If you read on because you thought you'd be seeing something on Jeff Gordon or that cute Jimmie Johnson, sorry to disappoint. This is all about fast link acquisition and how to avoid red flags.
A lot of people are talking about link acquisition speeds - or - how many links can you get and stay under a search engine's radar. This issue is typically mentioned when discussing link buys but overall, since link building is usually done as a campaign, this could apply to any course of linking.
While there is no stock answer, here are a handful of questions to help you chart a course of action. Start by asking:
How many inbound links do you have currently?
How long did it take you to accumulate the links you have?
Where are they coming from? (industry wise)
Where do they point? What's the ratio between the dot com and internal pages?
Has your content increased since the domain was launched?
Has your traffic increased as well?
What anchors are being used? What's the ratio between the dot com and keyword anchors?
Take a long look at your answers and see if you discover any patterns. Could be you notice most of your inbound links use your dot com and point to the home page. To suddenly add links using keyword rich anchors that point only to internal pages could cause red flags to be raised.
Success usually doesn't happen overnight in business, linking is no different. Slow and steady wins out in this scenario just like any other! When you start linking, consider these tactics:
Add content to your site FIRST and issue a press release announcing its creation. Links will happen naturally as a result and you've paved the way for your "other" links to happen.
Acquire links from a wide array of sites within your niche and include a handful of links from the industries linking to you originally.
If your original links used your dot com, do the same with the new set. Mix up your anchors; try to keep the ratio of what's being used about the same as it was before.
Write your new anchors with a strong call to action; it's important to try and draw as much traffic through the links as possible.
In my experience, larger content rich sites and/or older domains tend to be less prone to ranking shifts when large numbers of new links are introduced. It's why most content generation tactics are currently working in today's SEO landscape. Market your links to complement your site, just don't have them added. If you do, you'll leave your competition in the dust!
About the Author
Debra Mastaler is President of Alliance-Link, an interactive marketing agency focused on providing link marketing campaigns and link training. For information and tips on linking, visit The Link Spiel.