Link Building

Inbound links from appropriate sources produce a high page rank, and page rank is one of the prime determinants of placement in search engines results.

Some of the questions commonly asked in this area are “What sort of links are best?” and “How many links do I need?”

It is generally agreed by SEO experts links from well ranked sites with relevant content produce the best results. Of course, the key phrases in that sentence are “well ranked sites” and “relevant content”.

The process of achieving page rank is one of leveraging. Links from sites with a higher page rank than yours will tend to raise your ranking, while links from lower rank sites will either have no impact or reduce your page rank. In this context, “relevant content” is information that adds to, qualifies or complements the information on your site. If your site is about apples, relevant content might be from other apple related sites, other fruit sites and maybe even farming related sites, but not surfing or automotive sites.

In most contexts, numbers are a precise measure. When it comes to links, numbers are a guide only. We find eight to twelve quality links will produce very pleasing results. More links will help, but you need to balance between effort and return. In many cases, you will need to provide an outbound link in exchange for an inbound link. Search engines are less trusting of pages that contain nothing but outbound links, particularly when there are twenty or more links on a page. This situation suggests link farming and will result in poor search engine results.

Search engines seem to give more credence to links found in a paragraph of text rather than just a list of links.

In practice, you have no control over inbound links. You can request other sites to create a link to you but there is no guarantee your request will be successful. There are number of ways to increase your chances of arranging links:

• Offer a return link
• Provide good content

If this sounds like too much work for you or you’re not really sure where to start, why don’t you give us a call. We can develop a program to achieve the results you need to grow your business.