You have probably heard that search engines like to see links and plenty of them to a website, it helps to indicate which sites the search engine should list as a link to a site is a bit like a vote for a site. That’s a reasonable viewpoint as, spammers networks aside, websites do tend to link to other sites that have something of interest to the first sites readers.
So if you have a small business and work on your own promotion and SEO how do you go about building links to your website? There are several ways to get links but first it is important to understand that not all links are the same, some are much more powerful than others. A single link from an authority site in your industry can be worth dozens (maybe even hundreds) of links from other sites.
The best links to get are links that are composed of your target keywords as the anchor text (the clickable words on the other site) and they come from sites that are relevant to your business or that are powerful for other reasons. (A link from Harvard University to your book-keeping website would be choice even if Harvard is not related to your business!)
Some practical ways to get links to your website:
1) Firstly, have good content, whether this be in a blog or traditional style website, give other website owners something worth while to link to.
2) Mention and link to your content / website in your Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin etc.
3) Post in relevant forums and blogs that allow comments and links to articles.
4) Add bookmarks at social bookmark sites like Digg and Delicious.
5) Publish short versions on article sites like Ezinearticles or GoArticles (with a link to the main article of course).
6) Blog it anywhere you have a blog.
7) Try to get your suppliers to link to your site or get links from professional associations.
8) Perhaps do a deal with a similar service in another city, mention and link to them from a blog article of yours in return for a similar mention from them.
9) See who is linking to your competitors and see if you can get links from them too. You can check your competitor links by typing the following string into your browser location bar:
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=linkdomain:somedomain.com.au%20-site:somedomain.com.au
Remember to replace the two ‘somedomain.com.au’ bits in that string with the domain you are checking.
Are there specialist directories in your industry? Prominent bloggers? – See if you can get links from them or a review of a product (with a link of course).
10) See if those industry bloggers would like a guest post from you, again for a link or two of course.
11) Even unrelated sites can have their uses, local directories help to get your name out there have a small amount of link juice and they are good citation references if you are hoping to get a Google Local Business listing (more about that another time…).
12) If you can write an article on your industry you could also try publishing it on article directories or on social media websites like Hubpages.com. Remember to include a link back to your site of course! Better still write a few articles and spread them around several article directories like Goarticles.com and Ezinearticles.com and some social sites like Hubpages.com and Squidoo.com. Interlink them a little and make sure they all have links to your main site. Better still, write an article for Small Business Forum.
13) Do you have a blog section with an RSS feed on your site? Add the RSS feed to the various RSS distribution services like feedage.com and feedagg.com.
Author Bio: Aidan McCarthy has been involved in search engine marketing for the last 10 years. He enjoys helping small businesses get noticed online and contributes at Flyingsolo.com.au the Australian business forum. In his spare time he enjoys a little fishing, watching rugby and assisting at his local junior rugby club. For more information on Aidan, visit him online at www.adsurf.com.au
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