Hello!
Welcome to the February 18th edition of Scribbles!. In our last issue we talked about getting your web site noticed by search engines. We also touched on the differences between search engines and online directories as well as the advantages of being listed in both. In this issue we'll take a look at another Simple Search Engine Optimization Technique: encouraging and/or creating quality incoming links.
In This Issue
- Simple Search Engine Optimization - Part 2 of 3
- Incoming Links - The Good, the Great and the Hopeless
- Finding Sites That Will Link to You
- Creating Quality Links
Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - Part 2 of 3
If you've been following along with this whole Simple SEO theme you know by now that search engines use small automated programs to crawl the internet and index the pages that they find. The search engine then judges a site's relevance to a given topic by, among other things, finding that topic mentioned in the plain text and HTML code of the page.
Search engines also use additional rules to judge how relevant a web site is to a given topic, and to how high it will rank in search results. In this issue we'll discuss one of the more important ones: incoming links (also known as backlinks) to your site. These are links that send users from other sites to yours.
Incoming Links - The Good, the Great and the Hopeless
- Finding Sites That Will Link to Yours
Once a search engine has indexed a web site, it makes note of the links on that site's pages. It records the links that lead from page to page within a site as well as the links that lead out to other sites. The search engine then "weighs" those links by judging how relevant the originating page is to the target page.
As an example, let's use the Chattanooga Landscaping service that we discussed in our last issue. Our landscaper has sent a press release (complete with his web site's address, of course!) to the Tennessee Today newspaper announcing that he is expanding his business due to a contract signed to provide landscaping services for a chain of banks in Tennessee.
The online edition of Tennessee Today runs the press release, including a link to the Chattanooga Landscaping web site.
This link is valuable and will help to advance our landscaper's ranking in the search engines for several reasons:
- Rank and Quality of Originating Web Site
Getting a link from a high profile, high ranking site such as a regional newspaper is preferable to getting a link from a low ranking site or a link farm that has no relevance to your web site. In some cases a low-ranked, non-relevant site may even downgrade the ranking of your site.
- Keywords In and Around the Link
In his press release, our landscaper has included terms that are relevant to the landscaping industry. If this press release was submitted via e-mail, it is also possible that the link itself contains keywords. As we'll see later, link text is highly relevant to search engine spiders.
- Avoiding the "Smell" of a Paid Link
Search engines have "learned" to avoid link spamming. A link from a reputable web site, on the other hand, is judged as a high quality link. Avoid link farms and link exchanges: they may actually harm your standings in the major search engines.
- Longevity
Unlike its physical counterpart (which is recycled the next day), the online edition of a newspaper will be maintained in a linked archive.
Our landscaper's press release will continue to serve him for months or even years to come.
- Creating Quality Links
As we have just seen, the more quality links you have coming into your web site, the higher your own site's page rank will be. Now, while it's nice when other folks link to your site, that may not happen as often as you would like. Instead of sitting around waiting for those quality links, let's take the bull by the horns and create our own backlinks.
- Online Forums
One of the easiest ways to create external links that lead back to your site is to insert links in forum posts. There are online forums dedicated to nearly every business, hobby and interest imaginable. Find two or three that are active and that allow you to include links back to your own site. Lurk on the forum for a few days to get a feel for the level of participation that is expected (or tolerated!) from forum members. Then jump in.
For example, another forum member may post a question about a subject on which you have expertise. Post an answer and include a link to your web site in your response. On many forums you can even insert a link in your Member Signature so that a relevant backlink is created every time that you post.
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Creating Related Sites
This is exactly what our Chattanooga landscaper has decided to do. First, he makes plans to create a small three page web site related to landscaping - shrubberylandscaping.com. Once he registers the domain name, his web designer puts together a simple site, along with all of the SEO techniques we explored in our previous issue: relevant title, keywords and boiler plate content about Tennessee trees and shrubs, and a few photographs of Tennessee foliage. Caveat: Please note that he does not duplicate the content of his primary site. This practice is generally frowned upon by the major search engines.
Next, our savvy web designer inserts one or two links on each page that will lead from the shrubbery landscaping site to our Landscaper's main site. The link text will be sentences that are relevant to (you guessed it!) landscaping. And that's all there is to it. Yes it involves a little effort, but the results will be well worth it in terms of higher page rank in the major search engines.
Parting Thoughts
In this issue we've nearly finished our non-rigorous survey of Search Engine Optimization. Quality backlinks (i.e. incoming links) are an important yardstick used by Search Engine spiders to measure the relevance of your site to particular search terms. Your backlinks will be judged not only by quantity but also by quality, so it's good practice not to use link farms or reciprocal link schemes. Quality links are links from sites that contain subject matter relevant to your site. Lastly, you can create links to your site in online posts and by creating sister sites.
Next time out we'll finish our Simple SEO discussion by examining the role that updating and maintaining site content plays in improving your search engine rankings.
Coming March 5
- Simple Search Engine Optimization - Part 3, Final Installment
- Maintaining, Updating and Adding Content to Your Web Site
Best regards!
Ed Moore
www.animai.com
