Internet Marketing Rules, Strategies and Techniques

One of the most basic and fundamental tenants of Internet Marketing success is through the use of back links which are directed to your website or blog from other sites. Although this may seem like a relatively simple concept, the fact is that it is a very challenging and delicate SEO process to employ.
As for expertise in this arena I would defer to my dear friend Griz who is currently hard at work on a campaign that could truly use some help from everyone: Problogger.com What is Griz Doing?



LINKING RISKS

As with any Internet Marketing technique, there are potential risks attributable to having other sites linking to your site. This is because any given site could ultimately turn out to be a bad reference or otherwise have less than a reputable character with the search engines; thereby possibly imputing that status upon your site. Although the exact nature and art of search engine algorithms is not a perfected science or technology that any expert can state or predict, it still holds true that erring on the side of caution is the best rule to apply when it comes to Internet Marketing Strategies and Techniques. Nevertheless, back links are essential and webmasters need them to effectively get sites ranked well in the SERPS. For starters it is important to build links so they look natural. A natural link looks like it was built by a user, not a webmaster. Normal users don’t care about anchor texts and so if all your links look like they have been professionally built your may be in some trouble! To avoid this potential trouble, you don’t only have high value keywords in your links, but also some links saying “cool site”, “brand name x”, “click here” or even a longer phrase. If you over optimize your site you will have a hard time attaining trust rank -- and trust rank is very important!


DOMAIN TRUST RANK

Domain trust rank concerns the trust of your domain and the trust of the domain linking to you. Essentially this means that you need links from trusted sites in order to become trusted by Google, Yahoo, and Bing (MSN)!
The trust of linking to and from domains is important, as well as the domain age, domain brand, and co-citations associated with your site. All of these factors make up the trust rank of your website, but co-citations are of more significance than what most common webmasters may know. Concerning those factors co-citations are of great importance.
Co-Citation is a popular similarity measure used to establish a subject similarity between two items. Example: If site A and site B are both cited by site C, they may be said to be related to one another, even though they don't directly reference each other. If site A and site B are both cited by many other sites, they have a stronger relationship. The more sites they are cited by, the stronger their relationship is. However, like anything else there is both bad and good co-citation.
Another term that most webmasters are familiar with when it comes to link building is “Bad Neighbourhood”. This is simply a case of a co-citation that points to the fact that not only who you link to is important, but also who is linked on the same sites with you! Even if you are not directly linked to bad sites, that fact that you are on the same site pages with bad guys means that you already have a problem... What trust rank means is that link quality is relative! If your domain is trusted it will respond differently and more quickly to links. As such, what this signifies is that you should built "trust" not only back links! Here's some examples of bad and good co-citation:
Bad Co-citation: Let us suppose that you have a site about fishing tackle and you’re on the hunt for back links. Let’s say you bought an advertiser link on a page where you’re Fishing Tackle link looks like this:

Paid Advertisements:
Online Gambling
Online Casinos
Online Betting
Gambling Online
Fishing Tackle
Cheap Viagra
Prescription Drugs
Phentermine Cheap
Cheap Drugs Online


By placing your site link in a place such as this, the search engines will think that your site must have something to do with prescription drugs and gambling. Why? Well, because the search engines look at the pages that link to you, and they say "Who else does that page link to" because they figure they must be related. So your fishing tackle site is now thought to be related to gambling and drugs. That’s the "Neighborhood" which you’re putting your site in. That is what would constitute bad co-citation.
Now let’s say that you buy lots of links of this nature; and the gambling sites also buy lots of links of this nature… and on lots of pages where you buy your links, they also buy links… Now you have really got some serious bad co citation going on! No matter what, even though you never link to each other, your back links keep appearing together on other sites of this nature and you’re site is considered similar to the gambling and drug sites!
This is absolutely terrible for the SERPS! Good co-citation: Getting a link from a directory page such as Yahoo Directory page for Fishing Tackle is Excellent for your co citation! Why? Because the other links on that page are all about fishing tackle as well. If you’re site link is listed on that page, then the search engines will give you the co citation of "fishing tackle" (by looking at the other links on that specific page that links to you). Additionally, just suppose that you’re also in DMOZ with a lot of the same fishing tackle companies that are also in the Yahoo Directory pages. Now you have some seriously authentic and quality co citation with the right types of sites and you’re getting into the "Fishing Tackle Neighborhood" through lots of co citation with other fishing tackle sites.
This is excellent for the SERPS!


DO FOLLOW AND NO FOLLOW BACK LINKS

Seasoned webmasters and IM experts know that sites which provide "Do Follow" attributes are the best. Unfortunately a good number of do follow sites are not willing to simply share their PR juice with just anyone. For the reasons noted above they are not willing to get sand boxed or otherwise have their PR affected because they linked-out to some spam or black-hat site. Although there are many sources which provide quality do follow links for a fee, this likely is not a viable option that most beginners are able to invest in -- not to mention that it is strictly against policy of all major search engines. Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and a number of other sites do offer free "Do Follow" back links on your profile and these sites have good standing with all the major search engines. If you build links, do you build no follow back links on relevant pages as well? You should because you don’t look at PageRank when it comes to attaining trust rank. If you link from a site with the no follow tag, even though page rank is not passed on, that sites relevancy and trust is passed on! The funny thing is that the average user does not care about no follow! If you were to ask the everyday guy what a no follow is, he will have no clue and probably does not care because he does not have to.


ANCHOR TEXT BACK LINKS

Many webmasters may or may not know that simply providing the same anchor text back link to your site may be problematic. Since anchor text filters are in full effect since 2006, varying your anchor texts is key today and the old SEO mechanism of repeatedly using the same anchor texts for back links is no longer an effective technique. Internet Marketing Strategies and Techniques have very essential and sensitive components and rules which must be followed, and if you do not follow them don't expect to have any success whatsoever.