Small Business
Link Building Basics
Small Business Link Building Basics Link building is important
to any web site as part of your small business Internet marketing
strategy. It is one of the ways that search engines measure the
importance of your site. If a web site has many varied links all
pointing to it, then the search engines feel that it must be considered
important, and they will rank it higher.
It is for this reason that any web site needs external links,
internal links, one-way inbound links and reciprocal links. But
not all links are created equal. This article will explain these
four different types of links, how they work and how they are
beneficial to your web site.
External links are links that you make to other web sites. These
will effectively be sites that you respect for some reason. However,
you need to do your research well to be sure that these web sites
are in good standing with the search engines. If they have been
penalized for whatever reason, your link to that site will be
viewed badly by the search engines, and your site may suffer as
a result.
Certain types of site are considered by the search engines to
be 'bad neighborhoods.' If your link building includes links to
one of those it will go against you. However, it should be fairly
obvious whether or not a site is of a 'bad neighborhood' type.
Seek out and only link to the obviously good type of sites, check
them regularly to see that they continue to be good, and you will
be fine.
Contrary to some opinions, a 'bad neighborhood' site that chooses
to link to you cannot harm your standing with the search engines.
This should be obvious when you consider that it would be easy
otherwise to destroy a competitor's rankings by simply employing
this strategy. However, the search engines recognize that in the
process of small business Internet marketing you cannot control
who links to you, and penalties are only applied to the actions
that you have complete control over.
Internal links are those that you provide within your own web
site. Your linking structure should be carefully thought out and
provided in such a way that the search engine robots are encouraged
to crawl ever deeper. In short, make it easy for the robots to
find all your pages, however many levels deep they may be.
One-way inbound links are the best kind to make the search engines
sit up and take notice of your web site. Ideally, such a link
will be from a high quality site that the search engines respect,
and the anchor text, the text that actually provides the link,
will be your site's primary keyword.
However, if every one-way link was of this nature, it may begin
to look suspicious. Varied links that look natural will always
work best. Try to get one-way links that use a variety of keywords
that you wish to get ranked for in the anchor text. This looks
more natural, and besides, it will spread your chances of getting
ranked, as there will be a number of suitable keywords all working
for you.
Your web site should provide reciprocal links to other web sites.
This link building strategy, while still useful, is not as effective
as it once was. You need to choose your link partners carefully
with reciprocal linking. It is well worth the time and effort
required to research other relevant web sites that have a similar
theme to yours to see if they are suitable.
It's usually a good idea to set up a link to a chosen web site
first, then contact the site owner, telling them that you have
linked to them, and ask politely if they would link back to you.
If, after say a week you don't hear from them, then simply remove
the link to them. However, most site owners will be glad to provide
the link.
With reciprocal links you do need to be careful, however. These
are sites that you are linking to. In effect, you are saying that
the site is one that you consider important. If you choose a site
that has been penalized by any of the search engines for whatever
reason, it will reflect badly on you.
Link building is just one of the many strategies that small businesses
need to address in order to grow a successful web site that will
increase profits. It is not an activity that will ever be completed,
as it should be viewed as an ongoing small business Internet marketing
strategy to be undertaken throughout the lifetime of your web
site.
About Melberg Marketing
Melberg Marketing specializes in powerful copywriting, compelling
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