Illusion Technologies: Web Site Designers

How And Why To Build A Linking Strategy For Your Web Site
By Michael Rock

Why would you want a linking strategy for your site? The most
important reason is to drive traffic to your site, which in turn
would increase visitors that would either purchase from you,
make your web site more popular, or reach a larger audience to
inform for your cause. The second reason to develop a linking
strategy for your site is to help increase your rankings in the
search engine. With Google this is very important for
achieving high web rankings, and I expect the other search
engines to follow suit relatively soon.

There are many ways to develop a linking strategy where
the links to your site will multiply without any effort from
you. This is the most effective way to generate links to point
to your site. In this article we will discuss how to do this,
debunk myths, and how to do this without unintentionally
harming your site's status.

Debunking myths:

Linking software

I personally don't approve of linking software that does
the work for you. Why? Because the software does not do a good

enough job where it can tell if the site it has the same theme
or relative content that matches your site. Many errors slip
through the process when this is done, that can cause damage to
the reputation and rankings in the search engine. Also each
site that you would like to link to you should have a decent PR
ranking from Google to help your site's rankings. (PR ranking
is a method that Google uses to put a value on the web site)
If you have too many web sites pointing to you with a poor PR
ranking it could actually make your site drop in the rankings.
And in addition sites with excellent PR rankings would help
your rankings a great deal.

Linking farms and automated link exchanges

Linking farms and automated link exchanges are not
recommended for the same reasons as the linking software. Poor
quality links and potentially harmful to your site. In
addition these two methods carry another danger. If the site
that links to has been put onto a black list for spam, and your
site points to that site your web site will automatically get
black listed and your rankings will go down as well.
That is why I prefer one way links to your site instead of
reciprocal links.
It may sound hard to do, but it isn't and I will show you a way
to do it below.

The more sites pointing to your site the better. Right?

Wrong! In the past search engines would rank you higher
in the search engines by judging the value of your site to the
number of links pointing to it. But because people have abused
and try to cheat this system, the rules have changed. Now they
actually penalize you for too many sites pointing to yours if
they are deemed suspicious. For instance many other sites
pointing to you with the same IP address (caused by you putting
up mirror sites to build links), links that point to that do not
have the same content as you ("once I saw a web design site
having a reciprocal link with a lingerie site"), and links that
have low PR rankings pointing to your site (in this case the
more the merrier does not work). "I've seen a site with only 10
links pointing to it (links from government sites) do better
with searches than a site that had over 10,000 links pointing
to it."

Another thing to consider: Google has just bought rights
to register domain names. So, here is a theory of mine that may

show up later. Google may update their algorithm to check
links to see if the domain name those links are registered
under contain the same registration information. This way it
could penalize sites that register a bunch of domain names to
point to their site and try to cheat the system. "The only time
you would like a lot of links pointing to your site is if they
are from respectable sites, have a high PR ranking, and have
relative content."

Who links to your site now?

An easy way to find this out is to type in
link:www.yoursite.com into a search engine and you will receive
a list of web sites currently pointing to you. Are they quality
links?

You can use Google toolbar located at their site to read
the PR ranking, an add-on extension for Firefox, or visit a web
site that will tell you the PR rankings of sites that you type
in. If you type in page ranking tool in the search engines
you'll find plenty of resources for this.

Who links to your competitors that are high in the search
engines?

Examine and study the links to and from your competitors
web site to learn more. And request links from the same people
for your site.

How do I build links pointing to my site?

These are a list of ways to build links to your site that are
one way links instead of reciprocal links. I highly recommend
these ways to build a solid link foundation:
1) Content and more content. Content will increase your
rankings in the search engine and people are more likely to
link to you if you have valuable content. One time I had a
large college link to one of the articles at my site for a
research paper. The college had a high PR ranking and the link
is in their archives. (This is a way to have your links
multiply without the effort)

2) Add a link to us page to your web site. Where you can give
the visitors to your site to apply a text link or banner. I
recommend a text link to your site that contains keywords for
your site. For example, web development contractor would point
to my site via hyperlink. (This is a way to have your links
multiply without the effort)

3) Start a blog on your site that people can go to and bookmark
for the latest information in a category that relates to your
site. (This is a way to have your links multiply without the
effort)

4) Offer a free helpful 'how to' e-book to give away that has
links inside of it that point to your site. (This is a way to
have your links multiply without the effort)

5) Submit to online directories. Online directories usually
have high PR rankings and get picked up by other directories
and web sites to include on their sites.

6) Write a testimonial for a site you like that has the same
relative content as yours. Chances are that if you praise
their site and sign it with a link (to your site) of who
praised them they will post it on their site giving you a free
one way link.

7) Create a free article directory asking people to submit
articles to your site, and in exchange for posting their
articles on your site have them post a link on their web site
stating where their article can be found. (your site) I've
seen people put a list of where there article can be found to
impress the visitors on how popular they are. (This is a way to
have your links multiply without the effort)

8) Lastly, and most importantly write articles yourself! When
I wrote my first article I submitted it to 25 places. (places
with higher traffic views) and the next day over 180 sites were
pointing to my web site, because I had a nice keyword enriched
link pointing to my site in the article. The next day the
total was over 300. How do you find out if they are pointing
to your site? Type in your article title in quotes into the
search engines and then you'll find out how many sites are
posting your article on their site. (This is a way to have your
links multiply without the effort)

One thing to do for sure is monitor your results. Who is
driving the most traffic to me? Which ways of linking are
producing multiplying links without any effort on my part?
Which links are actually harmful to me? Do these links
compliment my site? Do these things and I guarantee you that
the links to your site will increase ten fold.

Be looking for more articles soon!

Copyright © Michael Rock
www.TheInternetPresence.com

About the Author: The owner of this registered company has over
twenty years experience with DOS, windows business applications,
numerous programming languages, artistic development, and web
design. Other areas of interest include web marketing, web
promoting, and business marketing and development. After the
persuasion of those praising his work, he decided to go into
business himself and highly suggests everyone else to do the
same. Internet Presence was founded in 2003 from a desire to
become independent. Less than 1 year later Internet Presence
has had accounts in three different states anging from a locally
owned auto collision repair shop to a glass packaging industry
that sells its product worldwide.

Source: http://www.isnare.com