SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION BASICS

Attracting website visitors is a balance of advertising techniques, like banners or sponsorships, as well as more advanced forms of online marketing that your customer will rarely see, called Search Engine Optimization, or Search Engine Optimization. Building a link profile is likely to be a key element of your Search Engine Optimization campaign. If done well, it can send your page ranking through the roof with search engines such as Google. Like ordering take-out or choosing a pair of jeans, much of this is based on good judgment, so be prepared to scrutinize every link you add down to the letter.

Linking Well

Writing for your site goes far beyond code; try writing and submitting a digital press release or article for good links. Many sites like yours, or industries with similar content, are already submitting press releases that are getting picked up by major news pages. Some will take these at no charge, although most will require a small fee to make your link clickable and to supply anchor text. Submitting articles you’ve written to article directories can produce many links, as the directory publishing your article can produce links from interested sites that will also carry your work, along with a section on you and including your link.

Consider using unique one-way inbound links, links directing traffic to your site that do not have to be linked back to, as a foundation of your link portfolio. Using an inbound link from a larger site with many visitors will be more visible on search engines and carry more weight in their results. Using these will cut out the middle-man, with visitors coming in but not necessarily needing to leave via a link out.

Directory links are a great source of links from numerous search engines; when pulling your links from these directories, slowly feed into the lists, as flooding your results could end in the neutralization of your link profile until a more natural list is restored. Begin your search with major internet directories such as Google and Yahoo, later adding links from niche and free general topic directories, or even paying for a spot on larger directories like Business.com.

Just a pinch

If you’ve heard anything about reciprocal linking, chances are it hasn’t been good. Although sites like Google are now moving towards search algorithms that give less weight to pages stuffed with reciprocal links, the practice is long from dead. Using this strategy effectively is a matter of balance and relevance: offering the link either on a separate page or by peppering it throughout your site shows support for the linked material. To combat negative effects of reciprocal linking, keep it to a minimum and be open to using other strategies in conjunction with this.

Site wide links, or placing your site link on numerous pages of a website, should also be used sparingly. While this will improve the appearance of your portfolio, again search engines have been known to give less weight to links found this way.

Some sites will carry an entire page advertising your site on theirs, called presold advertising, that can have questionable returns. You have the choice to design the page, or pay to have it designed for you, then posted to a website that may already have a similar deal running with other companies. Equally questionable in returns is to join message boards and forums, posting your link in your signature, and adding comments. Never spam boards under any circumstances, if hits don’t go up after posting in the forum, move on.

Red Alert: Bad Links Ahead!

Top of the list are FFA, or Free-For-All pages that allow unspecified, uncategorized links from anywhere on their page. Search engines ignore them; spammers love them, and linkers with taste look elsewhere. Following in a close second are link farms- the monster pages with more links than common sense. While generally it is assumed that a hundred or more links mark a page as a link farm, Search Engine Optimization and non-Search Engine Optimization usefulness disappears around fifty links.

Unindexable links that even the most fastidious search engine can’t find are equally useless. The search engine spider should be able to follow the link back to you page, anything less is a waste of time. Avoid pages that include noindex or nofollow robots.txt tags or that display your link in a frame. Only very new sites should be given the benefit of the doubt, as they might not be indexed yet and could very well skyrocket into the Google-sphere, taking your link with it.

Finally, off-topic links round out the bottom list of terrible linking. These links have very little positive rewards for Search Engine Optimization, as most search engines will only give them slight weight as natural links from sites could point virtually anywhere on the web with little direction.

As with so many aspects of site marketing, keep in mind that quality over quantity is essential in building a list of links; developing a selection of diverse, balanced links directing visitors to your site is incredibly important. Keep a natural link profile with a selection of good links and keywords in the anchor text will not just improve the look of your profile but will positively affect your ranking with search engines.

For more information on Search Engine Optimization take a closer look at the PS WebSite Design website optimization services.