Golden Planet Search goldenplanet.com
In this category SEO school

SEO school

Link building means getting the votes that make search engines choose you

6 effective link building methods for your online shop, so it gets to the top of the search engines

6 min read

On this page

SEO school: link building as votes

Getting links to your online shop basically means getting others to refer to your site, and so telling search engines such as Google that you are “the most popular kid in class” – the one they should pick first.

Just briefly, to be clear: a link is when you click a word, phrase or image on a website and go from one page to another. This text has a link to the home page of our website.

It matters which links you get. In the worst case, the wrong kind of link building can directly harm your rankings in the search engines. Here are some important ground rules you can use when you build links to your site:

  • Quality over quantity

    Never buy a package of 1,000 links for $100. Links from irrelevant sites will probably harm your SEO

  • Relevance

    If you sell children’s clothes, a link from a parenting site such as mumsnet.com is better than a link from a car marketplace such as autotrader.co.uk

  • Variety

    Many online shops (almost) only get links to their home page. It is important that you also get links to product categories, individual products and perhaps any good guides or other content you have.

  • Link text

    A link to your site should ideally contain a relevant keyword. If it goes to the home page, ideally your company name or a keyword for your industry. BUT it is important not to overdo it. If, for example, every link to your product category for trousers contains only the word “trousers”, it can have a negative effect. It should look natural and varied.

  • Placement

    A link works best in the middle of a relevant text.

    If the link just sits in a long list with lots of others, it doesn’t have the same effect.

  • Don’t swap links

    If the condition for getting a link somewhere is that you link back, it probably has no effect. Unless that link brings relevant visitors in itself, or the site giving the link is considerably stronger than yours.

SEO link building: fishing

Spending time and money on link building without good content is a bit like fishing without bait.

If you get links to your site and the search engines see a page with little or incomprehensible content, you will get far less out of your link building.

Likewise, if visitors come to your site from a link but don’t find what they are looking for, the effect is lost.

So get your content in order first, as far as you can.

More about content here in the SEO school.

The easiest and most effective way to find out where you can get links to your online shop is often to look at where your competitors have already got a link.

You don’t have to go round every conceivable site, of course, to see whether they have a link there.

Instead, use a smart tool. There are lots of SEO tools – including tools for finding links.

At Golden Planet we have tried many of them. To cut a long story short, the one that generally has the most links and the best metrics is www.linkresearchtools.com (opens in a new tab).

When you have run a report there, you get a wide range of interesting information.

Both about anchor text (the text of the links) and about which links are rated the strongest. Here is a small glimpse of a report:

SEO school: LinkResearchTools report (opens a larger image)

It is VERY IMPORTANT that you don’t uncritically try to get all the links your competitors have. Links that look suspicious and don’t meet the ground rules we mentioned earlier should be considered carefully or skipped.

Your suppliers are a good and obvious source of links. Many already have a page listing their retailers, and if not, you can always encourage them to create one.

It is worth taking the opportunity to try to get a link that goes not to your home page but straight to the product category where you have the supplier’s products. Not everyone will do that, though, and a link to your home page is of course better than no link.

If there are portals that are relevant to your products or your target group, they are also a good place to get links.

If they are good portals with lots of visitors, or they are strong in the search engines, it may well be good business to pay for a link there.

You can often find these portals with an ultra-short/general search on Google. If you sell children’s clothes, for example, search for “children”; if you sell dog equipment, search for “dog” and so on.

SEO school: links from blogs

Some enthusiasts in a field are not content with spending time on portals and forums. They also create their own website as a blog.

The best blogs attract other enthusiasts, and others link to the content on the blog.

That is why these blogs can be good both for your link building and for getting visitors who buy.

One way to get links from these blogs is to contact the owner and suggest working together. For example, you could send some product samples in return for a review – with a link straight to the product or product category, naturally. In return, the blogger might keep the product after the test.

Start with the blogs you know – or find more by searching Google for relevant words together with the word “blog”.

If you are a member of a trade association or similar, such as Dansk Erhverv (opens in a new tab) (the Danish Chamber of Commerce, formerly FDIH; in Danish), it is often a good way to get a strong and relevant link.

Check the association’s website and get in touch if you can’t find a link to your website there. And ideally it should not be a link swap where you have to link back to them.

Method 6: Media and press releases

Coverage in well-known media can be an excellent way to get both attention and a good link. If you have already had some press coverage but no link, contact the journalist and ask whether a link could be added.

Writing a good story for a press release that has an effect is a speciality in itself. Search Google or elsewhere and you will find lots of good guides.

If you want to learn more about link building, here is some further reading:

Here is a video from the SEO specialist Anders Saugstrup about how he helped a client get some good, relevant links. It is not an online shop, but it is good inspiration for how good content can be the key to getting really good links:

Elite links – a public casePlay video: Elite links – a public case (opens YouTube)
Video in Danish