Link Building

I had a real nice conversation with a development manager and he was asking me what I would suggest to a new person who is getting involved in search engine optimization. We had a real good conversation and it really shows how far SEO and Internet marketing has come as designers and developers are realizing what SEO can do for their company and looking at their projects with SEO in mind.

Using Sponsorship to Build Links

So I started to think more on the ride home about something I said. I made a comment about how a search engine optimizer really needs to become a link building expert and not only that but a true marketer. Getting highly relevant and authoritative sites to link to you has to be one of the hardest things that SEOs have to do. We know from everything we hear at conferences, forums, industry experts, and even search results show us is that link building is the key to SEO success.

I like to talk about a link building strategy that I have been successful with and that is using sponsorships to get links. The reason why I like this link strategy because:

• You have a great option of getting the type of anchor text you want that is 100% optimized. I would consider it 70% of obtaining a quality link.
  
• The linking site will have a less “spammy” footprint the majority of the time. It also has a low footprint of what a paid link site would have.
  
• These sites tend to be in the .GOV or .EDU area. I am not a believer that a .GOV or.EDU site helps you any more than another quality link but what those sites do offer is a much stronger footprint that is “authoritative” from the search engines.
  
• Make you feel good your helping a cause.
  

Here are some of the things I like to do to find these sites:

• I start with search engine queries such as:
  
  • Sponsors
    
  • Donors
    
  • Donations
    
  • “Please Visit Our Sponsors”
    
  • “Thanks To Our Donors”
    
• Start reviewing the sites and see which ones are offering links back to their sponsors.
  
  • What is the Page Rank? Yes I know, PR does not mean much but it is all we have still to determine the value of the page.
    
  • What kind of links into the sponsor’s site are they using? Text or image links?
    
  • If text links are they using just domain name or keyword rich anchor text?
    
  • Make sure they are not using the “no follow” tag on the links.
    
  • How many links are on the page? If you can get a page with less links the better as you get more link juice from it.
    

Once you have found some sites you would like to inquiry about then just email them asking about sponsorship. http://www.graftonlittleleague.org/sponsors.php is a site that fits my requirements and I would fill out their form to get more information on sponsorship. This would be a great sponsorship opportunity for a sporting goods client or retail site. Seriously, I found this site in ten minutes and if you spend an hour a day you should find hundreds of websites to sponsor.

Tagged as: anchor text, internet marketing, link strategy, search engine optimization, search engine optimizer

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