Article printed from SiteProNews: http://www.sitepronews.com
  HTML version available at: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives.html

Snagging Inbound Links
By Andy MacDonald (c) 2008

Inbound links are now so important in the constant battle to
achieve top search engine rankings, that tons of people are
using every tactic under the sun to gain that one additional
link. You must be careful when it comes to linking though. You
could jeopardize your whole linking plan by getting links in a
shady manner which could have an adverse affect on your search
rankings. These inbound links are seen by search engines as
votes for your site within a particular community of sites.

Anytime you're being voted for, you want to have as many votes
as possible. However you want to be using tactics which are
going to pay dividends in your linking strategy, not do more
harm then good. Below I list some of the best and safest methods
around for generating inbound links for your website. Some can
be more effective than others:

  * Requesting Links: The oldest method of gaining inbound links
    is to request them. This requires that you study your market
    to find out who the players involved in the market are. Then,
    you contact each one of the sites and ask them to link to
    your site. In most cases, the person you contact receives
    your request, but providing links to other sites is the least
    of their worries, so you may never hear from them. If you do,
    it can sometimes be months later. So, you put a lot of time
    into requesting links from other sites for a relatively small
    return on your efforts. For more on requesting links, I
    recommend you checkout The Do's & Dont's of Requesting Links

(http://www.marketings.info/traffic/the-dos-and-donts-of-requesting-links.html).

  * Writing Articles: One of the most effective methods of
    gaining inbound links is to offer an article for other
    companies to use as long as they include a paragraph at the
    bottom that includes credits for you as well as a link back
    to your site. This method of gaining inbound links works
    well, because web sites are always looking for good content
    to include on their pages. The catch here is that the article
    you write should be well written, accurate, and useful to
    other sites in your industry. Once you've produced an article
    that meets these requirements, you can begin to let others
    know you have content available for them to use for free;
    you can do this by having a 'free articles' page on your
    site or submit the content to article directories. For more
    on article marketing, view Bill Platt's in-depth article,
    Article Marketing for Links

(http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/article-marketing-for-links/2008/02/26/).

  * Blogs: Another way to get links back to your site is from
    bloggers. What started as a strange phenomenon that was
    mostly personal has now become a powerful business tool;
    many businesses rely on links back to their sites from the
    various industry bloggers out there. In most cases, though,
    bloggers aren't just going to stumble onto your web site.
    It's far better for you to contact the blogger with
    information about your organization, some product that you
    offer, or with news that would interest them. This information
    then gives the blogger something to use in his or her regular
    posts. Keep in mind, however, that you can't control what a
    blogger might say, so it's possible that the review you get
    won't be favorable. Its possible to get reviews from small
    to mid-sized blogs without too much of a problem, but when
    it comes to getting reviews from the most popular blogger in
    your niche, it may cost you a few hundred $$$. For example,
    John Chow (http://www.johnchow.com/) charges a whopping $500
    for a review, which he doesn't even write himself.

   * Press Releases: Press releases are one of the mainstays of
     any marketing program. It can be so effective that many
     organizations hire companies to do nothing but distribute
     their press releases. What's so powerful about a press
     release? It's just the facts, including benefits, sent out
     to publications and organizations that might publish all
     or part of the press release. Use press release marketing

(http://www.searchenginejournal.com/new-tools-for-press-release-marketing/2974/)
     to send out new items of all types, and send them as widely
     as you can. New organizations, publications, newsletters,
     even some forums will post press releases. When you write
     it, make sure a link back to your site is included.

   * Affiliate Programs: Affiliate programs are a type of paid
     advertising. You provide a link to people who want to link
     back to your web site. They place the link on their site
     and when someone clicks through that link and makes a
     purchase (or converts any other goal you have arranged),
     the affiliate - the person who placed your link on their
     site - gets paid a small percentage. Usually the payment
     for affiliate programs is very low ($.01 to $.05 per click
     or a small percentage of the sale). But some people make a
     good living being affiliates, and many organizations receive
     additional traffic because of their affiliate programs. The
     trick with affiliate programs is to not allow them to be
     your sole source of incoming links.

   * PPC and Paid Links: Pay-per-click advertisements are an
     acceptable business practice. There is no problem with using
     PPC advertisements to achieve inbound links to your site.
     Remember that, like affiliate links, PPC links are not
     direct links to your site. Paid links, on the other hand,
     are different from affiliate links - you pay to have a
     direct, or flat link, placed on a page. Some search engines
     frown on the practice of using these types of links. Using
     paid links (especially those that land on link farms) is a
     practice that carries some business risk.

   * Link to Yourself: Linking to yourself is a technique that
     sits right on the line between ethical and unethical.
     Linking to yourself from other sites that you might own is
     an acceptable practice. But if you set up other sites simply
     to be able to link back to your own site and create the
     illusion of popularity, you're going to do more damage than
     it's probably worth to you. If you are linking to yourself
     and you suspect that you might be doing something that would
     adversely affect your search engine ranking, then you
     shouldn't do it. There are plenty of links to be had without
     linking back to your own web sites; you just have to work a
     little harder for the higher quality links.

Inbound links are such an important part of any online marketing
strategies (http://swiftmediauk.co.uk/blog/index.php/2008/02/17/
online-marketing-methods/) that some organizations find themselves
caught up in the process of learning who is linking back to them.
It's not a bad thing to want to know where your links are coming
from. And one of the places you can gather that information is
from your web-analytics application. A great and free analytics
program available is Google Analytics
(http://www.google.com/analytics/indexu.html). Check it out.

So there are my top link snagging tips which I actively employ
for most of my online businesses. Which tactics do you use for
your website, and have I missed out any good link-snagging
techniques? Have your say by leaving me a comment.
================================================================
Andy MacDonald, CEO of Swift Media UK (http://www.swiftmediauk.co.uk/),
a website design & search marketing company. For daily tips on
Blogging, Marketing, SEO & Making Money Online, Checkout our SEO
& Marketing Tips for Webmasters (http://www.swiftmediauk.co.uk/blog/)
blog or Subscribe by RSS (http://feeds.feedburner.com/swiftseo).
================================================================

Copyright © 2008 Jayde Online, Inc.  All Rights Reserved.

SiteProNews is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.