Often when I meet with a new client to determine the specs for their website, the client will request a “links” page. This is fine – if you wish to link off your site to related information that may be of use to your customers. By all means – SHARE! However, it often comes out after further discussion that the client was under the impression that these links will help them in the search engines. Unfortunately, linking to other web sites helps their search engine rank, not yours.
The goal of your Inbound Link Building Strategy is to get other sites to link to your web site. This requires some on-going effort on your part to request links from external sources.
Why do we need inbound links? Because Google says so. The search engines assume that the more links you have, the more important your website must be.
The #1 way to get more links is to write Great Content. Think about it. If your content stinks, who will want to link to it? Although it takes some effort to write remarkable content, it is much more likely that people will share it in blogs, social media, etc.
Here are some other tips for getting inbound links and improving your search engine rank:
- Make sure all of your pages are indexed in Google. If not, then add them.
- When you type in yourdomain.com does it automatically redirect to www.yourdomain.com? If not, then you may be diluting your link authority by splitting your Google links between these two domains. If you don’t explicitly tell Google that these 2 are the same website (by using a permanent redirect) then you are probably not getting credit for all of your inbound links.
- Is your website listed in The Open Directory Project? Yahoo? Bing?
- What about localized directories such as Google Maps and Yahoo Local?
- Do you belong to any organizations (such as the chamber of commerce) that might offer free links to their members?
- Are there any industry-specific directories that offer free or paid listings?
- Do you work with trusted partners whose businesses compliment yours? Then create a partners page on your website and ask them to reciprocate by adding a link back to your website.
- Who is linking to your competition? Why not ask them to link to you too?
- If you are using social media (and you should be), there are many opportunities to increase your links:
- LinkedIn: Add your website & blog to your profile
- Twitter: Tweet your blog posts
- Facebook: Link to your website from your Facebook page
- Social Bookmarking: Bookmark links to your blog
10. Internal web site links are also important – make sure you add links from one page to another and use keywords in your link text!
Please share with us any creative ideas you have to help others build their link popularity in the comments below.
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