Most sites struggle to get attention. The surest way to grab some attention is to stand out in some way, but how do you manage that? One of the possible answers is by becoming a content curator for your industry.

You see a lot of content curation all over the net. The social bookmarking sites are essentially a form of content curation, forming a place where internet users can go when they want to tap into valuable content. Many entertainment sites, such as Cracked.com, make use of content curation techniques for their articles – which then turn into hugely popular forms of content for their own site. Gathering information on other people’s sites is a great way to draw users to your own.

Still not convinced? Let’s look at the benefits:
*Easy fresh content. Content curation isn’t about featuring the content of other sites, but rather talking about it. ‘Top 10′ articles are easy to write. You can talk to us at Searchengineoptimization.co.uk about content.
*Popularity. Resources tend to be popular sites. More traffic gives you more opportunity for conversions.
*SEO link building. What’s that you say? Giving away links isn’t link building? As your search engine optimization agency can tell you, giving away links is often a great way to get links.

So what are you waiting for? Start curating!

Every site has a series of relationships to rely on and link building really is about relationships. If you’re aiming for organic search engine optimization, you’ll be looking to make your link building look as natural as possible. Talk to our team about this at Searchengineoptimization.co.uk. This is where your existing relationships are most useful but you can’t use them efficiently unless you first stop to take stock of them.

How to take stock

Relationship analysis should be performed before the linking campaign begins. It’s really just a case of sitting down and mapping out who you know, who they know, and what everyone on your list does. This initial list can be done on paper and it’s good to map it out graphically to see where relationships meet.

Once you have your connections worked out, it’s time to figure out how to use them. Each person’s interest area should be linked to a keyword and a linking approach plotted out.

You may think you don’t know many useful people but almost everyone you know online can be of help. Simply work out your relationships and start viewing them as assets.

Old pages can have a lot of value in terms of organic search engine optimization. Talk to us at Searchengineoptimization.co.uk about this. Pages connected to old campaigns can be doubly valuable. As they’re likely to have had a search engine marketing campaign as well as being put through your regular SEO systems, campaign pages are likely to have attracted lots of natural links and steady traffic. Some of what are now your regular visitors may have bookmarked the pages as their first point of contact with your site. Simply removing the page removes all the bonuses your SEO or search engine marketing company worked for.

What to do

Before removing any page, analyse its rankings. It’s a huge waste to throw away any page that’s ranking highly, even if it is an old one. Your analysis should look not only at the page’s position in the SERPs, but the links it has and the traffic sources it draws on. Once you know the score, it’s possible to decide whether to keep it or 301 redirect it.

Your pages can be valuable search engine optimisation tools. Simply throwing away pages is never a good idea.

Here are five of the practices you should be observing for your site’s content:

1. Create an update schedule and stick to it. Updates need to be regular to help with your SEO. If your search engine optimization agency has drawn up a schedule for your posts, stick to it.

2. Devise a production method. Set up rules on line spacing, image placement, headings and white space. This will make your content look good, and help the search engines read.

3. Keep it fresh. Although a content plan is a great idea, leave room for news. This will keep your content relevant.

4. Make your site content-focussed. Many businesses add a content branch to their navigation. This won’t draw traffic to important pages. For a good outcome, integration is key. Talk to our experts at SearchEngineOptimisation.co.uk about this.

5. Promote it. Your content plan can help your social media optimisation and vice versa. If you’re obtaining social media services, find a way to work your content updates into the plan. Good content is no good if no-one sees it. This can help with SEO link building as well.

There are certain types of pages that are almost guaranteed to attract links. Strangely, many link building strategies ignore web pages. The goal is often to improve an existing page’s attraction to linkers. If you are trying to boost your link profile generally, however, it’s a good idea to add a couple of fresh pages which have linkbait built into their very foundations.

Take discount pages, for example. Many businesses weave discount offers throughout their site, to keep internet users browsing. This is a good tactic, but not particularly useful for link building. Some sites, however, gather their discount offers onto a single page, creating a resource that customers can return to whenever they’re looking for a bargain. The result? Instant linkability.

Another tactic is to create a how-to section within your site. Many SEO companies recommend how-to content for link building, and you can discuss this with us at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. Simply gather all of your how-to content into one place. The good news is that this strategy can be used for all sorts of sites, not just retail sites.

These strategies are all based on a central idea: turning web pages into resources. Make resource-building part of your SEO campaign.

1. Inter-site: This is plain, old-fashioned site-to-site link building. These links are generally obtained through personal contact, whether it be the result of clever networking or whether it’s a blatant email asking for a link. Methods to obtain these links include trading articles for an SEO blog and offering free resources in trade for a link.

2. Inter-web: These are the links you create with your activities on blogs, in forums and in other areas of the net, and you can discuss this kind of high quality link building with our expert team at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. This kind of linking is attractive because all it requires is a little of your time, but it is often difficult to get links from high-ranking sites this way.

3. Social: These are the links that flow in when you send link bait out into the social sphere. Creating link bait does take time and money, but it can pay dividends in terms of links coming in on an ongoing basis.

Whether you have a paid link plan in place or not, it’s wise to invest in some organic link building strategies.

Let’s face it, competition for attention on social media networks is ridiculously tough. Novelty is a sure way in, but it’s difficult to come up with novelties again and again. Offering something that users can make use of again and again is a much better plan.

Facebook is a prime example of this technique. Much of the activity on Facebook is generated by use of those cute little programs anonymous companies supply, as attested by the incredible success of Farmville. The cost to the user is access to their contacts, allowing companies to build their network.

You don’t have to be on Facebook to use this technique. Embedding a handy little program on your own pages and then promoting it in social media is another great way to catch attention and get people talking, and you can discuss this with us at www.SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk. This may take a little more work, but the benefits go beyond SMO and straight into SEO in terms of link building.

When planning out your social media optimisation campaign, think about what’s going to get you ahead. Look at what your competitors are doing, analyse their moves, and provide your audience with a different, more useful option.

Even as recently as a year and a half ago, the best link building strategies involved contacting the owner of a target site and making some kind of arrangement. Although this can still be a good way to get quality links, there are now better, more organic ways. These centre on your content.

Why mix link building and content? Google’s changes should give you a clue. People are changing the way they interact on the net, and content is becoming central to all types of communication. Whether they’re on a social media network, sampling an online publication or shopping for new shoes, internet users are accessing information and sharing it like never before. These days, link building is as much about sharing as it is about making contacts.

Laying out plenty of quality content and publicising it via your social media marketing campaign is a method of link building that stays true to the principles of organic search engine optimization. It creates links that please the search engines. Handily, it puts your resources to multiple use as well.

In 2012, work your link building plans in with your content. It’s the smart way to get ahead.

The search engines would certainly like for site owners to let link building happen by itself. An untouched link profile is one that reflects the true state of a site’s popularity. Naturally enough, your search engine optimization agency isn’t likely to be happy with that state of affairs, and neither should you be.

The line between ‘natural’ and ‘unnatural’ really depends on who you talk to, although most would agree that buying links is strictly against the search engines’ rules. This doesn’t mean that buying links is universally frowned upon, but it does mean that during link building services you are well advised to investigate some natural options.

When looking into link building for your site, pursue as many natural options as possible:
*Make contact with other businesses.
*Use your existing contacts.
*Organise guest posts.
*Post comments, with your link in your signature line.
*Push for links using your content – talk to our experts at SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk about using content for SEO link building.

While it is tempting to take linking short cuts, in the long term your site will be better served by building natural links. Such links are usually the result of relationship-building, which means you’re more likely to get continued support down the track.

If the linker has completely muddled the page address, there is really not much you can do about it. If, however, they have simply made a mistake in the page reference, there are ways to detect and fix the break.

*Detect and redirect. When you’re encountering a commonly made mistake, such as an American spelling of your UK domain, you have an easy-fix option. Simply take control of that address and redirect. A permanent redirect may not pass link juice, but it will help the search engines detect the mistake and compensate.

*Contacting individuals. When the broken link is a link you’ve worked hard for, contact the linking site direct. They should be happy to do a repair. This can become time-consuming when you’re dealing with lots of links, but it can be worth it.

*Custom 404 messages. When a;l else fails, a custom 404 message will enable traffic to be able to find its way onto your site.

Before you can do any of this, you need to nail down the links that aren’t working. Look for 404 errors related to your site, and track down their sources. You can talk to us at www.SearchEngineOptimization.co.uk about this aspect of link building.