In determining rankings, all search engines also take into account the “value” that the rest of the web places on a particular website or page. One of the best ways for search engines to determine this “value“, is the way that websites link to each other. How often related websites mention a particular site and, most importantly, how they link to it, is a pretty accurate way for a search engine to determine which pages are going to be useful to searchers.

Link Building Tips

Establishing inbound links to your pages is crucial, and Link Building, should be a fundamental strategy in any Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) campaign. But exactly how do you go about generating links to your site? Traditionally building up this “link juice” can be a hard and tiresome process, but I’ve outlined below some tips for beginners on How to Get Links:

1. Link Farms? – Not any more

First up – something that you should NOT be doing… Once upon a time – not so very long ago, a technique – called link farming – involving the creation of lots of (usually junk) sites, with plenty of cross linking  was a reasonably effective way to build rankings. However, the search engines quickly realised that most of these sites were of little or no benefit to users, so they adjusted their algorithms to give priority to relevant and authoritative websites. The quantity of links to your website is not as important as the quality.

Don’t waste your time or money creating (or even worse – paying for) hundreds of questionable links hoping it will help your rankings – it won’t. At best, search engines will ignore these types of links; at worst they may tarnish the credibility of your site, and result in penalties being applied.

2. Content is Key

An obvious, but often overlooked, fact is that “if you want someone to link to your site, you have to give them something worth linking to“. If you ask someone to link to you – why would they bother unless there was something on your site that interested them or would be of interest to their users. The perfect way to encourage inbound links is simply to fill your pages with useful, informative, interesting, entertaining, or relevant content.

3. Blog about it

One great way to add content to your site is to set up a blog. Search engines LOVE Blogs as they typically contain topical, dynamic content. Blog posts are generally crawled and indexed by search engines very quickly, and can be often found in the search results within minutes of being posted. If your posts are interesting, topical, controversial, humorous, or informative people will naturally link to them, and by adding their own comments, will automatically generate extra, relevant content to your site.

4. Going Viral

Sometimes, you may hit a nerve, or strike a chord with the online community by publishing a post that becomes very popular and “goes viral“. These types of posts, for a variety of reasons, get attention and tend to have a snowball effect, as more and more people become aware of them, and feel compelled to spread the word. Articles of this type are known as ‘link bait’, because people naturally want to link to them, and can very quickly generates hundreds or even thousands of backlinks. It is worth striving for a viral post, but it is extremely difficult to do. You also need to consider the impact on your credibility – a shocking or controversial post, might generate amazing link juice, but keep in mind what long term impact it might it have on you or your sites reputation.

5. Be Social

Be active in the Blogs/Forums/Social Media sites that are relevant to your industry. Don’t just read about it, participate, and make an effort to actively comment on topics and issues that you are knowledgeable about. Develop a “presence” and over time you can subtly include references and possibly links to your site. Do NOT push this too hard – no one likes a pushy salesman.

6. Network

One very important way to develop inbound links to your web pages is to capitalise on your contacts in the industry. In your day to day dealings with suppliers, customers, industry associations, and even competitors, keep the possibility of a backlink in mind – and don’t be shy to ask. The best backlinks are those that come from relevant sites – and could there be anything more relevant than other sites within your industry?

7. Anchors Away

Not only are the quality and quantity of backlinks important – but the way the links are applied also plays a part. Anchor text refers to the text that is used in the link, and although you may not always have control over what anchor text is used – wherever possible try to use primary keywords rather than generic text. A link to your site with the anchor text “click here” is likely to be of much less value than “buy keyword now“.

8. Deep Link

Wherever possible mix up the links to your site. Although the majority of backlinks will often go to a websites home page, a natural link profile will also include links to other pages within a site. Try to establish targeted backlinks, with more specific anchor text, to pages deep within the structure of your site.

There are literally hundreds of ways you can generate backlinks to your website, this post has outlined some of the fundamentals, and provides some quick and easy tips about how you can develop links to your website, with the aim of raising your online profile and improving your rankings. If you’d like further assistance, please feel free to contact us at WebConsulting SEO.

Quick Guide to Writing a Business Website Homepage

Target audience:

Your business website´s home page must be all things to all the people who type your URL in their navigation bar, whether it´s their six-hundredth visit or whether they just happened to catch your web address painted on the back of your car.

Content:

For the benefit of new visitors, a home page must provide a snapshot of who you are and what visitors can do on your website. Your first one to three paragraphs should give a quick overview of what visitors can do on your site. For example, you could include a short paragraph each on “buy widgets”, “learn more about widgets”, and “meet other widget enthusiasts”, with links to your shopping cart, informational articles, and message board, respectively.

For returning visitors, the home page must serve as a touchstone for navigating the site, announcing new developments and pointing out especially popular or useful pages. For these visitors you don´t have to write anything new especially for your homepage. Anyone who’s coming back to your site is already interested and is going to want to jump right into the deeper pages of your site, rather than linger on the homepage wondering whether it’s worth their time.

Your home page should include teasers for the inside pages of your site. For instance, you could have a tip of the week, linked to a web page on your site with an article explaining it. Good navigation (list of links to the four to eight most essential web pages on your site) is also a must.

For both new and returning visitors, always give a prominent place to a featured product or service (or two or three) with a picture, one or two-sentence description, and a link to its own web page or its place in your “products and services page,” catalogue or shopping cart.

You should also probably feature a satisfied customer preferably with a photo. But  always include a testimonial quotation, and a link to a case study or customer story on its own web page, which you should definitely find time to write or have written for you by a website content provider.

Title:

Don´t title your home page “Welcome to [name of your site]“. Don´t include that message anywhere on your homepage, in fact. It”s a waste of space. This was normal in the 1990s but it”s pretty outdated now. Everyone already knows they”re on your site. What you need to tell them is what they can do there. Try something like “Buy, Study, and Discuss Widgets”.

Also make sure your title incorporates any keywords you think people might use to search for your product or service on the internet. Search engines decide how to categorise pages largely based on the homepage title and first heading text.

Length:

Ideally, the first few paragraphs of the homepage (the ones aimed at new visitors) should not be more than 100-350 words total. The teasers for inside pages targeted to returning visitors should not be more than about 100 words each.

Making Sure Your Website Has the Best Homepage Possible:

Before your homepage goes live, test it out on a few people. Don’t just ask your volunteers how they like your homepage. Courtesy may prevent you from getting an honest response. Instead, ask them to find how to buy your latest product or if they understand what?s the most important development in your company recently. If they can navigate to the correct page within about eight seconds (the average human attention span on the web), you’ve done well.

You may just want to hire a website copywriter, online copywriting firm, or website content provider to create your homepage for you. After all, you wouldn’t build your own office building, would you? Of course, that´s not an entirely fair comparison; more people will see your business website homepage than will ever see your office building.

What a Business Website Homepage is Not:

• A homepage is not the place to dump a long description of your business. That´s for the “about us” or “company information” page. On the homepage, this information will just bore most people.
• A homepage is not the place where you list and sell all your products (unless you only have one or two). You should have a special products and services page for that, and preferably a shopping cart or catalog. Trying to make people buy right on your homepage is a little pushy. The homepage will also get over-crowded as your offerings expand. Instead, just include a list of product categories with links to inside pages, along with direct links to your biggest sellers.
• A homepage is not the place to include the full text of your announcements and press releases. Just include a teaser paragraph of each article on the homepage, with a link to the web page with the full text. If people want to read the full text, they can. If they don´t, you haven´t bored them to tears.
• A homepage is not your company president´s or owner´s personal blog. It´s OK to rant, rave, or preach the need for world peace. Just don´t do it on wesellwidgets.com

As you´ve probably noticed, a good website has multiple pages. You should have special web pages for special topics: an “about us” page for company information, a products and services catalog, the president´s blog, etc. When you advertise or send out links to your site, you should link directly to the most appropriate page, rather than just the homepage.
Of course, that doesn´t mean you don´t need a homepage, just that you don´t need it to do every single thing you want your website to accomplish.