http://www.articletrader.com/ Articles at ArticleTrader en-us http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/building-back-links.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/building-back-links.html Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0500
It has well been established that having or not having link popularity is vital to the existence of any website. So how do we find the ways and means of establishing this. Building links can be time consuming, frustrating and sometime with little or no results but it is unavoidable if we wish to establish pageranks we must build links.

Many may ask what is link popularity and why the fuss?
"Link popularity is a measure of the quantity and quality of other web sites that link to a specific site on the World Wide Web. It is an example of the move by search engines towards off-the-page-criteria to determine quality content. In theory, off-the-page-criteria adds the aspect of impartiality to search engine rankings"(source:wikipedia.org)

Please note that quality of the websites linking to you overides the quantity, thus it is better to have a few quality sites linking to your site versus a few hundred spammy sites or link farms. There is no easy to quickly and easily build links, the use of link farms is frowned upon by many search engines and will only succeed in getting your site banned or penalized. Best quality links with be from high ranking pages and those that have some relation to your own site.

WAYS OF GETTING LINKS

I have been repeatedly told by seasoned webmasters that sometimes a simple email request could suffice. A nice well thought out email to the webmaster of a site that is similar to yours. Of course include details about your site and how they can benefit by linking to your site. e.g have their site featured on your website write a review or article about their site, take time to look over the site of the webmaster that you are requesting backlinks from, maybe suggest where the your link could be placed.

Good linking practices would be to place a link of the site you are planning to trade with on your site first and include this in your email where their link can be found along with your site information, with good keyword descriptions, this gives a much better chance of a reciprocal. However be prepared for denial,no replies or play the waiting game.

Inbound links may also be achieved by good website content, if you are good at writing, writing articles about categories that you have some knowledge in, or use the many free articles or get permission from the author to use their articles and of course provide a link back to the author of the article. If you have good content people will want to link to it thus building your inbound link.

Do a search for keywords relevant to your site, find the top sites for these keywords, visit their site/s check out their link pages, contact the webmaster via email or directly if this information is available, about linking to your site, use the methods described above.

Submitting links to the many free web directories and business directories, make sure that they are in Google's database and have good PR can bring you many inbound links if they choose to include your site most importantly submit your site to DMOZ to the most relevant category to your site. Getting a inbound link from a major directory like Yahoo can be crucial, this requires a fee but will be a overall benefit for you.

Start your own affiliate program that way all the affiliate links point back to your site whilst also, bringing prospective visitors to your site.

Include your a signature to your emails using good keyword description in the anchor text.

Post to newsgroups, web groups, forums, chatrooms, write and post articles to ezines etc and most of all include your signature.

Promote your business offline, using local newspapers, most newspapers have online sites so this can be a benefit too. Promotion boards at your public library, business cards, you can ask businesses to leave your business card at their customer service desk or check out counters. Use your own vehicle as means of promoting by adding your logo and url to your bumper or rear window. Think of it as free advertising.

PPC advertising can bring beneficial traffic to your site, this can bring you more visitors and exposure to your site, which in turn some of your visitors may link to your site if its a good source of content.

Offer free stuff, contest, polls and giveaways, this is sure to bring in links, people love free stuff and prizes.

Add a RSS feed to your site, make sure that your site has quality content.

LINK STRATEGIES TO AVOID

Spamming forums and newsgroup.
Emailing webmasters incessantly about linking to your site.
Writing nasty little articles about competing sites.
Using bots to request link exchange.
Posting or subscribing to FFA and link farms.

CLOSING
If your think this article was informative feel free to use it. Please leave author link back attached to this article



--
Karleen Phillip, 32 yr female, located in Florida, Web Administrator for link-to-us.com web directory and the MSN group Domesticentrepreneurs a work-at-home group



Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]> http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/benefits-of-web-directories.html http://www.articletrader.com/internet/site-promotion/benefits-of-web-directories.html Thu, 24 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0500 BENEFITS OF WEB DIRECTORIES

A web directory is a directory on the web. It specializes in linking to other web sites which are sorted by categories, which makes browsing more efficient and effective to its visitors looking for specific sites. Web directories accept links from webmasters or site administrators seeking to submit their site for inclusion, the sites are then reviewed by a human editor who usually does a review of the site to determine its quality and content before approving it.

TYPES OF DIRECTORIES

General
This directory basically consist of many categories divided into smaller categories and will include a variety of different website e.g. business, computers, health, etc. These directories can become quite large with the continual growth of categories and sites added.

Niche
These directories are also known as specialty directories in which they specialize or cater to one category of products and services or themes. These directories are quite useful less overwhelming than the vast content of a general directory.

Paid
A fee is charged for reviewing the submitted website, there is no guarantee of your site being approved and usually there is a no-refund policy (there are a few exceptions to this rule). Some others will simply include your site once the fee is paid, many webmaster prefer this method because of it's fast inclusion.

Reciprocal
There is a mutual linkage between two websites in order to ensure mutual traffic, the site submitting must place a link from their site before approval or inclusion. Please note this does not guarantee inclusion, beware of unscrupulous sites that approve your site then shortly thereafter remove your link.

Free
As the name implies these directories are free and do not require a link back,
sometime these sites do get backed up, the higher the page rank, the more popular the directory is, so submission and approval periods may be long, but these free directories are by far the best in my opinion, unless your have the means of paying for your site submission.

Basically the benefits of any web directory is to provide your site with incoming links or reciprocal links a combination of the two links would be ideal in getting your site moved up in page rank. Getting your site indexed by spiders and search engines Bring targeted traffic to your website because visitors would already have an idea of what your site is about. Get higher ranking for targeted keywords. Help contribute to an increase in page rank.

Is the page rank of the directory you are submitting to important?
Well I will have to say, yes, but this must not be the only factor in your decision to use that directory, for instance a directory may have a low rank because its new, every website at one time or the other started off with a 0 page rank, if we were all to spurn
a site because of a 0 PR then we'd all be out of business.
Ultimately the decision is yours but a site should be judged by the quality of the sites it
contains, back links and content.

Check Directories For
No Follow - there is a "no follow" tag associated with the link, meaning search engines will not follow the link.
Uses Redirects.
Uses unscrupulous reciprocal methods- removing sites shortly after approving them to boost their own incoming links.
Links embedded in JavaScript and other codes that search engines can't follow.

Submitting to web directories is not the only means of promoting your site or building back links but it is a very important one.



--
Karleen P. 32 yr female, located in Florida, USA. Web administrator of links-to-us.com
Free Web Directory


Source: http://www.articletrader.com ]]>