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Link Building Tip: How to Do It the Smart Way

Link Building Tip: How to Do It the Smart Way

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Your competitors just met their match...

SEO traffic is something that we all crave for; even those bloggers who say they could care less what their Google rankings are - yeah, right.

It’s true that there are many factors that go into deciding where in the search engine hierarchy your site will fall - anything from how well you do your on-page optimization, like your title, description, H1-H6 tags, etc to, of course, how many and what quality links you have.

  • If you are interested in learning more about search engine ranking factors, take a look at this post at SEOMoz - it’s an oldie, meaning the importance of certain factors has shifted one way or the other, but the general picture remains the same.

Why Link Building is Still a Must

One of the factors that is still going strong is backlinks.

I remember how in one of my Sunday Coffee with Ana posts (which I, unfortunately, had to stop doing due to work overload), one misguided participant said that links didn’t matter any longer.

I don’t know where he learned his SEO, but just for fun, here’s the chart that strongly suggests otherwise (the chart was sent to me by Randy Pickard after he read the comment I referred to above - great networking skills on his part, by the way):

search engine ranking factors graph

With that being said, the reason for this post is a question I got from one of my dear online friends and loyal readers:

Ana, I have no clue how to even start a link building campaign. What do I do first? What’s the best way to find links that will help me rank better?

Link Building Ana’s Way (the easy way)

So what do I do find the best possible linking partners for any given keyword?

Since I am very big on leverage, I go straight to my competitors and see what they’ve got that I can use.

Go back to Step 2 (Study Your Competition) and Step 3 (Make a Plan) of my 7 Steps to Complete Search Engine Domination workbook to read more in depth about how I do competition research.

However, for the sake of this post, I will tell you about the only one I ever use - Market Samurai.

Quick video summary:

  1. Create a new project for your keyword.
  2. Go to “SEO Competition”.
  3. Generate results for the top 10 competitors for your keyword.
  4. From the drop down arrow next to URL, click on PR Analysis.
  5. Go get a cup of coffee while Market Samurai fetches all the backlinks your top competitor has.
  6. After you have the list, click on “Anchor Text Analysis” - this function will get you all the anchor texts used by your competitor for the backlinks you just fetched.
  7. Go get as many same/similar links as you can.
  8. Rinse and repeat with competitor #2.
  9. Do all your link building SLOWLY and OVER TIME.

If you don’t have a copy of Market Samurai yet, don’t fret: here’s the link to a free trial, so you’ll be able to see what I am talking about first hand.

Plus, you’ll get an awesome 35% discount should you decide to buy it (and you most definitely should).

Try Market Samurai now for free!

Marketing Takeaway

Link building is a must.

Market Samurai is the easiest way I know to build links. Period.

And in response to my friend’s question about where to start his link building, I sent him a file that included my Market Samurai research of his competitors. 🙂

Opinions? Rebuttals? Comment to show me that you’re alive!

ana hoffman link building

49 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. Ana, this was a fantastic read, I learned a few things about link building that I never even thought of. I wanted to say, however, that you should look at your site through an iPad. Your social links overlay is the middle of the page covering over the content making reading quite annoying. Have someone you know who has an iPad confirm. Just trying to help!

  2. Ana, You have such an awesome blog and the tips are superb.
    If its possible can you suggest some good ways to generate traffic for my social bookmarking website?
    It is - ReadAndRefer.com

    • Networking with other bloggers would be the best way to go, Mukul - commenting, guest posting, getting to know them, etc.

  3. Hi Ana, question: when you analyze the backlinks of a competitor, are you seeing their backlinks across their entire domain or just for the page that is ranking for the keyword you are researching?

    • I always analyze competition for the specific keyword, Erik, and if it’s their home page that’s ranking, then I look at that; if it’s a specific page, then yes, I analyze the specific page.

      However, the entire domain authority comes into play whatever the keyword.

      For instance, Wikipedia will probably outrank me even if they have no links to a specific page; purely because of the site authority.

  4. Thanks for the clear explanation Ana. I remember trying out a demo of MS a while back and never really had a chance to get into it. I think I will look into it a little closer. You can’t know too much about the competition!

  5. You’re right, Wayne. MS is awesome and you can’t blame most people (present company excluded of course 😉 ) for preferring the “fun stuff”.

    Have an awesome weekend!

  6. Hi Ana,
    I totally agree with the importance of link building and I love you have followers who help defend your positions

    Says something about how loyal your followers, because of your great content

    Thank you for the contribution,
    Jeff

  7. I’ve used this method before. It’s pretty good but when your competitor is using all their own sites that they have made over the years to get their backlinks from it makes it difficult to get a lot of the same links.

    P.S. It looks like your keyword function isn’t working. Is it something to do with other plugins you have or your theme?

    • That’s very true, Darren - sometimes the best link building strategy (and the only one) is to wait for your present links to age.

      PS I’ve had some problems with my database and have a few glitches I need to work out, keyword function being one of them.

  8. That Market Samurai tactic is exactly how I found your blog! Now I’m just hanging around reading more posts because you have a lot of great info here 🙂

  9. Ah! I have Market Samurai but not used it for getting back links. Thank you for reminding me to use it.

  10. Hi Ana,

    Great info! I use Market Samurai for keyword research but haven’t used this feature yet for Link Building. Thanks for sharing. You’re providing a ton of value here!

    Steve Hawk

  11. Yeah, Market Samurai is a must for every web master. It’s true there are other ways to study your competition, but Market Samurai makes it a lot easier and faster. It’s worth every money.
    I’ve also seen people saying backlinks don’t matter, but these guys probably know nothing about SEO.

  12. Thank you Ana,
    I’m starting to build links to my first site, going for similar links to your competitors seems like a logical way to do it. Going random or link wheel is another way but since I’m new to this I don’t have my own experience yet. We’ll see how it goes. I enjoy your blog.
    Derek

  14. Great stuff, Ana. I remember you also helped me crush my competition with this strategy 😀

    I highly recommend Market Samurai to anyone who hasn’t got yet - it’s a very smart tool.

    Mavis

  15. Market Samurai seems pretty awesome. Why aren’t the best things free? Oh right.

    By the way, who made that ranking algorithm? Is that for Randy’s site or did he get it from somewhere else? I’m trying to figure out if it is an average or just one guy’s experience (not that it wouldn’t be relevant then, just curious).

    Very helpful article!

    Thanks,
    Stephen

  17. Ana, this information here is gold. Never used that feature “anchor text analysis”. Way to go for finding out that information. Now it’s my turn to grab a cup of coffee and play around 🙂

  19. Fantastic post Ana. I hadn’t use the anchor text/link analysis features of Market Samurai but I did right after this tutorial. Works like a charm. Now I know how to rock my competition right out of position.

    Much appreciated.

  20. With Google being increasinly interested in social footprints, social profiles, social graphs, ect, - I’m wondering if that social part of pie is going to have a much bigger impact. If it will increase, which other slice would be eaten up? Domain age?

  21. Ana,

    Another wonderful tip on how to fully utilize market samurai. A very ingenious tip on back-linking.

    I was wondering where the proof for the chart came from, but i saw Randy already answered that in comments.

    Have a great weekend!

  22. Ana You are trouble Lol, I can’t ever come on this blog and not learn something, today I couldn’t help noticing that nifty ” Look how easy I made this post tweetable” Such a crafty honey You are. Is that a plugin?

    This link building strategy is killer by the way, nice tutorial.

  23. Link building is necessary and it is not a one day game, it needs consistent effort and you have to be active so that in less time you will make more number of links as compared to competitors.

  24. Ana:

    I swear our brains are on the same radio waves! See tomorrow over at my place for proof!! 🙂

    Now, about your post….after reading your search engine domination report, I began analyzing the competition and I gotta say….BEST thing I ever did!!!

    • We’ll see what you’ve got for us tomorrow!

      Competition research is the bomb - let them do all the work. 🙂

  25. Ana -

    Great video, way to look more human. I worry that the perfect bloggers are actually robots…life just isn’t that neat and tidy! Loved the video and your tips as usual.

    Mind if I steal it for my own site? 🙂

    • You are more than welcome to, James. 🙂

      I am not sure what it looks like to you, but it’s never neat and tidy on my side… I suppose, it’s called life?

      Good to see you here!

  26. I first learned about MS when I joined the 30 Challenge of Ed Dale. It was great as I had the chance to fully test drive all of MS features and I have to say that it is great. I use it a lot for searching Domains but never did use it for linking building. Something to look at. Thanks

    • I am the opposite - never used it for domain research (no need for it, really), but I used it for keyword research and competition analysis all the time.

      As always, it’s great to see you here, Francisco.

  27. OK, its official, I love you! You have given me so much information on traffic and blogging. The tip you just emailed me on tagging photographs just confirmed what I should have already known. Thanks Ana, its always a pleasure to get your latest information.

    • I actually did know that, but somehow forgot to include it.

      I don’t mind you being my source, Randy. 🙂

  29. Hi Ana,
    I’m using Market Samurai too and I’m really glad you introduced me to it. For me it’s much more fun to research keywords on MS than on any of the free tools available. My main goal is looking for keywords with a good amount of search volume with low levels of competition.
    It’s interesting though the page rank plays such a huge roll even though we know that the toolbar page rank isn’t really accurate. I guess it’s the best we can do for now though.

    Thanks for the demo.

    • Glad you are enjoying MS, Ileane.

      I do absolutely love it and use it daily.

      As far as PR is concerned, it’s just like you said - everyone knows it’s a terrible metric, but it’s the best we’ve got. Maybe someday they’ll turn to MOZRank instead.

      When I do this competition research, I don’t rely on PR to know if it’s a good link for me, but it gives me a good initial idea of what links are worth looking into first.

  30. Hey Ana,

    Thats a wonderful way to find backlinks that your competitor has.. and utilize those sources to build up your links over time..

    I use Market Samurai as well and have never thought about this, thks for this tip. Will fire up Market Samurai and check this out!

    Cheers
    Sandeep