Most of you will know that a link is text or an image which, when clicked, takes you to another page on the internet. What you might not be aware of is that links are extremely important for search engine optimization and helping your site rank well in the search engines for your important keywords.
How are links important in SEO?
1) Link anchor text helps your site rank for your important keywords
Ever heard of “Google bombing” or “link bombing”? This is where a webpage is able to rank highly for a search term purely because there are many sites linking to the page using those words in the clickable anchor text. This is how a search for “miserable failure” used to end up showing results for pages about President George W. Bush, or for documentary film maker Michael Moore.
Aside from being amusing, it’s evidence of the search engines’ emphasis on anchor text for determining rankings and relevance. It didn’t matter that these sites had no mention of “miserable failure” in them… what mattered was that hundreds of other websites thought differently and linked to the sites using that text.
2) Links bring you PageRank
If you’re not sure what PageRank is, take a look at our lesson on what is PageRank. Briefly, it’s the “reputation” of your site, based on the number and quality of sites that are linking to you. It’s one of the core ideas behind Google’s ranking algorithms, and even though it isn’t the only thing that determines your search engine ranking, it’s a useful thing to work on building. And the only way to build PageRank is by getting links to your site.
3) Links bring you traffic!
Be warned! A lot of affiliates get caught in the “must build PageRank” mentality and don’t bother to get links from sites that don’t “pass on” PageRank. But they’re forgetting the most important thing: Your goal is to get traffic to your site. That’s why you’re working on building your PageRank in the first place…. to improve your position in the search engines and get more traffic. If you can get your links in places where they will receive a lot of click-thru traffic and targeted visitors – even if the link doesn’t give you PageRank or help your search engine rankings – then all you’ve done is skipped a few tedious steps and gone right to the finish line. So don’t look past blog sites or social networking sites when you’re building links: These can deliver lots of good, targeted traffic.
What makes a good link?
Some links are better than others. What makes a good link depends on which of the benefits we discussed above interests you most.
1) Good links for improving your ranking for keywords:
Use your keywords in the anchor text. Don’t use “nofollow”
2) Good links for improving your PageRank
Come from sites with high PageRank. Appear on pages where there aren’t many other links Don’t use “nofollow”
3) Good links for getting traffic
Are enticing and interesting, or arouse curiosity. One good trick is to leave a thought unfinished, or ask a question that people want to know the answer to. People have to click through to find out! Appear on pages that get a lot of traffic Appear on pages that are relevant to your site. There’s not much point promoting your automotive restoration website on a vegetarian food forum. Aren’t spammy. Remember you’re trying to get people to click on your link. They won’t click if it looks like rubbish. Can use “nofollow” — it doesn’t really matter for this purpose.
4) Good links in general:
Appear on prominent pages, not buried deeply inside a site. Appear on sites relevant to your own. Come from authority sites, or well respected sites. High PageRank sites are great, as are sites with a .edu TLD. A link from CNN is going to be better than a link from your local petanque club website.
Is there such a thing as a bad link?
All links to your site are good links. They all help you, whether it’s by giving you PageRank, helping you to rank for keywords, or sending you traffic.
Even if they don’t do any of these things very effectively, they certainly can’t hurt you. Your site won’t be penalized in any way if bad, disreputable sites link to yours. The worst that can happen is that your site becomes the subject for a “Google bomb”, and starts to rank well for undesirable keywords – but even that can be turned into a good thing!
However! If you decide to link to disreputable sites from your own site … even if it’s just part of a link exchange for SEO purposes… you can end up being penalized for associating with bad internet citizens. Your site gets tarred with the same brush, and you might find your rankings plummeting, your your site being de-indexed.
Just be careful when participating in link exchanges that you’re not being unwittingly drawn into a bad neighborhood.
Article Written by and contributed by Affilorama.com
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