Think Links! But Not Just Any Links

It wasn't that long ago that marketers were habitually manipulating sites and submissions to gain greater rankings in prominent search engines. Originally, in the 1990's search engines had minimal staffing and very little power and at that time the concept of search could barely keep up to the fast growing number of new sites. That of course, left it wide open for abuse and manipulation. Today, however, the scene has become considerably more evolved and civilized. Search engines have gotten smarter, especially around evaluating the connections that are their bread and butter: the links.

Web crawlers, or the small little programs that search engines use to index any and all sites they come across, utilize links to not only get to other sites, but to evaluate their worth. It didn't take search engines long to realize that the value of their engines was determined by the value of the results. So it was imperative that they would change the way they indexed sites.


What search engines can't live without though are the hyperlinks that help them travel from one site to another, and it is in these hyperlinks that search engines have put greater prominence and stricter rules on when evaluating a site for ranking.

Here are five very important considerations for using links to get better rankings:

1. Links from related sites hold more value then links from unrelated sites. Don't link to sites about training dogs when your core business is selling electronics. Instead, try to link to sites that use electronics and have related keywords in their sites.

2. Backlinks (links from other sites to yours) are extremely important in helping engines determine your value. But again, not just any site. Sites that are 'influencers' such as related association sites, news sites, international customers are more valuable than sites that appeal to a limited audience.

3. The number of inbound links is important. Search engines are looking for popularity with quality references. The more popular you are with outside interests, the more valuable your site.

4. 'Anchor Text' of inbound links is another means of identifying the keyword relationship and value of the search. 'Anchor Text' is the word content which is visible on the browser. The link may in fact be http://www.watersdenison.com but the 'anchor text' could appear like this: Internet Marketing Experts

5. You could become an authority site. In other words search engines will define a site that has numerous relevant outbound links as being a 'hub' or an 'expert', thus giving you greater prominence in the searches.

Mastering your link strategy is only one of many ways to maximize your site's potential on search engines. Stay tuned for more insights on Internet Marketing and the World Wide Web in upcoming articles, and please feel free to follow us on Twitter at @billwaters