Should You Be Linking for Traffic or Rankings?

Just for a change, rather than a technical article, I would like to tell you a story. To begin, imagine your website is a little country bar, now let's go back to when the internet began, and reciprocal linking was being done properly. Now just sit back and picture the following.....

There you are running your bar, it's a fairly busy little bar with plenty of regular customers. You also get other customers who come from all directions. Some make their way to your bar using all the little country back roads (from links on other websites), others come on the big highway (the Internet) from the big bars in the city (The Search Engines).

Your customers usually stay and have a beer or two (read a few pages of your site), then decide they'd like to try somewhere different. Because you realize your customers are bound to leave at some point anyway, you recommend the bar down the road, telling them it is a great bar too. You even show them a little leaflet you made (your link section), which gives them directions on how to find it.

The bar down the road also has his regulars, plus a few visitors from you, and a few from the bars in the city. He knows you send him customers, so when his customers have had a drink or two, and fancy going somewhere different, he returns the favour, recommends your bar and gives them directions how to get there.

In fact, there are 10 little bars in your area that are all doing this and the local back roads are alive with customers going from bar to bar (The World Wide Web). Occasionally, when someone comes from the big bars in the city (the Search Engines), you recommend the other local bars and all your friends benefit from that visitor too.

Then one day the big bar in the city sent all the local bars a letter saying: "We are a much bigger bar than you, we have thousands of customers, and they are all looking for nice little country bars like yours. We would be glad to recommend your bar, however, we need to know that your bar is popular before we tell our customers. The busier your bar is, the more customers we will send you. We will of course be sending one of our employees to see just how busy your bar is (Search Engine link spiders).

Great you think, more new customers, more business, more profits. Oh no! Wait a minute! If you send your customers to the bar down the road, he would be busier than you, and get all the new customers from the city. Better stop sending them there. So you stop recommending his bar, and hide the little leaflets that gave directions. (You feature your link section only with a tiny little text link right at the bottom of the page.)

You can't get rid of your leaflets, or the other bar may take you off his leaflet, then when the employee from the city visits the other bar he will think you are not popular, because you are not listed. Maybe you could change the title of your leaflet, so it doesn't look like directions to other bars, that way your customers won't pick it up. (Call your links page "resources" or "partners").

Now, when your customer has had their first beer or two, you don't recommend your friend, and they don't find the leaflets, so they don't know there is a back road that leads to other bars. The result? They take the highway (the Internet) and go back to the big bar in the city where they came from (The Search Engine).

When they get to the big bar in the city, they don't stay there long, because they know the barman can recommend some other great country bars. Why does the barman do that? Because they are his busy friends, but he also recommends a few bars who pay him to give them a plug (Pay Per Click or advertising).

Meanwhile, the bar down the road has been thinking the same thing as you, he wants to be the busiest bar and get the extra customers from the city. He has hidden or renamed his leaflets, and stopped recommending you, like you stopped recommending him.

That road that used to carry customers between your two bars is now very quiet and no longer buzzing with customers driving up and down to the different bars. Eventually, it becomes unused, because the customers don't know it exists. (Hidden link sections). You never get customers from your friend, because they too go back to the city to ask the barman's advice. Your bar is much quieter without his referred customers, and his bar is much quieter without yours.

What can you do? Your bar is not as busy as it used to be, and you still want the customers from the city. Hey, that's it! Pay the barman to promote your bar (Pay-Per-Click or Advertising). Now what happens? The barman sends you a visitor and makes himself some money. When the visitor has had a few drinks at your bar, he goes back to the barman in the city who recommends your friends bar down the road. Why? Because your friends bar was empty, so he too paid the barman to send customers.

The WEB of back roads is closing down, and being replaced by a network of highways, all leading back to the barman who is making lots of money. Who is paying him that money? You, and your friend, who used to share those same customers for free. Meanwhile, the customers think the only way to find a good bar is to see the barman in the city. NOT TRUE IS IT? Both your bars are good, and before you had lots of people recommending you, not just the barman.

If a child read that story they would probably say how silly it is. This is what linking JUST for rankings produces. The alternative?? Link for traffic first, link only with sites who understand their visitors are leaving at some point anyway, sites who are willing to send their leaving visitors to other sites not straight back to search engines all the time.

I am not search engine bashing here, they are excellent and useful resources. However if webmasters are not careful and continue to hide link sections they will give the big search engines a monopoly on traffic. Try turning things around. Exchange only quality visible links, that will bring you visitors. If the current method of "Guru" thinking is correct, this will automatically increase your popularity and search engine rankings at the same time, the difference being, you get visitors while your rankings improve not WHEN they have improved.

Just because Google or any other search engine does not consider a site important, it does not mean that site does not have great content, it does not mean that site is not busy, and it does not mean the site will not send you visitors.

There are millions of great sites with no PR and millions of great sites who are not on the first page of search engine results. The only people who have the right to judge a sites importance, and indeed the only people who's opinion REALLY matters, are the users of your site.

Gary McHugh is co author of HonestLinks.Net, a site dedicated to teaching webmasters to exchange links that bring traffic. He also runs his own web design and hosting company 2001web.com

---

Search Engine Optimization - A Do-It-Yourself Guide for the Small Business Owner

So your company has a website ? an important step... Read More

How to Improve Your Search Engine Positioning and Increase Traffic Today

Every website has times when traffic is higher than others.... Read More

Help Your Visitors Zero in with Site-Flavored Google search

As Google has gained in their search reputation the past... Read More

Submitting to the Search Engines and WebCrawlers

When you want your brand new site to be indexed... Read More

Tread Towards A Successful ?Internet Research?

Internet is a terrific resource containing billions of web pages... Read More

Design A Spider Friendly Site

To be successful in the search engines it's important to... Read More

Marketing to Search Engines AND Humans

When you were just a young and precocious student of... Read More

Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal - Part 1

You can easily get confused by all the search engine... Read More

Search Engine Position Report

Since search engines are the first stop for people on... Read More

Onpage Optimization: Essential for Effective Offpage Optimization

Onpage optimization is the process by which various elements on... Read More

Tops In Toolbars?

Most internet marketers are aware of, and probably use, the... Read More

SEO Expert Guide - Conclusions (part 10/10)

As you have seen throughout the guide, search engine optimization... Read More

Would You Let A Dog Or A Butler Market Your Website?

The latest news to hit the Internet's 'water cooler' is... Read More

How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance

It's taken you 6-months of hard work, constant changes, reading... Read More

Googles PR System Explained

The complexities of Google's PR (Page Ranking) System have grown... Read More

The Other Side of the Search Gods Abracadabra!

Thousands of servers ...billions of web pages.... the possibility of... Read More

Non-Reciprocal Link Building For Higher Search Engine Positioning

Non-Reciprocal Link Building For Higher Search Engine Positioning By Dave... Read More

10 Ways to Make Sure Your SEO Goes Out of Its Way for You

If they want to have success, companies should do everything... Read More

7 Search Engine Resources You Should Be Using Now

Ask any business person who's website is at the top... Read More

Search Engine Optimization: Site Structure and Popularity

In the Global Internet era the industry presence is undoubtedly... Read More

When to Hire a Professional SEO Firm?

In efforts to increase sales and profitability, more and more... Read More

Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

Don't share this with people of a nervous disposition because... Read More

What Did We Learn from the Great Search Engine Experiment!

Last Week I did a Search engine Experiment. I wanted... Read More

Find Best Keywords For Your Site

Keyword optimisation is probably the most important thing that you... Read More

Google Sitemaps Just Got Better

Having a Google Sitemap just got better! Not only does... Read More

Meta Tag Tactics - Give Your Website Traffic a Boost with the Meta Tag Basics

Getting your site noticed by the search engines and rewarded... Read More

Diary of a Google Gazumpee

Back in November, when the Google Dance began, Barry Lloyd... Read More

Why Top Search Engine Placements Never Move?

#1 question when it comes to web advertising is how... Read More

The Myth of Guaranteed #1 Ranking in Search Engine Marketing

You've seen the ads: Guaranteed #1 Ranking! There are no... Read More

Top Search Engine Ranks, Part 2- Mastering the Secret- Explained

In the first part of this series on ranking at... Read More

DIY SEO - Part 2 Tags n Things

Part 2 Tips 4 tagsMeta tags are the descriptive tags... Read More

7 Essential SEO techniques

1) Title Tag ? When we're talking about SEO Technique,... Read More

10 Basic Rules for Where to Place Your Keywords

First of all, Google and most other search engines do... Read More