Organic link building – a contradiction in terms?

Not if you use this system to gain link popularity - organically, without artificial link inflation. And you don’t need a Ph.D. to implement it either. This is a very simple way to go about building great links to your website – developed by our years of practice.

OK, so I did all the grunt work – with regression analysis.

Back in my school days, I came across regression analysis. OK, don’t get scared! It’s just a word, and words can’t hurt you. But if you want to read into it, here it is. We’ll say a few things about regression analysis, though.

Regression analysis is the process of guessing. That’s it. Take a look at the image to the right. If the line that the little man is drawing was NOT there, would you be able to draw that line? Of course you could. And the method below is just that; regression analysis hidding in a simple step-by-step process. Just follow the steps and you’ll do great!

Why are links considered important by search engines?

Because they’re hard to fake - organic link building is a natural outgrowth of interest and age of your website. Therefore search engines like Google use it to  judge a website’s relative worth (along with many other factors, but let’s just focus on link building, shall we?

Why is ‘organic’ link building really important?

There are a billion ways to artificially stimulate links to your website, and none of them, repeat, none of them work – Google and other search engines are wise to them. You can even get banned from search engines by doing ‘black hat’ techniques. This method does stimulate the process, but is in no way artificial in nature.

The Steps to Link Building, Organically.

1. Find the right keyword to start.

Be super-specific in your root keyword. We’re going to find one, just one, keyword that describes your business. I am going to use my example for Ultimate Restoration, LLC in Danbury, CT. Part of their business that they are trying to stimulate is their full auto restorations – start to finish “muscle car perfection”. They want to attract new potential customers that have the money and time to take an old muscle car and make it showroom quality and winner’s circle capable. So how do we define it?

‘Restoration’ is way too wide. If you just use the term restoration, it will bring in house restorations, car restorations, etc. You’re not going to get anywhere.

‘Muscle cars’ is too wide. Again, it will bring up muscle car sales terms and magazines, too wide.

‘Muscle car restoration’ is getting better. That’s more like it – you’re getting closer, but since there are some geographic considerations (people in Japan will be less likely to ship their cars than in Connecticut), we also include the term connecticut.

‘Muscle car restoration connecticut’ is just right. Let’s start with that.

muscle car restoration connecticut

2. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find keyword variants.

NOTE: We use the word keyphrase to describe a keyword phrase (more than one keyword) – so the phrase muscle car restoration connecticut is a keyphrase made up of 4 keywords.

Do this search on the Google AdWords Keyword Tool: muscle car restoration connecticut

Filter out keywords that don’t make sense. Some words that it will capture won’t make sense to the search. Filter them. I filtered…

sale, parts, history

Identify the adjective variants of ‘muscle’. There will always be variants of the adjectives and nouns that you use. Some synonyms are vintage, antique, and classic. Some of the words might not be suitable, you’ll just have to wing it.

Identify the noun variants of ‘car’. This includes auto, vehicle and the like.

Look for additional words that might be important. Words like shop or shops might be very helpful, if you come up with nothing down below. Keep them in mind. Also, I chose one that used the word ct instead of connecticut.

3. Pick 4 keyphrases from the original keyphrase (a best guess).

Pick 3 variants of the original keyphrase muscle car restoration connecticut.

We picked…

4. Do a search on Google.

Enter the 4 keyword phrases above into Google in separate tabs. Open your favorite browser and open 4 tabs. I am sure you know how to do this!

Find sites in common. What’ you’re looking for is sites that come up on more than one of the searches.

These are your competitors, or your new best friends. They might be competitors, or directories that have lists of auto shops that do classic car restoration. Whatever the case, treat them like competitors. Here is what we found:

• ss396.com: a bit too specific: Ultimate Restoration Auto Center does all types of cars… but it shows a specialty site doing it right,
• MIKE’S MUSCLE & CLASSIC CARS Repair and Restoration Shop: A great competitor, close by and across the board findable in 2 of the 4 searches
• Franks Auto Care Collision Repair Custom Paint Classic Car: Comes up in all 4 searches, but notice that…
• in the first search, muscle car restoration connecticut, Frank’s comes up in another directory, called hotfrog.com. This is an important find, as you will see below.

There are others, but we’ll let them go for now.

5. Do a link:search on competitor sites.

The results are link sites that you should be in. Now that we have some competitors in sight (Mike’s, Frank’s) we’ll do a ‘who links to them’ search. That way, you’ll find the directories that they are in (and you should be too!)

Do this search:

• link:www.everythingmuscle.com – two links…
  • http://www.greatcarstv.com/resources/services-restoration-&-repair/
  • Restoration Resources, Auto Restorers, Collector Car Resources …
• link:ss396.com – not topical
• link:mikesmuscleandclassiccars.com - no results
• link:franksautocareonline.com – no results
• (hotfrog you cannot get info from, but hotfrog itself is a directory to add your site to)

If you find link sites in common, you’ve hit gold. These are sites that Google considers authorities (and NOT artificial). In this particular search, you’re not finding much in terms of common ‘linkers’ – but that’s alright.

We also found somewhere (you’ll get a lot of that) http://www.classicjunkyard.com/restorers/CT.html – which seems like a great site to add ourselves to. We checked the blog and there are current entries.

6. Attack!

Enter your website into those linking sites. Now that we have established a few sites we can add ourselves to, do it!

Is it a directory? Then join. We found http://www.greatcarstv.com/resources/services-restoration-&-repair/ – so add yourself to it. Same goes for http://www.automotive-links.com/par/res/res.htm

Is it a social site? Then get connected. During our search we found a great site for restoration called FQuick. These types of social sites (that are specialized into certain occupations) are cropping up daily. Use them! Become a member and work it!

Is it a competitor? Then ask yourself why a competitor would allow a link to a potential competitor. If you find a site that links to competitors, you have to ask yourself why. For instance, on many sites we found links to other restoration businesses in New Jersey (they don’t overlap that much in terms of business, so it’s safe).

Also, do a general search. Just search google with your original search custom car restoration connecticut and see what pops up. You’ll be amazed at what you can find. This is especially good in finding social and vertical directories.

Did you find a directory of shops close to your shop? Do a link:search on them. We found a directory here…. http://www.classicjunkyard.com/restorers/CT.html – now you can do the searching again with link:search.

7. Now, do a search for you.

Tailor this process to your product or service. Remember, the more specific you can get with the initial keyword phrase, the better off you’ll be!

Enjoy the process!