SEO & link building can prove to be very lucrative, if done correctly. But the irony is, no matter how webmasters approach this aspect of marketing, 90% of them do not do it the right way.
SEO is an art, not a science. There is no “one way” to go about it. You will do it right if you use a little common sense and guidance.
Here are some valuable pointers which, if followed correctly, will save you hundreds (or thousands of dollars) down the road:
1. There is no substitute for professional advice:
Simple, but is never practical at times. Many SEO firms out there try to hook clients on to cheap SEO solutions and in the end get their websites banned. I had a person do my website’s SEO, only to find later that he had been spamming all over the internet, which got my websites penalized. It was only after 2 months that the websites recovered its rankings.
So always ask if the SEO package comes with professional advice. Ask your SEO guy questions to get an idea of whether he knows what he is talking about or not.
2. SEO is NEVER a one-time thing:
As much as we would all like to save on expenses, SEO is just like anther marketing technique: It needs patience, time and consistency. You will never see yourself on the first page of Google if you do a one-time link building (unless your website truly dominate your niche).
3. Build links naturally:
If you have a new website and you will 200 links a day for 3 days and stop, search engines will know what you were up to. Instead, build 10 or 20 links a day at a steady pace. Do not let your SEO guy tell you that a one-time submission to thousands of directories is fine. Build your links slowly, evaluate your progress, and then adjust your SEO campaign.
4. Do what works:
Try different techniques and check which ones of them stick and which ones don’t. You can check your progress & traffic statistics by using Google Analytics (amazing tool!). If you feel that article submissions are helping you, continue with those and tone down other campaigns. If you think that press releases are working for you, do that.
5. Aim for quality and not quantity:
Google simply does not care if there are thousands of crappy links coming to your website. In fact, you might actually get penalized because of getting links from “bad neighborhoods”. Instead, go for quality links from higher authority websites, which will surely help you out. Even if quality links are pricier (which is always the case), get them because they will help you expand your business ten-fold.
We, at Quantum SEO Labs, provide our links with professional advice before we start building links. Feel free to check our link building services for more info!