In content links

Placing links within post content is probably one of the safer routes to go when commencing a link campaign. For one the content will attract clicks, secondly the link will be keyword focused traffic. It’s a much slower way of building “natural” looking links and it will take some time and dedication but the rewards are definitely worth the trouble. Of course this requires a bit of quality on the part of the writer and good writers are hard to find. Don’t equate a good writer and a good blogger. They are both different animals.

Buying run of site links can be successful in limited quantities. Having a well placed link on a trusted site on the blogroll can push traffic to your site. However having too many run of site links creates a large influx of inlinks has often raises the red flag with the Google police. When a site all of a sudden gets a ton of inlinks that’s not natural and a Google engineer is going to take a closer look at where the links are coming from. Buying links isn’t wrong … so long as your buying them from Google. Just be careful. You don’t want your link count to jump from 100 to 10,000.

Is Google losing the war on paid links?

If you’re not paying Google to advertise they won’t be happy. Google wants the entire advertising biz to itself and has been at war with other paid link services for a while now. But are they winning? A new service called InLinks promises to make paid links very difficult to detect and offers links for as low as $10 a month. Curious? I’m many are and already claiming success of their new link campaigns. One has to wonder whether Google is losing this war. Paid links have been around for a long time and many have benefited from the practice.

Let’s be honest, paid links are not hard to detect, but the fact is that many go unpunished by Google even the most rampant run of site variety. So why aren’t they doing anything about it? Could it be they just don’t have the right tools to detect these kinds of links? Suddenly Google’s technical dominance can be questioned. Why have they allowed it to go on for so long when they are clearly against paid links? Makes you wonder.

However if you’re thinking about doing it, paid links might be worth a try for short term strategies. Get a bit of momentum for your site, however continue building up quality, natural links, and always always content.

A few questions to ask yourself …

If you’re ranking in the top 10 then you can ignore this list. However if you’re competitors are ranking ahead of you, perhaps the answer to your ranking issues lies in these questions.

Is your website cluttered with pictures or text? Is there a balance?
What keywords have you targeted vs the keywords your competitors have targeted?
Does your domain match your market?
How many inlinks do you have?
What Meta tags are you using?
Is your body text longer than 600 words?
What’s your page rank?
Is your site easy to navigate?

Answering some of these questions will help you better understand your competition. Analyzing your competitors and their sites will help you integrate some of those ideas into the theme of your site. Simply copying the competition is not the answer. Putting a different spin on a subject, offering great content, and building links will get you to the top.