If you are looking to raise your search engine rank with the big three (Google, Yahoo and MSN), then amongst all the things you can do, one of the more powerful and effective activities is to invest some time generating inbound links to your website from sympathetic web pages. i.e. those with similar content.
Like much of the activity on websites, inbound links are completely transparent to search engines. They can see who links to who, if they are similar in content and who links to the linking site as well. What this all means is that depending on the origin of your inbound links, these can go a long way to improving your websites position in the worlds favorite search engines.
“If you think Google only likes you because you are popular with other websites, you are probably right!”
Consider the position of Ford Australia - number 1 in Google under the search ‘Ford’. As just about every Ford Dealership in Australia links to their website and each of the linking dealership websites contain the word ‘Ford’, search engines see this (and other shared keywords) and attributes a score to each website based on their association to each other. Each additional dealership that links to Ford adds to the manufactures relevance.
Not all Inbound links have to originate from other websites. In fact it is helpful to this discussion to remember that every website is simply a collection of linking pages. When you remember this, you start to see why larger websites typically rank better than smaller ones. They have more linking pages (albeit, mostly from the same URL) and inbound links from external web pages simply add to their size. Getting more inbound links is actually as simple as adding more pages to your website. Enter Publicise.
Publicise is a website content and customer management system that makes it easy to add sympathetic linking content to your website via the inbuilt article management system. The idea is really very simple. Share your knowledge via the searchable article management system and this information is automatically linked to your home page. Simple!
If you do not have a content and customer management system such as Publicise, you can still do plenty to generate more inbound links. For those of you with Publicise, the following link generating activities will advantage you all the more.
Ten Easy Ways To Generate Inbound Links
Join popular forums on topics that you feel passionate about and that relate to your website. Be sure to post detailed and helpful comments and link back to your website when appropriate.
Sponsor community events that allow you to list a text based advertisement from their website to yours (this type of activity can be very cost effective and rewarding in it’s own right).
List a couple of your products on eBay - yes its a little unusual - some might say ‘remarkable’ - better people remark on your marketing than it go completely unnoticed
Write articles for online magazines and article publications such as www.ezinearticles.com.
Create additional websites that compliment your main website such as a microsite that focuses on a specific product or service you wish to promote.
Put loads of helpful information on your website and others will link to your site (typically as a reference) without any further effort on your part!
Find the story behind new events and changes in your company and send out newsworthy press releases to your local and national media.
List your business with every online directory you can find. There are plenty out there and a basic listing is usually free.
Make sure all your business affiliates link to your website - preferably with your chosen keywords in the linking text.
Search Google as if you were one of your potential customers and then contact complimentary websites and invite them to exchange links with you.
Which brings us to the reason inbound links are so effective in increasing your standing in popular search engines. If someone with similar content to your own is prepared to connect their website to yours, it stands to reason that your website has relevance. Certainly more than a website with fewer or with no inbound links.
Of course, much of the success of linking pages has to do with the fact that all those extra doorways linking to your website make your website that much easier to find regardless of search engine intervention. Provided the linked to web pages are full of rich, helpful information that engages visitors when they arrive, you may even sell something too!
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