Are You linking Your Way to Obscurity?

Do you participate in link exchange? You may be confused about how having links on your website benefits you. In fact you could be linking your way into obscurity. Did you ever consider that each link to another website is an invitation to leave your site? Is that really what you want - to invite people to leave? Your focus should be on getting more links pointing to your website. This increases your traffic and search engine rankings. However, the more outbound links you have on your webpage, the more it weakens your Google page rank as well you are asking your visitors to click on those outbound links and visit someone else’s website.

Search engines are really only interested in links to your site which are from a site that has similar content as your own. Apparently, there is evidence to suggest that having links from sites that are not relevant to the content of your own, can even damage your position with the search engines.

Link exchange can be a good thing but there are few things to keep in mind:

1.As said before having too many outbound links on your site invites your visitors to leave and may damage your search engine ranking.

2.Exchanging links with sites with poor quality content or a poor page rank can hurt your rankings.

3.Having a link directory on your site doesn’t encourage Google to crawl your site more. And just because Google is crawling your site more, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are going to improve your ranking.

4.If you must have outbound links make them worth your while ie. affiliate links or other promotions.

Yes, link exchanging can be helpful but there are other ways that you can get lots of inbound links for your site, without having to provide reciprocal links. And these methods tend to be more effective.

1. Write short articles, 300 to 500 words, on subjects closely related to your site, and then distribute them over the internet through various article directories. People who are looking for content for their websites, or newsletters, can then look through the article directories to find fresh content. If they choose to publish your article, they then have to include a link back to your website from their site. Just a few articles can get you 50 inbound links.

2. Submit a press release - this won't always get you a large number of inbound links, but it can get you top ten listing.

3. Make sure your site is listed in some of the directories across the internet.

4. Start an affiliate program.

5. Create a viral marketing campaign – you could try a free short ebook that contains some useful information, and a link back to your site, which people are allowed to distribute freely.

The last thing you want to do is to link your way out of business. Be wise when you participate in link exchange and apply some other methods to gain quality traffic to your website.

Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant and work at home business owner. He is currently featured as a "Top" Affiliate of ThePlugInProfitSite. His "Top Ranked" Earn Money at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start, maintain, and prosper with your very own Work at Home Business in the 21st century.

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Jeff Casmer

8 Linking Strategies That Work by Jeff Casmer

When it comes to linking strategies for your website you need to concentrate on one word. Backlinks! A backlink is defined as having your website address on another website. This creates a link pointing your visitor or a search engine back to your website. If you were in a game and were keeping score every backlink gives you a +1. An outoging link is the link of another website on yours pointing back to theirs. You would score this a -1.

If you were playing a game to win you would want the most pluses you could get. So it is with linking strategies. Here are some basic ways to get backlinks to your website.

1. You can buy a text link. Websites that get high amounts of traffic and are ranked high with the top search engines will let you pay them to put your website link on their site.

2. Forum marketing is a way to get a backlink. If the forum let's you create a signature file you can hyperlink you website to a keyword phrase pointing back to your website. You can also list your website in your online profile and get a backlink that way,

3. Writing and submitting articles is a quick way to get alot of backlinks. Create a bio box at the end of each article with a link for your website. Then submit your article to as many directories as possible. Or even better yet use a software of article marketer to submit your articles for you.

These articles can be picked up by other directories, webmasters, or online newsletters and spread all over the internet giving your website a viral marketing benefit.

4. Place classified ads with popular directories like USFreeAds or AdlandPro. Upgrade to paid member and you can place unlimited ads with links pointing back to your website.

5. Blog and ping. In each blog post include a sort resource box with your website address. If you archive you posts this gives you backlinks for years to come.

6. Trade links with quality websites. We are not talking about reciprocal linking to directories with thousands of worthless links. A better strategy is to trade a link with a website that closely mirrors your site without being in direct competition to it. Also look to place their link on one of your pages that has the same page rank as the link they are giving you.

7. Post comments on other peoples blogs. Take the time to read the post before you make a comment. Don't write something worthless like " I like your blog." Make your comments informative and relate to the blog post you just read. Then include your website address along with your name.

8. Internal linking can bring valuable backlinks to your home page. This would be when you put your website address in a hyperlinked keyword phrase and point it back to your home page. This is a great way to build keyword relavancy along with building up your backlinks.

These are a few linking strategies that work. There are many others. Just keep it simple and remember this simple formula.

Links out=Bad. Links in=Good.

Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant and work at home business owner. He is currently featured as a "Top" Affiliate of ThePlugInProfitSite. His "Top Ranked" Earn Money at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start, maintain, and prosper with your very own Work at Home Business in the 21st century.

Contact the Author
Jeff Casmer