Incoming Links - 12 Powerful Link Building Strategies

Copyright Herman Drost

If you saw a sudden decrease in your Google rankings recently it may be due to the latest Google dance called “Jagger”. The latest update appears to penalize those sites that have engaged in reciprocal linking. This probably is due to people abusing link exchanges to falsely boost their search engine rankings.

Benefits of building incoming links

Increase search engine rankings – Google determines the popularity of your site by the number of sites that link to yours. The greater the number of incoming links the higher your rankings.

More web traffic – incoming links from sites that already attract a lot of traffic will definitely increase the number of visitors to site compared to sites that are new or have a small amount of traffic.

12 Powerful Strategies for Building Incoming Links

1. Write articles – write a quality article about the topic of your web site and submit it to article directories, and ezine publishers. Include a link back to your site in the resource box at the bottom of your article. If you do this on a regular basis you will see a steady increase in rankings and traffic.

2. Include anchor text in your links – this is the text that describes your link. It should contain the most popular keyword you use for your site ie if my keyword phrase is “affordable web design” this is the correct way to write it in html:

<a href="http://www.isitebuild.com">
affordable web design</a>

Generating links that contain anchor text will boost your rankings much faster than just using a simple link such as http://www.isitebuild.com

Tip: Avoid using the same anchor text for all your links. Try to vary text content by using other targeted keywords.

3. Get incoming links from authoritative sites – obtain links from sites that have a large number of links pointing to them and already get a lot of web traffic. These sites should be related to the same topic as your site.

4. Research competitors' sites – do a search on your most popular keyword in Google to find out which sites rank the highest. These are your competitors that probably have many links pointing to their site.

You can find out who is linking to them by inserting: link:www.domainname.com in Google’s search box. This should return the number of sites that link to your competitors. By visiting each of these links you may be able to pick up a good number of quality sites that can also link to yours.

Alternative methods - go to Alexa.com to find out the how much traffic your competitor’s site gets.
- Visit marketleap.com to determine the link popularity of your site.
- Download the Google toolbar to determine the PR (page rank) of a site. A high PR indicates the site has many links pointing to it.

5. Use the same URL format – search engines don’t see all URLs the same. Here are some different ways to write your URL ie
http://domainname.com
http://domainname.com/
http://domainname/index.html
http://www.domainname.com
http://www.domainname.com/
http://www.domainname.com/index.html

These are all different URLS even though though they all point to the same web page. If sites that link to you use all different URLS, it will decrease your web page relevancy.

Try to stick to one format ie http://www.yourdomain.com to gain maximum page rankings.

6. Referring page should have few links - the referring page means the web page of the site that is giving you the incoming link. Don't get a link from a web page that contains hundreds of links. This will only dilute the effectiveness of your link popularity. Visitors that visit that page probably won't see your link and avoid clicking on it.

It's preferable to only have the link of your site on that page and it's better if it's on the same topic.

7. Submit to major directories - the major directories to submit your site to include:

Yahoo Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com) - powers search results for top portals such as Yahoo!, AltaVista, and AlltheWeb. You can list your business web site with Yahoo for a recurring annual fee of $299.00

If you have a non-business site, you can submit to Yahoo without paying at: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest/

Open Directory Project (http://www.dmoz.org/) - this directory is still free. Getting listed here will give you good incoming links as it feeds some of the major search engines. Don't hold your breath though as it can take months or even years to get listed. Navigate to your category then choose "suggest URL" and be sure to read the submission guidelines.

Other major directories to consider are:

http://www.joeant.com/
http://www.zeal.com/
http://www.goguides.org/
http://www.gimpsy.com/
http://search.looksmart.com/

8. Submit to specialty directories (http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/Specialty_Directories/) ie if your site specializes in aviation or sports then submit it to that specific directory.

Many of the specialized directories are indexed by the major search engines such as Google, AltaVista and AllTheWeb, therefore a link from those directories will improve your link popularity.

9. Use RSS Feeds - RSS or Really Simple Syndication allows you to share your headlines and other web site content with other sites. When another web site uses your RSS feed to display headlines it will automatically place a link to your site. The more web sites that subscribe to your RSS Feed, the more links you receive that point back to your site thus increasing your link popularity.

For more information read:
How to Create an RSS Feed for Your Web Site

10. Submit to online forums - contribute useful tips to others at online discussion forums. You can include a link back to your site at the end of your post.

11. Create an ebook - write a report or ebook that contains links to specific web pages on your site where visitors can obtain more information or buy your product. Make this ebook available on the Net for free (people always like freebies). Submit it to ebook directories so many people will download it. This will provide a viral marketing system that will provide ongoing traffic to your web site.

12. Write a testimonial - if you have bought a product or received a service from someone (ie web design), offer to write a quality testimonial for their product or service. Include a link to your site at the bottom of your text. Often the owner is very happy to receive an unsolicited testimonial.

The most important aspect of generating incoming links is to have such valuable content on your site that it attracts other site owners to naturally want to link to you.

If you generate incoming links on a consistent basis you stand a good chance of getting top search engine rankings.

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Herman Drost is a Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) and owner of iSiteBuild.com Web Site Design, Web Hosting, Web Site Promotion

Author of “Marketing Tips” newsletter. To subscribe, enter your information at: http://www.isitebuild.com/articles