SEO Tip: Building Links Pt 1.

Most Important Thing About Links

The most important thing with any link is that it should be relevant. Links from pages about the same subject as your site not only carry more search engine weight, they have a better chance of driving traffic to your site. The whole idea of links should be how many people are actually going to click on it, not what the search engines will give you for it. That being said, getting a nice boost in search engine results is nice as well. There are many kinds of links and reasons for linking. Some people link to a web site because they like it, others link to a web site because they don't like it. Some links are endorsements, while others are spam. With so many links going back and forth it’s hard to determine which links help, and which links don't.

Best Types Of Links

For starters, the best links are from authority sites. What are the authority sites? Well when you type a subject in to a search engine, such as "Costa Rica" the top sites you see are authority sites. These are the sites that the search engines think represent that search the best. Getting these sites to link to you might be difficult, but it can often be extremely effective in building traffic for your site. The other nice thing about authority sites is that the search engines will generally rank your site higher for a term when an authority on the term links to you.

Educational and Government web sites are often treated as authority sites, and getting one of them to link to you can often be helpful. Having your business quoted in an on-line report by a university student, or cited in a paper can often lend weight to your web site. While these web sites are often the most difficult to get, their rarity and weight often make them worth looking for. Do some searches on local universities web sites for terms relative to your site. I maintain a list of high importance .edu web sites related to various fields for building client links.

More Good SEO Links

After authority links, the next best is contextual links. These are links on pages or web sites dedicated to a subject that is relative to your web site. The search engines love these because they show that your site is really about the subject that you write about. These links can be obtained a number of ways. Asking web sites to review you, contacting the website owners about buying a link, and regularly contributing to a community type website are all valid and common ways. While authority sites are great for building search engine importance, even contextual links from small web sites can be extremely helpful in determining the keywords for finding your site. Search engines use the words linking to your pages as much as content or more to determine what your pages are about.

Speaking of the words linking to your pages, it's not just from outside pages. The words you use to link your own web site together are very important for how search engines see your site. Interlinking your web pages the right way with good can give you a good boost in search engine results, as well as make your site easier for people to skim. Making the site more efficient for people, and getting search engine results is our main goal, so this should be considered heavily.

Links from major directories (such as Yahoo! or DMOZ) can get some healthy traffic and good search engine results. It is best to stick with large directories, but a few small ones won't hurt. Bulk directory submissions don’t seem to give good results, so you're better off sticking with the few large directories that are likely to bring traffic than the small ones. Remember that if people aren't regularly crawling through the site, then search engines probably aren't either.

Pay Per Click links from search engines don't give you anything from an SEO standpoint, but they can offer a lot of traffic. Even a modest $1 per day can drive up to 600 visitors a month to your web site. It is important to monitor your PPC campaigns and ensure that you are getting a good click through rate. The more people that click on your PPC add, the less you have to pay. It works on the idea that if you are willing to pay half as much per click as someone else, but your add gets clicked on three times as much, the search engine makes more money by putting your add above the other. Professionally managed PPC campaigns can be extremely effective at building traffic cost effectively.

For more information see part two on SEO link building for people and search engines where we discuss how to tell if links are less helpful, and what links to avoid. We will also cover a few resources your can use to build links. Remember that all of your search engine marketing can be made easier by calling 393-1410 in Costa Rica or 1-616-328-5569 from the USA. Or just send a quick e-mail to sales@cr-sg.com. Pura Vida!