One Easy Way to Increase Your Inbound Links
To move up the search engine ranks, two basic developments need to take place: you need to build your site's content, and you need to increase the number of inbound links that lead back to your site. These twin developments are the bread and butter, the yin and yang, the Laurel and Hardy, if you will, of SEO. Skimp on one or the other, and your site is likely to do a turtle's crawl up the ranking instead of the more desired rabbit's leap. (Then again, slow and steady wins the race....) the true key to efficient optimization is balance -- if your site has lots of inbound links but is short on content, you should focus on adding new pages and creating new original material; on the other hand, if your site has tons of content but almost no inbound links, you might want to spend some time bolstering your linking strategy.
This week's SEO Tip is aimed toward all you Laurels out there, you who have a website that's strong on vertical depth but light on inbound links. Our tip here is so simple, it's practically obvious. First, go to your favorite search engine and type in those keywords you're interested in using for your own site. Find out who your competitors are, and check what inbound links lead back to their site. To do this, you'll need to copy and paste your competitor's URL into your search bar, and insert the word "link:" in front of it. (Yes, the semicolon is there on purpose.) As an example, type in "link:www.salemglobal.com" into Google, and perform a search. You'll see that Google locates about 160 sites that link back to www.SalemGlobal.com. These sites consist of a combination of directories, marketing sites, blog posts, press releases, and more. Of course, all of SalemGlobal's inbound links were compiled over a long period of time -- in fact, as a matter of policy, it can take Google a month or longer before it officially recognizes certain inbound links and rewards their destination website -- but, it's worth repeating, when it comes to link building, slow and steady wins the race.
Perform this process for one of your competitors, and analyze the pages that are linking back to their site: can you find any relevant business directories, industry blogs or online professional associations that could sponsor your link as well? Of course, you'll find that not all of these links were put up for free -- older and more established sites can charge hefty sums to place links on their pages. Linking strategy is hence a game of diligence, but also of discretion.
If you have any more questions on linking strategy, don't hesitate to contact us! After all, that's what we're here for. Call us at (212) 993-5828, or shoot an e-mail to raphis@salemglobal.com. Happy linking y'all.
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Lastly, Raphi Salem speaks on Rocket Science of Search Engine Optimization, click here for the PDF file.