Posted on 12th May 2010 by Ashlin Bouwman in Backlinks
Backlinks, widgets
Does your site offer something unique or something of value to your customers? Build a widget for it!
For example, bloo.com.au provides widgets for a range of functions. For external sites a ‘Search Widget’ is available which allows the business listings on bloo to be searched from anywhere, but look closely – you’ll notice a set of links embedded in the widget itself. Providing the site hosting the widget doesn’t ‘nofollow’ the links, bloo instantly has a few more backlinks. Remember however that we design and develop on the internet for our users, not the search engines, so make sure the widget is useful and will add value to any site it is placed on. Bloo has widgets that provide search, free call and audio business ‘plug’ functionality which gives back to their customers while creating backlinks for itself.
Simpler is better for widgets, as they will be appearing on pages you have no control over. You won’t know what technologies, styling, or control over their server your target webmasters have. Once again we’ll use the bloo search widget as an example – a user can search a term on any site the widget is placed on and will be presented with a bloo page containing the results. The mechanisms that return the results are extremely complex, but all the widget does is send a search term to the bloo server and all the hard work is done there.
Posted on 23rd April 2010 by Ashlin Bouwman in Backlinks
All the on-site optimisation in the world won’t do you much good if nobody is linking to your site. How sites link to you is a core part of the ranking algorithm puzzle, and a very large one at that. It’s not uncommon to see a terrible web site high up in the SERPs because of their powerful inbound links – and it can be frustrating when your beautifully constructed page ranks much lower!
So how do you start the ‘link-building’ process? For developers out there, like myself, the thought of approaching strangers and convincing them to link to you might seem daunting. Conversely you might be the business owner or manager for whom forging business relationships is a daily occurrence, but may not know what should be linked to and how.
In either case link building starts the same way – identify other web sites that are relevant to your topic and have high SERP rankings, then approach the site owner and ask them to link to you. Sounds easy enough? Well let’s break it down anyway.
Relevance
Research has shown that links from sites with subject matter related to your own pass more value to your site. If you’re selling car parts for BMW, approach some of the many BMW owner and fan sites, and to a lesser extent car enthusiast sites as a whole. A nightclub might do well to target sites about the nightlife in your area and entertainment guides. The high relevance in both of these examples doesn’t just help your link building efforts, it is likely that the links will send traffic to your site as they’re being viewed by people already searching your subject matter.
Ranking
Is there a way to tell how well a target site is ranking? Is it possible to see the value they’re passing in their links?
Luckily the answer is ‘yes’ in both cases. You can view a rudimentary ‘rank’ of a site by installing the Google Toolbar which gives you a peek at the PageRank while you’re browsing. Be warned, the number displayed by the toolbar is not accurate and in some cases can be out of date. If you’re serious about SEO consider employing the SEO tools created by the the talented guys and girls at SEOmoz, which will allow you to see site rankings, link strength and optimisation tips among other things.
Next week we’ll cover some of the tactics you can use to encourage other site owners to link to your site.
