Building Links To Your Website
To build traffic to your website, you need to build incoming links. Follow some or all of these easy tips, and you’ll soon see an increase in hits:

Google dominates the market
•Google has the largest market share of U.S.-based web searches at 65.98%
•Yahoo is second, with a market share of 20.88%
•MSN is third, with a market share of 7.04%
•Ask is fourth, with a market share of 4.14%

Google will love your website if it has high-quality, relevant links coming into it. The more incoming links your site has, the more traffic you’ll get, not only directly from the sites that have linked to your website, but also from Google.

One-way links are better than reciprocal links
Trading links with other websites might seem politically correct, but reciprocal links hold less sway with search engines than one-way links. Your website, if it has intrinsic value, should attract links from other sites, without having to reciprocate.

Too many reciprocal links can harm you
In fact, too many reciprocal links can concern search engines. Search engines view an inordinate number of links passing back and forth as an attempt to illicitly gain link popularity. Dozens of reciprocal links might be fine, but don’t venture into the hundreds, or you’ll risk sabotaging your search engine optimization efforts.

Some links are worth more than others
Google assigns page ranks to websites, indeed to every page of every site. It uses a system of 0-10, with 10 being the perfect score. The page ranks are based primarily on the age of the site, the traffic to the site, and the size, content, and “freshness” of the site.

International conglomerates (such as www.amazon.com) rarely rank above an 8, and most reputable websites for small businesses and organizations score in the 2-5 range. When you’re trying to obtain links from other websites, bear in mind that webpages with high page ranks (5,6,7,8, 9, or 10) are golden! Search engines will assign more weight to links coming into your website if they come from highly-rated websites.

Think quality, not quantity when seeking links. A website with six good inbound links can achieve the same page rank (a 4 or 5, for example) as a website with hundreds of inbound links.

Check out page ranks
To investigate page ranks, use one of these two easy methods:
•Visit www.mypagerank.net  and click on the “Google Pagerank Button” (under “Free Services,” on the right side of the page). Type in the URL you want to investigate (including www). Hit the “Check PR” button.
•Or, download the Google Toolbar onto your computer. To download the Google Toolbar, search on Google using the words “Google Toolbar” in quotes. Click on the top listing, and you’ll be sent to Google’s Toolbar site. Once there, click on “Install Toolbar.” The installation is a free, simple process. On one of the last screens, before the installation is completed, you’ll want to check a box, “Enable Page Rank.” As soon as the Google Toolbar has been installed, it will appear as a bar beneath your browser box (the slot where you type in URL addresses). The “Page Rank” bar is in the middle, and it turns green to indicate the page’s rank of 0-10. Hover over the words “Page Rank” with your cursor, and the exact numerical score will appear.

Ask for links wherever you can
Pull out your imaginary (or real) Rolodex, and contact websites that “owe” you a link. For example, if you graduated from a training institute, belong to a chamber, are a member of a professional organization, serve on a board, or give workshops at a local library, contact the webmasters for those entities and request a link to your site.

Aim for a mix of links
Ideally, you want a mix of links coming into your website. These could come from: other business sites; personal sites; colleges; universities; trade schools; professional associations; portal sites; web directories; libraries; trade organizations; conferences; trade shows; community centers; social networking sites; media sites; blogs; non-profits; chambers of commerce; community calendars; and more.

Check out who's linking to your website (and your competitor's site)
If you want to see who's linking to your website, in the search bar of Google or Yahoo, type in "link:" and the URL of the website you want to investigate. For example: link:www.searchenginecoaching.com. Because Google and Yahoo each acknowledge different links, for the most accurate results, repeat this step with each of them.

Copyright 2008, Jennifer Croft