Link building is the process of getting links to a website from other sites, especially high traffic, industry specific sites. Getting links to a website used to be an easy task, as companies attempted to just get as many incoming links possible; quality and nature or the links was unimportant. Then link relevance came along; search engines now take into account the quality and relevance of a website’s incoming links. This makes the process of link building a much more complicated program. With all of the other tasks that business owners have, link building may not be high on the priority list. It may be best to hire a professional Internet marketing firm to help.
Some Concepts to Know about Link Building Campaigns
- Page Rank is the value that the search engines give to a web page. It is usually on a scale of 1 to 10.
- Link Popularity is the number to links pointing to a site from other sites on the Internet. The more incoming links a website has, the more important it is to the search engines and will be ranked higher by them.
- Building link popularity helps to gain higher page rank for a website. The higher the page rank, the higher the site will appear on the search engines with competitive keywords. The major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN use link popularity to determine how important a website is in order to give it a rank in search results. The search engines seem to think that the more incoming links a site has, the more important or valuable it must be.
In the process of link building, quality is more important than quantity. It is important to choose quality sites to link to. Businesses need to find sites that have some relevance to their business or products. For example if a business sells insurance, a link from an insurance information site would benefit that business more than just a link on a general “catch all” link site.
Benefits of Link Building
Probably the most important benefit of having a high number of quality links to a site is the effect it has on the search engine rankings. Most of the major search engines use “link popularity” as a main factor in determining where a site should rank. If a site has a lot of high quality sites linking to it, the search engines will think it is a popular site and give it a high page rank. Building quality and relevant links has two advantages; gaining visitors from the linking site and boosting page rank with the search engines.
Parts of a Link Building Program
A complete link-building program involves generating links to a website from a variety of sources.
- Directories are one of the most comprehensive ways to generate incoming links. They are designed to promote links and are often fee based. A link directory is like a massive reference library of websites. They are often arranged by subject; broad to specific. Submitting a website to a directory can give it immediate credibility and traffic. Websites should be submitted to as many directories as possible that relate to the companies' business.
- Social networks and blogs have become a great way to generate incoming links to a website as well. It does take patience and skill, however, to utilize blogs and social networks to generate links; it may be best to leave this to a professional.
- Article sites are another way to create incoming links to a website. Creating a link from the keywords used in the articles submitted to these sites will generate targeted traffic to the site as well as improve page rank. Some article sites, however, only allow links in the resource box of the articles, not in the text of the article itself. The links generated here are permanent links, unlike directories and blogs where links might be deleted. Article sites rarely delete articles. Article writing also show off expertise on the subject being written about, making it more likely that people will want to visit that site. Article submission can be a tedious process, best left to a professional SEO company.
A complete link-building program will benefit a site's page rank with the search engines, increase page visits and offer an opportunity for increased revenues.
Fran Prisco - Fran likes to run, bike, golf and do anything outdoors. She also enjoys reading, knitting and crocheting. She works as a freelance writer, ...
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