Get People to Link to You

Links to your site from high-quality sites will have enormous positive impact

When you buy a best-seller, look at a movie review, or ask a co-worker what auto mechanic they go to, you are relying on the recommendations of others to help you find an excellent product or service. For a search engine, a link going from one site to another is a recommendation.

Just as you wouldn’t take the recommendation of a destitute person over a millionaire on the subject of money management, search engines are also selective about the quality of the sites providing the link. Getting links to your site from high-quality sites will have enormous impact on your site’s visibility in search engine listings. However, links from poor quality websites could actually worsen your sites reputation with search engines, driving it into obscurity in search engine results.

In this section:

• Paid links in online directories
• Getting unpaid links
• Common linking mistakes
• Find out who's linking to your site
  

For information on paid links on Google or Yahoo, see the section on Search Engine Advertising.

Paid links in online directories

See if an online directory comes up for your search words before advertising with them

Paid links can be very useful for helping people find your website. For example, you may have noticed onilne directory sites coming up in search engines for your search words. Directory sites often list products for services by region. For example, a site that lists doctors in your area would be a directory site. If your site isn’t listing high enough in search engines to get noticed, getting listed in a directory site could help customers find you. Only advertise in directory sites that are coming up for the searches you want to be found for.

On the other hand, if your site is doing very well in search engine listings, paying for a link in a directory site could hurt your site in some cases. For example, consider if you want to be found for your company name. Since the directory site is probably a larger, more established site than your own, it will probably show up higher in search engines for your company name – bumping your site down! Another disadvantage to directory sites is that they also list your competion. Not exactly what you want potential customers to see.

To what degree a paid link will recommend your site to search engines and move your site up is debatable. Search engines not only analyze which site a link is going to, but also where it is in the page, what the surrounding text is, and whether the link is returned from the site it’s going to. In short, some search engines, such as Google, can tell if the link is paid advertising. This obviously doesn’t recommend your site as highly, just as word-of-mouth advertising is more trusted than paid advertising in other media.

In summary, advertising in an online directory can be a winning strategy for your toughest search word phrases. For services especially, online directories can dominate the first page in search engine listings. If this is the case, get your name and website listed on those online directories that are coming up at the top.

Getting unpaid links

The best links are unsolicited recommendations for your site

Unpaid links will help your site much more in search engines than paid links. And they are harder to get, of course! The best links are from folks who like your site so much they want to mention it in an article or link to it from their site. If your site is entertaining or informational, or offers a unique product, this will probably happen naturally. For small sites that exist to advertise an off-line business to locals, it's harder to attract that much excitement.

Here are some recommendations for getting unpaid links:

• If you have satisfied clients with websites, ask them to recommend you on their website. Sometimes professionals will have a referral relationship that naturally lends itself to linking. A mention in a blog is great.
• If you get any press attention, request that your website be linked in the story. You can submit press releases for grand openings or other events (include your link).
• Primary schools, clubs, and religious organizations in your community have websites. Can you do something that will get your business mentioned on their sites? Request a link to your website.
• Professional association sites often link members.
• Chamber of commerce sites often link members.
• Yahoo and DMOZ are very large free directories you can submit your site to.
• Most advertising on craigslist.org is free. Craigslist often appears at the top of search engine listings and can give you site a major boost.
  
• Google Local and Yahoo Local are both free. Be sure to submit your site if you have a regional business.
• Put something on your site that people will want to use as a reference. They will share the resource with others by linking to your site from theirs.
• See where your competition is getting links from (enter “link:www.yourcompetitionsURL.com” in Google.). There may be a site that is a good fit for your site as well. Request a link from them.

Common linking mistakes

• Pay a company to get a huge number of links for your site - These will invariably be from low quality sites and will hurt your site’s reputation.
• Send generic link request to multiple sites - Web masters view these generic requests as spam. If you want to get their attention, make it clear you have carefully selected their site by explaining why you think your site would be a good link.
• Ignore search terms in the link itself - Since this is a link on someone else’s site, you can’t really control what words should be in the link. You can request how you would like the link to read, however. Remember, “click here” is bad. “Plumber in Smallville, IL” is good.
• Getting links search engines don't follow - These links won't help you with search engines, but they may still be helpful driving traffic to your site.
• Look for "robots: nofollow" in the meta  tag information (click on “meta tag information” under “information” in the Firefox Developer bar)
• Make sure the link has "href" code (see "Test for text navigation").
• Check the link code for "rel=nofollow". This instructs search engines not to follow the link.

Find out who's linking to your site

Marketleap has a free internet tool called "Link Popularity Check" that will show you how many links a search engine has found for your website.  Note that Google is a lot pickier than Yahoo at counting links.

Hang in there!

Link-building is often the factor that pushes a site up

You may be discouraged at how difficult it is to get good links initially. Don’t give up. Consistent effort will pay off over time; link-building is a long-term game. Even if you don’t actively work on link-building, keep it in the back of your mind so you see opportunities as they arise. Adding a couple of really good unpaid links a year will make a tremendous difference for your site in the future.

As you read through the search-engine friendly section and the search words sections of this site, you may have wondered how these instructions would help your site if your competition is doing the same thing. Good question! Link-building is often the factor that pushes a site up, especially in a competitive market. Step one is to make sure search engines can understand what your site is about and find all your pages. Step two is to promote the site, which is where link-building becomes very important.