Part 5 – Offpage Search Engine Optimization
We’ve already optimized our blog to rank well for search results of
certain keywords that we’re tar getting, but here comes the sad news – it
affects your ranking in only very minor ways. However, don’t skip this step as
every little bit helps when you’re competing for search engine rankings!
Now, we’re moving on to offpage search engine optimization. That is, factors
that are not on your blog but affect your search engine rankings very greatly. There
are a lot of off page factors, but we shall study them one by one. The first and
most obvious one is the number of links to your blog.
As a general rule of thumb, the more links to your blog, the more the
search engines think you are an authority in that particular niche and hence
the higher they rank you. However, take care to observe the quality of the
links. For example, a thousand links from totally irrelevant sites like online
dating sites would not help at all because your blog is a technological product
blog. In contrast, a single link from a highly authoritative site about
technological gadgets will get the search engines crawling about your blog like
the Feds storming a crack den…
Anyway, the most cost effective way of getting high quality links from
authoritative sites is simply to ask for it. If your blog contains high quality
content that is original and will provide valuable information to the site’s
readers, chances are the webmaster(s) will link to your blog or even write
about you!
Let’s talk about how we should ask these webmasters of authority to link
to your blog. We’re discussing this based on the presumption that your blog is
really content rich and offer high quality information to anyone in your niche
or topic of discussion. The most viable option would be to send an email
directly to the webmaster.
First, let’s look for the top sites in your niche. Simply search the
major search engines for the term that you’re targetting. In this case, let’s
search for “technological gadgets”. The first few results, www.t3.co.uk and www.acarplace.com/brands/gm/gadgets.html are commercial sites,
so don’t bother asking. We’re looking for community-based sites and other blogs
that are more accessible to a complete newcomer like you. Seems like www.gizmodo.com would be a good option!
So, compose an email to the webmaster of www.gizmodo.com (whose email address you
shall find on the site). They even have their AIM contact there, so it’s also a
good choice if you use AOL Instant Messenger. Start by stating how you came
across their site (i.e. “looking for gadget information”, NOT “looking for link
partners!”) and how you think their site provides valuable info. Basically, try
to say something really good about their site honestly.
Then, suggest that so-and-so content on your own blog will be a
nice complement to their site’s content and vice versa. Put a link on your blog
to their site and ask subtly if they might be able to do the same to weld a
mutually beneficial relationship between the site and your blog.
Along the way, you might find people who won’t even respond to
your email, so forget about them and move on. Remove the links from your blog
to their site if they have not responded to your email within two weeks, which
is a pretty long wait.
Keep doing this for the first 30 search results that pop up, and
before long you should have quite a few good sites all linking to you. In the
next article, we shall explore further the more advanced off page factors, and
ways to improve them!
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