Link building tips

There are many ways to promote your site. The search engines are a primary source of e-commerce traffic on the Web. Having other sites link to you will be essential in accomplishing these main objectives:

1. Getting the search engine spiders to find your site.
2. Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more frequently.
3. Getting the search engine spiders to crawl your site more deeply (i.e., this will get them to look at more than just your site's homepage.)

We'd like to share with you some of the lessons and techniques that will help you if you have a newer domain name or if you simply want to become more visible in the search engines.

You can submit your site to the search engines, howvever, this is becoming less and less effective in accomplishing the above mentioned objectives. Or, you can ask other sites to link to you, which shows the search engines that your site is important enough that others are willing to place their reputation on it. In this way, when one web page links to another, it is as though that page is voting for the other.

Major search engines, including Google, AOL, MSN and Yahoo!, will look at both the number of pages linking to your site and the quality of those pages to determine your site’s relevancy. Having good quality and quantity of links going to your site will drive the search engines to spider your site and also help improve your rankings for keyword phrases. Therefore, one of the most important things you can work on to gain higher rankings in the search engines is your site’s own “link popularity”.

Check your current link popularity

Key facts to consider:

• A quality link from a high-ranking site will benefit your site more than a large amount of links from only low ranking sites.
  
• Links from site to site should be text-based (not images) using one of your main targeted keyword phrases.
  
• Link popularity is not effective when used single-handedly as a marketing technique. You will need to work significantly on your site’s text content and researching keyword phrases. Remember to develop and use targeted, popular keyword phrases throughout the text on your site, or have it professionally optimized.

Trade links with other sites

This is known as reciprocal linking or "link exchange." You agree to link to another site, in exchange for them linking to you. As a strategy for increasing the quantity of sites linking to you, it is very popular. You may be contacted by other sites if you have your email address posted somewhere on your site. Or, you can go out on the Web yourself and find some sites to trade links with.

First, create a custom HTML page for linking, and link to it from your site’s homepage.

Second, decide what keyword phrases you will use for the links pointing to your site. Links should always be keyword rich text, so use your best performing search terms according to what is getting the most searches in the major engines. You can use our keyword suggestion tool to discover which keyword phrases are getting high traffic:

When you supply the link to a link trading partner, be sure to give it to them in the following context

This is the HTML code that will ensure your link appears as a text link.

Third, contact other site owners to discuss trading links. Because you have already established a relationship and rapport with certain people, they will be more inclined to want to link to your site. This will become reciprocal linking if you propose to list a text link to their site if they will in turn list a text link to yours:

Business partners

Many industry partners are familiar with exchanging links or at least with the importance of promoting sites using the search engines, so they may be more receptive to a discussion on the topic. It never hurts to send an email explaining the benefits of this win-win situation.

Suppliers / Manufacturers / Distributors / Vendors / Clients

Your manufacturers are a great place to start building links. Often your manufacturers have established websites that are highly relevant to your product lines. Take the time to call your manufactures. Speak to them about your site and request a link exchange.

Other link exchange sources:

• Local businesses and regional organizations who may want to support you and your business efforts.
• Find sites on the Web that are similar to yours.

Another way to find potential link partners is to find out who is linking to your competitors. You can use the link popularity tool on this site.

Go back each month through the list of sites you’ve agreed to trade links with, and double check that they are still listing you on their site. If not, remove the link.

As your site becomes more popular in the search engines, you may begin to receive link exchange requests through the email address posted on your contact information page. Watch the PageRank of sites that propose a reciprocal link exchange to you. The higher their Google PageRank, the more valuable the link will be for your site.

To view PageRank, go to http://toolbar.google.com/ and download the Google Toolbar. Look for sites with a high PageRank, although you may have to work your way up to this.

Related Sites

It is also very important to trade links with related sites or those within your same industry.

Sites that are listed in Google’s directory or Yahoo’s directory are generally more credible because their content has been checked by a human editor.

Link Advertising

Purchasing a link advertising program is yet another way to increase your site's link popularity. Purchased links can help to develop both quality and quantity of links quickly and efficiently for a site that is either brand new or struggling to attain high listings and increase traffic. It will also greatly impact the search engine rankings you can expect from a full site optimization.

Submit to the search engines

Google and Yahoo! Directories

The first thing you can do to get some quick links is submit to directories. There are hundreds of website directories on the web and the majority of these directories can help your site with a single link. While legitimate web directories like Yahoo! Directory and DMOZ.org will help you substantially, links from lesser known directories can help as well.

Many people also use Google PageRank to ensure that a directory is relevant.

Directories
Here is a checklist of some additional directories you can submit your domain to:

• GoGuides
• JoeAnt
• Gimpsy
• About.com
• Chiff
• Web World Directory
• More>>

You can also use this free tool to submit to the search engines.