Link Building, or inbound links from other sites, can be important to the competitive success of your business blog. You may have a great blog solution, with all the features search engines love. You may have terrific outbound & deep internal linking, placed perfectly throughout your blog in the most relevant anchor text. You may be the most consistent and on topic blogger there is, but for the most sought after topics [i.e. New York City Real Estate] inbound link recognition is a key element.

Now, we want to be on record: by no means are we saying the entire emphasis of your business blogging effort should be links and search engine results. We have so many clients that succeed in the search engines without strong inbound links, but in their case [for the most sought after key phrases] it’s likely that a lot of the competition hasn’t established those links either. What’s more, the development of trust, an authoritative online brand, a more human online presence and/ or multiple direct subscriptions are of immense importance. Per Valencia CA Realtor Connor MacIVOR, “The visibility in search engines is only part of the equation. People want flesh and blood.” Depending on your individual goals, all of the above can bring success and they are attainable with or without links and competitive search engine results.

The way search engines evaluate a link is proprietary [ according to Google, "suprisingly little is known" ], but the consensus is the best inbound links have three attributes including 1) they come from highly ranked sites, 2) the site’s focus should be related to the topic you blog about and 3) they should link to your pages from relevant keywords or anchor text. So, for example, if you are in residential Real Estate try and 1) establish links from sites that have a high Page Rank. Seek 2) important industry, social networks and/ or directory sites. And, do your best to have 3) links come from text that accurately describe your site’s page.

Link building is tough! Naturally generated Links or Link Bait is always the best way. Simply put, great content attracts interest and eventually inbound links. You can also create some of your own inbound linking from various social media & directory sites, but it is at times difficult to know where your hard work will bear fruit. For instance, some of those sites may place Robots Exclusion Standard on user created links OR there could be a sudden de- emphasis by the search engines. Because the success of Google’s [Yahoo’s, MSN’s, etc.] business depends on their ability to satisfy searchers with the best user experience possible, they have to constantly change their rules. It’s only logical change affects the emphasis of various inbound links: what is a great link one day, may not be tomorrow. The Google algorithm is known to have over 200 individually weighted criteria, all levered to accurately evaluate and rank a site’s content. Says Google, “We’re constantly experimenting with our algorithm, tuning and tweaking on a weekly basis to come up with more relevant and useful results for our users.” In effect, Google truly wants to level the playing field for good content [on every specific subject] so they can successfully return the best, most relevant search results possible.

So before you jump in, know that good content is no. 1; know what a good link is; know that pursuing them is time consuming & difficult; know that what works today, may not the next day…  but also know [the good news is!] that it is as tough for your competitors as it is for you.

To become more aware of link building strategies, techniques and general search engine optimization here are some great resources:

1. SEO Book Blog
2. Search Engine Land
3. Search Engine Watch
4. Audette Media
5. SEMOZ
6. Matt Cutts