In A Simple Guide to SEO – links coming into your website from other places around the web was touched upon more than once. Actually, links coming into your website from other places on the web is so important to your SEO efforts, this topic gets it’s own article.
Fact: The number of links you having coming into your website, and the authority of the places from which those links come, is the number one way search engines determine the popularity (and therefore rank) of your website. Number one.
How do you get those golden links? There are a lot of ways, and I’ll list some of them here. Just remember, this strategy takes planning, time, and thought–you will not see amazing results overnight. You will see amazing results, however, as long as you are consistent.
The first step is knowing what to do, and there are few things you will want to keep in mind as you are planning the inbound marketing strategy for your website. Some of these things you will have control over and some you won’t.
- If you are going to make the effort to generate inbound links to a page of your website, make sure it is ready for your visitors.
- Is the page optimized?
- Is the info on the page consistent with what the link to the page would suggest–or will those who click feel tricked?
- Will visitors know what to do when they get there? Are you taking advantage of the opportunity to ask them to opt-in to your list, download a freebie, or some other action you would like them to take?
- As far as you can control it, make sure the links pointing back to your website are on reputable websites that are not considered–or on their way to becoming considered–link farms.
- Remember that the articles that point back to your website reflect on your business.
- Are they well written?
- Do they contain meaningful content?
- Do the links back to your website make sense in relation to the content?
- Ideally, the words that make up the link back to your website (the anchor text), should contain keywords or a keyword phrase that relates to the content on the page to which it links, because search engine associate the anchor text with relevance.
How to Get Inbound Links to Your Website
There is no shortage of places available on the web for you to submit your content. Where I have provided links, trust me when I tell you this is by no means a complete list, but instead a listing of a few of the most popular and well-ranked spots where you can get started.
- Add valuable content to your website or blog that people will want to link to, and share.
- Create Business Profiles on Social Networking Sites
- Submit Content to Social News/Tagging Websites
- Write Content and Publish It
- Biznik
- Squidoo
- Helium
- Evan Charmichal
- Associated Content
- Other People’s Blogs
Are there more ideas I could add to this list? You bet. That is a good thing! I’ll keep it updated for you on my blog and expand on some of these suggestions in future articles. Meanwhile, this is sure to keep you busy for a while 
Yes, it can be overwhelming–but what an embarrassment of riches we have at our fingertips with the Internet to help us promote our businesses! Just take it one day at a time, one task at a time, and have fun with it.
Let me know how it goes. If you write an article, tell me about it so I can read it, share it, digg it etc. I would love to champion your efforts. Here’s to your success! ~Norma
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Note: I first published this article on Biznik.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Great stuff as usual Norma. I’m printing this one out, so I can get back to my SEO work, AFTER my charity walk.
Lots more great ideas for improving your blog’s SEO. I better get to work.
Norma, if you had to rank some of those links in terms of ‘effectiveness’ or value to you from a networking point of view would their current order be a good indicator (I notice you didn’t put them in alphabetical order)?
Hi Warren, I would see how much traffic each is getting and determine from there where I would want to start. I can say that all the websites I posted above are high value and rank well in search…so I think you would do well with most of them. Google is currently #1 and Facebook is currently #2 if that helps! Cheers ~Norma
I wish I could share this with the companies who are spamming my blog for links.
I’m flattered that as time goes on, the number of spam I get is increasing, which means my blog is becoming more relevant. But I feel for the people who have paid for this service, because the program that blocks their faux comments is preventing the links they’re seeking.
Thanks for sharing. I’ll pass on!
Hi Kim – I know what you mean! You would think they would find a better way, but unfortunately a lot of bloggers do not use the spam blocking they have available to them and as long as it works for them, I guess they will keep doing it. Cheers ~Norma
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