Advertising

The Importance of Inbound Links

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Written by Peter Slevin

Wednesday, 23 April 2008

by PeterSlevin

Having links from other sites pointing to your site is the holy grail of search engine optimisation. It is crucial for any successful website, and is the single most important part of your website marketing efforts in order to increase overall reach, link popularity and website traffic. Having quality inbound links will improve your search engine results, which will in the end bring you more visitors. Acquiring new links from other websites, using your keywords as anchor text, will help you improve search engine rankings.

It is important that you try and achieve inbound links from sites that are trusted by search engines. The best way to do this is to use Google's page rank facility to determine how Google views the site. It is important to remember that 85% of internet visitors use the search engines on a regular basis. Search engines beat all other media in driving visitors to websites. Moreover, the majority of users believe companies found in top search results are major brands which equals brand equity for you.

Trying to obtain inbound links can be a lengthy process if you do not know where to source these out. Employing an internet marketing company to do this for you can save you lots of time spent on research and work.

First, you should acquire links from human based directories such as Yahoo, Open Directory Project, and Google Local Business Centre. Take special care in accurately submitting your site in the right category and use a good description of the site. The search engines consider websites that are listed in the top directories to be credible sites, and this will have a positive effect on your rankings.

There are thousands of internet directories out there that you can submit your site to. Choose the ones that have a good Google Page Rank as these will have a better effect on your search engine rankings.

Ask suppliers, friends, and associates to link to your site from theirs. Because of your existing relationship with them, this should prove quite easy for you.

PR and article submission is an effective means of acquiring links. Press releases and articles with your URL embedded in the resource box will help you secure links in news articles about your company. It will also help with creating awareness which may lead to unsolicited links from interested parties.

Add information and fresh content to your website on a frequent basis, and the search engines will love you for it. If you have a CMS system, I recommend that you add a new page every week. Make sure that it is quality relevant content.

Whether you enlist the aid of a company such as ours, or try to procure links on your own, quality 'inbound links' are becoming an increasingly important component of your direct marketing and sales activity to increase site traffic and drive sales. As I mentioned before, it is the holy grail of internet marketing, and the foundation upon which any successful website is built.

About the Author:

The author of this article is director of an Irish Gift Store and his Memorial Trees Company.

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