Great Benefits Of Building Good Quality Inbound Links To Your Site
by Brian Cotsen

To get right to the point. Building good quality inbound links is arguably one of the best things you can do for your website or internet business.

Do you think this is a sweeping statement?

Too bold an argument to back up?

 

Well I'm going to convince you that, in terms of website promotion and reaching your target audience, you can't spend your time better than by building good quality inbound links to your website.

Whatever your goal:

• Selling more products
• Signing up more members
• Reaching more of your potential audience

By focusing on building good quality inbound links, you can achieve these and many other goals that you have for your website.

Don't inbound links just help generate better search engine optimisation?

If you thought that the only point to inbound links were to raise your search engine ranking then you're missing a number of fantastic benefits to inbound links.

If you're popping to the top of the search engines... great.

But if your not quite on page one of the search engines then building good inbound links can have other major benefits to your business.

1. Gain good quality traffic from your peer websites.

Having a link from a related website is a great way to channel traffic to you. If your customers are visiting an interior design site and you sell paint products then it is likely that those customers will be receptive to your product or service and follow your link, perhaps in an article that you have posted on the interior design website, to your website.

Then, if those same visitors to the interior design website also see your link on another website related to advice on DIY, your profile and your value as an expert will definitely be enhanced by them seeing you & your website link again.

Good quality and well placed inbound links can generate traffic and get many pairs of internet visitors eyes looking at your website via other popular websites

I thoroughly recommend my clients to get into the habit of writing articles for online magazines and article websites to help build their profiles and the quality and quantity of inbound links.

2. List your website in relevant directories to gain good quality inbound links

Remember to submit your website to relevant local, national & international directories.

There are many well organised web directories that focus specifically on your particular business be it Psychotherapy, Gardening or Classic Cars.

Also there are directories that cover specific locations or regions e.g. London, New York, United Kingdom, Ireland etc

The key here is relevant.

If you're an on-line florist, then focus on submitting your website to those directories that are set up to help people find your service:

• Florist directories.
• Gift Service directories
• Wedding & event planning directories

And if your website is specific to a certain city or region or country, then there may be business directories that cater for those searching for companies that operate specifically in the location that they wish to look at.

However take care!

You should avoid submitting your site to any directory that offers you a chance to list with them and link back to your website.

I said that relevant is the keyword. Google and the other search engines do not look favourably on websites that link to unrelated websites, link trading or link farming as it is termed.

Google will either mark down or even dismiss the link as irrelevant and you will not see the benefit in the search engine results.

Why, you may wonder, a link is a link isn't it?

Well consider. If you bought a magazine about 'fly fishing' and halfway through there was a knitting pattern, would you think that this is relevant, how many fishermen would bother reading it?

Google see putting links from irrelevant websites to yours in much the same light... and frown on it.... beware!

3. Forums and Message Boards

If you are looking for other ways of raising your profile and developing great quality, relevant inbound links back to your own website, get involved.

• Forums
• Message Boards

Can be found on websites all over the internet. If you're into Classic Cars, Chinese Pottery, CB Radio or what ever, there will be a website about just that with a community that want to chat about every aspect of the subject.

Search the internet by Googling "forums" + "Classic Cars" or "Message Board" + "Craft Fairs" and you'll find sites dedicated to your interest.

Then get involved in the online discussion. Use your sign off that includes your websites URL and hey presto you've got a link back to your own website.

Not just any old link but valuable for two reasons:

• All those other forum & message board readers are highly interested and motivated in the subject that you are talking about... they may well want to visit your website.
• The search engines will value these links. They come from websites that are filled with all the keywords that you use, because they are related. Plus the forums are filled with fresh changing content, another thing that the websites love, so those forums will very likely have a good search engine page rank, which also benefits you via the link.

Just like the point made previously, keep those forums relevant!

4. Blogs

If you are going to the trouble of writing articles, then turn those into weekly or even daily blogs.

Like forums and message boards, your blogs are highly valued by the search engines.

Blogs allow you to mention your website and different features of it over and again.

So if you run that on-line florist you might right a blog called 'Flower Of The Week' and then tell all the visitors/ readers about the beauty of Orchids. At the end of the blog your link will lead directly to the page on your website devoted to orchids.... valuable deep linking.

I hope that now you can see the value of building good quality inbound links to your website.

Get linking and reap the benefits.

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For more articles on 'Link Building', 'Link Exchanging' and the benefits of developing a linking campaign take a look at:

Link Building & Link Exchange Articles & Advice

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