Search Engine Optimization and the Value of Links

Search engine optimization is a vast subject, but there are a few key areas which are absolutely vital to success. In another article I looked at the importance of good content. To get off the starting blocks at all in terms of being rated by search engines, you need to be producing web pages which are unique and of interest to others.

So let us assume you have created your web pages full of things that thousands of people would love to read. Now you sit back and wait for the visitors to roll in - right? Wrong. Even if Google indexes your site and can see what your website is about and that it is the kind of informative site that it values, you are not going to show up in search results unless Google also thinks your site is ‘important’.

When Google’s algorithm sorts web pages into some sort of order, it does all sorts of complicated things that no-one outside Google really understands. However, there is general agreement that the main two things it does are sort out which sites are relevant to the term searched for, and then rank them in order of importance. Google judges importance to a great extent by the number and type of links pointing to the site from other websites.

Links pointing at your site are seen by Google as votes of confidence. Links from other sites with a similar subject to your site are considered more valuable than links from sites about unrelated subjects. Links coming from sites that Google already ranks as important are also far more valuable than links from sites that do not have many in-bound links themselves. The reason Google adopts this system of judging importance is the idea that if a website is genuinely of interest to people, other websites will automatically want to link to it.

So now we understand that your site needs links pointing to it for the search engines to rank it highly – but how do you get these links? Like search engine optimization, the subject of how to build links to your site is another huge field in itself. I will look at some of the most commonly used techniques for getting links to your website. These are; exchanging links, article writing and directory listings.

Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important – Link Exchange

Link exchanging is a common practice and can yield very good results, though it does take time and effort. The principle is that you approach webmasters for other websites and agree to link to their site if they link to yours. You should concentrate on sites that are related to your own in subject matter, as these links will count for more from a search engine optimization point of view.

My first website was to promote my artwork, so I contacted other artists to exchange links. Link exchange in that particular field is no doubt easier than in some other areas, due to the fact that artists generally are not worried about being in competition with each other and you are usually going straight to the artist to arrange the link. Link exchange worked very well for my first site, allowing me to achieve top rankings in a competitive field after a few months of hard work.

In other more commercial fields there can be concerns about being in competition, greater difficulty in getting through to the right person and an increased likelihood that the site may not even have links pages. Check websites out first to see if they have link pages, and don’t bother with the ones that have hundreds of links on a page or with link pages that are hidden away and hard to find.

Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important – Article Writing

Another way to generate links to your website is through article writing. There are hundreds of article directories, which allow you to submit articles about almost any subject. Usually you are allowed to write an article, then at the bottom you can add a couple of sentences about yourself and your websites, providing links to your sites. When the article is published on the directory site, you have an instant link back to your own site.

In addition to this initial link, many publishers of e-newsletters and other blogs and websites visit these article directories looking for articles they can reproduce. In submitting your article to the directory site, you have to agree to allow your article to be reproduced by anyone who wants to use it elsewhere. The only condition is that if someone does reproduce it, they must also include your section at the bottom with your link in. This means that whenever someone else uses one of your articles elsewhere, you have yet another link.

So, for example, if you write one article, submit it to five directories and each one is then reproduced by five more publishers, you will have twenty five links to your website from that one article.

Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important – Links From Directories

The final method of getting links that I want to look at in this article is links from website directories. There are hundreds of directories on the web, each one listing websites in appropriate categories. The quality of these sties varies enormously, as does the value you gain from having a link from them.

The best directories, in other words the ones that will give you a definite benefit from having a link, are the Yahoo Directory and Dmoz. Being listed in these two costs money, but definitely gives your site a lift in the rankings.

Submitting your site to hundreds of directories is a tedious and time consuming business, and many people prefer to pay to have someone else do it. There are various directory submission services that will submit your site for you for a very small fee. The rate is so low that it is hard to justify doing it on your own unless you happen to have endless empty hours that you don’t know how to fill.

Whatever kind of link you are arranging, you will need to think about the anchor text of your links. Google will be looking for an organic growth of links to your site, so the words carrying the link should vary and not all point to the same page. It is important that the anchor text of your links focus on the keywords that are important to you, but if every link to your site is identical it does not look like natural link growth.

If you have a website called AndrewsArtGallery.com, but you want your site to be found by people searching for British landscape paintings, then the anchor text of your links must say ‘British landscape painting’, not the name of your site.

Why Is Search Engine Optimization Important - Conclusions

Search engine optimization is important because without paying attention to this area your website will almost certainly get no visitors. You now know the importance of good content and why you need to have inbound links, so in my next article I will be looking at the use of keywords.