Linking To Your Website: The Internet is a Popularity Contest

Small business want to know "how can you get my site to show up in the top 10 in search engine results?" Well, that's the million dollar question. Google, Yahoo!, Bing and all the search engines have a secret recipe that they call their "algorithm" for deciding how to rank websites in the natural search results. It's a pinch of this and a dash of that. A cup of popularity and a pound of good content. Take a look at Google's Webmaster Guidelines. They give some very specific guidance on what they look for and how you can improve your web site's visibility, including the fact that you need to attract those all-important inbound links. How? Make your website an interesting destination.

High Quality Content

Be original. Don't copy content from someone else's website! Content should be unique and interesting, factual, educational, entertaining, enlightening and inspiring, or controversial and fresh. Find out what people in your industry are looking for online and provide it.

Include Linkbait

Want other sites to link to yours? Include a tool or a service that people are looking for. For example, if it fits your industry, you might want to have a mortgage calculator, or a calorie counter, or a currency converter. That type of thing. Include product reviews, Top Ten Lists, interviews of some of the newsmakers in your industry, surveys, film clips or demos, expert advice, contests, coupons, humor... Do you have any websites bookmarked? Which sites are in your "Favorites" and why? Thinking about this can help you come up with ideas for making your own site linkworthy.

Social Networking

You can host a blog or a discussion forum on your site that will attract readers and commenters. Make sure it is full of accurate, helpful information for your industry and target audience. And it needs to be current. Readers will abandon a site whose last posting was a month ago, let alone a site that hasn't been updated since 2004. Participate in other blogs and forums by adding your own unique, helpful comments and you will entice other bloggers and readers to link to your site.

Sources for Links

Free links are often there just for the asking. Here are some suggestions:

• business partners
• vendors
• suppliers
• association memberships
• certifications you or your business have acquired
• links from parent companies or subsidiaries
• submit press releases to online media
• offer to write articles, reviews, critiques, Top 10 lists, etc. for online media

Look at the PageRank of the sites you want links from and make sure they aren't part of link farms or web rings as those links won't help you in your quest for "link juice". If a site has a pretty good PageRank (4 or higher) and they are willing to link to your site, make sure it's from the page with the juice and not from some other page on their site that has no PageRank, like a "Links" page.

Reciprocal Links Are Sort of Free

A Reciprocal Link is where you ask another website to link to yours, and you agree to add a link on your website pointing to theirs. I'll point to you if you'll point to me. Like most things, this is best done in moderation. And if what you want is link juice and not just traffic, see the point above.

Paid Links Are Not Evil

As a tool to drive traffic to your site, paid links are like advertising. They won't pass any PageRank, but they will send traffic. And that's a good thing. It's okay to buy links. It's a little trickier for you to sell links, and that could end up hurting your site.

Directory Listings

Register your site on The Open Directory Project at DMOZ.org. It's free. Add your company's website to any directory of legitimate businesses in your business niche. Even if these don't pass any PageRank, they will send traffic. It's like everything else about your business... if you don't expend any effort, you won't see any results.