Inbound Links and Fresh Content
So now that you have considered your keywords, the other part of the SEO puzzle is inbound links and fresh content.
Put simply, inbound links are those that point to your site from elsewhere on the web. It may be from a directory, it may be from a link that someone has added to a social bookmarking site, or someone may consider your site of enough value to link from theirs. Wherever they come from, inbound links are vital to the success of your site.
You will remember from the Basics of SEO post that while the quantity of inbound links is important, so is the quality of them. Having thousands of links pointing to you from all over the web means nothing if they are from sites that Google does not consider valuable. Google has a system called PageRank, which basically is there measure of a web pages importance in the overall online universe. It is a ranking out of 10, with a site’s PageRank being determined by the number of inbound links to it, and again the quality of these links. Links to your site are considered of a higher quality if they come from sites with a quality (high) PageRank. So as you can see, it is very cyclical, with the PageRank of one site affecting another.
So, with links explained, how do you get them? It’s not an easy or a fast process. I have 3 areas I consider paramount to linking success.
Directory Submissions
The web has a number of directories that categorise sites into different industries and sectors, allowing people to search them much like you would the yellow pages. Some of these are free, and some charge you to list on them. Be wary of software that offers to auto-submit your URL to all the directories. Unfortunately, a number of the directories have realised that there is some value in their site and moved from free to paid models, which means software will be outdated and you won’t get what you paid for. The other challenge with these is that you need to make sure that your site appears in the absolute correct category which can involve some deep searching.
Submissions to these sites are all reviewed before their inclusion, so again, automatic submission may mean that you will not be listed. Because they are manually reviewed, it can take some time for them to appear. I would suggest submitting to the following directories as a must:
While there are many more, these 4 have significant page ranks. You can also look at submission to paid directories (if your think that you should invest money there), and reciprocal directories, but I generally avoid these as it can then take people off to the directory and potentially on to your competitors.
Social Bookmarking
With the explosion of the social aspect of the web, Social Bookmarking sites have become commonplace as they allow people to share the links they find interesting with each other and have them voted up and down depending on their percieved worth. Sites such as Digg, Delicious, Newsvine and Mixx are great for linking, as they will allow you to post your content with a link back to your site, encouraging both human traffic from reading the posts, and another link to be picked up by the search engines.
This can be a fairly time consuming process to submit to all of them, but using a service such as OnlyWire will allow you to submit to them all at once (but not before setting up accounts at each- time consuming but a necessary once off).
Forum Contribution
Finally, there is no better way to establish links than by demonstrating your knowledge in your online business niche on a forum. Answering questions and interacting with like minded people will allow you to post the link back to your site, generating both search engine recognisable links and human traffic, which can in turn lead to direct links from other site owners. I find contributing to sites like Yahoo Answers is also a worthwhile exercise. Set aside some time in your schedule during the day to do so.
So now that we have looked at keywords and links, I wanted to cover off the value of content. In the world of the web, content is king. More importantly, quality content is king. Unfortunately the collaborative and social nature of the web has created a glut of useless information that can at times be overwhelming.
It will be important from an SEO perspective that your content is always fresh and compelling. Because of the way Google looks at your site, making sure you frequently update your content will keep them coming back more often and updating their record of your page.
Fresh content will also keep human trafffic coming back more frequently which will assist in creating more organic backlinks as people discover value in your page.
So in summary, optimising your site for Google, and the other major search engines requires you to:
- Choose the right keywords – remember they may not be what you think they are
- Create inbound links – whether it be through directory submission, forum contribution or social bookmarking
- Make sure your content is updated and compelling – giving your audience and the search engines something of value on a regular basis will keep them coming back, and bump you up the rankings
Next post, I will be taking a look at social media, and how it can work for business.
Related posts:
- The Basics of SEO
- 4 Final Pointers on SEO Fundamentals
- Three Practical Tips for Traffic Generation
- Finding the Right Keywords
- Highlights from the Affili@SYD Conference
Tags: Content, Google, Inbound Links, MSN Live Search, Online Business Niche, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, Yahoo!
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