Building Links To Increase Traffic And Page Rank
By Pat Ransom
Most sites have a links page - why? Well, there are two very
important reasons why a web developer should consider having a
links page.
1. Search Engine Optimisation or SEO is only one way of getting
the search engines to pick up that you are there. Something else
that you must not neglect if you want your website to be noticed
is obtaining links.
2. Your website is offering a service to your visitors - links
provide them with other sites of interest which they may want
to visit. Although the retail industry might say they want
people to stay on their site, rather than going anywhere else,
carefully chosen links may be able to get people even more
interested in the product you are selling! You may have to
think laterally!
In the eyes of a search engine there definitely seem to be good
links and bad links. Good links will get you higher up the page
rankings and onto the top of the listings, bad links at best
will be ignored and at worst could actually could against you
and your site be listed much lower.
- A good link is one from a site which has high relevance to
yours, and which is has a good page rank.
- A bad link is one from an obvious link farm, and has no
contextual links to your sites.
Before we go further, lets talk a little bit about page rank.
Page rank is the ranking that Google gives to website pages and
shows their importance as Google sees it. The Google Toolbar,
which can be obtained from http://toolbar.google.com for free,
is a useful tool as it can display the page rank of any web
page you are looking at. The page rank (or PR) of a site ranges
from 0 to 10 - 0 is where you start, 10 would be exceptional!
Although Google keeps the algorithms for working out PR very
close to their chests, the progression through the numbers is
probably on a logarithmic scale - that is, a site ranking 2 is
many times more important than that ranking 1, not just 1
point.
When you are link building you should be trying to get links to
your site from sites with a higher page rank than yours. Links
from sites with good PR will immediately signal to the search
engines that yours is a site worth indexing! The more links the
better!
So should you only link with sites with higher PR? Well, if
everyone practised this the chances of you getting any links
for your embryonic site would be zero! A site may be 0 today,
but that site may also be working hard to increase its rankings
and you may benefit from their progress. Also, do remember your
human visitors, a site may be useful to them, even if not for
your purpose of increasing your rankings! So golden rules to
remember:
- Aim to get links from high ranking pages
- Put up links from any site which has high relevance to yours.
First think of sites which it would be useful for your visitors
to be able to go to from your site. For example, if you are a
specialist site, are there some national organisations that
promote your sport, hobby or industry? Your first step will be
to email these organisations and ask if you can have reciprocal
links with them.
Now this may a little bit of a David and Goliath situation, and
many people feel put off because they think their new immature
website is far too small. You may not get any response to your
emails, you may get a response refusing you, but you may find a
national organisation with good page ranking agrees to link to
you! Be very pleased with this!
Immediately someone agrees to have a reciprocal link with you,
put up their link on your website - just in case they decide to
check!
Now, think again about your customers or visitors - even if the
big organisations have refused to put a link to you on their
site, it may still be useful to put a link to them on yours for
your visitors’ information. Always remember the whole goal of
getting website traffic is to get and keep loyal customers or
visitors - not just to attract search engine bots!
Now the hard work starts. Search the web for sites on the same
subject matter as yours, but which are obviously NOT
competitors. Keeping an eye on the Google Toolbar look for
sites which have a better page rank than yours - ideally the
websites you are looking for will be ranked about 4 or 5
(higher ranking sites may be a bit snobbish towards novice
sites).
What about people who supply goods and services to you - can
they link to yours? What about customers? Try and think outside
of the box here - if you have a sporting site how about a link
to a local photographer?
Sometimes you can do good research away from the computer (yes,
you can turn it off sometimes!). Trade magazines are often a
good start - write to any email addresses and ask for a
reciprocal link. You may find even if they do not have a links
page already they may decide to add one! It never hurts to ask!
When you are looking at websites check that they have a links
page. If they do you may find there is a form on which you can
submit the details on your website asking to be added to their
links page or a suggest site add new link button so that it is
simple to add your site. You may need to email a website if
they don't seem to be canvassing links. Don’t be too put off if
there isn’t a relevant category for them to list your site in -
they can always add more categories. If you don't ask you don't
get! If you do ask - you may well succeed!
So don’t be worried about emailing and asking for reciprocal
links - but do make sure you put up the links you promise! This
may lead you to think a little about your site - some people
don’t want to have their link at the end of a very long page.
You should consider rotating banners so you can display more
links, but keep the page simple. You make also need to restrict
non relevant links.
If you know your subject show it! And one of the best ways is
to join a forum. When posting or answering a topic on the forum
always use a signature with your website address on it - if the
forum users like what they read about you they will click on
the ljnk to visit your website, and hey presto - you have more
links coming into your site! If your hosting company has a user
forum, there may well be a section where you can showcase your
new site - if so, you will get a number of visits through this.
Lovely links for search engines and fodder for the link spiders!
Also, if you visit the Guestbook of a relevant site you can
also leave your website address there. BUT PLEASE ONLY IF IT IS
A RELEVANT SITE!
Article writing as a technique for building links and traffic
is a less obvious area which a lot of people don’t know about
or understand.
Presumably you are an expert in your area - or at least have
useful information to share with others. So write an article!
Not sure if you can? Well, start with the content of your site
as a basis - you may already find you have done the hard work.
Can’t think of a subject? Well think laterally again. If you
are selling artistic candles, for example, what about an
article about the history of candle making? If you think hard
enough there probably is something you can write about! You
made need to do a little research, but articles will really
help build your traffic and ranking. (And of course you can use
them as content on your own site!)
Articles do not need to be lengthy - in fact shorter is better.
Probably no more than 600 to 1000 words. What you want to do in
your article is write about something related to your site.
Now there are a number of websites that you will publish your
article for you. Other websites can use your article for free,
but they HAVE to include the author details - which off course
means your website details. People using your article will form
links back to your site - the more different sites using it, the
better the links!
Better still you can submit your article to any number of
article sites. Ezine Articles is one of the biggest, but any
search on Google will reveal a number of others.
Now, no one can pretend that this is an easy activity - it does
take time. No one is going to use your article if it is not well
thought out and tells them something new. It must not be boring
either. But article submission is a really excellent way of
improving your website’s position in the search engines, and
should not be ignored.
Of course articles are also important resources for Webmasters
in another way - free content for your site! There are sites
out there which cater for an amazing number of subjects, and in
themselves can be very useful and informative! Free articles for
web designing, for example, can bring you other hints and tips
for making the best of your website.
If you use an article you must put on the full author’s bio and
a link back to their site. But the benefit to you is ready made
content hopefully keyword rich which will attract the search
engine bots like bees to honey!
Web rings are another way of building links - again, check the
page rank of the web ring you are joining. Web rings give you
links, and also provide your human visitors with other sites of
interest which they may wish to visit.
Let’s face it - website design and publishing is actually a lot
harder work that you probably first thought when you started
designing your home page. But there is nothing more
demoralising that having designed a wonderful site which you
are extremely proud of - only to find you have no visitors at
all!
You probably do want to spend all of your time fine tuning your
existing pages, and putting up new ones, and anything which
drags you away from this will be resented, but if you want a
successful website link building is something which has to be
done.
The best advice is to put one day a week aside for what we
should call your marketing activities. Link building, along
with SEO, are activities are extremely tedious. Build SEO into
the way you construct your pages from the beginning (or in
other words, consider not only the impact on the human eye as
you design your page, but consider the spiders and bots at the
same time!). And use your day a week to build links.
A tip from experienced developers in this area is not to aim to
get hundreds of links in a short space of time - this will again
make the search engines suspicious. Instead just aim to get one
quality link at least once a month.
Website marketing is not a short sprint - it is more like a
marathon. Many will start the race, but a large number will
fall beside the wayside. But if you acknowledge it will be hard
work and keep slogging away you will get to the end. There will
come a time when you will receive a request from a reputable,
well ranked website, asking for a reciprocal link from you!
That may not be the end, but be assured that will give you a
real buzz, and you will know then that most of your hard work
will have been worth it!
About The Author: Pat Ransom has worked in the IT industry for
15 years and is experienced with local government and company
websites. Having designed and published a successful and
acclaimed website in her own right the secrets of website
design and publishing are now shared at
