Competition for gaining a higher PageRank (PR) in search engine results page (SERP) is getting harder and harder. Now, it takes only as quick as days or hours that ranking in the SERP changes. Therefore,link building (SEO's backbone) should be excessively and carefully done. The process such as reciprocal link campaigns is comparative to the act of mining in which a link builder is looking for precious websites as link partners. Link building and mining are both using the same principles which is looking and digging for a precious stuff. In the case of mining, it is precious metals or minerals while in link building, it is quality links.
Why digging for quality links? Basically, quality links are the ones that you can be used to improve your site's PR. We can compare them to food enhancers that make a certain dish more palatable. To determine a quality link, lots of things must be considered. Factors such as anchor text, semantic relevance and page relationship matters. According to SEOmoz Professional's Guide to Link Building, before deciding what website will be used as your links, they must be trusted and valuable. "The more trusted, valuable links your site receives, the more trusted and valuable your site (and the links you give) becomes."
We must also consider three fundamentals of a link: anchor text, link location and link intention. Anchor texts are the words used within the link. Usually, we encounter hyperlinked text such as Click Here, that when clicked, leads us to another website. That is the "traditional" and recently declared as not as effective as the one that is described by the SEOmoz Professional's Guide to Link Building--the ones that provide not just the link but also offer additional semantic relevance. More chances for your site that it will be indexed and later, be ranked since search engines are picky when it comes to words. So, anchor text itself, as advised, must carry semantic value to the site it is leading the internet users to. Link location or URL location is where a site's page structure your link is found (SEOmoz). It has two kinds, the shallow and deep links. Shallow links are the ones that lead to homepage, while the deep links are those that lead to a more specific page. It is said that is preferable to have deep links because the search engines are always considering the relevance of the page's content from the linked text. Lastly, the link intention must be in accordance with the need of the searcher. Your intention should serve as the link to give additional information on the topic that your site is linked to. Otherwise than that, such as to serve only as advertisement, then your PR is in danger.
One thing is clear here, everything must be relevant to each other, the content to anchor text to link and to all other elements within the website.
Just like mineral mining, a miner has to encounter large boulders and pieces of rocks and pebbles but he has to carefully examine every rock if they contain mineral which will be further process to extract only the pure. If the rock indeed contains mineral, then it means money is at hand. Relevance also plays a role in the act of mining as with link building. If you are working in a gold mine company, then it is out of your job to mine copper or silver beneath the earth.
Gaining visibility and direct traffic of the website being optimized (be it for the visibility in search engine or social networking sites) are the main goal of link building. Once your site gains traffic, you gain money--in which what business is all about--just like mining.
