GETTING Inbound Links for Your Web Site

We discussed what inbound links are and why your web site needs them. Now, we move on to how to get good quality inbound links.

First, I'd like to address what is meant by a GOOD QUALITY inbound link.

What it is NOT:
1. Quality links are NOT found only through the URL that the web site with the link gives you. If you can't easily find a link to your web site on their web site, how is anyone else going to find it? Example: If you get an email from a webmaster or web site owner that says "I have already put your link on my links page. You may find your link at www.theirsite.com/linkspage.html", the first thing to do is visit the home page of their site: www.theirsite.com and see if you can find a link to the so-called "links page". Many times you can not. There is no link on any of their pages to their "links page". In fact their "links page" can only be found by knowing the correct URL to type in the address bar. How often do you think anyone is going to find that page? Answer: ALMOST NEVER! An inbound link of this type is absolutely worthless.

2. Quality links are NOT found through the purchase of them from a "link farm" web site. A "link farm" is kind of like a puppy mill. They exist only to supply pages and pages of links to other web site, but with no real value to the link because they are only listed alphabetically at best. Most of the time, the newest links are at the top of the pages, but as more links are added to the page, down the list yours goes. There is no organization to the list of links, so even if visitors searched their site for links to a subject their interested in, they won't probably find it.

3. Quality links are NOT found in link directories. Putting your link on a link exchange page containing hundreds of services similar to yours is not likely to generate very many clicks. This is why exchanging links with link directories is such a questionable waste of time. Web visitors rarely look at these directories.

So how DO you get good quality inbound links for your web site?

Links from sites that share your target audience will be an important source of traffic to your site. A visitor to the other web site sees the link to yours, clicks on it, and becomes your visitor. You should get as many links as possible on pages your target audience is likely to be visiting. The more people see your links, the more traffic you are likely to get. Your anchor text (the words that are linked) should be intriguing. It should be short and sweet, and descriptive - a reason for people to click on it. For instance, the words Award-winning Web Designer that link to my web site at www.cdwebmaker.com is a much better link for my website than the name of my business as a link like this CD WebMaker. Why? Mainly because the first one is a good description of what my web site is about. If a visitor has an idea of where a link will take them, they are more likely to click it.

Web sites that share you target audience are ones like your suppliers if you're in the construction business, complimentary businesses such as mortgage and real estate companies, and those businesses you partner with to supply a service like fly fishing shops who use a local rafting company for their guided fishing trips, or lodges near the destinations included in the fishing trip you are selling.

Finding good pages where you can place your link is not always easy. One method is to systematically do searches for your most important keywords -- the search phrases people are likely to use when looking for your kind of product or service. Many of the results will be competitors of yours. But one or two may be secondary sources such reference pages. Getting your link on some of these secondary sources is almost guaranteed to result in traffic, so it is worth the effort -- and sometimes the cost -- of getting listed in the resources that score high for your keywords. If a site does well for "fly fishing" and they service a different area than your fly fishing shop, why not exhange links - and traffic - with the shop who does what you do without actually competing with you?

Use articles to get traffic and impress the search engines while you're at it. Write about what you know, and embed a link to your web site in the article. This is one of the best methods of rapidly increasing your inbound links. Many times a well-written article will show up in hundreds of places on the web. And if it has your link embedded in it, that will obviously increase your inbound links. Webmasters pick up these articles because they want content to enhance the value of their sites.

The articles themselves will also generate direct traffic because people who read them are already interested in your subject matter, and are therefore more likely to click on your link. So the most valuable place to publish your article is in a themed or categorized article resource. For instance, if your product is "health" related, having it published on health-oriented sites will be more valuable than having it published on generic sites.

You can even take this a step further. If your article is about something more specific like breast cancer, then getting it published on sites that focus on that specific informmation will get more "reads", and have a greater influence on the search engines.

It is important to remember when embedding your link to try to use anchor text that contains one of your important keywords, not just your URL or web address. Remember that search engines are dumb. One of your objectives is to have them relate your website to specific search terms (keywords or key phrases). And the best way to do that is to use them as your anchor text: again, Award-winning Web Designer is much better than CD WebMaker and a hundred times better than www.cdwebmaker.com.