The Marketing Power Of Internet Linking

Internet Marketing Technique for Links

by Jack Elmy

The world of search engine optimization for persons new to the game can be confusing and mysterious. Building a marketing campaign through the use of an Internet marketing technique such as linking can sometimes cause more harm than good if you're not careful.

In order for linking to be effective you must fully understand how this internet marketing technique works. First, be aware that building up a series of links all over the internet is not effective. It is far better to create a few quality links than an abundance of links that do nothing for you. Never, ever place links on your web site that connect to a competitor's web site. While this may seem patently obvious, it is a mistake that is made far too often. There are much better ways to drive your target audience to your site.

Think about who you want to visit your site. What is their lifestyle like, what are they interested in, what kinds of websites are they likely to visit? Think in terms of complementing similarity not competition. For example, if you sell children's educational toys and games, you wouldn't want to link to another site that sells the same type of product. However, your demographic audience is likely going to be interested in visiting parenting sites and other sites that provide information that is valuable to parents or those interested in the educational development of children.

Another concept to keep in mind regarding the internet marketing technique of linking is that it is always better to link up rather than down. What this means is that you want to check out the hits of any website you are considering linking to and only allow a link to your site to be placed on a website that has at least as many hits as your own site. More is always better. It simply doesn't make any sense to link to a site that has significantly less hits than your own site.

Finally, consider reciprocal linking. This internet marketing technique is simply a matter of exchanging links with another website. In fact, many sites make reciprocal linking a requirement before they will accept a link from your own site. Placing links to other websites on your site can actually be advantageous, if done in the correct way. You don't want to have links all over your pages in an unattractive jumble. Consider dedicating one page, or a section of a page to links. You might even have a pointer that will direct readers to those links. If you are linking to other websites that will provide beneficial information to your readers, they are more likely to consider this a benefit than an intrusion.

Reciprocal Linking A Business Partnership!

By Joan Maughan

Link popularity is becoming the latest "in-thing" to get your website ranking well with the Search Engines.

Getting links to your website is critical but there are some guidelines that should be followed for successful Reciprocal Linking. In addition, a lot of website owners are becoming particularly choosey as to who they link with, and they cannot be blamed for this. Linking to good quality websites is paramount.

So where does that leave the website owner with a low to average Google Page Ranking?

We will presume for just a moment that your website has an overall Google Page Ranking of between 0 and 3 (out of a possible 10). How can you improve this so that you have a better chance of getting good quality reciprocal links?

Link exchange is not the only thing that helps increase your Website Page Ranking. It is a combination of a number of factors, such as :

* Great relevant content

* Designed to keep the visitor interested and informed

* Meta Tags should be well optimized

* Keyword density

* Frequently updating the content.

There is a lot of free information regarding page ranking - just put "google page ranking" in the Google search bar for more details on this topic.

Back to Linking!

Developing a good Links Page on your website takes a lot of effort to start off, especially if you are doing it manually and not using a Link Program.

You need to plan and organize your time so that you can evaluate possible link partners thoroughly. You should check their website to ensure it is of high quality, providing relative information and products to your website theme.

There are a few schools of thought regarding linking to "competitor" websites, some feel it is not a good thing. However, personally I don't believe it to be detrimental as long as your website offers top quality information and products. After all a little bit of competition helps keep us on our toes. Whether shopping online or offline, people usually browse for bargains or the best quality before making a purchase.

This of course, works both ways as your site is also listed on competitor sites. So having a good balance of both competitor sites and related sites is the best answer.

Planning your links page is important in that you need to determine how you want it to look, what categories you will have and the size and positioning of the links. Will you just have text links or will you accept banner links?

It is good practice to have the Link menu button placed in a prominent position on your home page. This is also a point to remember when evaluating possible link partners - on some website you can spend ages searching for the Link button and the Link pages.

There is also the practice of placing extremely good beneficial links on other pages of your website. For example:

If your site is promoting health products you may very well want to place a banner ad on your homepage for say a health magazine.

In most cases you will be required to place a link on your website first prior to requesting a link exchange. Once you have placed the link, send an email advising that you have visited their site and believe a link exchange would be beneficial to both parties. Mention something about the site that impressed you, this way they will know you have actually visited their website. Endeavor to get a name to address the email to if at all possible.

Of course, many sites today have everything set up with forms that enable you to just fill in your website details including the reciprocal link address. This does make the job much easier, but it is good business practice to send a confirmation email advising that their link is listed on your site and that you look forward to a reciprocal linking arrangement.

This last step can be beneficial at a later date in that you may want to approach them in the future with a joint venture proposition for example. Linking is more than just swapping site information, it can be the first step to a profitable business partnership.

A couple of important points to remember:

* Check all the links regularly to ensure they are working.

* Check that your link is still listed on the partner site.

As your Link Pages grow, it will probably become necessary to use a Link Managing Program or Service, there are a number of very good ones available, some with a free trial period.

Ethical Link Exchange, You be the judge....

Webmasters understand that quality and relevant inbound links can increase site visibility; your search engine rating; and with any luck increase your traffic and revenue.

While working to locate relevant links for our site, we discovered a disturbing practice apparently being used to increase link popularity and search engine ranking. The following are the sorted details of our journey and discovery.

1) Most webmasters understand the hunt for quality relevant sites is, like most things of value in life, a time consuming and difficult task. Being limited on time, we first tried to hire a leading SEO expert to locate relevant links. When the SEO expert did not return emails, we tried a few link exchange sites. While a few good quality links were unearthed, the link exchange sites simply did not offer a large quantity of good relevant sites. After all, our competitors had hundreds of thousands of inbound links and we had less than 900. While tempting, we skipped over the advertisements for traffic as our desire was for prospective customers not traffic.

2) We finally decided on the DIY approach. First step, check current reciprocal links page to insure all was well. A few sites no longer linked to us, so our webmaster links page required a few updates.

3) Next we chose to use Link Popularity Check to locate links that our competitors have, that we perhaps missed. The first thing we noticed was hundreds of inbound links a competitor had, all coming from a few specific sites. Upon visiting the sites, we noticed that one was a "directory" and several others were normal sites that contained very little content. In short, the directory and other sites were nothing a competent webmaster could not create in a day or two.

4) We found it odd the inbound sites all have the same visual look, color scheme, and navigation. Our competitor's site was also listed in the "Related Resources" area on each and every page. The light bulb suddenly switched on! The inbound sites appeared to have been created for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity and therefore the competitor's search engine ranking!

5) Ping the four sites to locate the IP addresses. Four different addresses, not in consecutive order. Perhaps we were mistaken.

6) A few mouse clicks to see who owned the domain names of the four sites. All the sites are owned by the same company, are housed at the same ISP, and have the same email address listed for the administrative and technical contact names.

7) A few mouse clicks at Alexa.com to review traffic patterns show the sites have very little traffic, yet all have a PageRank score of 6 or higher. Site traffic is increasing for each.

Nope, it does not appear we were mistaken. It appears a competitor actually created web sites for the sole purchase of increasing his/her link popularity and search engine ranking for their primary business site. To recreate such a process:

• Register a domain name that is tied to your primary sites keyword list. For example, if your primary site sells widgets and has a domain name of Widgets.com, something like "Widget- Directory.com" would be ideal;
• Setup a new hosting account with your ISP, using a different IP address, for Widget-Directory.com;
• Create a few pages that use the keyword list from Widgets.com, then setup a link system that invites webmasters to exchange links. Remember, no need to get carried away with content as the purpose of Widget-Directory is really keyword tie-in and link exchanges;
• Now, code every page of Widget-Directory with a link back to Widget.com;
• Sit back and watch. As webmasters enter their sites and subcategories into Widget-Directory, the results will increase the link quantity and apparently your search engine ranking of Widget-Directory AND Widgets.com.

Hopefully, the search engine will adjust their algorithms and nullify this practice. In the interim, for those that take a negative PR and/or link exchange hit, remember that honesty builds longevity and lasting relationships. Remember the SEO expert we previously tried to hire? We went back and checked his site, and yes he utilizes the same technique. Odd thing however, his sites no longer enjoys top ratings on the major search engines. Perhaps, the search engines are starting to figure this one out.

Getting One-way Inbound Links: the 5 Major Strategies

Do you know all the major strategies for getting valuable one-way inbound links?

With search engines putting a damper on direct reciprocal links, the hunt for the elusive one-way inbound link is on.

As someone who works with small business website owners, I\'ve heard just about every inbound-linking scheme there is. In the end, I\'ve only seen five strategies that really work consistently for getting hundreds of links.

Yet there\'s perennial interest in alternative linking strategies. Why? Perhaps because the five major effective strategies involve a certain amount of hard work, and for many people, SEO is an endless magic bean hunt. So, before looking at those five most effective strategies, let\'s look at some of the supposedly easier alternatives.

Link farms never seem to die. The latest variations try to pass themselves off as viral marketing, but are really a sort of endless pyramid scheme: you link to me, so I link to someone else, who links to someone else, and on and on down the line. If you think this will work, let\'s just say I admire your ability to maintain a childlike innocence despite all the mean names I\'m sure everyone calls you.
Many one-way inbound linking strategies fall into the great-if-you-are-lucky-enough-to-get-it category, such as winning a web award or being featured on a high-PageRank website just for being so great.
Other one-way incoming link strategies are in the this-will-take-forever-to-get-anywhere category, such as offering to provide testimonials to all your vendors in exchange for a link to your site. (Hint: If you can get more than twenty links that way, you probably need to simplify your supply line.)

Now, on to the five major ways of getting large numbers of one-way inbound links. Some are better than others, but they all have more potential than some of the more madcapped strategies. Of course, none is a good strategy all on its own. You have to understand all five strategies in order to really gain a distinct advantage in the one-way link hunt.

1. Waiting for Inbound Links
If you have good content you will eventually get one-way inbound links naturally, without asking. Organic, freely given links are an essential part of any SEO strategy. But you cannot rely on them, for two reasons:

Unfortunately, \"eventually\" can be a very long time.
There is a vicious cycle: you can\'t get search engine traffic, or other non-paid traffic, without inbound links; yet without inbound links or search engine traffic, how is anyone going to find you to give you inbound links?

2. Triangulating for Inbound Links
Search engines will have a tough time dampening reciprocal links if the reciprocation is not direct. To get links to one website you offer in exchange a link from another website you also control. This would seem to be a mostly foolproof way of defeating the link-dampening ambitions of Google and the rest. If you have more than one website, you probably are already employing this linking method. There are only a few drawbacks:

You need to have more than one website. Stop laughing! There really are businesses that only have one website! In fact, they may be your clients someday.
The work required to set up this kind of arrangement and verify compliance is not insignificant. The process cannot be automated to the same extent as direct one-to-one reciprocal linking.
As with traditional reciprocal links, a very big drawback is that the links are mostly on \"Resources\" pages that are just lists of links. There\'s only a small chance of getting significant traffic from these links. Plus, any \"Resource\" page may well eventually become an easy target for link dampening, if that hasn\'t happened already.

3. Submitting for Incoming Links
They are the legendary fairy lands of SEO: PageRank-passing, no-fee-charging, non-corrupt and actually well-run directories of relevant links. Yes, they really do exist. An SEO friend tells me he knows 200 good ones just off the top of his head. Plus, there are other kinds of directories: directories of affiliate programs, of websites using a certain content management system, of websites whose owners are members of this or that group, of websites accepting PayPal, etc. etc.

Ah, a link in a PageRank-passing link directory: it\'s a good deal if you can get it. But let\'s say you do get links from all 200 such directories and a hundred more from the little niche directories--now what?

4. Paying for Inbound Links
Buying and selling text links on high-PageRank web pages has become big business. Buying good traffic-generating \"clean\" links is a great alternative to pay-per-click advertising, which confers no SEO benefit. But, there are a number of pitfalls of relying primarily on paid links for SEO:

The cost of the hundreds of links required for substantial search engine traffic can become prohibitive.
As soon as you stop paying, you lose your link--you are essentially renting rather than owning, with no \"link equity\" building up.
Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of paid links on rankings, as revealed in various patent filings.
Given Google\'s mission to dampen paid links\' effectiveness, paid link buyers have an interest in verifying that a potential paid link partner is \"passing PageRank.\" But identifying appropriate PageRank-passing paid link partners is quite a task in itself.
Google is actively trying to dampen the impact of any \"artificial\" linking campaign. Having most of your links on PageRank 3 or higher web pages would seem to be a dead give-away that your links are \"artificial,\" since the vast majority of web pages (note: not necessarily websites, but their pages) are PageRank 1 or lower. Meanwhile, buying PageRank 0 or 1 links would have so little impact on a site\'s PageRank that it would not be worth the expense.

5. Distributing Content
All of the above four inbound-link-generating methods really do work. But it is the fifth method of getting one-way inbound links that is the most promising: distributing content

The idea is simple: you give other websites content to put on their sites in exchange for a link to your site, usually in an \"author\'s resource box,\" an \"about the author\" paragraph at the end of the article.

The beauty of distributing content for links is that the links generally generate more traffic than links on a \"resources\" page. Plus, your article will pre-sell readers on the value of your site.

The downside, of course, is that it\'s no small amount of work to create original content and then distribute it to hundreds of website owners. But nothing good ever came easy. And on the internet, one-way inbound links are a very good thing.

In conclusion, there are a number of ways of getting one-way inbound links, and if you\'re smart, you\'ll use all of them.

About the author Joel Walsh is the owner of UpMarket Content, where you can get a content distribution campaign managed from soup to nuts, and guaranteed to get you at least one hundred one-way inbound links for every three articles. Check out this guaranteed website promotion content distribution package : http://upmarketcontent.com/website-promotion-package.htm