Deep Linking

Posted by Miles Evans

Deep linking has been buzzed about and even frowned upon for some time, but the recent Google algorithm change on April 14th seems to have established that deep links are now being more heavily weighted. Many of the properties I manage, including this one, have seen some nice ranking increases based on this shift. In the case of this website, I see PR6 scores on many of my deep linked articles. In fact according to my logs nearly 50% of you are arriving here via an article as opposed to my home page. Organicly delicious.

Now it is no secret that SEO’s have been taking advantage of deep linking to gain free SERP traffic but I see a lot of chatter about this latest shift being a tad too drastic. I tend to agree with them but hey I don’t make the rules. The simple truth is that deep linking to a site's interior pages enhances usability because, unlike homepage links, they specifically relate to what the user is seeking. So this makes a lot of sense.

Aside from the standard oldskool methods like: trackback pings, exchanges, paid placement, and blatant link dropping, here are the three main areas I focus on for getting my content deep linked on heavy juice sites...

Submit articles and/or press releases

If you can write quality articles you can easily gain hundreds of backlinks in a very short time. It works great and costs nothing but time. There is also nothing spammy about writing solid useful articles and submitting it to sites that want content. If you really put some time into writing an article with useful and accurate information you will be amazed at how many other webmasters republish it, including of course your links embedded in the original copy in some way. I have blathered about this a lot but it really is the key to deep linking.

Ok now this is important: I am not saying submitting all of your articles to every cheesy article site is a good idea. In fact it's a bad idea. Only submit articles that honestly contain some real value or you may actually hinder rather than help your brand. Check out my method for taking some sweat out of submitting articles.

Social news and bookmarking sites

Digg, and del.icio.us provide a free and simple way to get instant eyeballs on your content. When you think about it, it’s also quite obvious that almost anyone publishing online is scanning these sites for breaking news and other trends. So if these sites are used by webmasters actively searching for quality content to link to you can see why this is effective.

Again do not submit all your articles but only the ones that contain new, controversial or insightful information. Writing a striking headline for these articles is the real secret to this type of link baiting. Widgetopia may be the Next Killer App is a much better headline than Widgetopia Rolls Out New Social Networking Site. More on testing headlines in a future article. Check out my recent posts for the code to automate digg and del.ico.us submissions into your own website or blog.

Link baiting

This is the art of getting high profile websites to link to you. I say it’s an art because it really isn’t all that easy to pull off every time. This topic really deserved its own article but one of the best ways to link bait is simply by offering quality information that has not been covered elsewhere. It's a bit like fishing - the article is the bait and the link is the catch. For example - I noticed the article I posted the other day on phpadsnew and adsense was republished at a few sites without me lifting a finger.

Humor can be used - think original videos, photos, and funny viral jokes. You will often see bloggers or websites even baiting each other in debate and causing everyone else blogging the subject to link to them in the process. There is a lot of ways to link bait but quality articles that provide real value stand the best chance of getting you high value links on same themed sites. Nobody wants to link to dead redundant content so keep it lively or find someone who can. Having said that, If you are in an industry that cannot easily obtain links (casino, health, etc) then you might look into running elaborate and exciting contests or providing flash games that people like to tell their friends about.

This is a small basic list but there really are quite a few clever ways to quickly gain themed deep links regardless of your content. I will expand on this idea of gaining attention and achieving the viral effect this week with a series of reviews on some must have marketing books (not ebooks, real books you buy from a book store).

For now just remember that deep linking is your friend, it gets users to their desired destination, and we all know search engines aim to provide precisely that.

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Posted Apr 18, 2006 at 09:02 AM | Permalink | Trackback URL | Del.icio.us | DIGG!