The Importance of Links - page 2

by Lee Asher, 1/12/2006

What Does That Mean for Me?

Basically, it means that you have to be concerned with how many websites link to you, as it will influence your ranking in the search engines. It also means that you should be careful about who you link to, and that once you have a high ranking, you might even be able to sell sponsored links to people who are trying to raise their search engine ranking.

Of course, you shouldn't ignore the more traditional uses of links either: a link from a popular site is likely to directly send plenty of traffic your way. You've got to take care not to change around your URL system without adding useful redirects, otherwise you'll break people's links and waste this traffic, not to mention making people more reluctant to link to you in the future.

How Do I Get People to Link to My Website?

That's the big question on the modern web, and there are plenty of people out there ready to try and sell you dodgy answers. You should beware of methods like sending your URL out to thousands of sites at random with a message saying "I'll link to you if you link to me". Every webmaster gets dozens of those every day, and they're really nothing more than spam.

The best way, instead, is to use a human touch. Become involved with forums and other groups to do with your topic, and talk to people with similar websites to yours. Basically, make friends, real friends, and be willing to link to their websites. As long as you're nice about it, the chances are that they'll do the same for you - the best way to do it is not to ask at all, so that it looks like you only linked to their site because you thought it was so great.

Do remember, though, that all links aren't equal, either in terms of traffic or search engine ranking. A link from a highly-ranked site will improve your rankings much more than one from a less well-ranked site. It's still good to get as many links as you can, but don't spend a disproportionate amount of time and effort on the less important ones - concentrate on getting your site its big break, getting it linked from a really big, popular site.

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About the author

Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of Eclipse Domain Services Domain Names, Hosting, Traffic and Email Solutions.

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