Link Stacking To Number One

By Jade Dragon

You can buy the right to use this article at Constant Content

Everyone in the SEO world has heard of link building to move up the SERPs but the concept of link stacking is not so well understood.

To engage in link stacking starts with creating links normally.  The two main types of links are links you create and links that other people create.  Good content will encourage other people to spontaneously create links for you but a more proactive approach is needed to build enough links to get your site up in the SERPs to number one.

Create links you control with article directory submissions, social bookmarking services, and by using other websites you own such as free blogs or related niche sites.

Say that your main site sells all kinds of cool gadgets.  You want to drive gadget buyer traffic but Google hardly knows you exist.  You need some links about gadgets to get noticed.

Everyone has heard about article marketing, so you post up some articles on sites like EzineArticles and hope that others use your articles and spread your links.  This helps but your competition has been doing article marketing for years and is way ahead of you in the article submission field.

You may or may not have heard of social bookmarking sites, but now that you know about them you can join SheToldMe.com and Xomba.com to create some short bookmarks with good anchored text titles that point to every page of your main site.  These one way links build authority in Google’s eyes and they are quick to create.  Using these sites also gives you links coming from various domains and IP addresses increasing the credibility of your links.

Another way to build links is to create a free blog about the wonders of gadgets and fill it with a few posts.  In those posts you create some good anchored back links to your main gadget site mentioning red gadgets, green gadgets and cheap gadgets.  Google sees these links and decides your main site is a little more important than before.

You now have some links, but these links are not all created with equal weight in Google’s eyes.  A link from a popular powerful website like CNN.com carries a lot more weight than a link from your new little free blog that no one has heard of.  While it is hard to get the CNN link and easy to build your own free blog for links, the easy links carry a lot less weight for your gadget site.

In SEO the first and second link is a huge improvement over zero links.  This is because most web pages have zero links pointing at them, so getting a couple links is a huge improvement.  The one thousandth and one link is a lot less important than the first few links.  You can use this principle to improve the weight and value of your inbound links.

Implement a link stacking program in a smart way. Essentially you want to create quality one way links that point to pages that further point to your main gadget page.  With other quality links pointing to them, links pointing at your main site become even more important.   The goal is to add weight to all the web pages in the system creating a pile of content that makes your gadget sales site look really important.  The plan looks something like this:

Level 1:  Main Gadget Site

Level 2:  Supporting Articles and Bookmarks with Links to Level 1

Level 3:  Supporting Articles and Bookmarks with Links to Level 1 and Level 2

Level 4:  Supporting Articles and Bookmarks with Links to Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3

This concept can ever be taken further by having pages in the system link sideways and backward to other pages in the stack.  As long as your links are all one way links they will increase the weight of the other links in the system, further adding weight to your main site.

This strategy takes some effort, but the results are going to be hard for others to duplicate.  Your gadget website will be important because other important sites about gadgets (created by you) link to it.  Those other sites are important gadget sites because there are links pointed at them mentioning gadgets.  Your chances of getting highly ranked with some site pointing at your main site greatly increase.

Extend your linking to every site that links to your main site, even if someone else created the link, for maximum benefit.  For example why not create links to a product review written by a blogger.  This strategy will also encourage those other webmasters to continue creating links to your site.

You might even consider creating a few resource pages with links out to several of your link stacking pages.

There are several side benefits from the link stacking strategy.  The web pages you create in the other levels will naturally mention how your gadgets are really good gadgets, creating good buzz about your gadgets off of your main site.

Blogs and some bookmarking sites can be set up to earn you advertising dollars, creating additional income over time that can pay for your link stacking efforts.

In some cases you can also place a banner ad for your gadget site directly on the site you create for link stacking.  Visitors will just assume this is paid advertising on the site and follow the links.

You never know which of your other link stacking sites might rise to the top of the SERPs for a good search string and end up directly feeding your main site with referral traffic.

While planning you next SEO project consider link stacking as a long term sustainable way to increase traffic and help your site rise higher in the SERPs.

For a bunch of good sites and tool to help you link stack, check out this resource page.

Tagged as: linking strategy, Skills