At this point you should understand why you need links and what you need to do to get them. Every link you get to point to your site is like a little rocket booster that works to propel your website higher up the search rankings. You should also understand that quality can be vastly more important than quantity. Let’s put it this way. A weak link is like a tiny firecracker. Technically it can provide some lift, but it’s never going to get you to the moon. However, a really great link is more like a rocket booster. A few of those can get you to the moon (or in this case, to the top of Google’s search results).
The problem is, as you would expect, weak links are fairly easy to get, while super strong links can be quite difficult.
Well… would you like to know how to turn a weak link into a Super Charged Turbo Booster? Because that is exactly what you are about to learn.
Previously we discussed how to evaluate a potential link. What makes a link weak or strong? Basically, it is the same thing that would make your page weak or strong. It has to do with the content and optimization of that page and the backlink profile of that page. Remember, links pass Page Rank and Page Rank influences Google’s rankings (a little oversimplified, but just go with it).
So, it’s easy to get a link from a page that probably doesn’t already have a bunch of links pointing to it. Typically its easier to get links from a new page rather than from an older page.
So, the trick is, build links to the pages that link to you!
This is called a Tiered Linking Strateg. And, if you want that page to be really powerful, then you should build 2-3 tiers of links pointing to it. This can also be called a “Link Pyramid” because each tier of links tends to have more and more links, and if you do this right, all of that Page Rank will flow down the line into your site.
Why would you spend your time building links to pages other than your own? Great question.
Remember how we talked about link building being dangerous? For your first tier links (that is links pointing directly to your site) you want to focus on high quality original content. You want to make sure that you have a very organic looking footprint which requires a lot of diversity in the types of links and anchor text that is pointing directly to your site. So, we want to be very clean and careful and strategic about your first tier links.
But, since your second and third tier links are not pointing directly to your site, you have a much, much, much lower chance of those links causing your site to be penalized.
Also, many studies have been performed by SEO professionals to clearly demonstrate that the anchor text related Page Rank from links on the second and third tier does actually influence the rankings for a target website.
Example: In one study, an SEO put up a new webpage about dog collars and let the page sit for two weeks with no link building. In this time there was no link building and the page did not rank in Google.
Then the SEO built out 10 Tier 1 links with Dog Collar as the anchor text. The page still did not show up in Google.
Then the SEO built out 30 Tier 2 links with the anchor text “flip flappity blue fuzz nfpct”. This nonsense phrase was used because no website was a match for that phrase… therefore it was a good test of Google’s algorithm and the flow of Page Rank.
Remember, these links did not point directly to the target “dog collar” webpage. These links pointed to the Tier 1 pages. Also, the target page did not use the phrase “flip flappity blue fuzz nfpct” anywhere on the page. However, one month after building out the Tier 2 links, the target “dog collar” page jumped up to page one in Google for the search phrase “flip flappity blue fuzz nfpct”.
Conclusion: Anchor text associated Page Rank can flow through multiple layers of links.
It should be noted that although it is unlikely that Google will pass penalties through multiple tiers of links, one way this strategy can get you penalized is if you implement it in a way that creates a pattern that Google can recognize. In other words, if you build out lots of link pyramids using the same exact plan… Google is going to see that and label it a link scheme.
The key to link building is getting links from pages that can pass a lot of PageRank and link juice. Yet, it’s difficult to get links from those pages. But, with tiered linking you can turn just about any webpage into a very powerful page with lots of PageRank and link juice… while insulating your website from the link building penalties that can be associated with lots of low quality links.
Just make sure that you don’t replicate your tiered link building patterns. Mix it up. Always go for an organic looking back link profile and your site will soon be sitting pretty atop Google’s search results.
You Are Now Officially Ready To Rule The Internet!
You have been well schooled in the rules of the Link Building Game. Now go build your network... go build your web!