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When it comes to building links to your website, things have changed. A few shifts have been gradual; others have been immediate, drastic, and revolutionary. In its quest to produce highly relevant results through a variety of algorithms, Google has been changing the link-building demographic online… and that, in turn, has affected the way we go about building links.

We’ve moved from directories to guest blogging and other new approaches, so it’s discouraging to observe some SEO people who still pursue many of the old tactics. And it’s not just about a few outdated techniques; it’s also about how a new method should be applied because that affects the way Google understands and ranks your website for the keywords you target.

At its core, links still power the rankings. That much is clear, and it’s going to stay that way for a long time.

How you build links is what is going to matter. That’s why we need to make sure we know the blaring differences between the old-school and the new techniques of link building.

1: The philosophy of anchor text and keyword phrases

In the past, anchor texts that were going to link back to your website were mostly keyword phrases that you were targeting. If you were looking to rank your website at the top for something like “budget seo seattle,” you sought links from a variety of websites, and the anchor text on every one was going to be “budget seo seattle.”

That was an easy way to game the system, so Google put a bullet through it. We now know that if your keyword phrase is used as the anchor text in a lot of different places, you’re going to trigger a flag for unnatural links in the algorithm, and your rankings will likely fall.

This doesn’t mean this old tactic has to go out the window. You’ve got to vary the anchor text while keeping it relevant. The optimal percentage for a particular keyword phrase as anchor text is unknown, and is probably a moving target. But I’d recommend no more than 2% of your total inbound link profile having the same keyword-rich anchor text.

2: Quantity / quality of the backlink

Google’s link tracking algorithm started out as a simple, yet smart tool to assess the importance of a website. Count the number of links pointing to this source; if it’s high, this means the website is recommended, credible, and trustworthy.

Again, this was an easy thing to game. Despite having made several changes to the algorithms, it still remained a burning point that the quantity of backlinks matters. At this point, it still does.

But what matters far more is the quality of each of the links you earn. This has been a fact of the algorithm for a good while, but it’s only now — in response to things like AuthorRank and Panda updates for content analysis — that the quality of the links is being analyzed more strongly.

3: Context [or lack of it]

Until recently, you could publish 40 articles on Ezinearticles or any other reputed article directory, and in the next few hours, your ranking would shoot up. Google has fixed that to make sure that kind of gaming doesn’t happen. That has caused the decline of article directories, but the deeper message here is context.

If you run a flower shop website, it makes sense that you would naturally get mentioned on websites that address flowers and flower shops. If you are also able to secure links from a real estate company that ranks high for a lot of real estate-related keywords, that shouldn’t make your website an authority.

This lack of context was once the rule, and people were able to use this lapse to secure high-quality backlinks and rank high for no good reason. That has changed. Google has built smarter tools to value links that come up from related, contextual websites rather than those from an unrelated niche website.

4: Artificial /unnatural links

Google’s Penguin updates almost killed paid links. The artificiality of paid links is one of the main reasons such tactics don’t survive very long.

An artificial link is a backlink you’ll get on websites that do link exchanges. A natural link, on the other hand, is one that crops up in a piece of content that the website publishes. Incidentally, people do try to buy links and make them natural (and this is what the subsequent algorithm updates will be looking to fix).

But for the moment, it’s clear that Google values links that appear amid rich content — in other words, natural links.

5: Using the brand

When referring to Google+, Eric Schmidt once quipped that anonymity is not really good in the world of search and social features (like Author Rank, for instance). The idea applies to your brand too, especially when you are linking back to your website from a variety of places.

Google is also looking for brand names as anchor text so they can figure out who’s the actual authority being mentioned. In the past, this really didn’t matter, but today, if your link-building strategy doesn’t include ways to procure valuable links that contain your brand’s name, you could get yourself in trouble for unnatural or manipulative link building.

6: Authority

This point resonates with #2, but when speaking about quality, what truly matters is the authority of a website that has a link pointing to yours. Quality of the linking website has always mattered, but now it matters more.

What’s even more important is the authority it has in a particular niche. While this has something to do with quality, we do see a lot of websites with comparatively thin content and low value enjoying the status of a niche authority. It can be strategic to take these authority websites into account with your link building strategy.

7: [Lack of a] social angle

In the past, social was regarded as useful for nothing more than a potential viral hit or for namesakes. Things have changed so much recently that Google and other search engines are now acknowledging that social is a strong measurement for a variety of values like authority, popularity, relevance, and most important, quality.

If your link building strategy doesn’t leverage things like retweets, shares, mentions, and the general social angle, it probably won’t negatively affect you, but it does mean you’ll be missing opportunities to rank higher. In competitive niches, this could mean the difference between winning and losing.

8: Less is more

Older algorithms that dealt with links didn’t usually discount spam links, but Google has since come down harshly on these links. In the past, link builders only had to worry about bringing in as many quality links as possible; today, you’ve got to be very careful about who links back to you. Spam links can get you banned even though you might not have generated those links at all.

Tools like the Link Disavow Tool have been introduced to give you a strong defense against spam links and spam link-building practices. No one really thought it would come to this, but it’s a blaring difference between old and new link building strategies. “Less is more” is definitely the philosophy to adopt when you’re building quality links.

9: PageRank means relevancy

It’s not entirely clear how important PageRank is these days, especially since there’s been a lot of chatter about PageRank facing retirement in the near future. And in this context, while SEO experts used to look at PageRank to judge whether it was worth getting a link back from a particular website, that attitude has completely changed. (If you’re still doing it, now’s the time to switch.)

Since the focus is now on quality and authority, along with social signals, the traditional PageRank approach to link building can be a waste of time. Today it’s more useful to look at the authority and the community around a website before zeroing in on it to “earn” link-backs.

10: Building versus earning

Perhaps the most conclusive comment would be what Rand Fishkin said about today’s link-building practices. It’s no longer a matter of link “building”; that sounds artificial and forced. Today’s link-building techniques are link-“earning” techniques: there’s more of a natural flavor to the activity as opposed to the older, artificial methods.

Basically, you can sum this up in two concepts:

1) produce something really, really useful; and

2) embrace the community of users, consumers, competitors, and other players in your niche

This way, you’ll earn links naturally, and find your brand mentioned in articles, reviews, and elsewhere.

Conversions are the bottom line for most online businesses. Search engine optimization can get you traffic, social media marketing can strengthen your brand relationships, and content marketing can filter leads, but if none of those readers and visitors convert, you’re stuck without a line of revenue. In some cases, it’s better to have a low amount of traffic with a high percentage of conversions than a high volume of traffic and a nonexistent conversion rate.

But the best-case scenario is always high traffic volume and a high rate of conversion, and this guide is designed to help you achieve that goal. A low conversion rate could be a symptom of any number of fundamental problems, usually at the design level or with the navigability at your site, but the only way to improve that conversion rate is to pinpoint the root of the problem, and for that, we need data on user behavior.

Getting the Traffic

The more data you have to work with, the more accurate your analysis will be. Getting a decent flow of traffic is going to be your first step if you’re starting from scratch.

Once you have a month of data or more to analyze, you can start looking at user behavior to determine the obstacles that are preventing user conversions.

Define Your Conversions

There are several different “types” of conversions—for example, an e-commerce site might define a successful conversion as someone who purchases a product, but a B2B service-based company might define a successful conversion as someone filling out a contact form. However you define your conversions, you can set up a way to track it in Google Analytics.

Head to the Admin tab, and click on “Goals” under the View tab. Here, you’ll be able to create, track, and manage goals within the system. There are several pre-formed templates you can use to define user conversions, such as “place an order” for e-commerce sites, or “create an account” for sites that require signup. You can create as many goals as you’d like within the system, and access them to determine your actual conversion rates.

Under the Reporting tab, you can access your Goal data under the Conversions header on the left-hand side. You can even set a goal value and determine how much revenue or potential revenue your conversions are winning you.

This data will objectively tell you whether your conversion goals are being met. Different companies can expect very different conversion rates, so what constitutes a low conversion rate for you may not constitute a low conversion rate for a different industry.

Still, conversion rates can always go higher, and your user behavior data should be able to give you some direction on how to improve your campaign.

Behavior Flow

The Behavior Flow section (found under the Behavior header in Google Analytics) will give you the most insight into how your average user navigates your site. It might look a little complicated at first, but if you work with it long enough, you’ll start to easily derive meaningful patterns. For example, you could find that your average user starts out on your home page, travels to your blog, and then eventually finds his/her way to a signup form for your email newsletter.

The Behavior Flow can tell you whether or not something is wrong with your traffic funnel. For example, let’s say your content marketing strategy is strong, and you rely on the authority and value of your content to convince people to ultimately convert. Most of your conversion lead-ins are found in the content of your blogs. Therefore, if your Behavior Flow demonstrates that most of your traffic comes into the homepage and leaves without ever visiting the blog, you need to close the gap by connecting your home page to your blog, or by stepping up you calls to conversion on the home page.

Audience Overview

First, I’m going to assume that you’ve already performed enough market research to reliably know who your core target audience is. The entirety of your site—especially your calls to action—should be written and designed toward this target demographic. If you haven’t done this, you might want to start.

Otherwise, let’s say you have a great understanding of your target audience. Head to the Audience header in Google Analytics and check out the Overview and Demographics subheadings. Here, you’ll be able to get a good idea of the types of users who are visiting your site, including age, gender, and geographic location. If these metrics don’t match your target audience, you’ve just found your conversion disconnect. You can correct this by altering your traffic acquisition strategies or by revisiting your core target audience, and realigning it closer to your actual traffic makeup.

Heat Maps

This is especially useful for dedicated landing pages. If you’re interested in seeing where your users are looking on your site, a heat map can tell you. For example, the heat map at Crazy Egg will demonstrate exactly where your users are scrolling and hovering their mouse pointers, giving you an indication of whether your landing page is capturing any relevant attention.

If your users aren’t paying much attention to your signup fields or your call to action, it could be because your call to action isn’t prominent enough. Try embellishing it with bolder colors, a bigger size, or even a series of pointing arrows to emphasize its presence. Conversely, if users seem to see everything on your page, it could be that your offer isn’t strong enough to encourage conversion. Experiment with changing up your offerings, such as adding an additional free gift or discount in exchange for a successful signup.

User Surveys

There are a handful of factors that could affect user conversion that have nothing to do with the behavior data you can find in Analytics. For example, if your design is hard on the eyes, users could be instinctively turned away. If your form contains too many fields to fill out, users might be too apathetic to bother filling them all out.

If you’ve already reviewed the best practices for landing pages and conversions, the best way to pinpoint your disconnect is to conduct a handful of user surveys. Pull a handful of select users—perhaps customers you already know well—and ask them to go through the typical web visit process. Ask them what they like and don’t like about their experience, and use that qualitative data to make adjustments to your strategy from there.

Raising your conversions rates is one of the best digital strategies you can implement. If you’re successful, you’ll essentially increase the dollar value of every web visitor you earn. With a solid conversion rate under control, all you’ll need to do is gradually ramp up your content and inbound marketing strategies, and your revenue will grow proportionately.

There is a wide range of opinions on the practicality of social media marketing. There are the social media loyalists, who insist that social media marketing is the most innovative and important new marketing medium around, there are the naysayers who insist that social marketing is a fad and no real business would use it, and there are countless gray-area business owners in between.

It’s inappropriate to view social media as an all-or-nothing platform. Simply claiming an account and doing nothing won’t help you a bit. Posting regularly and engaging with your audience can help you build a following—but what then? What is the value of having 10,000 Twitter followers or 10,000 Facebook likes if none of those followers end up making purchases with you?

In order to capture true value from your followers, you’ll have to take further action. You’ll have to make the types of posts that engage your followers directly and call them to action on your website:

1. The Product Highlight.

The product highlight is one of the simplest types of converting posts you can take advantage of, and it’s one of the first most businesses consider. The format of your highlight is up to you, but the function of the post is to introduce a new product or service to your follower base and highlight the most important elements of it. For example, if there’s a new dress available on your e-commerce platform, you can post a flattering picture of it and briefly describe the unique benefits of the dress. It’s a way of making a direct appeal to your users, and attracting those who otherwise might not see the individual products you sell.

2. The Consumer Review.

If you have any followers who like your brand but haven’t made a purchase, a consumer review can push them over the edge. In socially connected digital world, the highest level of trust a brand can achieve is the approval of a peer. For example, if a follower sees one of his/her friends post a review of a given product on social media, he/she will be far more likely to make a purchase. On your own social media profiles, you can use this to your advantage—cultivate real user reviews, and post clips of them to your audience directly!

3. The Exclusive Discount.

Exclusivity is a powerful tool for two reasons. First, it makes the deal seem better, simply because fewer people have access to it. Second, it makes each of your followers feel more connected to the brand, like a clique. Your exclusive discount doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary—something like 10 percent off can be just as effective as anything else. The key is to let your users know it’s an exclusive deal, and not provide that offer through any other channels. This post will call your users to immediate action, and increase their loyalty to the brand simultaneously.

4. The Special Offer

The special offer is similar to the exclusive discount, but there are many more options you can play with. For example, you can offer a free sample product to new fans in exchange for filling out a brief questionnaire. This is a common Facebook tactic that gets people to submit their information, ultimately resulting in a conversion (if acquisition of information qualifies as a conversion for your company) in exchange for something small. If your conversion goals are more tied to actual purchases, you can use something like a “buy one, get one free” offer to attract more purchases.

5. The Giveaway.

The giveaway is another tactic that has a dual effect on your conversion rates. The setup for the giveaway is up to you, but the bottom line is that you’re going to give away something valuable for free to one or more of your social media followers. You’ll select these winners from a pool of participants. It will cost a bit of money to front the giveaway item, but there are two critical effects for this type of post: first, you’ll get people more engaged with the brand. By taking action in a giveaway-style scenario, they’ll feel more connected to the brand and they’ll be more likely to take action in the future. Second, seeing the giveaway item will prompt people to purchase one for themselves once they learn they haven’t won.

6. The Social Incentive.

The social incentive can work in the context of other social posts—for example, it could work in conjunction with the giveaway or with the exclusive discount. But the goal here is to get your users to share one of your central posts. Hashtags are a useful tool for this, but the mechanism for social sharing is up to you. Getting your customers to engage your brand through social sharing will make them more likely to take action in the future, and will also serve as peer validation that makes your brand more trustworthy to other followers.

7. The Call to Need.

Rather than doting on a specific product or leading people to a specific page, sometimes it’s more advantageous to speak to a specific customer need. Look at why your customers would want a product rather than what they would want—and you can use user surveys to uncover this information. However you go about it, address the need specifically in your post. For example, if you’re selling windshield wiper blades, rather than showcasing the highlights of your new wiper blades, you can introduce them with something like “Are your wipers leaving streaks in the rain?”

8. The Individual Callout.

Another way to prompt users to action is to call them out on an individual basis. If a follower responds to something you’ve posted, show your appreciation for it. If a follower comments on your page and shows interest in a specific product, give them more information. Giving that level of personal attention looks great for your brand, and will go far to help drive users to finally make a purchasing decision.

9. The Time-Sensitive Deal.

The time-sensitive deal is exactly what it sounds like. When your followers feel like they’re under the pressure of the clock, they’re going to be more driven to action. Sales that last 24 hours or products that are only available for a week can immediately drive more traffic and more conversions—the trick is to post about the deal progressively, so your users can see the time actively running out.

10. The Content Pass-Off.

Of course, the power of conversion doesn’t rest solely on social media. For many business owners, it’s easier to write content that leads to a conversion onsite. If that’s the case for you, you can use your content as the anchor site for your conversions, then post a link to it through social media.

With these 10 types of social media posts, you can convert your army of followers to an army of real, purchasing customers. You may find that some work better than others, but through trial and error you should be able to find the right posts to translate your follower numbers to numbers that truly matter—bottom-line revenue. Just remember that your followers are people, and if you want them to stick around, you’ll have to keep nurturing the community organically.