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Their are many parts to link building and simply adding your site to directories isn’t enough.

In my opinion, some of the best links for SEO come from websites with a similar theme, also known as themed or related links.

For the purpose of this article I’m going to focus on ‘photographers’.

Tell me more about related links…

So, let’s say you run a photography company – gaining links from related websites around your niche is a must. What these related links do is tell Google that ABC Photography Company really likes XYZ Photography Company, so much so, ABC Photography has decided to link to XYZ Photography.

Linking from one related website to another shows trust, and as I’ve demonstrated in this previous post, trust is one of the most important link building factors around.

How do I get these links?

There are many direct and indirect ways to gain relevant links:

Direct:

• Asking competitors for a link (this may sound odd but you may offer a certain type of photography service which they don’t).
• Photography forums
• Photography blogs
• Photography business sites
• Photography video channels

Indirect:

• Lets say you offer wedding photography, gaining a link from a weddings related website, blog, forum etc will help
• Links from wallpaper websites where you can describe the image and the camera used – keywords like camera, photo, lens etc around the link which points back to your website will help.

The proof is in the link building pudding…

I use this strategy on a regular basis and here is just one example. I was working on a weddings related website which was targeting a very competitive and broad term. The site was ranked near the top of page 2.

Having worked in this sector many times, I asked one of my other clients if we could include a link from there website, they agreed and within the space of two weeks, the site that was linked to moved from page 2 to position number 4 on page 1. I must stress that the site that granted the link was very trusted, a 3 year old domain and the link was placed on a very relevant page with good anchor text.

Considerations…

Simply swapping links with related businesses (aka reciprocal links), will not have the same affect, in fact, probably the opposite – reciprocal links do look spammy in my opinion and is something which I never engage in.

and finally…

Remember, this is just one part of link building, but from my experience generates some of the best results and success rates.

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