02. SEO ARTICLES

Link Building Strategies (part 1)

Link building strategies are an essential part of improving your website profile. All the major search engines to one degree or another employ some kind of link popularity test to measure the importance of a web page. This means that you need links pointing to your site to be taken seriously by the search engines.

The basic idea is quite simple. If someone links to your website, this counts as a vote in favour of your site. Equally, if you link to another site this counts as a vote for them. However, bear in mind that not all sites are equal and this affects the voting. Links are weighted according to the importance attached to the website providing the link and this gets factored into the equation. As an example, a link from Amazon will count for more than a link from Bob's Bargain Bookstore! So building links to your site is not just a numbers game. The quality and relevance of links to your site are more important in the long run. For more information about finding quality link partners see our article: Link Building Strategies (part 2).

While gaining quality links from other relevant websites may be important in the long term, there are a number of things you can do when you are just starting out which will help your build your link popularity.

Directory Submissions

If you are developing a new website begin your link building strategy by submitting your site to the most appropriate web directories. These should include a mixture of general directories, regional or country specific directories and niche directories relevant to your market. With the right approach you should be able to get 20 - 40 good links to your site within a couple of months. For further details please refer to our article on Search Engine and Directory Submissions.

Writing Articles

Writing articles about your business or industry is an excellent way to provide good quality content for your website and is one way to keep visitors interested in what you have to offer. It is also a great way to develop links back to your website. So how can you get links to your website by writing articles? Well, there are a growing number of article directories on the internet where you can post your articles for free. At the end of the article you include your own details including a link back to your website. So each article that you publish provides a one way link to your website. But the benefits don't stop there. Other webmasters looking for content can then publish your article on their own sites as long as they include your resource box, thus providing further backlinks to your site. In this way, every article you list in an article directory could provide you with multiple one way links to your site as well as additional traffic from the sites that publish your articles.

Writing Press Releases

Another good way to raise the profile of your business and to increase incoming links to your website is to write and distribute press releases. Your press releases do not necesarily need to be of earth shattering importance. Anything about your business will do. For example, the introduction of a new product, or a promotion. Once you have written your press release submit it to one of the online press release directories such as 24-7 Press Release.

As with article publishing, make sure you include your contact details and website address at the bottom of your press release to obtain maximum publicity as well as a link back to your site.