Perfect Link Profile – Link Building Your Website to Perfection
In theory we all know what we are doing and we all know how to build links and where to look for the quality stuff, but in practice 99% of web owners build links blindly, without a link building plan, without any regard for their link profile, all for the sake of gaining more links. In the process they sacrifice their link profile and quality of the links; the more the better doesn’t really apply to SEO and link building as it did a few years back. Every SEO knows that a few strategically placed quality links can easily replace hundreds and thousands of low level links. Now the issue here is not how to get a link, we covered that and we will cover it some more in the future, we will now concentrate on what a “perfect” link profile needs to have.
Balanced Link Building Profile
All in all it is very simple, we need a balanced link profile, and the first part is to gain the links gradually and not overnight. I can’t seem to stress enough how important it is to have an SEO plan as well as a link building plan, you need to plan the link velocity, at least the part you can control.
So to balance things up make sure you have a solid ratio of do follow vs no follow links. There isn’t a simple aspect ratio, 80:20 works fine, but you can have more no follow or less, just make sure you have a healthy number of no follow links. I guess 50 no follow links on 2,000 do follow links would be suspicious.
To keep your link profile balanced you also need to diversify your anchor texts. Building links with only one anchor text will not do you any good, while on the other hand adding synonyms will make your website even more relevant for your chosen topic.
And the last part of keeping your link profile balanced is to make sure you link to your deep pages as well as your homepage. We already talked about deep links and deep linking and why it is so important, so be sure to check it out if you are not sure what we are talking about.
Keeping Quality and Diversity of your Link Profile
In order to look natural to Google we need to have a diversified link profile, varied anchor texts and no follow links will help us with that, as well as deep links, but there are a few more things we need to take care of to bring ourselves closer to the so called perfect link profile.
Start with the places you get links from. Diversify two things, the qualities of the websites you get links from and also the topics of the sites you get links from. Go for high quality as well as low quality links, I mean there isn’t a single site in the world that has only high quality links, that is not natural and Google knows it. Also, topic relevance is pure gold, but there isn’t a single site that has only topic related links. So try to get those high quality links from topic websites and low quality links where you can find them and all while keeping your link velocity and varied anchor texts in check.
I know that link exchanges are still very active, and I have nothing against exchanging a few links, even direct ones, but only if the website has quality and is highly related to yours. Don’t just exchange links with the first guy that sends you a mail and writes as he feels you will both benefit from this exchange, things don’t work that way, but in the end, a few reciprocal link exchanges do have a place in the perfect link profile, so keep that in mind as well.
These are the basic things that your website link profile should have to look natural to Google but maintain quality at the same time, of course there is much more, and we will make sure to cover it in the future with our link building articles.
About The Author
Zarko Zivkovic is the founder and CEO of Practical SEO and also a passionate blogger. All of his free time he dedicates to his Practical SEO blog and giving free advice as well as participating in the blogging community.
Connect with me on Facebook | Twitter | Google + | LinkedIn
Awesome post Zarko, i think that linkbuilding is one of the hardest part of any seo project, and posts like this helps the news like me to start projects correctly.
thanks for sharing
Yes you must have that plan in place if you want to come out on top. I say build link slowly and make them divers so the Google Bot can see you as natural as possible..
“Black Seo Guy “Signing Off”
Hi Zarko,
Wonderful article. I am newbie to SEO but still I can understand the importance of having a diversified link building profile. My ratio for dofollow and nofollow links is 60:40 which is slightly different from the one you have mentioned here but it works well for me. So I am sticking with it.
Thanks,
Sathish
Zarko,
Planning is necessary in any business, whether it is online or offline. I guess one can try various things and carefully record all the results. Then one should choose the resources or ways of gaining links that suit you most and which are more effective (for example, the links from the resources of the corresponding sphere or niche).
@Sathish, well that was just an example, 60:40 is perfect if it works for you. the thing about SEO is that no one can tell you the exact number of links or the type of links you need to achieve a certain rank, this is a try and see deal. So if that works for you than it’s perfect
@Anna, you said it right, planning is needed for any type of business!
I came across this kind of article for the first time in my life.
But I really like the idea, because I do link building without any plans and just have aim to gain more links, but I think you’re right we need to balance them, and nice guide to do it.
thanks
This is a great blog post. I think that diversity is hugely important, perhaps now more than ever with the crackdown on content farms!
Hi Zarko, great topic to write about.
I believe especially to build a well-balanced link profile (aka natural link profile) you need to plan ahead. I share the opinion that professional SEO is built on a plan. Within our company every customer has an overall SEO plan (including goals, strategy etc.) and a specific Off-Page SEO (linkbuilding) plan where all activities are explained how we try to achieve higher rankings. So fully agree
I dug this article just for the link back to the post on deep linking. I hadn’t read that before. Great points all around. I thought I was on top of things with the NoFollow:DoFollow ratio, but I’m in a bad way on deep linking side. Any tips for working backwards? Does it make sense to try for relevant backlinks on out-of-date content or would you suggest simply making a point to deep link to newer articles moving forward?
Hi Kyle, there is no reason why you should skip old content for link building. If you feel that the content is good and can provide value for your visitors make sure you build some backlinks, no matter how old it is. Good content is good content and it should be linked to, no mater the age.
It’s me again…just left a comment on a dif page. I wish I had googled “anchor text” earlier. Just started my sight a week ago or so. And a few days ago I was told to use the company blog to link to my blog/site for linking. I ‘ve been using words like “click here” or “more about this author” now that I’m reading your site… I just realized I’ve been doing it wrong and should have used my site name as “anchor text” ugggg!
(wishful thinking)
I wrote 5 blogs on the co site so now I feel it was in vain….maybe I can re-link them via the edit feature?
I wish I had your brain
Hi Matthew, this is not a big problem, since your website is new it’s very likely that most of your pages aren’t indexed yet, so I would go and re-link them with new but well researched anchor texts asap. Don’t just use the company name, unless this is the term you wish to rank for, do some research on your keywords and then edit the links. No harm no foul, you still have plenty of time to change and let Google index your links and pages properly…
[...] Perfect Link Profile – Link Building Your Website to Perfection – In theory we all know what we are doing and we all know how to build links and where to look for [...]
Good advice. Those of us who do SEO, can sometimes start relying too much on one backlinking strategy. It’s good to mix it up. Natural-looking link profile is the goal. I tend to go in cycles – article marketing, blog commenting, guest blog posting, etc. Over time this mix results in some decent link diversity.
One way I have found to amass nofollow links is through article marketing. So many auto-blogs apply the nofollow attribute or strip your links out altogether that too many dofollow to nofollow links will never be a problem again…LOL!!!
Thanks for the reminders, Zarko…:)
P.S. I have been watching your Alexa rank. Good job driving traffic, friend.
mark
Most people don’t give an importance to these factors, and i think that’s why the great majority of them fail. What i try to do with my SEO strategy plan is to come up with a blueprint that represents my linking strategies. Every day of this blueprint has its own tasks. If you want to run a successful SEO plan, you need to think like Google (Natural Linking) especially if you’re dealing with fairly competitive keywords.
Hi Zarxo
Just come over from your Guest Post at Brankica’s blog. Just as with your post on Brankica’s site, you make things very clear and full of helpful information; especially for those starting out.
When I first started blogging and I would ask questions on sites, sometimes the answers were so complicated I was more confused when leaving the site, than when I arrived!
Took awhile before someone showed me how to do deeplinks and once I knew it was easy. Just needed someone to explain it to me. And Brankica taught me about anchor text.
Patricia Perth Australia
Hi Patricia, thanks for your comment both here and on Brankica’s blog
I tend to keep things simple so beginners can understand what I am talking about, but if you don’t feel free to ask anything and I will reply.
Nice post, Zarko. Overtime, I have tried to make link building work for my blog and you’re right, what has worked the most is consistent and progressing link building. This gradual link building builds great authority in the eyes of Google and Bing after some time.
This is actually a great tip, especially for people who try to scatter their links everywhere just to get a backlink. Without an SEO plan, it will without doubt take you longer to rank your page as compared to a well thought out SEO. Thanks.
Hi Zarko, just realize that link building need strategy too, what I know about link building before read this post is “Google love backlinks” so I make backlinks as much as I can
Thanks for great article
Hey Zarko the same reason Patricia mentioned is the reason why i love featuring your post in “Round Ups” they are written in what i called lay-man’s term simple concise easy to understand and full of information. Thanks Zarko i have learned a lot from this post.
Thanks Gary, I do try to keep it as simple as possible so everyone can understand
Hey, Zarko! Thanks for pointing this out. I couldn’t agree with you more.
I know too many webmasters who build links blindly. They just keep on building links like the end is near. Doesn’t take them so long in most cases.
I’ve realized that it’s waaay easier to build links once you’ve got a plan set up. Or, as some might call it, a link strategy. “I’m gonna build this many links per day for this long”
Tip to everyone: analyze your competitors before creating a link strategy
yeah, competitor research is necessary to implement a good link building strategy
Another great article Zarko. Now that Google Panda is doing its rounds there’s going to be a huge setback for those sites which practice low quality link building practices. It has been rightly said that the internet needs to become more clutter free, free from poor quality contents and poor link building practices. Website owners needs to work on new link building strategies and strong contents if it doesn’t want to get stripped off to a lower PR.
Great article Zarko – Thanks – also for at flower designer.
Hello Zarko,
I came across your site while trying to build links, however, I ended up reading most of your articles instead. So well written, very clear and even a newbie like me can understand.
My question is why most comments I leave on blogs pointing to my blogs don’t show? I mean when I check how much links I have pointed to my blogs, I rarely see one of these links.
Thanks Next Generation iPad
Hi Jamie,
glad you liked the tutorials here
As for your comment links, two things may be happening, the first one being commenting on comment luv blogs can have a side effect, which is directing your links to feedburner, as I see that is not your problem, but here is a quick fix: http://www.rojish.com/is-feedburner-stealing-my-commentluv-links/
The second thing, which is most likely the case, is that the comments you leave are not on authority blogs and are rarely indexed, or indexed after a long time, they can also be burred deep in your backlinks. Depending on the blog solution those links may be nofollow, have you checked that. Some blogs use frames to post comments so they are not indexed. There is a bunch of thing that can lead to your situation.
Check for no follow first, you can use various addons for that for both chrome and firefox, you can use SEOmoz toolbar.
Useful post, thanks. I have to say, I’m guilty of building backlinks wherever I can without regard for my link profile.
Thanks for sharing.
Hi Zarko,
Thanks so much for taking the time to answer my question.
I will go through all my comment links and check them out as per your suggestion.
Thanks again…I appreciate
Next Generation iPad
Thanks Zarko for the wonderful writing on profile creation. Its is very important for the person associated with the professional work as well as business enterprises. The profile of them must be of high quality and attractive.
[...] I hope I can persuade more people to lay off exact anchor match links and concentrate on create a fluid and natural link profile that search engines will [...]
[...] talked about link building a lot on this blog and we also talked about natural link profile, how it should look like and how to get it, so you have a good idea where we are headed. One more [...]
very nice explanation sir,nicely explained with screen shots.keep sharing