Link Building For Your Website
Link building is in the “must do” category if you ever want to rank highly in the search engine’s eyes. Although there are many factors (over 200) which are used to determine a site’s ranking, the number of links pointing to your site is at the top of the list. Search engines typically provide higher rankings for sites that have tons of quality incoming links.
Incoming links are links from other sites to yours. They are created when other websites refer to your site as a reference, source or as a suggestion for additional readings on a subject. These types of links grow slowly over time. As they do, your site gains authority in the search engine’s eyes.
New website owner desiring to increase their traffic and ranking quickly must rely on additional link building strategies.
There are two kinds of link building strategies. There are White Hat and Black Hat link building strategies. Black hat strategies are frowned upon by the search engines. They are view as attempts at trickery. Google views these strategies as illegal attempts at influencing its rankings.
White Hat strategies are considered, for the most part, a natural form of link building.
This article will focus on the strategies that are considered White Hat. There is nothing worse than having your site penalized by the search engines.
As we begin to discuss link building strategies keep the page rank concept in mind. Page rank is simply an expression of search engine query relevancy, the results of a keyword search.
Links to your site from those that have a high page rank (PR), pass a higher link juice. Meaning a link from site A (page rank 6) to your site weighs more heavily than a link from a site B (page rank 1).
In addition, we must also remember that not all highly ranking sites pass link juice freely. Links from sites that are “nofollow” do not pass link juice. There is still a benefit in having these links, just no link juice.
Link building strategies:
1. Submit your site’s URL to Directories
a. Yahoo (PR 8) Cost of submission $299
b. DMOZ (PR 8) Cost - Free
c. Business.com (PR 7) Cost - $299
d. Joeant (PR 7) Cost 39.99
e. SearchSight (PR 5) Free
f. SoMuch.com (PR 5) Free
g. Free Website Directory (PR 4) Free
h. FourFind (PR 3) Free
i. King Directory (PR 2) Cost $5
j. Directory Reviews (PR 2) Cost $9.95
<p>2. Look for partners - Look for non-competitive partners in the same niche. Contact them via their contact pages. They might be open to link exchanges.
3. Advertising - You can advertise on other websites with similar topics. You may be surprised at how little it costs. Some owners will be happy to accept a few bucks in exchange for your link on their site indefinitely. Other inexpensive forms of advertising are available through Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines. Simply decide on how much you are willing to spend and go from there.
4. Consider publishing articles. A few good places to publish articles include Ezine (PR 6), Articlesbase (PR 6), eHow (PR 8) and articlesnatch.com (PR 5). These online magazines are always looking for quality content. Include at or near the end of your articles, links back to your website.
5. Post information about your website on message boards or social networking sites. If your website’s content is valuable, people will be happy to hear about it.
6. Create either a blog within your website or a Squidoo lens. If using a Squidoo lens, make sure that you create links back to your website.
7. Ask for quality blog submissions from your visitors. Pick the best submissions and add them to your website. This will help to create traffic, links and content.
8. Make sure that your blogs are listed on a few of the best blog directories. Try Blogcatalog.com for starters.
9. Try to get your blog featured on Technorati. This would be a great linking opportunity as Technorati ranks well in Google, Yahoo and MSN.
10. Consider submitting comments on related forums and blogs. If you have great information, post a comment and a link.
11. Prepare a press release. This should definitely direct some traffic towards your site. Head on over to Free-Press-Release.com.
12. Create an article for Digg.com. Link this article to your website.
13. Create an RSS feed for updates to your website. This information should get syndicated and point right back to your site.
14. Make sure that you are listed at Alexa.com.
15.Finally, create more quality content. This is the best way to build natural links and the search engines will love you for it.
Although link building isn’t always fun, it is necessary and you can never have too many links. Just make sure they are relevant quality links.
Happy Link Building.
