Linking Strategies (Part 1)

This week I want to turn our attention to another very important part of your overall Internet marketing strategy - your web linking strategy.  In this series I'll discuss why this is so important, what links should you go for first, and finally how to develop a long term plan for obtaining high quality links to your web site.

Every business owner knows the importance of getting the attention of the Search Engines (SE) and devote a lot of time and money to achieve higher rankings.  Sometimes to the neglect of obtaining quality links to their sites.  It is my opinion that business owners should develop a strategy for link acquisition and commit 1-2 hours per week implementing the strategy.

The benefits of an effective linking strategy are many:

1. Increased exposure for your web site.  Linking provides your site a built-in referral or recommendation from other trusted web sites in your industry. 
2. Higher rankings from Search Engines.  SE today highly value links pointing to your site.  These links will increase your position in the search results compared to your competitors who have fewer links.
3. Insulation from SE changes.  SE come and go in terms of popularity (like AltaVista) as well as changing their ranking algorithms (ranking calculations).  Incoming traffic from your links will not be affected if Google decides to change the way they rank web sites.  This happens more frequently then you think!
   
4. Minimal long term costs for link acquisition and maintenance.  Once a link has been obtained, the costs associated with keeping that link are usually zero.  In fact, you'll find that over time more web sites will want to link to you without you having to do anything.

But before you head out and start the process of obtaining links, you need to answer this one question:

Why would anyone link to me?

Other web sites are not going to give you a link just because you asked for it.  You need to already have a frequently updated web site with lots of quality content and links to other web sites.  Once your web site can be viewed as a resource for others, then you will have a much greater chance of obtaining incoming links.

As with anything in business, developing a web site that others will want to link to is a time consuming process.  It will take many hours to have your site regarded as a resource.  Then many more hours implementing your linking strategy.  But the long term benefits will pay off with increased visitors when you make this commitment.

In the following posts, I'll talk about what web sites would be great candidates to start your link request process and finish with a fantastic free resource for developing your long term link strategy.