Poker Link Building - Poker Link Popularity
I take much of my poker SEO and poker link building philosophy from the Tao Te Ching:
- The sage never tries to store things up.
- The more he does for others, the more he has.
- The more he gives to others, the greater his abundance.
Most webmasters in the gambling industry are afraid to link to other websites for various reasons. They don't want another site to outrank them because they linked to it. They don't want to look like they're building reciprocal links because they read that Google penalizes sites who trade links. They're afraid they'll get penalized for linking to a site that's in a bad neighborhood.
These gambling and poker webmasters are almost always wrong.
Most poker webmasters also overestimate the importance of linkbuilding. It's important, but it's not the most important part of your SEO strategy, either. (Michael Martinez says, "Today’s search engine optimization community fusses over backlinks like gossipy old ladies at a quilting bee. The only difference between SEOs who blather on about backlinks in forums and blogs and the ladies at the quilting bee is that the ladies are more likely to produce something useful." I love that.)
Linking to Other Sites to Help Them Rank
Any webmaster who thinks he's going to get all 10 of the top rankings in Google for a phrase like "online poker" is crazy. (That's true of ALMOST any other phrase too.) So worrying about whether or not you're helping another site rank for a phrase you want to rank for is just silly. You want search engine results to be good, right? Because then people will keep using search engines. And they'll keep finding your site among the results.
And if links from your site don't help other sites rank, then why would anyone ever trade links with you?
If you could choose 9 pages to rank for the phrase "texas holdem strategy" besides yours, and each of those pages would also link back to your "texas holdem strategy" page, wouldn't you want to do that?
You should know other webmasters, like other webmasters, and link to them generously. That's link building tip #1. If you help other people achieve their goals, they will help you achieve yours.
Fear of Reciprocal Links and Trading Links
If you're interested in SEO, then you probably read the popular SEO blogs and forums. And you've probably been struck with terror at the prospect
of doing badly in the SERP's because of trading too many links. You need to understand that the SEO forum and blog community is like a giant echo
chamber. Someone says something controversial or "groundbreaking", and everyone repeats it, without thinking about whether or not it's true or
effective.
Someone said that trading links doesn't work anymore, and it's been echoing ever since.
But think about it logically for a minute. If I get a link from a page on CNN, wouldn't it be natural to have a link to the page where I'm mentioned? Do you honestly think I won't get credit for the CNN link just because I linked back? That's a reciprocal link.
If I'm listed in the Yahoo directory, does that mean I can't link back to the Yahoo directory because it will hurt my rankings?
Reciprocal links work fine. Most webmaster just don't know how to run a real reciprocal linking campaign.
3 Way and Triangular Link Exchanges
Some webmasters are so afraid of exchanging links that they only do 3 way link exchanges.
As if Google couldn't detect such an arrangement?
These webmasters might not have read Google's webmaster guidelines here:
- Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you'd feel comfortable explaining what you've done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, "Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn't exist?"
- Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.
If a 3 way link exchange isn't a trick intended to improve your search engine rankings, I don't know what is. It's a clear attempt to deceive the search engine, and it's one that won't even work. Triangular link exchanges are obvious link schemes.
3 way link exchanges don't help users. You wouldn't do a 3 way link exchange if search engines didn't exist.
3 way link exchanges suck.
Google on Links
What else does Google say about links in their webmaster guidelines?
- Have other relevant sites link to yours.
If you're having other relevant sites linking to yours, does this mean that you shouldn't link to other relevant sites?
Of course not. Link to relevant sites and ask them to link back to you. Link to them first before asking for a link back.
If they opt to not link to you in return, leave their link live on your site anyway. You shouldn't be adding links to your site unless they're relevant and good for your users anyway. And you'll avoid a link profile of exclusively reciprocal links.
Fear of Linking to Bad Neighborhoods
You should use editorial discretion when deciding what other sites to link to. If your only motivation for linking to a website is to get a link back, then you're linking for the wrong reason, and you'll eventually link to a "bad neighborhood" just because your motivation for linking sucks.
Link to good websites that will be relevant to your users. If you do that, you'll never have to worry about linking to bad neighborhoods.
Here's a hint: a site with 30 link pages organized by subjects ranging from payday loans to penis enlargement pills is probably a bad neighborhood.
How to Build Links to a Poker Website
Creative webmasters can get lots of links to their poker website, but the starting points are generosity and good content. If your site sucks, you'll never get decent links because no one wants to link to a site that sucks. At least no one you want a link from.
Directory Submissions
Lots of echoing going around in the SEO forums about directory links not counting as much anymore. More balderdash. Directory links are great, if the directory is good.
How do you know if a directory is good? Look at the sites listed there. Are those sites you'd want your website associated with?
Don't pay someone to submit your site to 200 directories all at once. Chances are that a lot of the directories are lame, and you don't really need as many links as you think you do anyway.
Good directories that I like include Yahoo, DMOZ, GoGuides, Best of the Web, and JoeAnt.
Article Submission
Lots of people love to submit crappy articles to places like Ezine Articles. These articles are free to reprint as long as they include your link. This used to be a great link building strategy, but so many black hat SEO's abused this strategy by generating worthless bullshit content that it doesn't work as well any more. If you decide to try this, write really great content that will get syndicated by real websites. 1000 links from made for Adsense sites that reprint all of the articles on Ezine Articles willy-nilly aren't going to help you in any way.
A better approach to an article submission campaign is to write to some authority websites and ask them if they'd accept a unique article from you in exchange for a link back to your site from that page. You'll benefit because you'll get a link from a great page on a great site. Some people will turn you down, and that's okay.
Digg
Everyone's going crazy about Digg. Andy Hagans pointed out how many backlinks he was able to get to some of his sites on his blog, and now everyone is creating "linkbait" aimed at Digg.
Here's the thing though: Andy's not working in the poker niche. I've tried getting gambling articles Dugg, and guess what? They got buried.
Yours will too probably, so don't even mess with it, unless you're a brilliant linkbaiter and content creator with a strong network of friends at Digg already.
Digg doesn't work well for gambling link building.
Trading Links
Don't be afraid to trade links, but don't make whether or not a site links back to you the sole criteria for whether or not you'll link to a site either. People who get dinged with reciprocal link penalties have 2000 links to sites which all link back to them. Duh. How hard is that to detect?
But suppose you link to 100 great websites, and 40 of them link back to you. Doesn't look like you're trying to manipulate the search engines anymore, does it?
Other Ways to Build Links to Poker Sites
The best way to develop links to your site is to create content. Google doesn't distinguish much between links from other sites and links from your own site. So every time you write a new page that links back to other pages on your site, you've built a bunch of links. Neat huh?
Press releases work, but only if you're really doing something newsworthy. If you're not sure, then you're probably not doing anything newsworthy.
Buying links can work sometimes, but a lot of times you're just wasting your money. You don't have to buy links to rank well.
Signature links in forums probably count, and they can drive traffic, but I wouldn't spend a ton of energy on this. Find 2 or 3 forums on the same subject as your website and post in each of them 2 or 3 times a day. Be generous with your knowledge. You'll develop a reputation as an expert and people will link to you because they like you.
Spamming blogs is just lame. Don't bother. Doesn't work long term anyway.
You can probably think of other ways to build links, but the best advice I can give you on link development is to be generous when linking to others. That's all upside.
Link Building Resources
- Eric Ward - This guy has been building links for ages. He's smart, funny, brilliant, and just plain one of the coolest guys in the SEO and link building field.
- Michael Martinez has a great blog about SEO Theory, and he recently added 2 articles about backlink theory. I don't always agree with everything Michael says, but he's not a parrot, and he's also an individual thinker, which makes him worth linking to.
- 101 Link Building Tips - From Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall, who wrote the book on SEO.