Linking is perhaps the most important thing to consider when you are endeavouring
to achieve a top search engine placement. Search engines place
a heavy emphasis on the number and the relevance of links to your site.
If you are linked to by a page which has a high page ranking, then your
page's ranking will in turn benefit. And the more relevant pages of high
rank that link to your page, the higher will be the ranking of your page,
and the more traffic will your page attract.
"How do you know what the page ranking of someone else's page is?" you
may well ask. What you can do is download the Google Toolbar which costs
nothing, and then with the assistance of the toolbar, you will be able to
check the PageRank of potential link partners.
At the left hand side of the toolbar click Google, then
Toolbar Options, then check PageRank Display, and click OK.
You should now see a bar on which is indicated the PageRank of the current
page.
Main Points to consider:
- You need to get links from relevant web pages. Links from irrelevant
pages may result in a penalty being imposed upon you by the search
engines.
- The greater the number of relevant links to your pages the better.
- The number of links to the sites that are linking to you is also to
be taken into account. If a site has only a few other sites linking to
it, then its value to you as a link partner is not nearly as great as a
site that has a thousand links pointing in its direction.
- When considering someone's web page as a potential link partner,
check the PageRank of the page that you wish to exchange links with
(using the Google Toolbar as described above). If the PageRank is 5 or
greater (the rankings are measured out of 10, the higher number being a
higher ranking), then it is a worthy contender for consideration.
How to actually go about arranging the link exchange:
- Do a search in Google using your keywords (to ensure that relevant
websites appear on the search page).
- Check the PageRank of the site (being on the first page of listings
probably means that its PR is OK).
- Confirm that the site will exchange links (check to see if it has a
links page).
- If all is well then find the email contact details of the webmaster.
Send him/her a nice email pointing out what you like about their site,
and why you feel that an exchange of links would be of mutual benefit.
Be sure to include your site name, a description of your site, your URL
and contact email address. The actual linking text that you want placed
on their site should include your principle keywords.
- Check the link pages of sites that you wish to link to, because here
you have a ready made list of (presumably) relevant links that you
should also be considering.
If you would prefer the linking process to be automated, then it is
worth considering automated link exchange software. Two software
programs worthy of consideration are
Arelis and
Zeus. Another idea is to
list with a link exchange. A free exchange that is well worth a look is
Ken Evoy's SiteSell Value Exchange.
Linking
