Seo Services Spain Blog

I’ve not posted for a while as I am just so busy promoting my clients sites, but I want to start posting more often and will endeavor to do just that from now on.

Quite frankly, I could make this post very very long as there is just so much I can cover, but I am aware that too long a post can not only confuse, but also prevent users from reading it in the first place. So, I will try and keep things as brief as possible and try to touch on the key points.

So, this weeks installment is all about hyperlinks. What makes a good SEO link?

Before I answer that, we need to establish a number of things.

1. What are hyperlinks?

2. What are hyperlinks used for?

3. How to “obtain” links to your site.

4. Do’s and don’ts of linking.

5. How many do I need to rank well?

Once we have covered the above. I will then speak more about what makes one link great and another link pretty much worthless, not to mention a possible waste of time and money.

So here we go.

1. What are hyperlinks?

A hyperlink is a piece of HTML code that allows a piece of text or an image on a page to take you to another web page when clicked. For example This is the SEO Spain homepage.

So “SEO Spain” above is linked to the SEO Services Spain homepage at http://www.seoservicesspain.com

I could have linked it to any page on my own site or to another site on the web but as I believe this is the most relevant page on my site for this term, this is fine. So if I wanted to link Web Design Spain, to the web design page at http://www.seoservicesspain.com/web-design.php which I have done. See the clickable text? Good.

The same can be applied to an image. I won’t show you here for the sake of brevity but the principle is the same.

The code looks like this

<a href=”http://www.seoservicesspain.com/web-design.php” title=”Web Design In Spain”>Web Design Spain</a>

The part <a></a>  is the anchor HTML tag, and the part in between is the anchor text or link text.

Quite simple. For those who have done any web design this is very simple stuff.

2. What are hyperlinks used for?

A hyperlink is used to take you from one web page to another. If we did not use hyperlinks within our pages, every address would need to be typed in your browser whenever you wanted to view a page on a site.

For search engines, links are ultra important. Links enable a search engine to traverse the web, making notes about URL’s and sites and gaining a greater picture of how websites on the internet are connected.

Links are also used to determine the relevance of a page. For example, by linking the words “web design spain” back to the page as I have done previously in this post, I am indicating that the page I am linking to, is relevant for those keywords.

When using an image to link to another page, you do not have anchor/link text so you would need to use the ALT tag. The alt tag may look something like this

<a href=”http://www.seoservicesspain.com/web-design.php”><img src=”/images/webdesignimage.png” alt=”Web Design Spain”></a>

Easy peasy, lemon squeasy. So the alt text is used to tell the engines and users who have turned images off, just what the image is all about and what it links too.

3. How to “obtain” links to your site.

This question alone could take up 100 blog posts but basically links are obtained from a number of sources including directories, blog posts, static pages, articles, press releases, RSS feeds, social media sites and other sources.

A link is generally obtained by either paying the site owner, reciprocal linking, offering something of value(article or press release) or by someone naturally linking to your page due to something of value you have created. The last form of link is generally considered the best.

Like I say. Links can be obtained from many sources and I don’t want to go into too much detail. Just know that links come from many different sources.

4. Do’s and don’ts of linking.

When others link to your pages there is little you can do. Google and the other engines love this kind of link as they have not been paid for by the owner. The link text has also not been manipulated, so is natural and can give the engines a good idea of the relevance of the page and it’s content.

If you acquire links manually(most people need to do this to promote their sites) make sure you follow some of the following do’s and don’ts.

Do make sure that when you link from a page back to your site that the page you are linking from is as relevant as possible to your business. Don’t link from a page on chocolate cakes to a page on motorcycles.

Do make sure that you vary the anchor text as much as possible. So if you sell property in Marbella, make sure you use different anchor text such as “marbella property”, “property for sale marbella”, “marbella estate agents” etc. This way your link building will not look “spammy” to the search engines and you will not be penalised.

Do make sure you link to the correct landing page. So if you sell property but also have long term rentals and holiday rentals, make sure the anchor text you use is relevant to that page.

Do make sure the link that the link you are placing will not be “no-followed”. This means that the nofollow attribute has or will be added to the code. Having nofollow on a link renders that link worthless as it tells the search engines not to give any value to the link and in effect ignore it.

Do Not use the same anchor text for all of your links. This is dangerous and could get you penalised or have some kind of filter tripped on Google or one of the other engines.

Do Not link from pages that are not relevant. Obvious. Another spammy indicator you will be sending to the search engines.

Do Not acquire many links at the same time. For example, pay $5 for 5,000 directory submissions. Directories are not bad, but the way you approach using them could well be. Make sure you use some common sense and say to yourself “How will this appear to a search engine?” or “Would I do this if search engines did not exist?”.

5. How many do I need to rank well?

To be honest there is no exact amount. It depends on many things including the competitiveness of your industry, the amount of domain authority you have. One thing I will say is that its good to have a good mix of links from different domains. So much better to have 100 links from 100 domains than to have 100 links from 2 domains. More individual votes means more trust.

So focus not so much on the number of links you have, but the number of linking domains. There is a crucial difference. Do you see?

So now on to the most important part of this post.

WHAT MAKES A GOOD SEO LINK?

A good link serves a number of purposes. If you can hit all of these with one link then great. If not, try and make sure it obtains at least one of the below.

A good link will come from a page that is cached/indexed by Google or another search engine. If not, the link will not have any value in terms of rankings or organic SEO.

A good link will come from a relevant page that is associated in some way to your business.

A good link will have focused anchor text in order to help you rank better for your chosen keywords.

A good link will have the possibility of attracting click throughs to your site. So for example a link from within an article that is read by many people may produce a number of clicks through to your site as well as give you an organic rankings boost.

A good link is a link that comes from a domain that has AUTHORITY.

A good link is a link that comes from a PAGE that has AUTHORITY.

A good link is a link that gives you great brand awareness.

A great link is a link that is shared with others via social media networking such as Twitter or Facebook or via social media bookmarking.

A good link is one that has good “call to action”. For example “Click here to receive a 25% discount on all of my services”.

A good link will ideally NOT have the nofollow attribute attached to it.

Well, that’s it really. Simple!

I hope you have found this post interesting and that it helps you to become a better link builder or to just understand the SEO process a little better.

As ever, please feel free to follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook. I am always happy to answer any questions you may have or just to socialise and talk about the weather!