To Link or Not To Link

If you've had your website for any length of time, by now, you've likely heard about the importance of link building. BUT just how important is it? Extremely!

From the search engine's perspective
All things being equal, the larger the number of inbound links to your site, the higher your (natural) search engine will be, relative to your competitors. The thinking here being that if more people link to your site, then there must be more value in your site. Think of this as a popularity contest and the site with the most links usually wins.

From the visitor's perspective
Potential customers (not yet on your site) can find you if you are linked properly on other sites. For this reason alone, it is critical that your link is visible on other sites. Visitors already on your site can benefit from the useful links you list. While the thinking used to be that "on-site" links take visitors away, the truth is that visitors value them. And what’s good for your visitor should be good for you too!

We personally don’t know of anything else that has as much impact on your search engine optimization results then resource links. It is the ultimate differentiator. However, pretending for a minute that optimization doesn’t matter, links on your site are also important for your site visitors. If your visitors are interested in you, they are likely interested in links that are related to you.

In the end, it is clear, that you should be actively engaging in link building.

Link building basics
So, how do you properly start building links? Follow our guide below and you’ll be on your way:

1. Relevance Rules – Find links on sites that are related to your Industry. Do not bother with sites that aren’t. It is no longer about the sheer number of links you have but it is about the relevance of those links.
2. Do NOT buy links – Link buying is discouraged by Google and they will actually lower your rankings if they know. So, unless the potential traffic you can receive from such links outweighs the benefits of optimization – don’t do it.
3. Do NOT join link farms – nothing will get you banned quicker from the search engines then joining a link farm. If someone promises you thousands of links at one time, it is usually a link farm.
4. Use keywords in your text – if possible, use keywords that will help your optimization effort in your link text.
5. Search your keywords – look for top results and find directory sites, Wikipedia listings, and partners to trade links with.
6. Be Patient - Link building takes time. In fact, if you add links too quickly – the search engines are alerted and may ban you thinking you’ve joined a link farm.

If you’d like more information on how to integrate best link building practices into your online marketing effort, contact us! Or better yet, link to us!

Ron Weber is currently the President of SD Interactive, a San Diego Internet Marketing Agency.