Linking for Search Engine Optimisation
When you ask someone who provides SEO - Search Engine Optimisation - what is important to get a good position in Search Engines, the first thing they will probably say is "have many links point to your website".
There is a bit of truth in this, but you need to think about the following points when you target websites for link exchanges.
If you don't want to pay a company to do SEO for you, there are a lot of things you can do yourself which can improve your search engine ranking.
Research first...
Go to the Google website and enter the search term that you think people would enter to find your website - for example - "Web design West Lothian". Have a look at the first 10-20 results that come up and check out your competitors. Make a note of their web addresses - such as www.domainname.com. Then enter the following words into the Google search field and press the Search button:
- link:www.domainname.com
- replacing domainname.com with the competitors domain name of course. The result pages will show you which pages provide links to your competitor's website. Have a look at these websites and check if they allow you to add a link to your website too. Then follow the procedure outlined below (How to get link exchanges).
Another thing to do is trying to find web directories that provide listings for certain business categories. Always check if these directories are actually used and have a PR - PageRank. Some websites look like directories, but they are actually link farms - all they provide is links to websites that no-one knows. Adding a link to a link farm can do your website harm and you won't benefit from that at all.
This is a directory you can get listed in, for example: FreeIndex
PR - Google PageRank
The Google PageRank is an indicator of how "popular" a website is regarded by Google and how much Google thinks of your website. When you launch a brand-new website, your PR will be 0 - simply because Google does not know about your website. If you then build up links that point to your website and if Google has found your website, it will start changing this PR. If you maintain your website regularly and keep it up to date, add content and so on, Google will reward you by increasing your PR. This will not happen over night though, this can take months, if not years! So don't expect to achieve a PR of 8 if your website only consists of 5 pages. If you display lots of relevant content on your website, Google will increase the PR over time. The PR of the homepage is initially higher than the rest of your pages, but the PR is fed down over time. For example, if your Homepage has a PR of 3, you can expect your sublevel pages to have a PR of 2.
Google will not "count" links that come from website with a very low or no PR. You can either install the Google Toolbar in your Internet Browser, or you can use the PR Checker on the SEOCHAT website to find out if a website has a good "google reputation", ie. a high PR. A high PageRank is a PR that is 3 or higher. A really good PR is 5, 6, 7, 8. The highest PR that can be achieved is 10. Probably the one of the busiest websites in the UK is the BBC website - which at the time of writing has a PR of 9 (August 2006).
If a website has no PR or a PR of only 1, Google will simply not count the link that comes from that website.
What websites should link to my website?
If you operate a website for a local Garden Centre and want to raise awareness about your Garden Centre online and want to be found by a Search Engine, you should try to place links on websites that have to do with Gardening, Flowers, Plants and so on.
Placing a link on a local bookshop website will not do your website any harm, but it won't give you any benefits either. Google and some other search engines simply ignore links from websites that are not relevant to your business. So try to concentrate your linking efforts on websites that are relevant to your business.
How to get link exchanges?
If you find a website that you think would be good for a link exchange, search for the link page on that particular website. If there is no link page to be seen, don't waste your time, they won't suddenly create a link page for adding your link to it.
Some link pages encourage link exchanges and already provide a form - prepared for you to fill in. If there is no form available, you can contact the webmaster of the website by email and ask them for a link exchange. You will usually find a contact page or a link to the webmaster's email address. You should always offer a reciprocal link on your website which points to their website. You ask them for a favour, so you should offer something in return. Usually, you would write a personal message to the webmaster of a website telling them why their website would benefit from adding your link and that you already have added their link to your website because you liked their website very much.
Sometimes you get a reply that a link has been added to their links page, sometimes, link exchange requests are simply ignored. If nothing has happened within a month, you can remove the link you added to your website because they are obviously not interested in adding any more links to their website.
Don't just contact any website under the sun and ask them for a link exchange. This will not do your website any good and it will waste your time too.