Link building takes a lot of time, but there are some changes you can make to your website that will help build links and funnel traffic to where you want it to go. With just a few steps, you could even see your ranking rise in Google for some important long-tail keywords.

The first step to this approach involves some brainstorming. Come up with a lot of long-tail keywords for your website, and pick five of the most important. Don't be afraid to pick phrases with a lot of hits on Google. After all, you want a lot of traffic, right? Then you need to go where the traffic is.

In explaining this approach, Case Ernsting, writing for Search Engine Journal, used the example of a website that sells posters of rock star legends; his list of keywords included “Bruce Springsteen poster,” “The Who poster,” and so forth. Are those competitive terms? You bet. The first one gets nearly two million hits in Google, while the second one gets more than 14 million hits. There are search terms that get a lot more hits, but there are others that get a lot less. The point is, you need to approach your niche squarely and not be afraid of the competition.

The second step is to take those five long tail keywords and build a landing page for each one. This should not be a blog entry. Continuing with the example, you can create a page that displays all of the posters related to that key phrase. So you'd have a page with all of your posters showing The Boss in all his glory. Give the page an appropriate title: “Bruce Springsteen posters,” in this case. That's the keyword we're trying to win, after all. Do this for all five key phrases.

Third, search your website for every mention of the key phrase. Look under blog posts, product pages, news, events...whatever is appropriate for your site. Using our example again, we'd start by searching for every mention of Bruce Springsteen on the site. Once you find them, link the text back to the Bruce Springsteen poster page you created earlier.

You don't want to use the same identical anchor text for every link, however. Your comprehensive keyword list can help you here. Or you can use Google Wonder Wheel for ideas. Wonder Wheel is a tool you can find by doing a search in Google and then clicking on “search tools” on the left hand column (if you use it regularly, it will star showing up on the left out in the open, so you can get to it in one click). It basically puts your search term at the center of a wheel and shows related terms as “spikes” radiating from it.

You'll want to get some information when you start this strategy. “Note how many internal links are directed toward the page, weekly pageviews, and which page Google returns for your keywords,” explained Ernsting. You will see traffic and rankings rise over time; Ernsting says that from his experience, obvious progress takes two months. But patience is required for almost every SEO strategy, and the results will be worth it. Good luck!

To read more about this topic, visit: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/rank-for-highly-competitive-keywords/29286/.

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