In our blog, we have already mentioned external website promotion as an important component of Internet promotion in general. Well, today, we decided to focus on this topic in a comprehensive manner, having prepared a comprehensive article for you. We will tell you what external SEO promotion is, what components it consists of, and how to carry it out correctly without missing anything important. We suggest that, without further ado, we move directly to the topic!
External optimization: what is it?
External optimization (or external promotion) is a popular method of promoting websites in search engines by increasing external links to the promoted website in order to improve its position in search results.
The point is that the more authoritative resources link to your site, the more authoritative it becomes in the “eyes” of Google. And vice versa, if other sites do not link to you, Google considers your resource less authoritative and relevant. That is, roughly speaking, the more external links – the higher the site’s position in search results. Of course, in practice, everything is a little more complicated, but for a general understanding, this explanation is quite sufficient.
What is the difference between internal and external optimization
Internal optimization involves improving the parameters and content of the site. Main works:
- page code optimization;
- working with website navigation, its structure, content (texts, headings, images);
- internal linking of pages;
- technical aspects and more.
External optimization is aimed at promoting the resource beyond its borders. It involves:
- link profile analysis;
- working with external links;
- promotion of content on third-party platforms;
- SMM and promotion in social networks;
- registration in thematic ratings, catalogs, etc.
Both types of optimization are important and complement each other. Their combination gives the maximum SEO effect for the site.
What stages does external optimization consist of?
External optimization is the process of increasing the link mass of a site, i.e., increasing the number of links to it placed on other resources. It consists of the following stages:
- Determining the frequency of links: It is important to choose the optimal growth rate of the link mass so as not to arouse suspicion in search engines.
- Donor verification: It is necessary to analyze the quality and authority of web resources where links will be placed in order to prevent the negative impact of the link mass on the site’s position.
- Obtaining natural backlinks: It is necessary to stimulate the placement of links to the web resource in blogs, social networks, forums, and other sites where there is a potential audience.
- Optimizing anchor text: You need to select relevant and diverse keywords and phrases that will be used as link text.
The final stage is monitoring and analytics. It is necessary to track the effectiveness of external optimization, using special tools and services to adjust the strategy and eliminate possible errors.
What types of links are there?
There are several types of external links that are used to promote a website.
- Eternal. They are paid for once, and they remain on the donor resource forever. Search engines evaluate this option positively, since it increases the level of trust in the platform. Eternal links are considered the most effective way to promote a site.
- Natural. They are aimed at people, so they are valued by search algorithms. In addition, they increase the chance of visitors clicking through.
- Rented. The resource owner pays for them every month. When used en masse, they improve the site’s traffic well.
- Article and banner. The former are often placed in blogs and social networks. Banners attract potential visitors with their bright design.
How to buy links to a site for promotion? The main thing is that they should be natural, semantic, from authoritative and thematic resources. This will allow you to get the desired result.
What influences external website optimization (external factors)
The most obvious factor is the number of links. But there is a nuance here too. Not only the quantity, but also the quality of links is important. Conventionally speaking, 10 incoming links from authoritative resources will be much more effective than 100 from dubious and non-authoritative sources. Therefore, chasing only the number is not the best strategy.
In addition, there are other important factors to consider:
- Link mass growth rate. The volume of links should be increased gradually and regularly. Such growth looks natural for ranking algorithms. And vice versa, if you have 100 incoming links in a week, then there was a month of “calm”, and then another +100 links, this looks unnatural, and Google takes this into account.
- Link traffic. If you have a lot of incoming links, but users do not click on them, such external SEO promotion will not be particularly effective either. This means that the content in which links are integrated must be useful, relevant to the reader and motivate him to go to your site.
- Subject Matter. It is very important to select donor sites that match your subject matter. For example, an article with links about air conditioners will fit quite organically into a tech blog, but will be completely out of place on a culinary site. This is also important to take into account.
- Diversity of anchor list. Anchors are texts that have links embedded into them. They should contain different links and use different words and phrases — direct and indirect occurrences of keywords. Or they may not contain keywords at all — depending on which strategy you choose. Anchorless links are also actively used.
And remember that the quality of published materials must be high. The times of “watery” SEO texts without any semantic load are long gone.
Analysis of the website’s link profile
There are quite a few services that can be used to conduct a detailed analysis of a website’s link profile to make external SEO promotion more effective:
- Ahrefs is one of the most popular tools for link profile analysis. It provides extensive data on backlinks, keywords, traffic, and other metrics.
- Moz is a service that offers tools for link profile analysis, including reports on backlink quality, domain authority, and keywords.
- Majestic – specializes in link profile analysis and provides data on the number of backlinks, domain authority, etc.
- SEMrush – Allows you to analyze your link profile, keywords, and other SEO-related parameters. It also offers competitive research and market analysis.
- CognitiveSEO – provides tools for link profile analysis and monitoring and also has functions for conducting a site audit and tracking positions in search engines.
These platforms allow you to get truly comprehensive information about the link profile of a web resource. However, it is important to understand which parameters need to be taken into account first. More on that below!
How to choose quality sites for placing links
We recommend that you approach the selection of donor sites with particular care. They must meet a number of criteria:
- Topical match. The closer the donor site’s topic is to your site’s topic, the better. The match doesn’t have to be 100%, but closeness is important. This will make the links look natural and will help drive relevant traffic to your site.
- Authority and reputation. Donor sites should have a high level of trust from search engines, good traffic and indexing indicators. They should not be overloaded with advertising, spam and irrelevant links.
- Content quality. Such sites should contain unique, useful and relevant content that matches the topic and user requests.
- Diversity. When selecting donor sites, try to look for sites of different types and formats – blogs, forums, directories, aggregators, social networks, etc. Do not use donor sites from one network or platform.
- Number of outgoing links. The more links are placed on the donor site, the less weight your resource will receive. If you see that there are too many outgoing links, the site probably cooperates with exchanges. And this is not very good for effective promotion.
- No sanctions and filters. Such sanctions and filters can be imposed on suspicious sites, which will subsequently lead to a decrease in the rating of your resource. Moreover, in some cases, even your website can be subject to sanctions.
Therefore, we emphasize once again: approach the selection of donor sites with the utmost responsibility!
Optimal sizes of external link mass
External link mass is the number of links to your site placed on other resources. There is no clear answer to the question of how many links are needed for optimal website promotion. It depends on many factors:
- Competitiveness of the niche and key queries;
- Age and authority of the web resource;
- Topics and quality of donor sites;
- Types and formats of links;
- Anchor and near-link texts;
- Dynamics, frequency of links, etc.
In general, it can be said that the external link mass should be natural, relevant, diverse, high-quality, and built up gradually and without sudden jumps. To analyze and optimize the external link mass, you can use various services and tools, such as Google Search Console, Serpstat, and others. With their help, you can find out the quantity and quality of your external links, as well as identify and eliminate possible problems and errors, and make link exchange for website promotion more effective.
Effective methods of external website optimization
External promotion is a complex task. And if you want to get really good results, you need to learn how to combine different methods, wisely distribute the budget and resources. Let’s consider the main components of external promotion!
Placing information about the site in directories and reference books
One of the simplest and most accessible methods of external optimization is registration in thematic directories and reference books. These are specialized sites that collect and classify websites and links by different categories and topics. Thus, you can:
- Get additional links to the site, thereby increasing its authority for search engines;
- Attract targeted visitors who are looking for information, products or services in catalogues and directories;
- Increase brand awareness and trust.
Many of these sites offer free listings, so this is definitely an opportunity you shouldn’t miss.
Participation in discussions on forums and social networks (crowd marketing)
This is another effective, but a bit labor-intensive method. The idea is to participate in various discussions on the web, referring to your site. This way, you can:
- Get lots of natural links to your site and attract more targeted traffic.
- Increase brand awareness, demonstrate your expertise, answer relevant questions from the target audience and give useful advice.
- Increase loyalty and engagement of potential customers.
The complexity of this method is obvious – to find relevant sites and maintain activity on different forums and social networks, you need a team of specialists. Because doing crowd marketing on your own is not an easy task.
Publishing articles with links to the site on other resources
Guest publications on third-party sites are an effective method of link building. Moreover, if your texts are high-quality, relevant and up-to-date, you can count on free placement. The advantages of this method are obvious:
- Getting quality and relevant links to your site.
- Increase brand awareness and attract interested customers.
- Increase visitor engagement and stimulate feedback.
But here, as you understand, the quality of the content is of decisive importance. Therefore, you need to approach its creation with all responsibility and attract experts and experienced authors.
Link exchange with partners and thematic sites
This is another effective and profitable option for external promotion, in which you and another site place links to each other. The main advantage of this method is that it is free. But sometimes, there may be difficulties in finding resources ready for mutual placement. Nevertheless, you can count on several important advantages:
- Obtaining mutually beneficial links to a site in order to increase its authority for search algorithms;
- Increasing the credibility of your site if you exchange links with reputable and relevant sites that have a good reputation and a large audience;
- Attracting potentially interested users for whom your offer may be relevant.
Sometimes, the discussion of such partner publications can take a little while, plus the owners of both resources must prepare the materials, which also takes time. But this method is still absolutely working and really profitable.
Buying links on specialized exchanges
Link exchanges are special platforms that provide the opportunity to buy and sell links. Although we are somewhat skeptical about this method, it still works. And it is not entirely correct to dismiss it completely. With the right approach, buying links on the exchange can provide several advantages:
- Active and systematic increase of the external link mass of the site without any special efforts on your part.
- Obtaining various links to a site based on different parameters, such as subject matter, region, trust, etc.
- Control over the process of purchasing and placing links.
The main rule: do not buy links thoughtlessly and do not act blindly. It is very important to control where and under what conditions you are placed.
Attracting targeted traffic for branded queries
Branded queries are search queries that contain the name of your website or company. Attracting targeted traffic through branded queries allows you to:
- get high-converting traffic, as users who search for your site or company by name are already interested in your offer and are inclined to buy or take action;
- increase brand awareness and trust in the site, because search engines take into account the popularity of the brand when ranking sites and highlight branded queries in the search results;
- increase visitor loyalty and engagement because you can offer them additional benefits or bonuses for visiting the site with a branded query.
At the same time, you should take into account that for young and little-known brands, such promotion may not give the expected high results. In addition, it requires the creation and development of a strong and recognizable brand that will interest and attract users. And this requires a lot of time, effort and money.
External optimization errors
One of the most common mistakes in external optimization is an inadequate volume and rate of link building. For example, you buy or place too many links in a short period of time, without taking into account the competitiveness of the niche, the age and authority of your site, as well as the naturalness and diversity of links. Such an approach can lead to search engines suspecting you of unfair promotion and punishing you by lowering your positions or excluding you from the index.
Another common mistake in external optimization is the low quality and relevance of links. You should not place them on sites that are not related to your topic, are not trusted and respected by search engines and users, or contain malicious or prohibited content. The impact of external links on the site’s position will be negative – search engines may consider them spam or an attempt to manipulate rankings.
Another common error in external optimization is unnatural anchor text (used as a link to your site). It affects the relevance of a web resource for search queries, as well as its perception by users. However, SEO specialists and site owners often abuse anchor text, using too many exact or partial keyword matches, without taking into account semantic and synonymous queries. As a result, search engines may regard this as over-optimization and lower positions.
Checklist for external website optimization
We offer you a small checklist that will help make external website promotion more effective:
- Create quality and unique content. Your publications with links should be relevant and useful. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about a large thematic longread or a short message on a forum. Relevance, usefulness and relevance to the topic are mandatory!
- Build a quality link profile. Develop a strategy for getting backlinks from relevant and authoritative resources, study competitors’ profiles, use different link acquisition methods – guest and partner posts, links from social media, etc.
- Generate social signals. Create and manage social media accounts, stay active, encourage users to interact with your posts and share them.
- Optimize local search. Register with local search services like Google My Business. Make sure your business information is up to date, collect customer reviews, and respond to them. This also affects external promotion.
- Increase your website loading speed. Optimize graphic content, enable server caching, minimize the number and size of CSS and JavaScript files if possible.
- Create a quality link structure. Use clear and informative anchor texts for internal and external links. The reader should understand where this or that link will lead him.
- Conduct analysis and monitoring. Use analytics tools such as Google Analytics to track your site traffic and user behavior, and regularly check SEO metrics such as search rankings and backlinks.
Conclusion
Finally, we would like to say that external website promotion is a more complex and multi-level process than it may seem at first glance. While simply buying links may have been effective years ago, today, this approach risks wasting your budget without delivering the desired results. A thoughtful, strategic approach is necessary for success.
We hope this information was relevant and useful to you. And remember: if you’re looking for comprehensive external SEO promotion, you can always trust the best SEO agency to handle it professionally.
