Link Maps – The Future Of SEO

 

There is a new way to do SEO, and it is through link maps.

 

Google has said time and time again that they value quality over quantity when it comes to link building.

 

A contextual link from a high authority relevant site will boost your rankings much more than a 100 links from non related junk sites will.

 

So what does this have to do with link maps?

 

What Are Link Maps?

First let me explain what a link map is.

 

This is a term that I created to describe the way that I do link building (post Google link madness) for high value SEO clients.

 

It is basically describing what the profile of one link to a website looks like if you were to diagram it.

 

For example, if I posted a guest post on a high authority blog and in the guest post linked back to my (or my clients) website, this would be the first step in the link map.

 

Back in the olden days of link building, this is what a link map for pretty much every link would look like.

 

But since we know that one quality link can make all the difference with Google we now proactively boost this link to make it even more powerful minha resposta.

 

How do we boost the link?

 

The first thing we do is make sure that this link gets indexed and counted for us. So we share it socially on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest etc. The more social juice we can pump into the guest post the better.

 

We also invite people to comment on the post. If the blog is not already socially active enough to generate comments then you need to ask friends and family to post comments and share.

 

This will show Google that this page is important.

 

This is looking much better now but our link map is not finished. There is more we can do to make that first guest post as powerful as possible.

 

So what is the next step? We build links to our one powerful link, also known as link stacking.

 

So I would go out to another blog (does not have to be as high authority as the first blog) and do another guest post. Only in this guest post I would link back to the first guest post I did, instead of linking back to my website.

 

I would also again get social signals pointing to that new second guest post. Again, you and you’re friends need to share, like, comment as much as possible to show Google that the post is real and should be counted.

 

Now it is starting to look like something that can pass you real SEO juice.

 

But we’re still not done. Let’s stack the link again.

 

To do this I would go out to yet another related blog and submit another guest post. And like before I would link back to the first guest post (using different anchor text).

 

I would again get social signals pointing to this new guest post and by going through this link stacking process again I would boost the power of the first link one more time.

 

Now you’re probably thinking, “don’t you think this is overkill for just one link?”

 

Remember, it’s now quality over quantity. Instead of spending our time building hundreds or thousands of links to our website, we spend our time building out twenty five to fifty link maps and we get the same result only it is much more effective now and much safer (more on that later).

 

So not only is it not overkill, we’re still not done.

 

In order to ensure that the 2nd tier links that point to my high authority guest post link have power behind them, I am going to stack a link on top of one of those 2nd tier links (and do social signals).

 

Now you’re probably saying to yourself “OK, OK I get it now. We’re going to stack a link on top of the other 2nd tier link to even it out.”

 

Actually, this link map is finished. Now there are a million ways you can lay out a link map, but one thing I like to avoid when I develop a link map is symmetry. Symmetry in life is not natural and we are trying to make our link profile look as natural as possible.

 

In fact the more you mix up how your link maps are formed, the more natural your link profile will be and the better your SEO results will be.

 

Now that you know what link maps are, it’s time to start building your link popularity the right way. High authority contextual links, stacked with more links and social signals.

 

How Does Guest Post Tracker Help With Link Mapping?

 

Link mapping is a strategy that I created while doing SEO after Google changed the way they dealt with links. I knew I need a strategy that would keep my clients safe from Google updates.

 

While developing this system of doing SEO I always needed more blogs that accept guest posts to create my link maps. So I started putting together an excel list that I used to keep track of which blogs I had submitted to already.

 

I also had another spreadsheet that I used to track my link maps.

 

I decided that as fun as spreadsheets are, I needed more functionality and automation. So I started by building Guest Post Tracker which would help help me easily get links for my link maps.

 

I’ve since been working on a new tool, developed to help me build and track link maps.

 

This is how I do the link building for every site.

 

Want to see how Guest Post Tracker can help you? Click here to get started today.