I Want My Website on Google Page One (part two)

In part One of this SEO Advice column we looked at HTML programming errors and poor content that can effect your Search Engine Results Page (SERP) rankings.  In part two we will look at the benefits of building good links to your website and finish off with a few final thoughts.

What is a good link?

A Good Link: a hyperlinked reference to your website from a well ranked website page that places the hyperlink within a block of well written text that applies to your business..

In general, the higher number of "good links" pointing to your website is considered a positive event by the major search engines.  It is considered a positive because if good sites are linking to you, there must be relevant content on your site.

How NOT to Build Website Links

In your quest to build links to your website you should be very careful with whom  you trust with your link building project. Try to do it yourself or make sure your consultant agrees with the steps that are listed below. So before I list what you should consider doing, let's focus on the things you should not be doing:

1. DO NOT use a service that claims for a small fee that they will get you listed on 100,000 + search engines and directories.  There are only a handful of good search engines and another handful of good web directories. Most of these allow you to add you site for free, see the sidebar on the right column of this page for the top free search engine website submission links.

2. DO NOT associate your website with companies that use "black hat" SEO techniques that claim to get you instant or significantly higher rankings through their "gray area" services.  The upside is enticing but the downside could be devastating.

3. DO NOT participate in link exchange websites that have nothing to do with your business or trade and that place the reference to your website on a page that has ZERO pagerank.  Often this results in you helping them and their site not helping you at all.

4. DO NOT pay for links on a "Pay to Play" website until you check to see if the businesses that are currently linked on their website show up on link searches.

How Many Links Do You Have Today?

First your should see how many links from outside websites are pointing to your home page.  You can do this using Yahoo or Google but Yahoo may give you a more accurate answer by using the command shown below in the yahoo search box:

link:www.yourwebsite.com

The screen print below shows that came up on July 8, 2007 when I typed in:

link:www.brianpasch.com

The text circled in red shows the URL that Yahoo is using for link analysis.  The control circled in BLUE is indicating that Yahoo will show links from your own website and others. On this date, I had 368 links to my website; a combination of outside and internal links.

We will change this box to select only links from outside websites.  As you can from the photo, there are three outside sites linking to my blog underlined in green and one page which created a link from within my own website.

Change Yahoo Site Explorer Settings

So, change to "Show Inlinks" drop down box to "Except from this domain" to display links from outside sources only as shown below. You will now see that my blog has 107 outside links pointing to the website:

There may be more links than what is shown here but it gives you a good idea which links that you have worked on are successful.  This tool is something you should check on a regular basis to make sure that your link building strategy is working.

Selecting Places to Create Links

Now that you know how to check the links that exist, let's start building new ones.  I never like to spend money foolishly so I would start by taking advantage of the free link building opportunities that exits on the web.   Click to read my article on Free Website Link Building Ideas and evaluate which sites will work best for your company.  One of the best sites for free link building is Merchant Circle.  This free service creates content that is readily indexed in Google.

There are many other free linking opportunities and if you find good ones, send me an email.  Be careful to select directories that are really being indexed by the search engines.  How do you know?  Check of the the listings in their directory and perform the Yahoo "link" analysis on the website listed in their directory.  If the link shows, it is probably a good link destination.

Link Ideas from Competitor Websites

You can also find free and paid link building opportunities in your industry by looking at your competitors websites. Of course, you would want to look at competitor website that show up on Google Page 1 or Yahoo Page 1 before looking at the second or third tier players.

Perform the Yahoo link analysis on a competitors website to see what links they have built.  Visit those websites and see if you can also build a link through direct submission, press releases, contributing an article or by paying a listing fee.

Links From Industry Associations and Publications

Keep in mind that many industry and trade organizations have a website that is well ranked by the search engines.  If you are a member of a trade group, see if your company information and website URL can be listed on their website.

In some industries, a few companies dominate trade magazine and have created a partner website for the trade. For example, in the lighting industry www.lighting.com is a well ranked website (Google PR6) that creates powerful inbound links.  Their directory listing is under $1,000 per year and for the lighting manufacturers listed, this is well worth the traffic and link quality that they receive.

Concluding Thoughts on Link Building

If you have taken the time to create quality content for your website, now it is time to build quality links which will dramatically help with SERP rankings.  Honestly, its a task that takes time to accomplish and determination to complete.  If you are too busy to create links that count, contact an SEO consultant which can normally get the link building done in a fraction of the time.

End of Part Two

Brian Pasch

If you have any questions, send me a note at:  brian@seonj.com