Did you know that many of the major search engines
rank your site according to how many links there
are to it? How many links are there to yours? You
can find out on many search engines by searching
for your site with a special code. Try these
searches replacing yoururl.com with of course, your
URL.
How important are links? It depends on your
business but generally for most web sites, links
are more important than search engine ranking. For
one thing, as previously mentioned some search
engines use links as a criteria in your ranking.
More importantly however, appropriate links are the
best way to generate high quality pre-qualified
visitors.
For example, if someone is looking for an antique
vase and does not find it on an antiques page, they
are more likely to try a link that says: "Looking
for an Antiques Vase? Try these quality sites."
Than they are to retry a search engine. In fact,
most users will follow links from site to site
based on a recommendation in order to find what
they are looking for. They will revisit the search
engines only after their leads dry up.
Getting people to link to your site is consequently
a high priority requirement for anyone that is
seriously interested in promoting their business.
Who should you try to get to link to you? In simple
terms, anyone and everyone. In more practical terms
however, it depends on the effort and what you have
to give up in return. Exchanging a banner add on
your site for a link from a high quality busy site
may be extremely valuable for attracting new
visitors. The banner may however, redirect your
hard sought visitor to the banner site and away
from yours. Banners also tend to clutter a web
page, increase the load time and distract your
visitors. You can only put up a limited number and
then what do you exchange?
Look for web sites that cater to the same visitors
as you do. If you sell camping gear why not
exchange links with campgrounds. What about
competitors? Sometimes competing stores attract
more combined customer when located near each other
than when they are not. This is a judgment call on
your part.
Promoting you site through links is an extremely
valuable and interesting topic. I will expand upon
it in several future issues.
"IMS Web Tips" is a weekly news letter for all web site managers regardless of experience who are looking for detailed information on creating, maintaining and promoting their web sites.
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