Tuesday 5 August 2008

Link Building for Marketing Success (not finished)

Link buidling isn't just about getting your website listed in directories no-one looks at and search engines ultimately ignore. Arranging decent and honest links can not only increase your traffic but also your search engine ranking. But what is this all about?

Link building is as simple as you saying to another site owner, "I'll put a link to your site on mine, if you do the same back for me." One of the easiest ways of maintaining these links, whilst allowing other people to initiate such links without a lot of manual work on your behalf, is to use a links directory tool. With these a lot of the processes are automated, or at least made easier. It's a contact point for people wanting to exchange links with you. They can find out how and where to link to your site; they publish this on their site; they enter the links details into your list and the tool will check that their link is in place and adds their link to your site.

It all sounds very easy! But how do you start off? Where do you find those first sites to exchange with?

Firstly, there are 2 types of exchanges you are looking for. There are those that are for the original purpose - because you can exchange traffic - and those just for link building sake - because every link ultimately helps to increase your search engine positioning. In theory, at least.

Finding link exchanges for genuine traffic is basically about finding similarly themed websites and getting them to put a link in a suitable page. You want to find sites that share a theme so that their visitors will be interested in visiting your site when they see the link.

But many sites these days don't show links in prominent position - instead hiding links away in 'resource directories' and the such like. No problem, but these exchanges are mainly for improving your search engine position.

With these you want to quickly find other sites that will exchange links with you. Search for terms such as 'exchange link', 'add site' and other suggestive phrases along with a word associated with your site, e.g. mortgages, insurance etc.

Once you find these sites, look up what their link requirements are and then add this to your site. Then use their form to tell them where your link is and keep an eye out for the email saying that they have exchanged links.

It can take a while to find such sites and quite often the links aren't that great, but they are a starting point. Once you get used to the idea you can then start choosing sites based on page rank etc. And once you have a reasonable links directory in place, a lot of people will be coming to you for links, meaning you don't have to do the hard work!

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