known network of sites that exchange links.8 ” Suddenly adding 100 new links to a site that for 6 six years has had 5 inbound links may cause a search engine to penalize you for your participation in a “link-farm.” But, adding a few relevant links every so often does appear to be consistent with natural growth.
Where Should the Link Appear? Ideally, your link should be placed within the content of a page rich with topical information relevant to the focus of the target web page. This may be asking a bit much – your link partner may already have a “links” or “resources” page designed solely for this purpose. However, make sure your prefab HTML link includes descriptive information that goes above and beyond a simple link and make sure you offer to reciprocate with a high-quality descriptive link.
Check to make sure the agreed-upon location is a page that has been indexed by the major search engines. In particular, it should not be a page that only authenticated users (login & password) can view.
How Can Businesses Develop Their Own Inbound Links? The last section of my 5 W’s and an H article may be the most important. There are many bytes of available online information related to link building strategies. In many respects, your success stems from the quality of the relevant content on your website. Your industry peers and topical experts will be eager to reference your website if it is a valuable source of relevant information and you have achieved an appropriate level of expertise. Your peers will assess your site in the same or similar manner as is described in this article. They will assess the quantity and quality of inbound links to your web pages.
Here are some suggestions that both enhance the usefulness of your web site content and help you build inbound links to your site.
1. Publish a “How To” or a “Review” Article Someone in your organization must like to write! Add your article to your website and publish it! There are many websites dedicated to publishing articles for free. Many allow you to include a brief bio AND a link to your website. The Article Banks website (articlebanks.com) contains useful information and resources related to publishing your article online.
Not sure what to write about? Start with your most popular keyword search phrases and develop a topic that your customers frequently raise. You sell GPS devices – compare and contrast the two most popular manufacturers who also happen to be popular web searches. You are a CPA– how about a “top ten” list of personal tax misconceptions? Do your best to make your content unique, original, useful and entertaining.
Convert your article to PDF format that online visitors can download and print. Consult with your web developer about adding “email to a friend” functionality.
2. Post in a Relevant Online Forum or Newsgroup Join an online community relevant to your website and become a regular, contributing member. Make sure to include your website URL in the signature area of each of your postings.
3. Post in a Relevant Blog? You’ve heard the buzz on blogging. Your website URL can be included in blog contributions but be careful here. Search engines are more and more sensitive to “Blog Spamming.9 Chris Genge, a contributing SEO author in the article “Over 125 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies”, writes “Even though blogging is all the rage these days, I think it will go the way of link farms in the not-too-distant future, especially if/when the SE’s determine that it is just another case of spamming. We are staying away from it….”10
4. Publish in an “e-zine” Some of the most popular sites relevant to your business may not have a link program. Offer instead to contribute a unique topic to their monthly e-zine (email newsletter). Include your bio and a web page link.
5. Write a testimonial or review for a trusted product/service Many businesses are eager to publish testimonials on their site. Ask to include a link back to your relevant web page.
Finally, make sure to track your link building progress. Create a spreadsheet for this purpose. You will no doubt have to follow up on your link requests. Capture details including the information you entered and the date you submitted your request. Politely remind link partners of their commitment to link to your site and point them to the inbound link from your site to theirs. Run your favorite link popularity and page rank tools to monitor your progress.
Conclusion If you are at all interested in driving qualified traffic to your web site and in developing relationships with suppliers of complementary products and services, you should spend some time learning about web page link building strategies. In this article, we discuss the who, what, when, where and how’s of SEO web page link building. Link building is much easier if your website is a valuable source of topical information and you have attained a high level of expertise.
In the “How Can Businesses Develop Their Own Inbound Links?” section of this article, I provide several suggestions designed to help you achieve that end. However, they say “The devil is in the details.” When it comes time to manage the process of soliciting and adding inbound links to your web pages, there are many details that will influence the success or failure of your program. You must carefully choose your link partners and directories and be prepared to suggest the link page location as well as the makeup of the link itself.
Finally, you must be both diligent AND patient. It’s fine to methodically forge relationships and build a community with complimentary web sites. But there is growing evidence that link building in an “unnatural” manner will hinder your search engine visibility and negate your efforts. So, be careful out there.
Footnotes:
1 Pease keep in mind that this content is provided for educational purposes in order to introduce you to important search engine optimization concepts. There are many factors that influence search engine results and page rank – we cannot promise that the techniques described in this article work in all cases. Thank you! –Bill Schwartz, EBIZ Machine
2 See google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=34432
3 Boggs, Chris, The Nitty Gritty of Link Requests, Website Magazine, December 14 2005, websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/articles/link_requests_boggs.aspx
4 Robin Nobles, Eric Ward and John Alexander , Over 125 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies, searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html
5 Boggs – see above
6 Spencer, Stephan, SEO: Weaving a Web of Links, practical ecommerce, March 12, 2007, practicalecommerce.com/articles/156/SEO-Weaving-a-Web-of-Links/
7 Boggs, Chris, The New Holy Grail of SEO?, Website Magazine, February, 2007, p. 12.
8 Boggs p. 13.
9 Boggs, Chris, The Nitty Gritty of Link Requests, Website Magazine, December 14 2005, websitemagazine.com/content/blogs/posts/articles/link_requests_boggs.aspx
10 Robin Nobles, Eric Ward and John Alexander , Over 125 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies, searchengineworkshops.com/articles/leglinkpop.html
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Chuck raps about link building. You create a new site and its content heavy, With the right amount of pictures you believe it’s ready, So you launch it trying to put money in da bank, But when you search and try to find yourself, you can’t, So you thank until your mind goes blank, Got titles and headers but no page rank, Sooner or later it will show if I wait, In the meantime make sure my code validate, And it do, Hmm, now what I’m supposed to do, Add meta information and alt tags too, Still don’t get listing, Something must be missing, Brad and Chuck recommended doing link building, So you start hunting down sites like a predator, Doing back links on all your competitors, Whoever linking to them need to link to me, Is it free, do we swap, or do I pay a fee, Well take it from us, before you take that step, Some things about the site that you might want to check, Did they use a link farm or some dirty tactics, Could have a bad effect on your site that’s drastic, Could’ve link baited, look at what they created, Compare it to yours, is it even related, Take the time, go inspect and see, Take advantage of paid directories, If you follow all the steps with a little bit of patience, Get links from relevant sites that are favorites, Update your content on the regular basis, I’m confident you’ll make it to first page placement
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