Link Building II: Reciprocal Linking

Alright, here's the second part of the trilogy - reciprocal linking. I would have posted it sooner but was busy just lazying around. Come on, everyone needs a break.:D

Well, here we go - last post, I wrote about the one-way links and how to acquire them to boost the SERP position of a particular website. Today, in this post, I will discuss the workings of reciprocal linking.

Even though the word "reciprocal" may sound complex and similar to gibberish, its meaning in this context is amazingly simple. I hope you all know about the barter system that was used to trade things when money was not introduced. Well, reciprocal linking is kind of like that. It is more like if you consider a financial transaction as linking and the money as links. So, there you go - now you know what reciprocal linking is.

Well, actually I think I made it more complex. Anyways, the basic thing you have to know about reciprocal linking is that you have to provide another person with a link to get a link from that person. As for example, you have a website A. And you want a link to your website from another website B. In order to do so, you have to provide a link to website B. Then you notify website B that now since you have provided a link to them, they should provide a link to you. This is basically how this works out.

Now, you may start to think that reciprocal linking is the easiest thing to do. And since it is beneficial for both the websites, then why doesn't everybody just jump into it? Well, then you are still living in la-la-land. It is time to wake up and face the reality. This is because the search engines hate reciprocal linking. I would not really blame them for hating reciprocal linking because spammers have abused this process so much that search engines, especially Google and Yahoo! have become too suspicious about it. Hence they have put out a set of guidelines for websites and directories to follow while carrying out reciprocal linking. One of these guidelines include that a particular web page having more than 50 links will be considered as SPAM!!!! And now, since Google is dominating the internet market, it is only reasonable that its guidelines be followed strictly.

But then why is reciprocal linking so discouraged? It is also because of the mysterious PageRank. Ok, when the world of SEO and internet was small, then people appeared at the top position of the SERPs only with 2-3 links. That was the time when this mysterious PageRank did not exist. Well, the PageRank simply is a complex algorithm developed by a bunch of programmers at Google to measure the value of a website. And since then, PageRank has become the Holy Grail of all SEOs. But at present, the myth of PageRank seems to have been debunked. Well enough of PageRank for now; I will discuss it elaborately in future. Anyways, so this PageRank has an equation with God-knows what and how many variables. But, one thing is for certain that reciprocal linking slightly drains the importance of the website. This is because it is only natural to think that if a website gets more one-way links, then that website is more important than the website with more reciprocal links. I know the concept of this "importance" thingy is a bit snobbish and repulsive, but this is the way things are.

Anyways, so, how do you get these reciprocal links? Well, a long time back, people used to send each other friendly personal emails to exchange links. But in this age of automation, who has the time to send emails, let alone friendly and personal. The directories offer reciprocal linking, and you can just provide them a link and then fill up their submission forms after providing them links. But why would you want to exchange links with directories when they are supposed to be good sources of one-way links? Well, the answer lies in the moola my friends. You see, there are directories which would only give you one-way links for cash and these are reputed and respected directories. So, it is essential to get links from them if you want your website to have a decent amount of links. Hence, you need the links from them. But if you run low on your budget, and do not have enough cash to pay for all those directories, then you can exchange links with them - these directories offer free links for exchange. But you still have to remember that links are the currency in this market.

Lets say you need a couple of links from related websites. They don't have submission forms in their websites. So how do you get links from them or exchange links with them for that matter? Well there is an easy solution. Go to their contacts pages and find out their email addresses. And thats it. Send them emails requesting a link and promise a link in return. That is how you do it. Of course, you will need to check whether the email addresses are valid or not. And also do not send your emails from free webmail based accounts. They would not really help you build your reputation in the market. I mean, come on, what good can a company do if they send out emails from a free webmail account? They should at least have their own domain from where they can send emails right?

So, there you go. All about totally white-hat reciprocal linking. And the little bit of information below can help you if you wanna try out a bit of grey-hat stuff. This is what I learned from personal experience.

Suppose, you have a website and you want only one-way links for it. But you are not getting enough one-way links from related sites. What you can do is, you can send out reciprocal linking email requests. Some websites will respond and will provide a link to you and will also request a link from you back. But you really do not have to provide them a link - just tell them your links page is under construction or your website is going through a re-design. That's it. You get free one-way links from related sites. Great idea isn't it? But do REMEMBER that this idea is only an idea and not for spamming and also be aware that you might lose those free links any time. And also the fact that the success rate in this case is only 5-10%.

So, that's about it for today. Next post, I will discuss 3-way linking.

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Link Building Part-I

Alright, here we go. This will be a three part article on the art of link building. The parts will be based on each major linking practices.



Link building is without doubt one of the major aspects of search engine optimization. With all these new techniques, such as social media optimization, coming up, manual link building stands as a proud old-school method of ranking top in SERPs (Search Engine Result Page). Link building can be summarized as the process of setting up hyperlinks that will point to a particular site for which the link building strategy is being carried out. The link building strategy comprises of 3 major departments –

1. One way Linking
2. Reciprocal Linking
3. 3-way Linking

Out of the above three, the most used is reciprocal linking and the most sought-after is one-way linking. 3-way linking is not that much used and is detected as “egregious linking activity” by search engines, especially Google, if the sites that are carrying out the process have enough trust and authority.

One-way Linking:

The link building strategy is carried out to increase the PageRank of a website and to increase its prominence in the SERPs. All of the above mentioned link building strategies work. But which one is the most efficient or which one is the best?

The answer to that would obviously be one-way linking. SEO experts have been screaming at the top of their voices to prove that one-way links are the most useful way to build links. It is because one-way linking is the most natural link building strategy. Then the question arises that if this is the case, then why do people mostly use reciprocal linking? That is because reciprocal linking is the easiest way to increase the volume of links pointing to a particular website. A website without quality content and relevant one-way links may still rank well in SERPs due to the sheer amount of links pointing to it. The catch here is that excessive reciprocal linking may lead to decrease in trust and may be detected as spam by the search engines. Hence, one-way linking is undoubtedly the best way to promote a site.

One-way linking can be of two types:

1. Free one-way links
2. Paid one-way links

Free one-way links:

Free one-way links are the major targets of search engine optimizers because these links are free, provide more weight and add more value to link popularity. These links can be acquired by putting up links in top directories such as Google, Yahoo, DMOZ (otherwise known as the ODP- Open Directory Project), Business.com, etc. They can be also acquired by enlisting the list in the first and second tier directories and niche directories. If proper submission guidelines and a combination of anchor text and targeted keywords with a suitable description is used, then these links will boost the link popularity of the site for sure. It will also provide the site with value and weight, hence increasing the trust and authority of that site. Free one-way links can also be obtained through content, tools, articles, blogs and forums. All these techniques are natural, hence, there is no chance of being marked or be identified as spam. Good, quality content draws tons of links which are of course free and one-way. It is because the way the human psychology works. If the information is useful and valuable to a customer, he/she would obviously link to it. Here enters the social networking sites which can be used to promote a site. The promotional strategy must be discrete as the editors of these sites are extremely biased against promoting a site through these sites. Any hint of a marketing strategy would mark your site and may result in undesired consequences. Blogs also provide to be an important source for one-way links because if a link builder posts a relevant comment in a blog which has similar content to that of his site with a link to his site, then that link would be also counted. The similar case is with the forums, except that the link builder should use the link to his site as the signature and the link builder should be an active member of that forum. As for the tools, it is similar to the content – if a person finds the tools useful, then he/she would obviously link to it and also spread the word about it.

The advantages of these types of links are that they provide more value and weight to the site and hence, boost link popularity of that site. They also increase the PageRank of the site. Free one-way linking is a completely solid white-hat SEO technique; hence, there is no chance of getting banned. And last but not the least, they are FREE!

On the other hand, there are disadvantages – these links are hard to come by. There are plenty of directories, but when it comes to relevant quality sites, there seems to be a huge scarcity. Link builders experience eye and back strains by staring at the SERPs for long hours in order to find relevant sites that would provide a free one-way link to their site. And even if a relevant website is found, it will not provide the link so easily. The website has to go through strict editorial supervision to be approved. This is also the case for certain top directories where the editors prove to be extremely cynical, sarcastic and vengeful. Another disadvantage is that it takes time – a free one-way link submission at a second tier directory takes 2-4 weeks at the minimum to be approved or rejected. During this time, the competitors of the site may have a boost by their reciprocal linking strategy. And also, free one-way linking is a stressful manual job which takes long hours of hard work.


Paid One-way Links:

Paid one-way links are the other form of one-way links. Quality links can be bought or rented at authoritative websites with high PageRanks. In top directories, links can also be bought so that the site gets a higher placement in both the directory and the SERPs.

The advantage of buying one-way links is that the site gets better preferences in the directories. If the directories are totally paid directories, then the site is even more benefited because paid directories tend to have less number of sites in each category, hence there is a little bit of chance that the PageRank would be diluted. Of course, increases in PageRank, authority, weight and value and link popularity are obviously there. Paid links can also be used to improve rankings in SERPs.

With all these advantages, paid links are no more major targets for search engine optimizers. This is because of the recent declaration by Google that paid links should be reported. Since Google controls 56% of the internet marketing and searches today, the declaration has become a biblical statement. Hence paid links are looked upon as taboos by the white-hat optimizers. Google spokesmen Adam Lasnik and Matt Cutts, in this case, have stated that buying links from high PR sites to draw link juice is being considered as spam and hence spamming should be banned. Although few types of paid links are still clean, most of them have been identified as spam. Hence, paid links have lost their value as a weapon in search wars. Paid links can also prove to be a burden on the marketing budget of a company. Prices vary from directory to directory and that merged with the cost of a PPC campaign can turn out to be a financial burden. As for example, Yahoo! charges $299 for review before inclusion and there is a chance that a site might get rejected. Thus, even if paid links were an important part of an online marketing strategy before, now they have been devaluated especially after the declaration by Google.

Conclusion:

Even with all its disadvantages, one-way linking still remains a stronghold for search engine optimizers. It is only because of the one-way links that provide PageRank, higher rankings in SERPs, authority, value and weight to a site. This old-school tactic will survive the rapid nascent of social networking as a promotional strategy as it is irreplaceable.

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Must-Know SEO Terms

In the previous post I gave an introduction to the world of SEO and link building. Before I proceed to describing the art of link building, I would like to provide a list of terms which is a must-read for any SEO novices and amateurs. So, here you go:



Search Engine: An computerized index of the web pages; creating a searchable database. Examples are AltaVista, Google.



Directory: An index of web pages, compiled by people and organized more by topic or theme. Examples are Yahoo,About.



Pay Per Click Search Engine: A search engine in which the ranking of the sites is determined by the amount paid for each click from that search engine to the site.



Portal:Are basically directories, many have added features such as news, browser based email, online calendars and reminders, fax services, and chats and discussion forums.



Vortal: Is simply a portal centered around a specific issue.



Search Engine Placement/Optimization/Positioning: The work of trying to ensure that a website ranks high in the search engines.



Meta Description Tag: The tag present in the header of a web page which is used to provide a short description of the contents of the page.



Meta Keywords Tag: The tag present in the header of a web page which lists words which represent the content in the body of the page.



Keyword: A word or phrase which is used when searching for a website in the search engines or directories. It is these words or phrases that webmaster use when describing or explaining the content of their website.



Keyword Density: Represents the frequency these keyword words appear in a page or in an area of a page. It is a critical issue for search engine ranking-the more often the keyword or phrase appears in a page, the higher its search engine ranking. If repeated too often though, it could lead to the page being penalized for spamming.



Spamming: It is a procedure of abusing the normal search engine ranking techniques, such as using hidden text, excessive repetition of a keyword, etc. This term is also used when describing the practice of sending unsolicited bulk email.



Link Popularity: The number of sites which link to a particular site. Many search engines use link popularity as a factor in determining the search engine ranking of a website.



Reciprocal links/link exchanges: The process where two webmasters agree to show the other's link on their website.



Link Building: The process of creating inbound links to owns website. This can be done reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, directories, search engines, etc.



Link Exchange Program:There are many variations but most normally refers to a sign-up program where webmasters agree to host and link to a members-only links page.



Link Farm: A recent term used to describe some link exchange programs. These programs are nothing more than random links on a page and really do not help one popularity. Can be considered spamming.



Link Management:The process of organizing and maintaining a website's reciprocal links. Normally a paid service. LinksManager and Links4Trade are two examples.



In the next posts, I will present the art of link building in details.

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The Beginning

I joined Blueliner Bangladesh as a high school graduate waiting to be accepted by some US colleges and universities. I had nothing better to do except for hanging out with my friends, playing computer games and doing nothing. Well, that doesn't mean I just wished to get into the company and the company took me - but then again, it was somewhat like that. My cousins both worked at the New York office of Blueliner and my father was the COO of the branch in Bangladesh. So he coerced me into this job. I am still not sure whether I am grateful to him or not, but the balance is more biased towards gratitude.



Ok, so I got into this company. So what is this company about? The abstract description of the job that I got was that I was supposed to handle clients and customers. I got this notion from my designation - Customer Relations Associate. But the reality was different. I was to be a SEO and carry out online marketing. Until that day, I knew internet was only used for wikisurfing, downloading videos and music, maintaining a "cool" profile in hi5 and surfing through porn sites. Well, that is at least what I had been doing since the time I was introduced to internet. The first day in the office was weird, to say nonetheless. I was contacted by a certain person from the Blueliner India called Nagaraju Devullapalli, who used to be the SEO professional, or at least he claimed to be. I was introduced to a whole new potential of internet - internet and online marketing. He gave me a few links and told me to study the articles and write him a summary on SEO. Thus began my journey as a SEO apprentice. In these few months, I have come to learn a lot of stuff about the world of internet and I have made my prominence in Google's search engine result pages (SERPs).



Ok, back to the topic. What is this SEO? Even though Nagaraju gave me a few links, I searched Wikipedia and read the whole article. (I am a wikiaddict :D).........



What is SEO?



SEO is the acronym for Search Engine Optimization. According to Wikipedia,Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results. Usually the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines/ niche search engines.

Well that is the definition of SEO. SEO mainly started out when Google was developed by two Stanford graduates. Before that online marketing was a non-existent word in the dictionary of internet. The main thing of SEO is to get higher rankings and to get completely listed in the major search engines. In order to do so, what one needs is links. Now, what are these links? Links are the currency in this part of the cyber-world. Basically, links are references to a website. I guess by now everyone knows what a link and a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is.

The main strategy for SEO is link building. Professional SEOs would disagree with me; but to me, every strategy, from basic link building to social media marketing, eventually ends up at links.



Link Building


By now, I guess I have explained what is SEO. Now I move on to the process of link building.

It is a trite incident for any company or organization to own a website in the largest market of the world – the internet. But a company cannot just sit back and relax after it has created the website, it has to market it and make it popular – just like its products and services. That is where SEO & Link Building comes into the scene.

SEO & Link building are basically processes by which a website is made popular in the cyberspace. People have become increasingly dependent on search engines for their desired products or services. The displayed results of these engines are categorized by the rankings of the resulting websites in these search engines. Thus, the job of SEO & Link Building is to augment the ranking of a particular website. This is a very superficial view of SEO and link building.

SEO and link building exist in symbiotic relationship. Actually, link building is required for SEO. Link building is, superficially, a set of activities to increase the volume of traffic entering a website and alsoto improve the ranking of that website in the search engine directories it has been listed. This can be explained by the term “link popularity” – the amount of traffic visiting a site and also the ranking of that website. Link building is performed by first selecting sites in which the link for the desired website is to be put up and second, by requesting those sites to accept the deal. The first part may come off easy but the second one is the main obstacle. It is not as easy as it sounds – selected sites may not be at all interested to put up the link. The usual deal is “if you put up my link, I will put up yours”. But that does not always seem to work. There are other alternatives to it – like paying a website to put up the link. But that is not such a good option when you can put up your link for free at other websites!

To deal with the first part, the target keywords need to be set. The target keywords will be relevant to the Meta tags of the website, i.e., the heading on the browser. Fixing the target keywords is important because these keywords would define a website in the sense that the website will come as a result of the search of these keywords. So, if the website is “hot” enough in the search engine, it will most definitely come as the first result of the searched keywords. This requires keyword research (I will deal with this topic later).

There are certain facts that need to be checked repeatedly to ensure the improvement of the link building campaign:

1. The name of the site
2. The URL
3. The name and email address of the person who runs the site
4. The date you contact the person who runs the site and the date he or she responds
5. The resulting deal
6. The status of the deal
7. Verifying that the link is in place
8. Checking the site periodically for the link

This information must be checked and managed carefully as they are vital for the link popularity of a website.

As for the second part of the task, a letter has to be sent to the owner of the site to make the deal. The letter can be either computer generated or it may have a personal touch. It is always better to write the letter by yourself or even better if you make a phone call.

There are programs which have been developed for increasing link popularity. One such example is Zeus. This program will search sites and will also send requests to them. But the problem with this program is the requests it sends end up in the recycle bin. The number of available templates in Zeus is pretty low and hence the emails look pretty cold. The human psychology is the biggest obstacle in the path of success of automated link building.

The content and design of a website greatly contributes to the link popularity of that website. The link partners of a website should have relevant and compliment or similar content to that of the website. The linking section of a particular website should be made easy and also the rules for linking in the partner websites should also be checked. The website should be user-friendly so that it attracts the visitors and to make them keep coming back again. The presence of frames, the keyword density, and the content – all play a major role in link popularity.

As stated earlier, SEO and link building works together in a symbiotic relationship. Targeted link building reaches out to the online community to find your target audience and build your network, therefore increasing your traffic, while SEO enhances and effectively submits the website assets and assists in search engine placement.

It is imperative that the traffic analysis (I will come back to this) of a website is done after the link building campaign has been started. In that way, the effectiveness of the campaign can be understood. There are certain legal complications involving the link building techniques – the targeted site’s linking policies should be carefully studied before sending a request to link. Some techniques are approved by the search engines while others do not follow the rules and regulations. Thus, search engines tend to remove the site from their directories if illegal and deceptive ways of linking are used.

A carefully designed SEO and Link Building campaign can easily boost the popularity of a website in a short period of time.

In the following posts, I will describe various strategies of link building in details.

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Team Blueliner Bangla

In order to give everyone a better view of my perspective of life as a 5-month SEO, I would first like to introduce my fellow colleagues at Blueliner Bangladesh.







Mahbubur Rahman: Project Manager & Team Leader



Mahbub is the team leader and project manager for the Bangladesh Team of
Blueliner. Having several years of web development experience and extensive knowledge over the WWW framework gives him the preference to build sophisticated systems. He has worked on providing solutions for Bangladesh Army.



He is well-adapted and extremely skilled in PHP, MYSQL, ASP, JAVASCRIPT, JSP, AJAX, CSS, FLASH, XML, VB, and APACHE. This ability allows him to manage the core technical team in Bangladesh very efficiently. As a
MBA, his vast knowledge in the synergy of business and technical knowledge gives him additional advantage over the projects of mid to large sized organizations and helps him to comprehend and analyze the complex workings of the market and the clients. His imagination imbued
with his skills and his knowledge makes him an efficient leader and a skilled programmer and an essential part of Blueliner.



Mahbub is an MBA from North South University with a dual major in Finance and Marketing.



Aktaruzzaman, Senior Software Engineer



Aktar is undoubtedly an expert in the field of software and web programming.
His acquaintance with the IT industry is more than 5 years. During this period of time, he has worked as a programmer and a system analyst.
Among myriads of his works, he has interacted with several clients such as Bangladesh Army, Garment Industries, Trading Companies, Construction Companies and Food Manufacturing Companies. His most remarkable work includes development of ERP in Visual basic & SQL server for a Construction Company and two Food Manufacturing companies and
Attendance, Payroll & Access Control for Bangladesh Army. He is also skilled in port handling programs such as USB, Serial Port &
Parallel Port. He is currently working on web development using PHP, MySQL and JavaScript.

His creativity merged with his skills makes him a formidable individual in the competitive market of web programming. His key skills are PHP, Visual Basic, MySQL and SQL server.

Aktar has received B.Sc. degree in Computer Science from Acharya Institute of
Management & Science in India. He has received professional training in Oracle 8i from CMC Ltd., India.


Shoeb Abdullah, Senior Software Engineer

Shoeb,a specialist in PHP programming, combines his deftness in LAMP
(Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) technology and his creative mind to program the websites. With 2 years of working experience with PHP and mySQL, he has honed and tested his skills of PHP framework and Object Oriented programming. His perimeter further expands into the fields of SEO, RSS Feed, XML-RPC, XSLT, SOAP, PostgreSql, CSS, Web 2.0. He is currently
improving his dexterity in MySQL server.





An assiduous nature mingled with a hunger for innovation and creativity forms the major part of Shoeb’s personality. He is driven by his
self-motivation to face challenges with vigor and fanaticism. His thirst for knowledge pushes him to remain up-to-date with the latest
developments in technology. He not only motivates himself, but also influences his clients to seize opportunities whenever they come by.
Thus, it is clarified that a man with such exceptional abilities is certainly a valuable asset to Blueliner.

Shoeb holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Computer Science & Electronics from Shah
Jalal University of Science & Technology.


Ishtiaque Ahmed, Associate Software Engineer


With a firm believe in the term "Anything is Possible", Ishtiaque joined theBlueliner team as a fresh graduate. His determination and hands on experience and skills of programming languages such as C, C++, JAVA (J2SE) and Ruby augments his credibility as a software and web
programmer. He is also acquainted with web technologies such as JavaScript, XML, XSL, XSLT, Flash, Actionscript, CSS and many more. He is familiar with both LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL PHP) and WAMP (Windows Apache MySQL PHP) development environments. Having a quest for thecutting edge and latest technology like AJAX makes him consistent with
current market demand.



He is not bound to only the trainings he received during his course at the university. He has developed his own skills in web application
development and web architecture and has personally worked in various small projects. At present, he is working with the Blueliner team in
PHP and MySQL and has enriched the team with his programming skills and
knack for innovation.



Ishtiaque holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Engineering (COE) from American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB).





Mahmudul Hasan, Associate Software Engineer.



Mahmud joined Blueliner as a fresh graduate with a passion for programming and a thirst for knowledge and zeal to create. He believes in providing his best to the team. Mahmud is responsible for site automation, creating APIs, web analytics, and developing solid piece of codes that can survive concurrent accesses, attacks, and extreme load. He is well
experienced with developing distributed applications, as well as reusable components. He invests a large portion of his time to learn about new technologies and their impact on the industry.



Mahmud is skilled in advanced scripting in PHP, solid command in J2SE and C++, and expertise in databases like MySQL and Oracle. His academic interests are in Object Oriented Programming, Software Engineering Methodologies, and Reusable frameworks for software development.

He holds a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and Information Technology from Islamic University of Technology, Dhaka.



Nafis Hasan, Customer Relations Associate

Nafis became a part of the Blueliner team after he graduated from his high school. His age did not prove to be a barrier in his way of learning the ways of internet marketing. He has manifested the potential for his nascent as a Search Engine Optimizer and is acquainted with the nooks and crannies of online marketing. His adeptness in two foreign languages –
English and French, has aided him in his quest for his reputation as a
customer relations associate.

He has devoted himself wholeheartedly to the success of the team and is seeking to establish
himself as a major part of the team. He is currently a freshman at Lafayette college, majoring in Neuroscience.

Navid Rahman, Customer Relations Associate



Navid joined the Blueliner team as a high school graduate. Even though he participated in the job market at such an early age, he has proved his
credibility with his skills in the field of marketing. His skills are entirely credible to 1 year experience as a junior marketing executive
for ARAC tours and travels. He is currently participating in the internet marketing process as a link builder and is also familiar with the concept of Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

He has committed his very best for the team and has already shown the prospect of being a remarkable member of the team.



Courtesy of: Mahmudul Hasan and Nafis Hasan

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