Long Island 2008 – 2009 Recession
In a recession, the first dollars that a company usually cuts come from the advertising budget. Advertising in a recession is actually a smart business move to grow your business now and for the future. Long Island SEO services will get your business to the top of Google.
McGraw-Hill Research conducted a study of U.S. recessions from 1980-1985. Out of the 600 business-to-business companies analyzed, the ones who continued to advertise during the 1981-1982 recession hit a 256-percent growth by 1985 over their competitors that eliminated or decreased spending.
American Business Press analyzed 143 companies during the economic downturn back in 1974 and 1975. Companies that advertised in those years saw the highest growth in sales and net income during the recession and the two years that followed.
The numbers aren’t a fluke. They prove there’s a reward for companies who are aggressive with their advertising efforts in a recession. This is why Long Island SEO is so important we can help your company reach more local customers on the web and grow your business while competitors cut spending you can reap the rewards now and in the future. Find out more about Long Island SEO and get a free SEO quote now.
Long Island slipped into recession in October 2008 almost a year later than the U.S. economy. It lost 7,100 private-sector jobs in the 12 months ended in November 2008 with losses spread across most industries. Taking into account coming business failures, layoffs delayed until after the holiday season, and cost controlling in the growing health care and government sectors, Nassau-Suffolk could lose another 20,000 to 35,000 payroll jobs before losses abate late this year or next. This is in addition to potential job losses among the These losses could push Long Island’s unemployment rate from the current 5.2 percent to as much as 6.8 percent by year end.
The median price of newly sold Nassau homes fell from a peak of $502,500 in August 2007 to $410,000 in November 2008, a drop of more than 18 percent. Comparable Suffolk prices peaked at $420,000 in June 2007 and declined to $335,000 in November 2008. This is equivalent to a 20 percent decline.
Median home prices on Long Island could fall by another 15 percent before the Long Island housing market bottoms out, probably in 2010. This assumes that the market settles back to its long-term ratio of home prices being 15 times annual rents.
SEO Link Building Tips 101 – The Power of Contextual Link Building
By now, anyone who has dabbled in internet marketing or SEO for their website knows the best way to rank in the search engines is to link build for the keywords they wish to target.While the search engines use many different factors to determine site rankings, most experts agree that link building is one of the biggest.However, not all link building techniques are created equal.
As any true link building expert can tell you, there is a big difference between amateur and quality link building.True experts know that any link building campaign should be a balance of several different techniques which can include targeting less authoritative links through article marketing and forum participation as well as going after the big links, which typically include contextual and one way link building from high authority sites.
The goal of the search engines is relevant results – the number one result for a search should be a website that has the best chance of fulfilling the need of the searcher.If the search engines had their way, nobody would be actively seeking links – it would happen naturally based on relevance, usefulness and popularity of a site.Luckily, that’s not the case.
Thanks to search engine optimization, we now know that we can engage in certain link building services and activities and actively help our sites to rank for our popular keyword phrases.Since the search engines call for ethical link building, the most powerful form of building links tends to be one way contextual links on relevant, high authority sites for keyword phrases you’re targeting.Not only are they powerful links, but they look more natural to the search engines.
Contextual link building is one of the toughest, most time intensive link building techniques you can engage in – but the results are worth it.Not only do the links help your rankings, but you should also receive traffic from people clicking on those links.Getting contextual links is about finding sites that use your target keywords in their content, and persuading them to link to your site using those keywords as anchor text.To the search engines, this looks like an authority site is actually recommending you as a resource for that keyword topic – the more of these you can get, the faster you’ll climb in the search engine results pages, or SERPs.
Here are a few SEO link building tips on how to find highly relevant and trusted sites to request contextual or one way links from:
- Search your target keyword on Google and look at the top 100 sites.You want to get as many links from these sites as possible.To find the page on a site that is most relevant to your keyword, search Google with “site:domain.com keyword”.
- Use a tool like Hub Finder (from Aaron Wall’s SEOBook) or similar software to run an analysis of these top 100 sites and find additional sites that link back to two or more of your top 100 – then get links from as many of these sites as well, preferably right within content.
- If you can’t get links from some of the top 100 (and it’s tough, since many will be your competitors) examine their backlinks and try and get links from those sites.You can utilize Yahoo’s “link:domain.com” search for this.Use the Google search mentioned above to find the page on the site that is most relevant to your keyword.
These three tips are some of the most powerful tactics you can employ when increasing links to your site.By mixing these highly relevant and authoritative links with lower level links from article marketing, blog writing and forum/blog participation, you can create a long term link building campaign that is sure to boost your rankings.
Keep in mind that building links is a long term process – rankings don’t happen overnight (in most cases).But by engaging in ethical and quality link building, you will eventually see your site ranking for the keywords you’ve targeted.In the end, until the search engines drastically change their ranking methods, the site with the most links (and most POWERFUL links) will win the rankings race.
Link Building – Building a Strategic Relationship
In Link building, the weight of strategic relationship can’t be denied. Relationship building is the way through which you can widen your website’s reach. When other sites link to your website they are in a sense, endorsing your website. The strength of building a large network of website that back-links to your site can determine your online success. There is ample of evidence that shows the significance of strategic relationship for any link building campaign accomplishment. Quality link building goes beyond just being referred by the website which is relevant to your site. It is more about cultivating strategic relationships with other sites who intend to display your links as “organic”.
Right Way to Start Building Good Relationships- “A good start is a half done”. The authentic meaning of this proverb is having a good start always produces a great outcome. So if you are going to start relationship marketing, make sure to have a good start. Following a chronological approach is always better and Link Building campaign needs to follow these given approach step by step:
- Research for relevant websites- Choosing potential link partner is the foremost step of a link building campaign. It can be done through a search for the websites working in the same area. It requires comprehensive research of sites in major search engines with most relevant keywords.
Note: Be cautious about the website’s interest in link partnership and its content quality. There should always be a resource page or a link partner’s page.
- Make a list of thematic sites- Prepare a list of websites interested in link partnership on the basis of research. To make it more expedient in use, you may sort the list either by geographical region or by page rank.Note: Focus on collecting good resources rather than large.
- Send emails of link building proposal- Prepare an email template for sending link building request. This is the most decisive step of a link building campaign. While writing emails for link building request, you should keep few points in mind.
- Be assured that you have visited their website. In your email, put a line about their website.
- Be delicate. It should be a personal request and should not look like coming from an automated program or software.
- Offer them something of value, remember to point out what’s in it for them.
- Add a line to explain the importance of link partnership.
Note: Never send link building request number of times, to a single email ID, as it can irritate the receiver.
- Follow up- Follow up is required at weekly interval to check the persistence of links.Note: While doing follow up if you are not getting your links; don’t be agitated as it can mess up your relationship with the partner. Better ask him/her to add link again. Don’t forget to mention the mutual link partnership agreement signed before.
Brand Reputations in Relationship Building- Do you ever think when you commend any brand to your customer; it directly reflects your brand reputation? Suppose someone has requested you to recommend his/her brand you are not aware of. Do you recommend that brand? Never. But if you have taken service from any brand and you feel good about it- you will definitely recommend the name to any of your friend who has a need of the same service. Likely is the case with link building where you need to focus on the quality of links you are going to recommend in order to build relationship.
In Link Building, strategic relationship shows how successful your link campaign is launched. And both partners can take the benefit of link building throughout the strategic relationship.
Multiple Path Link Building
In just about any form of marketing, when something works it gets repeated to death until the strategy is no longer effective. Good product tag lines get over used (got milk?, got sand? got Jesus?), TV shows have to get more and more “cutting edge” (NYPD Blue, Family Guy, CSI), and movies have to be bigger and better than their predecessors (Matrix, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean). It’s not long until yesterday’s big thing is today’s normal thing.
Online marketing, especially link building, is similar. While there is no replacing the concept of building a good site worthy of links and letting people know about it, there are actually numerous strategies available for attracting good links through solid marketing efforts. In any kind of marketing its good to have multiple strategies, or multiple paths, which one can travel to get to the goal. Putting aside the whole concept of persona marketing which understands that you need to reach different people via different means, it’s a good idea not to put too put all of your time, money or effort into a single marketing approach. Again, this is especially true with link building.
Over the past few years we’ve seen the rise and fall of single-path link building practices: automated reciprocal links, link swapping, link buying, link spamming, etc. I’m not suggesting that all of these methods are dead or useless, but their use as a quick and easy solution is extremely limited. Many times, when one finds a link strategy that works, they drop all else and run with it. This tactic gets broadcast on the online forums, others jump on the bandwagon and soon enough, that strategy becomes moot to the overall process of search engine optimization. It’s no longer effective, but out of habit (and ease) people continue to follow that single-path, until the next great path is discovered.
With online marketing there are many paths to the same goal. There may be well over 100 paths of link building alone but not all the paths lead to the goal for every client. You can’t just find one that works and run with it, you need to find several that work for one client, and several others that work for each other client.
For example, paths A, D, F and G may be great for client X but not for client Y which needs paths H, L and P. Then you might have client Z that will best be suited for link building paths D, P, S and V. Client Z’s link paths overlap with X and Y a bit but also has a couple paths unique to it as well.
That’s why link building isn’t so easy. Most people are comfortable working within their own boxes. They like to develop strategies and checklists that take them from point A to point B, but start to get confused when each client needs to take a slightly different path that hasn’t yet been mapped by the marketer, a path unique for that particular client’s needs. Well hey, that’s just like real marketing.
This is why single-path link building just isn’t very effective anymore. Each client can have a dozen link building paths that are unique to them alone. The job of the SEO is to determine which paths are right for which client. This can take some trial and error but ultimately each client should have a good handful of link building paths to choose from.
Be cautious of any new link building path you learn about. All paths may be legitimate, but not all paths are legitimate for every client. Each new path you learn, consider carefully whether its for you or not. Most of all, if you find a link building path that works, great. But don’t put all your links in that one basket. Find the other link building paths that work for you because you never know when one or more paths will become obsolete from overuse or abuse. Multiple path link building helps you keep your linking efforts on solid footing achieving a variety of link types. Too much of a single type of link looks like obvious manipulation, something the search engines don’t like and you should avoid.
Link Building And It’s Best Practice
One of the most important aspects to your website ranking in the search engines is link building. This is an ongoing process, which ensures your sites ranking continues to move up in ranking, instead of sliding down the ladder and ending up on the back pages of the search engine.
Generally, link building is not just used to increase link popularity with search engines. This term also refers to link exchanges, newsletter channels, directory submissions and many more avenues that will help your links build traffic.
The best link building practices to use are those methods that not only provide increased exposure to your website, but also go toward turning your site into one that reflects good design, relevancy and builds a solid reputation. This is all goes toward good SEO, search engine optimization. As you will see, most of these link building techniques can all be used together.
One of the most popular methods used for link building is also very cost effective. Exchanging links with other relevant websites and blogs is practiced by many. This method takes some time, yet because of the network you have created by exchanging with other related sites, you are building a very solid network that will generate target traffic for you and your business opportunity. This practice only relies on your ambition and the time it takes, for you to cultivate other related sites for the link exchange.
A few things to keep in mind when using link exchange methods would be:
1. The link partner should have a related theme to your own website for this reciprocal link. It will do you little good, to exchange a link with a dating site, if your site is a bridal theme site.
2. Find sites to exchange with that are popular. Also, find sites that are search engine friendly. If you find a related site, as your own, that comes up in the search engines with a high ranking, go for it! This could be a gold mine for your site.
3. Links coming from sites should have been in place for a long time. This helps to ensure stability and reliability.
One way link building is another avenue to consider, if you have the resource money for this method. One way link building relies on paying for your links to build for traffic. There are many marketing companies that cater to Internet marketers, providing this service to them, for a fee. It should also be noted, none of these services will guarantee their performance for you. When looking at this method, one should also look at the company’s background, in question.
Back link methods are also known as inward links, incoming links, inbound links and a few other nick names. These back links are like gold and the search engines love those that used back linking practices in their websites and blogsites. Google considers back links a major factor when it assigns page ranking to a site.
Link building is a combination of different techniques and methods you need to use on a regular basis to build good traffic. Search engines index sites frequently. Keeping your back links verified and fresh is essential to good SEO. Ensuring your site looks professional, with all of your links exchanges in relevant order is expected.
When you use good sound link building practices you are growing your websites popularity. As you do the necessary steps, you may not notice any large returns on your time invested into your website campaign immediately. Rising in the ranks of search engines and receiving traffic from other sources, takes time and patience on the Internet. Quality, verses quantity using your link building practices will always pay off. Your traffic will be better for it.
There is a wealth of informational resource material online that is free for the taking. Take the time to learn more about great link building practices, and then you can have a plan. Some of the best plans are, using a few of these link building methods together, this is a good resource for link building. Pay attention and learn all you can about SEO, too. Give your site that old, “one-two” punch. By paying close attention to the best ways to optimize your website, you will also naturally be using link building methods.
Link Building 101
Two of the three big search engines (Google and Yahoo) place a large importance on one way links to determine rankings. Each link to your site is like a vote and the more votes you have, the higher you will rank.
In this article I will be sharing with you some important info on link building and some strategies to help your one way link building.
Before we get started, it’s important to understand the fundamentals…
Beginning with the very basics, a link is a way of navigating from one webpage to another. An ‘internal link’ is a link within the same website. An ‘external link’ takes you from a webpage in one website to a webpage in another website. The meaning of ‘backlink‘ is that your site is being linked to from another website.
There are 4 different types of links:
* URL Link – This is simply a website url that is a link.
* Text Links (aka static links) – This is the most common type of link (when you click on a word or phrase and it is a link)
* Image Links – An image link is simply an image that you click on to navigate to another webpage.
* Dynamic Links – These types of links are in another programming language called Javascript and while they also take you from one webpage to another, they have ‘extra codes’ to perform special functions.
(these types of links can appear in many different forms)
It is important to be able to recognize these types of links, even if you are not familiar with web design and programming. You don’t have to memorize the codes, just learn to identify each type of link.
Links provide navigation for human visitors and for ’spiders’ (aka: crawlers, robots, bots). Simply put, a spider is a computer program that goes to websites and gathers information. Search engines use spiders to visit and ‘index’ your website. This means that they gather information about your site in order to list it in their search results.
When the search engine spiders index your website, they follow the links to get from one webpage to another. It’s important to know that search engines cannot follow ‘dynamic links’ and do not follow html links that have a special code in them that says ‘no follow’.
The place where ‘no follow’ is commonly found is in the “meta tags” section of the website. Meta tags are basically information that only the spiders see and not for the human visitor. You can see the code for any website in your browser by choosing ‘view source’. (From Internet Explorer, choose Page » View Source. From Firefox choose View » Page Source)
If a search engine spider cannot follow a link from another website to yours, you can still receive visitors but the link will not have any value from a search engine optimization perspective.
What types of links should you get?
There are 2 types of links that you can get:
* One-way links – A one-way link is when another website links to you and you don’t link back to them.
* Reciprocal links – A reciprocal link is when a website links to you and you link back to them.
To search engines one-way links are usually much more valuable than reciprocal links. However, each link has its own individual value based on: how relevant it is to your site, the text in and around the link, how much authority the website that links to you has, etc.
Also, it’s important to know that you can get links that have ‘no value’ in the eyes of the search engines, but they bring you hundreds or thousands of targeted visitors…
Generally speaking, the more websites that link to you the better. However, building links takes time and energy and if you focus on getting ‘high-quality links’, you will get a bigger return on your investment. 50 high quality links can be much more valuable from a search engine optimization perspective than 1000 ‘low quality links’.
What’s a high quality link? – Links that brings you Page Reputation (which shows the search engines that other related websites consider you to be important), and links that give you PageRank. Sometimes both together and sometimes not…
To get high rankings on your website, you want to obtain links for targeted keywords. That is why it is important to start with keyword Research.
If your website is about “bird watching”, the first step is to ‘do keyword research’ and find out which keyword you should aim for. While you could just start getting text links for the keyword phrase “bird watching”, if no one is searching for that – you won’t get any visitors. There’s no sense in ranking on the first page for a keyword that no one is looking for.
Or, if there is a lot of competition for that keyword, you might want to pick a “lower hanging fruit”.
Here is a great free keywords tool. (The numbers you see are searches/day.)
Another important part is making sure your page is optimized for the keyword you are targeting. If you are focussed on building one way links to your site but the links have anchor text which doesn’t even appear on your page, you will likely be wasting your time. (I say likely assuming that you have some competition for your targeted keywords, if there is no competition then it doesn’t matter).
In this case a site that has fewer one way links but much better on-page optimization is likely to rank higher. Or maybe you are building one way links to your site but they are just url links and not anchor-text links. Another site that has less links than you but better quality (anchor-text) will be likely to rank higher.
Ideally, you want to build a lot of one way links that have anchor text which includes the primary and secondary keywords that your page is optimized for. Google also uses Latent Semantic Indexing which (in a nutshell) means that they study the synonyms of the keywords on your page. This is to prevent spammers from just loading every second word with their keywords. The relation between all the words on your site is what their algorithm looks for.
So, there’s no sense in building one way links if your content is not worthwhile. You want to optimize your pages for your visitors first. Then, you can go through and “sprinkle” your keywords. Then, go out and get one way links with the anchor-text of your targeted keywords, ideally getting most of these links from websites that are related to yours.
Yes, Google looks at how the content on your site and the content on the site you link to relate with each other. Fewer links to your business site from other business sites will be more valuable link-wise than more links coming to you from a site about video games..
Don’t make these link building mistakes:
* Don’t spend all your time getting one way links from sites with no Page Rank. One or two links from related Page Rank 5+ sites can be worth more than 100 links from sites with no PR.
* Be careful about buying links or you can get banned. Especially be careful about Site Wide links. If your website only has a few backlinks one day and the next day you have hundreds Google will see this and penalize you.
* Don’t spend all your time building one way links that are url-links, you want to get anchor-text links.
* Make sure the links you get are actually worth something, don’t get “No-Follow” links.
Happy Link Building!
Link Building to Increase Website Rankings
Search engines are placing a high value on Link Popularity. Link Popularity is defined as the total number of quality inbound links. To gain Link Popularity, websites should engage in Link Building campaigns. No, Link Building is not where two unrelated businesses exchange links or do reciprocal linking, nor is it the creation of web pages where each page is linked to the other – also known as a Link Farm.
Link Building is the process of creating one-way quality links to one’s own site using various strategies. In Link Building, linking to sites with relevant content is the most important thing. For example, if an industrial tool manufacturer links to a company making cosmetics for no reason but to exchange links in an effort to create website popularity in search engines, then that’s not a good link to have.
2) Why should you engage in Link Building campaigns?
When other websites think you you are worth linking to, your website’s importance increases in the eyes of search engines. The reasoning here is that if there a lot of links pointing to your website, that means that your website has good content. When a website has good content and has website popularity due to a lot of inbound links, Search Engines consider the website ideal for top placement in searches.
3) Five good ways to win one-way, relevant links to your website
- Provide content in your field of expertise on your website. This will interest others to place a link on their site to share this information with their visitors. Be sure to make the content easy to understand.
- Create a list of myths’ or top 10 things to avoid’ on a particular topic in your field of expertise.
- Create a list of experts’ or coaches’ in your field of expertise on your website. Then send the page link to the experts and coaches asking them if they may be willing to link to your website. Few will decline, given that they are featured on your website
- Create a Press Release and submit it to PR Web and other online Press Release websites
- Create blogs about topics in your field of expertise and place those blogs on relevant blog websites with a link to our website.
4) What are some Link Building pitfalls to avoid?
The two important pitfalls are the creation of Link Farms and participating in Three-way-linking.
- A Link Farm is a group of web pages created specially to interlink with each other. Link Farms are generally created to spam Search Engines. When discovered, Search Engines ban websites that have participated in link farms.
- Three way link building is almost always done in an effort to boost the website’s rankings in search engines. Web masters will build multiple sites and create links to their primary site from the other sites, in an effort to boost the rankings of their primary site. These three way links are designed to fool the search engines by creating artificially high link popularity for a website of their choosing.
5) Google Page Rank Google assigns a numeric value called Page Rank to show the importance of a web page. When one website page links to another, Google believes that the website generating the link is casting a vote of confidence towards the website in question, by linking to it. A site is considered important to Google when it has lots of one-way relevant links and uses that as one factor to give the website higher rankings.
Although this is not the only factor that determines website importance, it is an important one for sure.
In conclusion Link Building is an important activity to make your website get higher rankings in search engines. It should be combined with search engine optimization, pay per click, and other online and offline marketing strategies.
If you are outsourcing your Link Building activities, make sure you ask the outsourced providers about the processes they follow to identify relevant websites that they will, on your behalf, submit Link Building requests to.
Link Building Service
A Link building service is a must use for any serious minded search engine marketer. There is no alternative to a link building service in the existing climate of search engine marketing. The alternative to not using a link building service will be failure to achieve your desired ranking in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN to name a few. Obviously this means you wont achieve the success or wads of cash you desire in competitive time.
Before we delve any further into what a link building service entails link building encompasses locating safe and profitable link partners and. locating more and more partners. It also requires maintenance of the links to make sure your link partners do not de-link without you knowing and importantly, that your link partners do not violate Googles terms of service otherwise you might share in Googles sanctions on erring sites you are linked to or who link to you. A link building service manages this process enabling you spend time on growing business and enhancing ROI.
The number of links coming into and going out of your website; the number of links, the existing rank of the websites who decide to place a link to you will determine your popularity in the search engines. The idea is that if your website has relevant content other websites would naturally want to link to you or theyll want you to link to them. The bottom line is that Google wants to make sure searches produce the most relevant of results and the number and quality of links to your website determines how you rank in the search engines.
A link building service, while vital, is just one part of an intricate process of search engine marketing which involves amongst other things; keyword research, optimizing your web page on page and optimizing your web page by a link building campaign. The vital place of link building is at the heart of the creation of many link building services.
A great many search engine marketer however prefer to have one platform that deals with all the intricacies of creating a website and making it rank highly in the search engines and its incredible what the top notch software can do. The great link building service dont just help you build links but go a long way to helping you stay competitive by checking competitors website for measure of competitiveness and keeping excellent track of your link building campaign.
Top Reasons To Hire A Link Building Company
Link building has never been on the website owner’s list of favorite things to do. It is time-consuming, but then again, a website never gets to the top of search engine results without any links to it
What does a website owner do if he is not fond of doing it himself? Hire a link building company to do the link building. Outsourcing your link building may cost a lot of dollars, but there are reasons that tip the balance in favor of outsourcing.
Link Building Takes Time
If you don’t have the time for link building, chances are, you’ll never have other websites linking to you, unless if other website owners find you first.
It Takes Strategy
Don’t think that it only takes an email to get other website owners to link to you. The reason why link building takes time is because most website owners or web masters do not respond on the first try, or even on the second.
Keep in mind, there are so many other websites trying to get as many links as they can. This floods the webmaster’s inbox. It definitely takes a strategy and a bit of creative thinking to get webmasters to notice you and make it impossible for them to refuse your request for a link.
Link-building companies make your life easier because they’ve been at it long enough how to get the intended results right away.
It Can Be Frustrating
When you try link building, you are trying to sell your site to other website owners, which is not an easy thing to do if you are a new website.
Expect website owners to reject your sales pitch on the first attempt (sales is a field of rejection). This makes it very worth it to outsource link building; link building companies are used to the cycle of contacting webmasters or website owners, making a follow-up, and facing rejection.
Important In Search Engines
The triumvirates of Google, Yahoo! and MSN have factored in link popularity and link quality in their search engine algorithms. Thus, your website will not rank if you don’t have any links to your site.
Link popularity is measured according to the number of inbound links to your website. Link quality, on the other hand, evaluates the quality of the links. Link building companies can get you those quality links since, in all likelihood, they already have a database of the websites related to your own.
In choosing a website, check out their link building strategies, whether they really take the time to find the best sites that are related to your website or just generally harvest and link. There’s a very good reason for this.
Google once penalized websites that scooped 200 to 300 sites in one month. Some websites even disappeared from Google’s index altogether due to a dampening filter. The overdone link building efforts were though to be the link-building version of spamming. Other content rich websites take one year to build 100 relevant links.
Link Building Campaign
How to get referrals and gain credibility on the Web…
Is your goal to get more traffic on your Website without spending a lot of money? Is it important that your Website is easy for your prospects to find on the Web? Though there are many things that contribute to a quality, well-positioned Website, increased link popularity – done properly – will establish your business as trustworthy on the Internet and bring more referrals.
Benefits of increasing link popularity
Every time you place a link on your site to another Website, you are referring business to them. It is likely that your customers will also check out the businesses that you sponsor on your site and perhaps do business with them, as well.
Visitors to your site who believe your business is credible, will also be excellent candidates for those websites on your resources page. Conversely, a link to your site is a referral from another business to yours.
Gain credibility with your online market
When a business places a link on their Website to yours, they are recommending your business as a credible source of information, and not only that, but it also provides services or products to their customers and visitors. On the Web, there is no greater compliment than to be on the receiving end of traffic referred from thousands of quality business Websites.
This is how a link building campaign gains credibility for your site.
Gain higher search engine rankings
Because links on the Web establish referrals and credibility, search engines rank sites with good link popularity higher than sites with lower link popularity. When a search engine reviews your Website, it is looking for all kinds of things about your website that go into its algorithm for ranking. One of these factors is the number and quality of links from other Websites to your site. Basically, it considers a link to your site as a vote. So the more votes a site has, the higher a site can rank in the search engines. Obviously, there is more to achieving top rankings than just getting a lot of links, but it is a
significant factor that can move a site’s ranking from the top 20 to the top 10 for a particular keyword in major search engines. In many cases an increase in link popularity can be the key that puts a site in the coveted first place slot.
How to do a link building campaign
You may be asking, “So how do I get more quality links to my Website?” First, get listed in good quality directories such as Open Directory (Google’s directory), the Yahoo! Directory, About.com, GoGuides.org, and Gimpsy.com. Many of these directories are free but some of them charge a fee. There may be specific portals for your industry that will list your site; check Galaxy.com for some of these. If you sell products on your site, it may be worth it to be listed in an online mall such as Shop.com, Yahoo Stores and/or MSN e-shops. If you are more focused on local business, look for business directories in your area. For example if you live near the Metro Atlanta area, Kudzu.com is a great place to list your site.
Link Exchange
After you are listed in some directories, build a resources page on your site and begin swapping links with other companies you already work with and others that complement what you do. For example, it makes sense for a carpeting and rugs retailer to swap links with a quality carpet cleaning service. Use your common sense when selecting businesses to recommend; you’ll want to choose companies that offer services and products your customers are likely to need and vice-versa. The rule of thumb
when link exchanging is to add the link to your site ONLY if it makes good business sense.
Online Media Placements
Many online audiences are targeted by advertising on websites that cater to that niche audience. A well-placed banner ad or media on these niche websites will get the attention of your audience and a well-designed media ad will get click throughs to your site. As long as the ad links to your site, online media placement builds link popularity.
Publish Articles Online
Another great way to increase link popularity is to publish informative articles on your site and submit them to appropriate online publications. Many of these online publications will either link directly to the article on your site – increasing your site’s link popularity — or post the entire article on their site with your contact information. A good place to post articles is FreeSticky.com.
RSS Feeds
Real Simple Syndication Feeds make your articles available immediately to all websites that want to syndicate your content on their site. RSS feeds link back to the author’s website where the article is contained, thus a great technique for building links. One place to register your RSS feed is Syndic8.com.
Online Press Releases
Issuing a newsworthy article to the press is an excellent way to increase link popularity. Your press release needs to be optimized for specific search terms and linked back to your website to get the greatest return for a link building campaign. I always use a professional copywriter to write press releases for my company and for my clients.
Blogs
Blogs have received much attention over the past few years and it’s easy to see why. More and more people use blogs to express themselves, educate, entertain and connect with others who have similar interests. A well-managed blog that becomes a great resource for current info on a topic brings many volunteer links. Start your own free blog at Blogger.com.
Develop A Link Worthy Site
Your site will gain links without asking for them when your site is viewed as an industry resource, or a great place to learn about products in your industry, or has a unique online tool for the industry. If your site is full of wonderful, useful information other sites will naturally link to it without you even asking. This is by far the most effective link building technique because the search engines are all about favoring “in demand” content!
Affiliate Programs
Finally if you are serious about your link building campaign, set up an affiliate/referral program. You may have seen a small banner ad on a site saying “Buy this book at Amazon.com.” When you click on this message, Amazon.com pays that affiliate a commission on every sale made from those referrals to their site. This is the essence of an affiliate/referral program.
Businesses that want to make sales without all the hassles will sign up for your affiliate program and place a link from their Website to yours. Of course you have to pay them a commission on all sales from their Website, but your link popularity will take off. Make sure the link points directly at your site rather than the affiliate program’s site. And that, my friend, is what we’re talking about here, a good link building campaign is the way to go!
Things to avoid in your link building campaign
Search engines are becoming more sophisticated, changing their ranking algorithms frequently to weed out the sites that use “illegal” or unfavorable means to gain high rankings. To make the most of your site’s good qualities, it’s best to avoid:
* Tricks to get you noticed. When a search engine encounters one of these mal practices, that site will be penalized — and possibly even banned — from the search engine.
* Link farms and Free For All links pages, are nothing more than long lists of Websites; they do nothing for a site’s link popularity because the vast majority of these pages are not even found in the search engines. In order to increase link popularity, the web page that contains the link to your site must be in the search engine’s database and contain a small number of outbound links.
In conclusion, a link building campaign is a process that should be ongoing. As your link building campaign grows on the Web,
so will your business.
