Linking

Linking is an important part of your overall online marketing plan. The number one rule is to create quality inbound links not just quantity links. So now you know the secret. It is to link to quality sites that offer quality content that your visitors will be interested in.

Its even more important to get those sites to link back to your site. The only way that will happen is to have quality content on your site. You don’t just want links , you want links that will drive traffic to your site. Linking is an ongoing commitment you have to employ on a regular basis.

Implementing a successful linking strategy requires:

Finding out who links to your competitors
Listing sites you would like to link to. That is to have a hit list of sites to target.
Ensuring your site, or a specific page is link friendly and designed take links.
Linking to other sites and requesting inbound links to your site.
Continually monitoring and reviewing your linking.

Primary Benefits

The primary benefits in increasing the number of links to your site are:

The more sites that you link to the more traffic you can expect. People find nearly as many sites by following links as they do using search engines. Well placed links on quality web sites are great traffic generators.

More search engines will now rank your pages higher when you have many links to your web site. Most search engines give a ranking boost to sites that have incoming links from quality related sites.

The more links to your site, the more ways search engine spiders have of finding you.

Linking helps to build trust. If visitors see that a popular or even a respected site links to yours, they will be more inclined to trust your site and what you offer will be viewed more favourably.

Linking is also a way of providing your visitors with other additional relevant information they may be interested in, without you having to reinvent the wheel.

Be Link Friendly

Create a link friendly site by having a particular page designed to allow visitors to create a link ( subject to approval) and to allow you to link to them. As an example link to us to go to our reciprocal linking page.

Which links you accept should be motivated by links that will be of real benefit to your visitors. Reciprocal links should only be given where there is a relevance between the sites. Avoid links just for the sake of links

Link Popularity Tips

The more links you have to your site the better. However, it is not the number of links that are important but rather the quality of the sites that are linking to your site.

Try to link from high link popularity sites to improve search engine ranking.

Include keywords in the linking text wherever possible. Some search engines will boost rankings when this occurs.

Finding Link Partners

Look for sites that are related to your business but are not direct competitors. For example if you sold bulk pet food it would be useful to link to a pet store (selling pets) and they could link back to you. In this situation the two business compliment each other and both could profit from the linking.

It is also useful to look at each of the sites "listed" on the link pages of competitor and related websites. After studying these links it would be beneficial to contact the best ones to request reciprocal linking. That can be a laborious exercise. Alternatively you can use software. One such option would be to visit check your link popularity. Enter details of your competitors web address and you will be shown your competitors links.

To find a whole range of sites to link to and manage, maintain and monitor your linking you can use software from Arelis. More details regarding this software and a link to download a free version of the program is available by clicking on the link.

Improve Link Popularity

Contact the Webmaster of a site that is complementary but not competitive to yours. Asking them to link to your site is not enough. To be successful you need to outline the advantages of linking to your site. You should create a link to their site on your link page and make mention of it in your contact mail to the webmaster of the site you want to link with. Most will refuse to link unless they are convinced that they will receive more traffic than what they send you.

In your email to the webmaster request a reciprocal link back to your site and provide a link (URL) to where they can obtain easily downloadable information and a link for them to include on their site. For example see our linking information page.

Follow Up

Now you need to check back periodically with the sites you targeted to see if they have linked to your site. If after sat four weeks no link has been added then you should contact them by email again and make mention of the previous email regarding a reciprocal link. If after a further four weeks nothing has happened then do not contact the webmaster

What Not To Do

Do not link to sites you think your visitors would not be interested in.

Do not exchange links with sites that are full of links only. These are also know as link farms.

Do not harass webmasters who do not reply to your email requests. Send a second email if they do not respond. If you receive no response within two weeks they will probably never respond.

Remember

1. You want to boost your ranking with search engines and linking is an important part of it.

2. You want to link to quality sites and have your site linked by them.

3. Link building is not an overnight process.

4. Link building is a costly process in time and effort, but if done correctly it will be worth the cost in the long run.

What We Do

There are a number of features that you need to consider in a good reciprocal link service. Based on your objectives we will rate and review the critical success features of any link service.

We can create a range of contact emails to assist you in your linking efforts or actually assist you in getting more links.

If you want to Do It Yourself check out our special DIY page for useful links to software.

Want to Link To Our Site

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