SEO Blog

There’s a strange assumption that SEO is somehow a complicated, expensive process. The truth is that it is as complicated as you make it and you can spend what you want.

Don’t become sidetracked by the promise of exceptional wealth as a result of splurging your cash left right and centre. SEO is no more about splurging huge amounts of money as it is about filling page after page with nonsensical keywords.

Links play a huge part in building confidence with the search engines. A site without incoming links is no easier to find than it is to trusts; at least, that is the view of algorithms. So it goes without saying that you should invest a fair amount of time, although not money it should be noted, on building a pretty decent link profile.

Not just any links though, you want links that come from quality, related sites and preferably ones that will be picked up by targeted visitors and followed. That’s a lot to ask for, but it isn’t impossible. Far from it in fact.

You have to be prepared to do some groundwork though. Think of links as being like the currency of the internet. Nobody wants to give money away to complete strangers, unless of course it is likely to benefit them too. So you have to sometimes be prepared to offer a little give and take, or just work bloody hard for that freebie.

This of course is particularly true of websites. You can’t just ask everyone and anyone to give you a helping hand. You need to be specific, you need to offer them a real reason why this will benefit them and their visitors. If you can’t sell your value, then why should they buy into it?

Free links can be gained elsewhere though. If you’re looking to take the scatter gun approach, article marketing is perfect. Write one article, distribute it to 10 article submission services and then watch as it is syndicated across the web. Embed a link and you will get all of that goodness coming to your site.

Why not give people what they want? Don’t pass over money, give them content. Websites are forever looking for new ideas on a blog post, they want somebody to reference, somebody to borrow heavily from. Get writing and get promoting. When your content gets noticed, you get noticed. This leads to people wanting to link to you, embedding an optimised link in their blog, article, hub or just on a Twitter feed.

You could always go further. Start building up friendships online, have discussions with your peers and see what opportunities there are available. You could find yourself guest blogging on somebody else’s site. Okay, that might sound a little counterproductive, but you would be surprised how effective this can be for marketing.

Guest blogging allows you to write something engaging, drop in a link then benefit from the strength and traffic that it brings. The host site also benefits from having fresh content on their site, so it is a perfect SEO win-win situation.

The main point is though that you can do plenty to improve your link profile without having to part with your hard earned cash. Short cuts normally mean bad news. Search engines are looking for natural links, something that has been earned by the site and provides value to both sides. Even links from irrelevant sites can prove beneficial, but nowhere near the level of the most targeted examples from trusted sources.

So get on and find some free links for your site. It isn’t as difficult as you might think.