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As you probably know, great search engine rankings come from two things, on page factors and off page factors. On page factors includes stuff like having a well constructed site, and great content to attract your type of people. Off page factors includes everything you do online but away from your site. The majority of this activity is involved with getting links from other peoples sites to yours. This is important for two reasons: - Incoming links bring people to your site.
- Google and other search engines are "impressed" by sites that are linked to from other sites, particularly if those sites are popular or influencial.
So lets look at some ways to get these elusive incoming links with the minimum of wasted effort.
1. Link bait.Write great content that will encourage people to link to you. Take a link out of the Public Relations handbook and consider these options: - A survey - "Did you know that 8 out of 10 site owners don't have an off page marketing strategy?"
- Top 10 ways to...page.
- Mythbusting article - e.g. The PageRank obsession.
2. Syndicate Syndicate (submit) an article to one of the many sites like EzineArticles . They can provide not only a stream of visitors but their pages rank highly. Submit an article to an online industry newsletter, like OurDogs.co.uk if you are a canine business! Publish an online press release via service like PRWeb.com . Read up on how to write a great press release first. Having got your article out there, promote it using some of the other methods mentioned on this page! 3. Social bookmarking Sites like Digg , Stumbleupon and del.icio.us gather together user opinion and comment on sites. If you create something really noteworthy, it might be worth asking a few people to Digg it or tag it on del.icio.us. Get noticed on a social bookmarking site like this can bring an avalanche of traffic.
4. Social networking Facebook , mySpace and other social networking sites offer a variety of ways to link to your site. You can at the very least establish a business profile and include a link to your site, but how about setting up a group on FaceBook and using some of the other features to generate interest in what you do? Twitter is at the time of writing the latest "hot" site, experiencing huge user growth. I'll be talking about how to use Twitter effectively in a future posting, but for now, know that it is great for getting eyeballs onto your content, but as it uses "nofollow" tags on outgoing links, it's not much good for improving your search engine position. NB! With all situations where we are in the realms of posting messages in the public arena such as on FaceBook, forums, Twitter or whatever, remember that no one likes a pushy sales pitch! Be friendly, offer something useful, but don't sell! 5. Directories This tip is about as old as the internet, but still very valid. Submit to DMOZ and other relevant directories you can find. Some directories require payment to include your site, which is okay but be selective. These are all free, and good for SEO purposes as they are popular, and don't do any cloaking or redirection of outgoing links. 6. Expert advice You know lots of stuff, right? Find forums where you can answer people's questions, and you might be able to get a link to your site in as a reward. As well as the myriad of forums out there, try the big sites like Yahoo Answers and Google Groups to offer your wisdom. Forums in particular are great for bringing visitors AND improving search engine position, as the link you get comes from a very relevant page and (hopefully) site. See my posting on PageRank for why this is important. In the same vein, you can also post reviews of relevant products on Amazon and other shopping sites. There are also a host of other reviewing sites out there, and you can review web sites at Alexa , web100 and others. 7. Think Local Join your local Chamber of Commerce, and get into their online directory. (I'm doing a talk at the Ayrshire Chamber on Friday - pop along if you are free!) What other local directories can you find? 8. Blog You have a blog, right? A nice easy way to add juicy, interesting content to your site? Put links to other blogs you find interesting. Many blog-o-philes track that sort of thing, and it might get you noticed. Also comment on other peoples blog posts. You may not be able to include a clickable link, but you should generate visits. 9. Swap links Reciprocal linking? Yes, it still has value - a lot of value if done correctly. Please, though, PLEASE, don't use automated software to send out spammy link requests to completely irrelevant sites! Doing so wastes your time, my time, everyone's time! Personalise your link request, show an interest in the site and your success rate is much higher. Of course, the email exchange can take time, and many emails will go in the spam bin, as you are contacting some one out of the blue, even if you did write a nice personal message. So you can find sites that have an existing automated link exchange programme by doing some google searches like these. You'll get the idea and I'm sure think up plenty of your own...substitute keyword for a word or phrase of your choice :) keyword "add url" keyword "add site" keyword "add link" keyword "exchange links" keyword "Powered By: MyLinkHelper.com" keyword "Powered by Reciprocal Link Software" You get the idea... You can also simply find a relevant site that has a big link directory, and cherry pick the best sites out of it. 10. Google Alerts. Set up a Google Alert to inform you of when new content is generated about a subject close to your heart. You can then go and check it out. If it is a blog post, you get to comment on it while the blog is hot. If it is a web site, you might be able to swap a link. That should be enough to be getting on with...use all of these and you'll see significant QUALIFIED (i.e. useful) traffic gains. I hope you do find it useful - if you did, why not link to it! Or socially bookmark us? Or Twitter about this page...or... |
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