Linking methods - Part 1
Your site may be a virtual masterpiece, but if people don’t
know about it and can't see it, then the money and time that
you have invested into it are worthless. Building a powerful
online presence is much more than substantial web designs.
Being popular on the internet is much more than basic web
knowledge, it has a great deal to do with search engines
and effective linking methods. And speaking of linking methods,
there are so many ways to get them, which luckily for you,
we have listed in this article.
One of the ways to get links that will bring traffic to
your site is by submitting your site to search engines. Submit
them to reliable and important search engines that automatically
and robotically spider the web. Look for a link on the search
engine that says “ADD YOUR URL.”
In the US, the most used search engines are Google, Yahoo,
MSN, AOL Search, and AskJeeves. If you submit and get listed
on these sites, there is no doubt that these will feed other
search engines with your site, especially in the local area.
For Europe and other areas, it is advisable to submit to
local listings.
Always remember that it is a waste of time to pay someone
to do the submissions for you. Avoid registering on FFA sites,
or Free For All pages, and other link farms. Always make
sure to check the credibility of the search engine before
registering your page into it.
Free sites don’t work well; instead they just bring
you lots of spam e-mails and can cause you to be penalized
by search engines. If your search engine is already indexed
in a certain search engine, don’t resubmit it unless
there are significant changes; the search engine spider will
come back and revisit it soon anyway.
Since linking from a directory will help your ranking and
get you more traffic, be sure to list them in free Open Directory
Projects like DMOZ, which is overlooked by human editors.
This hierarchical directory provides content feeds to all
the major search engines. Plus, it provides a link to your
site from an information hub that Google deems important.
Yahoo! Directory is another important directory to be listed
in, though their search results recently haven't been featuring
their own directory as prominently. Real humans will read
and too often, pare down your 200-character sentence, so
be very careful and follow their instructions.
Somewhat use less than the maximum number of characters
allowable, so you don't have wordy text that will tempt the
Yahoo! editor to begin chopping.
You may find some directories focused on particular industries,
such as education or finance. Be sure to register with these.
You probably belong to various trade associations that feature
member sites.
Ask for a link. Even if you have to pay something for a
link, it may bring you the kind of targeted traffic from
an info hub you need.
Beware of directories that solicit you for "upgraded listings." Unless
a directory is widely used in your field, your premium ad
won't help, but the link itself will help boost your PageRank
and hence your search engine ranking. Marginal directories
come and go very quickly, making it hard to keep up. Don't
try to be exhaustive here.
Practice reciprocal linking. Find complementary websites
and request a reciprocal link to your site, especially to
your free service, if you offer one. Develop an out-of-the
way page where you put links to other sites, so you don't
send people out the back door as fast as you bring them in
the front door.
Your best results will be from sites that get a similar
amount of traffic to your site. High-traffic site webmasters
are too busy to answer your requests for a link and don't
have anything to gain. Look for smaller sites that may have
linking pages.
Only do reciprocal linking with sites that you think are
consistent; do not do reciprocal linking with spam sites
because this will naturally damage your site's reputation.
There are also directories that ask for reciprocal linking
in return for your listing.
You can also make a trade of benefits in your reciprocal
linking. If a site is really in theme with your site, ask
for a front page – top page listing and have it done
for them too. This way you will generate more traffic for
each other.
