Inbound Links -Why Search Engines Love Them

Relevant, respected websites that link to yours — without having links back to them — are search engine gold. This kind of link lets the search engines know your site is worth linking to, and it offers the kind of information that searchers are looking for when they type in your keywords.

You can build up your inbound link count by approaching website owners and asking for a link, or by sending them articles (with a link to your site) that would be interesting to their audiences. But before you do, here’s a list of what to look for.

Great inbound links…

- Come from relevant sites. If your site is about dog training, don’t go after a link from a site that sells piano lessons.

- Appear natural. If people were linking to your website randomly, they wouldn’t all use the same anchor text, and they wouldn’t all link to you in the same week. When you give out the links you want people to use, vary the anchor text and build them up gradually over time.

- Aren’t lost among dozens of other links. Unless the link is from a directory, you don’t want the page your link is on to have more than two dozen outbound links… and the fewer the better.

- Are placed in a good position on the site. Negotiate to get your link embedded in a natural position — usually within some text in the main body area. The search engines can discredit links found in the footer, right-hand side, or other popular areas where advertising usually goes.

Don’t stress about getting your link on the homepage. Deep links within a strong complementary website are still great.

- Are found on sites that are indexed regularly. Check the Google cache date of the page the link would come from and make sure it’s recent.

- Are on sites that have been around for a while. The search engines assume that an older site is more credible – and usually have a higher page rank

- Are on sites with high Google PageRank. The more links you can get from high PageRank sites, the higher you’ll get ranked in Google’s listings. However, if you find a website that would be a great partner but the PageRank is 3 or lower, you will still want to work with them

Getting inbound links is one of the most powerful strategies for getting high rankings in the search results. It’s worth spending time on.

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