One of the more common questions you see asked in forums is “How many links do I need?” in order to rank for a certain keyword phrase. The question doesn’t really have a specific numerical answer, rather the number of links you need is proportional to the number of pages competing for the phrase. Less competition requires fewer links to rank. More competition requires more links.
Continue reading →

Over the weekend Wiep Knol published an article on Link Value Factors, which is worth a read if you’re interested in learning more about how search engines might place value on different links. It’s modeled on the more general Search Engine Ranking Factors from SEOmoz with a series of questions about links answered and ranked by SEOs and then having the results totaled to give you an idea of what might be considered more or less important in determining the quality of a link.
Continue reading →

Early on in your learning of search engine optimization you come to realize links are important to how well your pages rank. Some sources of links such as forum signatures are easy to discover, but before too long you learn that all links are not created equal and the links you want most are the hardest to get. Inevitably the question arises how and where to get these high quality links. Good news. Link opportunities are all around you and by paying attention you can gain links from authority sources.
Continue reading →

A journey of a thousand million miles backlinks begins with a single step link
-Confucius (sort of)

I hope Confucius will forgive my changing his quote around, but if you haven’t heard SEOmoz recently moved past the one million mark for links flowing into the site. Congratulations to Rand and the rest of the Mozzers on their well deserved achievement. Rand posted today on how SEOmoz gained those one million+ links, all in under three years no less, and since I’ve been answering a lot of questions the last week on how to get links I wanted to add a few thoughts of my own.
Continue reading →

Today CopyBlogger’s Brian Clark asked what people think of the term linkbait. Not the practice itself, but the term. Does linkbait suffer from a poor brand? Is the term fine? Do you care one way or the other? Why not share your view and let Brian know.
Continue reading →