What are Links?

Like a giant spider web, the Internet has many interconnections (links) that allow Internet users to move from site to site. It is these interconnections that search engines also use to find new and relevant material to present to their visitors. Generally, the more links to your site from other sites the more "popular" your web site is in the eyes of a search engines because many sites reference yours. If your interested in getting or keeping your site ranked high in the most popular search engines like Google, it's desirable to get quality links to your site. With links on a variety of sites, search engines like Google are more apt to visit your site as they index Internet web sites and follow links from the original site, more visits generally means more relevance which affects search engine presence. Generally it is important that these types of links be similar or related to your site in some way.

Building Quality Links Is Important

Knowing which links to get for your site and how to setup those links is very important in search engine optimization. In search engine optimization it's desirable to get links to your site from:

• Sites that are similar in nature or relevant to yours
• Sites that are popular and have many links to them
• Contain important or valued information (this relates to Google PageRank and other search engine algorithms)

So what makes a quality link?

Provided that you have found a quality site that will link to you, a good link from that site will have a number of components:

• The highlighted text will contain a word or phrase that describes your site, its services or products
• Components of the page linking to you (title and name) will be very related to your site, its services or products
• Finally, the link will point to a page on your web site that talks specifically about the related information. That page should also contain a relevant title.

Quality links can greatly increase the value of your Internet property. Consider this; every Internet property is on the proverbial downtown corner, building links to your Internet property increases the amount of traffic to your corner. You can see this on the Internet today by the variety of web ventures that buy and resell domain names or broker the sale of Internet properties. Domain names gain value from several factors, one of the most important is how popular they have become and how much traffic they generate. A domain name that has links to it from directories like Yahoo, the Open Directory Project and Business.com is sure to be worth more simply because it has solid links in place from reputable sources.

Getting Links from Others

It is important to develop a strategy for getting links to your web site, the best way is to develop content or resources within your web site that is informative and unique. This is the most effective way to get high quality links back to your site from other resources, when you employ this method you will get people to link to you and you will be able to garner links that others can not.

So what sorts of pages do other sites link to?

We just said, the most important thing about building links is to create unique and relevant content for the visitor on your web site. Almost every web site owner has unique or specific knowledge about their products or services that they can add content about.

THE FOLLOWING LINK BUILDING INFORMATION IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT!
Please keep in mind that the page you are building and that you would like others to link to does not have to "sell" or "advertise" you. You will get many more links from others if you develop content that informs the visitor about a concept, term, outcome or subject. You want to become an authority on a bit of subject matter or information. Don't worry that others may not be linking to your home page, it will gain popularity along with your subject matter pages.

Ultimately, this pages you build should contain links to your products or advertising, but it does not and should not blatently "hock your wares".

So, consider adding information to your web site that educates or informs the visitor or provides information on a key concept, subject, design, outcome or service. Everyone has some area of interest, expertise or knowledge that they can talk about - providing fresh insight, a unique view or background.

Related Business Link Building

Many times web site owners can't afford or don't have the time to build "educational" content. This is where links from other topic specific Internet sites are important. Topic specific Internet sites or pages provide relevant information on some thing, some product or some service. These links are important because the provide continuity in relevant information, just what search engines were designed to index. Very often these links can be important to both parties. Consider this; a manufacturer of trailers uses a particular brand of trailer axle in their product. The trailer manufacturer provides a link to the axle manufacturer on their Bobcat Trailer page (which uses the axle) and trailer axle manufacturer does the same on the page describing that particular axle.. This links two distinct but relevant peices of content. All things being equal this will benefit both the trailer manaufacturer and the axle manufacturer and affect the search engine presence of both.

Alternative Internet Linking Strategies

An alternative strategy that works for some web sites in gaining links is to provide a service, facility or application on your web site that others would like to use or access. This might be a specialized application that you allow users to download, access or use on your web site, a chat room or forum. This strategy is typically a bit harder to implement since it may require some follow-up marketing, a well-designed link agreement strategy or building community on your web site, but it definately affects search engine presence.

Links to Your web site from Directories

Most people will try to build Internet links by simply submitting their site to the various directories that are available on the Internet. This is very important part of what link building is, but one must realize that not all directories are created equal. And there are some directories that are in fact covers for something else. Just about anyone who has subscribed to the "Submit Your Site to A Billion Directories for 19.95", can tell you that all they got for $19.95 was lots of spam e-mail. Many of the directories that you find on the Internet are FFA(Free For All) link sites. Having grown up in Wisconsin in dairy farm country I originally though that the FFA(Future Farmers of America) were suddenly promoting Internet web sites but that is not quite the case.

Please remember that building links can make or break a web site, getting a link from a "bad neighborhood" might actually penalize your web sites importance or ranking in the eyes of a search engine and maybe some human visitors as well. Please check out our page on "To Link or Not To Link" to find out more about what you should not link to.

Good Internet Directories

There are lots of good Internet directories out there, in fact there are hundreds. We already named a few earlier - Yahoo, DMOZ, Business.com, but there are many more reputable directories, in fact we have our own links directory - Search City, designed just for helping web site owners promote their site. You will also find a number of other Internet directories - many highly specialized - that are listed in our directory. While we can not guarantee that these link building resources are good Internet citizens they checked out when they were added to the directory. (If you happen to find one that seems questionable, please notify us - .) Please remember though that these resources for link building are not the be all and end all when building links.

Should I Have to Link Back or Pay for Links?

Short answer, most of the time. Many directories or sites will ask you for a link back. Especially with related, relevant sites, these links back are best if they are worked into the content, but many sites have a links page as well that can be effective. Most directories will want a link back and be satisfied with a link back from a special "links" page. Personnally, I would never provide a link from my home page to another site so we never ask for that at Rank1st or when optimizing for clients. We never provide links back to directories or webrings on home pages on our client sites. Many directories do exist to generate money for their owners, and this is not a bad thing, especially since a popular directory costs a bundle to host and maintain. How much should that fee be? Well it ranges, the Rank1st directory provides links for a one time $10.00 fee or a link back, Yahoo on the other hand requires a $299.00 fee yearly to be listed in their directory and others like Business.com require a $100.00 linking fees. We include many of these fees in our search engine optimization project contracts and seo retainer programs to help eliminate the number of connections that web site owners need to track.

Do Lots of Links Affect Search Engine Presence?

Having good quality links is more important that the quantity of links. A few links from sites with a Google PageRank of 9 or 10, go much further than lots of lesser known pages that have no page rank or are not listed at all. The number of links to a site does increase its popularity, but quality is generally more important that quality.

In respect to link building, one is never really finished with a link building project. There is a point at which a site may retain top rankings because of its links, but these must be maintained. Fresh links are seen as fresh content and an active site in the eyes of the search engines. This is why Rank1st continues to build links for its seo retainer program clients, even after their initial optimization project is completed.

Who is Rank1st?

Rank1st Technology Services, based in Taylors Falls, Minnesota specializes in search engine optimization for web sites, part of which requires building Internet presence for companies large and small. We provide services like link building to help Internet property owners leverage their web site content for more visitors and more success. Contact us and we can help you design and implement a link building strategy for your Internet property. In addition we provide an array of technology services related to the Internet that include web site hosting, search engine placement, and Internet related project management. As always, Rank1st wants you to rank first!