on Site B can be said to be “a trusted resource” of value to visitors of Site A. Page on Site A Page on Site B “ I trust you!” Link

Trust can aggregate into authority As search engines index the Web, they count one-way, inbound links to each page online. Pages with more links can be said to be more “authoritative” because more individual sites “trust” their content resources. Page on Site A Five inbound links from external sites Page on Site B Ten inbound links = more authority

Authority can influence rank All else equal, pages with more authority will rank higher in search engine results than pages with less. Gaining a higher listing than a competitor for a popular search term greatly impacts both traffic and demand.

Users associate rank with quality Studies have shown that users place confidence in the very first results appearing for a search query. A click-through from a search engine indicates that a searcher thinks the resulting page will be relevant.