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Linking Strategies
AF
Any good SEO expert will emphasise the importance of a good linking strategy as part of an integrated e-marketing plan. Here's a few hints and tips to get you started.
How Important are Links?
The method of establishing a site's importance by its incoming links was pioneered by Google, but has since been adopted, by many of the other top search engines. In simple terms, when Google sees a link to your site it counts rather like a 'vote'. If that 'vote' comes from a small site with low PageRank and not many visitors, Google may well ignore it altogether. However, should that 'vote' come from a very popular site with a good PageRank (ideally 3 or more), it will count towards the PageRank of your site, therefore, helping to boost you in the search results. But remember, you need to check the PageRank of the page your link is actually on, not just their home page.
Quality not Quantity
Often, people mistakenly think the more links they get the better. Not true. Getting good quality links is far more important than trying to get as many as possible. And it's not just the site's PageRank that you should consider. Google will more highly value links with sites relevant to the content on yours. Therefore, if you run a Garage it is not necessarily a great idea to link to your friend's Poodle Parlour site.
Directories
There are thousands of directories out there that you could get your site listed in. Try to get listings in the popular directories, such as the Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org). The Open Directory is free for all sites that meet certain quality standards, but it sometimes takes some respectful but diligent follow-up inquiries to make sure your site gets listed. When listing your sites, try to get them in the highest-level category that is applicable to your site.
Be discriminate: don't request a link on poor quality sites simply filled with links (known as link farms‚). Search engines often heavily penalize or even ban any sites associated with them.
Finding Linking Partners
Once you have submitted your directory listings, you should look for other sites that might link to yours. Ideally, the businesses that run these sites will be related to yours but will not be direct competitors. Type your top keyword into Google search and find out who your competitors have links with. Chances are, they will link to you as well.
Don't go straight to the top names. 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.
If you want quality links the most important thing is to have quality content. This will make yours the sort of site other sites want to be linked to.
If you belong to any 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 you are looking for.
If you have been the feature of an online news story, you should always ask the reporter for a link to your site within the article. And if you can generate a story that gets you featured on the BBC website, even if it's only the local section, even better.