Not long ago I had Google Adwords described to me like this:

Let’s pretend for a moment that you sell new TV’s.

Think of Google Adwords as a magical highway that only lets people on the road who need a TV.

Well, I can sell you the billboards all along that highway, but I won’t charge you for impressions (the traffic passing by), I’ll only charge you for clicks by people who want to see what you have to offer…

Pretty cool huh?

You probably already know that, generally speaking, the more quality links there are back to your website, the better your Google rankings will be.

First, what do I mean by “quality”?

3 basic attributes of “quality” websites include:

1. Have content that is very useful to people
2. Well established in a well defined or uncontested niche with lots of web traffic
3. Reputable and official in some way like Government extensions like gov or govt (eg if you were an accountant, a link to your website from ird.govt.nz would be awesome)

If your website is good, you’ll probably get lots of links back to your site (“backlinks”) anyway, but it is tempting to accelerate the process.

I get email spam from Indian/Indonesian based firms offering link building services every day (my Gmail spam filter struggles to keep up).

They make big promises “#1 Google ranking guaranteed” and they use industry jargon (llike “whitehat” and “PageRank”) and specific promises to try to impress “20 links on PageRank 3 blogs + 20x PR4 + 10x PR5…”

You must be wondering:

• Can you trust them?
• Do you need them?
• Are their link building techniques legitimate?

No, no and no.

Here are 5 reasons why you should never hire anyone to build links to your website:

1. As a rule, never support any offer delivered via SPAM. It just encourages more spam.
2. If they are spamming you, they are offering this deal to the whole planet therefore if they get thousands of customers the techniques they use lose effectiveness
3. Think ahead: Would thousands of links back to you on random blogs be useful to your potential customers? If not, Google will ignore them eventually if they don’t already
4. It could actually damage your Google rankings, if they use “black hat” techniques for you which Google has identifies as attempts to game the system
5. Google is trying very hard to deliver increasingly localised search results so a link to your website from a website in Cambodia about chickens is becoming more and more irrelevant

So what can you do?

Do it yourself:

1. Write useful articles on your website that people will want to link to and share
2. Register your website with New Zealand based online business directories
3. Write useful and value-adding comments to blog articles about your industry

Never hire anyone to do it for you, they will just take your money, and any benefits you get from the work they do will last 5 minutes.

In January 2010 I wrote a list of the best free online New Zealand directories. It’s time to update this list.

Some of the business directories I originally listed have disappeared, been abandoned, started charging, or became too complicated to work with.

List of The Best FREE Online NZ Directories (In Priority Order):

1. Dmoz.org (New Zealand)
   • Worldwide directory actually, but has 2-thumbs-up from Google, so put a link to your website here first (and it can take ages before it is approved so you might as well start the process now)
2. Finda.co.nz
   • In my opinion the very best online directory in New Zealand. An official Google partner. Automatic submission to Google Maps, UBD.co.nz & Wises.co.nz. Easy to use. Good looking profile pages
3. NZS.com (“New Zealand Search”)
   • Really good quality. Great looking graphics. Good profile pages.
4. HotFrog.co.nz
   • Impressive presence in Google.co.nz for a variety of searches.
5. Zenbu.co.nz
   • Very cool map-based business directory.
6. Google Local Business Centre
   • After your free Finda listing has placed a marker on Google Maps for you, “claim” your business using Google LBC and add more details about your business
7. Yalwa.co.nz
   • Global directory, with dedicated subdomains to New Zealand cities.  Free text in the description field, you can add hyperlinks (this is rare)
8. NZWebZ.co.nz
   • Ok
9. ZipLeaf.co.nz
   • “In growing stages, clean/sharp graphics, up to date functions. Promising” – [Thanks to James for his review]
10. BusinessMe.co.nz
    • Fast response to email support. “I like their layouts; professional, functional, clean and simple” – [Thanks to Kala for her review]

Criteria For The Best NZ Directories:

To get on the official list above, the directory must meet most of these criteria:

1. Does Google like it?
   • Does the directory often appear in Google.co.nz Search Engine Results for a variety of NZ searches?
   • How good are the directories own Search Engine Rankings?
   • What SEO techniques does the directory use?
2. Is the process of adding my website to the directory easy, intuitive and quick?
3. Will it provide a clean hyperlink to my website?
   • “No-follow” hyperlinks are of little use to us
   • Redirection “tracker” hyperlinks are not as good
4. Is the website approval time short?
5. Are the other websites in the directory high quality? (Eg, have the webmasters let spammy websites through?)
6. Can I specify my own anchor text for my hyperlink?

I just passed two Google Adwords exams:

1. Google Advertising Fundamentals Exam
2. Search Advertising Advanced Exam

Look at this cute little certificate Google gave me as my reward!

Now you know who to talk to if:

• You have an Adwords account but you want to get a better return on investment
• You want to try Adwords for the first time

… me!

Cheers,

Sheldon.

Everyday I get a “link exchange request” email. My clients get them too, and probably so do you. So, should you accept the invitation?

To help you decide, answer these questions:

• Will the link improve your users experience? Will the link add value?
• Are the links relevant to your industry? Or are the links completely random and unrelated? (eg you sell shoes, but the link goes to an life insurance website)

If they are completely random, don’t do it.

Recently, I was curious about what an Indian based SEO company would do as a free trial for one of my clients. All they did was add a link to my clients website to their own websites which already have hundreds of irrelevant links. Not useful. Not valuable. Not effective. Here is one of their websites.

And if these spammy link farm websites are tricking Google at the moment and are actually getting decent rankings themselves, what will Google do when they take a closer look? They’ll delete them from the Google index, that’s what.

Here’s what Matt Cutts from Google has to say on the subject: