Building a Link Strategy
 Links,
also called "hyperlinks", connect text,
image or other information objects to each other. You can have links
from the Internet to your website which is called an "incoming"
link. And you can place links on your website to related content
at another URL address. These are called "outbound"
links.
Why should you care about having
links to and from your website anyway? Here's a few reasons:
- Links are traffic builders
- Many search engines use link popularity
as a ranking criteria
- The more incoming links exist, the more chances
you have of being found by other search engines
- Links have endurance. URL
postings in newsgroups and mailings lists eventually aren't found
anymore and therefore lose their effectiveness as traffic builders.
How to Get More Incoming Links
The Internet creates the same opportunities for big companies as
it does small. You are in competition with every company that is
displayed in search engine results for your targeted keywords and
phrases. You want to get as many quality links as your top competitors
have...plus a few more. So to begin, enter your keywords in a search
engine like Google and make a list of all your competitors
including their URLs.
Then check which websites are linking
to them and write those down. To do this, there are tools
you can use:
- On Google, type link:YourCompetitorsURL
in the search box and view your results.
- On HotBot, enter your competitors URL including
the http:// and choose "links to this URL."
- On AltaVista, enter link:YourCompetitorsURL
in the search box and view your results.
- Try Link
Popularity or Link
Popularity Check
Copy and paste your results
into Notepad, Word or some text processer file and save.
Repeat this process for each
competitor's website.
Visit every website on your saved list and review
them. If they are appropriate for your website to be linked from,
then send a link request email to the site owner
or webmaster offering a reciprocal link...a trade of incoming and
outbound links. If the site is not appropriate, remove them from
your list.
When sending a link request, finding an address
to send it to may be difficult. When all else fails, you can use
the WHOIS
Lookup on Network Solutions website. This will give you the
technical and administrative contact email addresses.
Your letter should be generic
enough so you can send it to all your potentials, but personalized
enough so that it doesn't feel like a form letter. I personally
am annoyed by receiving the same letter dozens of times expressing
deep interest in a link exchange. So genuine and
tell the site owner what makes their website so valuable
to your customers and why you think their customers would
like your content. Be sure to provide a signature file
including your URL.
Follow up and provide links
to those websites who agree to your proposal and verify
that incoming links have been established to your website
and that the links work. You may choose to create a page on your
website that provides a choice of ways to link and provide code
for each solution. You can have simple text links or banner ads
of varying color configurations.
Finally, submit the URL of any website
that links to your website to popular search engines. This
will ensure you obtain the ever so important link popularity score
which is the reason you're working so hard.
Good Link Bad Link
When trading links, it's important to note that
not all links are equal in effectiveness. Be sure to provide and
receive equal link prominence. And when trading
links with websites that receive less traffic than yours, consider
asking for a banner ad on their site in exchange for a text link
on yours.
NEVER put outbound links on your homepage.
Place a links page further down in your file tree. You want your
customers to have time to view your content before they leave your
website.
Check your outbound links often.
Site owners remove pages and destroy the link. When your visitors
click on the link they receive an HTTP 404 Error that makes your
site look bad and confuses the customer. Consider creating a custom
404 error page to maintain and re-route traffic that would have
otherwise resulted in an ugly error page.
A handy tool for checking for dead links can
be found at Site
Owner.
Helpful Websites
The
Benefits of Linking by LinkStrategy.com
Developing
a Reciprocal Link Strategy by JPC Web Design Services
Search
Engine Optimization & Link Popularity by DSD Web Works
Understanding
Link Popularity by Linking101.com
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