One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.
Why Are One-Way Links Helpful?
Link building in general is an important part of making sure your site ranks well in the search engines. Google and many of the other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate the web pages they include in the search engine databases. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the web page. Each individual page acquires link popularity based on the pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get totally caught up in the minutia of which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. The bottom line is this: acquiring links pointing back to your website, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your site, is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking.
The big "plus" of one-way links is that you don't have to worry about linking back to a "bad neighborhood". If your site has links pointing back to sites that serve as "link farms" or "free-for-all" sites, you may not gain, and could actually lose page rank. These sites are rarely focused, and tend to have links to and from all different sorts of sites. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is clear to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links.
Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in place. A website that features a link to your site probably does so because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; you benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy.
How Do I Obtain Natural Links?
Building good content helps interest your visitors and keeps them on your website. By becoming an authority on your topic, you will attract more visitors. When another website in essence "votes" for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, FAQs and white papers, etc., the better reason for visitors to link back to your website because of the quality content.
One-Way Linking Sources
There are a number of ways to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to:
* Natural links given from topic-related websites that like your website
* Providing free content, such as access to articles, e-books, FAQ's and white papers
* Directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
* Business directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
* Blogs, submitted to a blog directory and archived online
* Business associations, listed under the category related to your topic
* Newsletter text ads promoting your business, archived online at topic-related websites
* Original articles, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
* Original press releases, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
* Original newsletters, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
* White papers, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
* E-books, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
* Free software tools provided with required link back to website
For each of these types of content, you will want to have an active link pointing back to your site. Of course, when creating your own original content, always archive your own work on your website to build your content and increase your own link popularity by growing the number of pages on your website.
The extra value of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your website from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the description of your website listing.
How Do I Know The Links Are Valid?
To gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be one that can be followed by the search engine robots. Plain old text links and image links usually can be followed by the search engine robots. More exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you provide suggested linking code, the simpler the better. Don't be afraid to suggest linking formats to owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well.
Check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search via the entire website or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details.
Google Search Example:
Shows indexing of all pages listed in website
site:www.websitedomainname.com
Shows indexing of a specific web page in website
info:www.websitedomainname.com/pagename.html
If the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well.
Research And Quality Content Equal Success
One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your website, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. Spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success.
Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing, a Search Engine Optimization company serving small businesses. She has specialized in Search Engine Promotion since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly Media, Inc., a technical book publishing company.
Copyright © 2002-2005 Search Innovation Marketing.
http://www.searchinnovation.com All Rights Reserved.
Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without editing, including the bio information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.searchinnovation.com when using this article in newsletters or online.
When it comes to search engine optimization strategy, there are... Read More
The following are a list of mistakes can ensure that... Read More
Purchasing web design service is confusing with all of the... Read More
When Google Adwords first came on scene, it was not... Read More
While there are many ethical SEO firms serving Internet users... Read More
According to the recent release of the Google Patent Application,... Read More
There are a lot of things in Search Engine Optimization... Read More
Don't put the cart before the horse.You can't do SEO... Read More
Let's say you are writing a web site to sell... Read More
I was recently contacted by one of my best clients... Read More
Sometimes questions will arise around the subject of gateway information... Read More
Sometimes our jobs as marketers means we need to look... Read More
For your business web site, good search engine rankings and... Read More
About directories:A directory is simply a web site that contains... Read More
Unless you've been living in a cave somewhere, I'm sure... Read More
Some of the Search engines want only original content. So... Read More
HELP! My PR page rank is grey, call the development... Read More
Everyone should realize that the search engines (sponsored ads aside)are... Read More
Maximizing traffic from the search engines to your web site... Read More
Adding fresh, updated content to your website is the surest... Read More
What's the most potent free traffic source on the web?***... Read More
Sometimes, the search engines act really strange. And this story... Read More
More and more search engines rank your web pages based... Read More
When it comes to promoting your website, you might think... Read More
Making the following changes to your title tag can help... Read More
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) must be considered a process and... Read More
This article is actually the summary to a book soon... Read More
News broke this week that Yahoo has purchased the Inktomi... Read More
Making effective use of the Internet is increasingly about creating... Read More
In my last newsletter I wrote about how your websites... Read More
At One Time Local Searches were reserved for services like... Read More
Where is the need to worry? Who needs a PR... Read More
Welcome to part five in this search engine positioning series.... Read More
One of the most important steps in any site's publicity... Read More
Use a keyword density of about 1 to 2%. Use... Read More
Over the last couple of weeks, I've received more e-mails... Read More
For those who haven't heard: article marketing is the new... Read More
Another important component of search engine optimization is the use... Read More
There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in... Read More
There are many websites that fail to target their required... Read More
Regardless of which type of business you currently have, you... Read More
Do you have a website that has little or no... Read More
The WhyBut what is the reality of reaching a number... Read More
Smartpages are highly optimized pages which draw stampeded of search... Read More
With the help of MSN, recently I've been reminiscing about... Read More
You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know... Read More
It's taken you 6-months of hard work, constant changes, reading... Read More
It's no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant... Read More
I have spent some time discussing the 5 different options... Read More
Links are a crucial part of attaining high search rankings,... Read More
Google this, Google that, Google Google Google.......My name is Debbie... Read More
Search engines are constantly tweaking their ranking algorithms and when... Read More
Getting your website listed in Google quickly simply requires that... Read More
I've always been a big time press release aficionado.And up... Read More
In a recent study looking at the "descriptions" of website... Read More
Question 1How do keywords effect your conversion rate in terms... Read More
Everyone should realize that the search engines (sponsored ads aside)are... Read More
As the undisputable leader in search engines, Google places a... Read More
6 cups thick content mix 1 jar word of mouth,... Read More
Google has many ways to help you find want you... Read More
The days of basing a successful link building strategy on... Read More
Getting your website returned by the search engines as a... Read More
Google uses an algorithm to determine the search engine results... Read More
This is the second part of an article series in... Read More
In the process of designing a website for clients the... Read More
In October 2002, the Yahoo! portal changed the way it... Read More
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) |