4 Link Diversification Strategies For 2013

With multiple Google Penguin updates having rolled out throughout 2012 and many more to come in 2013, Link Diversification strategies and tactics become more important than ever. No diversification is like being a football coach and running the same play over and over. The defense is going to figure you out and stop your progress. With no Link Diversification Google figures us out and stops our SEO progress.

There are literally dozens of ways to diversify your link profiles, but I want to break down for you four specific methods that I think will be most common in 2013. Most common because a) they can be scaled and b) they are the most effective to date. Here they are:

1. More NoFollow Links

NoFollow links are no longer the “waste of a link” as they have commonly been referred to in the past. These types of links are now critical to showing Google that your link profile is natural and organic. You get these primarily through social media and blog commenting efforts.

2. Naked URL Anchor Texts

This is when your anchor text is either your domain name or your full URL. So for example it could be either www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com. Big brands organically get thousands of these, which is why they need to be part of your link building strategy.

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3. Branded Anchor Text Links To Deep Pages

These are anchor texts like “Your Brand” or “www.yourbrand.com.” In many ways these links are like the ones mentioned above at #2 with 1 very big difference, they are links that point to deeper pages within your site other than your homepage.

4. Generic Anchor Text Links

You’ve seen these before. These are anchor texts such as “find out more” or “click here.” These generic type of anchor texts make your link profile look much more natural since this is often how people link to sites through blogs and social media.

Building high quality links isn’t cheap. Adding these diversification strategies to your link mix only makes your SEO campaign more expensive. But getting slapped by Google Penguin is even more expensive! The cost associated with these strategies has an up-front cost, but on the back-end you will make way more than what you put in.

One last quick tip; I like to employ what I call a 3:1 Diversification Ratio. In other words, for every 1 anchor text focused backlink targeting a keyword you are trying to rank for you need to acquire 3 backlinks that employ one of the 4 strategies mentioned above. This ratio will help keep you accountable and focused on keeping your link mix as “mixed” as possible.

Nicole is a writer for www.eBrandz.com. They are the one of the industry’s most respected white label SEO India company.