When we are talking about link building strategies, one thing is sure : nobody really knows how Google ranks different sites and with the daily algorithm changes it is almost impossible to find out all its ranking factors. However, there are some factors that anyone should be aware of, and one of the most important factors is how your link building profile looks.
Before digging deeper into this subject, we should remind you that before all, it is a demonstrated fact that quality counts more than quantity, whether we are referring to creating content or building links for a website. With the algorithm changing each day, nowadays we cannot know for sure whether link numbers matter most or content, social media presence etc, but let’s see some points related to link profile.
1. Nofollow – dofollow ratio
Most people concentrate on getting only dofollow links, but does this look natural in Google bots’ eyes ? A website gathering links from different channels will definitely have nofollow as well so be prepared to take this into account when starting your link building strategy.
2. Valuable VS non-valuable links
Now an again, a natural link profile should definitely have in « portfolio » links from low blogs as well ; a link profile with let’s say 90% dofollow links from homepages will definitely pull the triggers and raise the red flag.
3. Anchor text diversity
Yes, you try to rank for a competitive keyword, however building links only with that anchor text is unusual. Add to your links portfolio long-tail anchors, links without any anchor, usual « here » links and so on.
4. Social bookmarking sites
There are many automating tools that can easily bring hundreds of links from social bookmarking sites, this is not unusual at all. However, having the same text describing the link could again pull some triggers and release « Google’s hammer » upon your website.
5. Link diversity
Probably the most important aspect is link diversity. Concentrate your link building efforts on multiple channels, from social media, forums, blog comments, directories to home-page links, review links and so on. This is one of the best strategies to keep your link profile looking natural now and again.