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By A Web Design
Links are the equivalent of the expressway on the Internet. All the importance and usefulness that an expressway brings to the real world, links bring to the web.
Without links it would impossible to navigate, from one page of the website to another or from one website to another website. The only way to reach any information on the Internet would be to know and type in the URL of each block of information in the address bar of a Browser. Luckily links (i.e. hyperlinks) let us use the right mouse button to click our way around the pages of a website or even navigate between websites.Conceptually a link can be interpreted as a vote ( a kind of thumbs up ) for a website or website page that it leads to. The idea being only if you like something will you link to it.
Hence, if someone owns ( or controls ) a website really likes your website content, hopefully they will place a link on their website that when clicked takes their site visitor to your website. In this way they share their appreciation of your website content with their websites visitors. Hence, your website content must be really great, and supportive to the linker’s website.
Visitors who find such links are normally happy to click and navigate to the linked to website because of the trust that such an endorsement provides.
Links to a website can come in many forms.
Submit your site to a directory. After the directory verifies that your submission is acceptable they place a link in their directory to your website. This is a one way link, i.e. between the directory and your website. Directories rarely require you to provide a link back to them from your website.
Often information seekers on the Internet use such directories to identify and locate websites delivering information that they are seeking. Using an appropriate directory often delivers information far more swiftly and modestly more accurately than search engines, simply because of the logical ( and fairly rigid ) structure of a directory.
Hence Internet information seekers often:
Knowing that the directory has grouped and sorted websites appropriately
The website could be your website.
Your website could link out to other websites having supportive information the seeker is interested in and the seeker ( i.e. site visitor ) happily follows these links until the information they seek has been satisfied. If not its normally back to the directory ( or some other directory if necessary ).
If the seeker really likes what they see on your website and they in turn have a website of their own, or a Blog they write regularly, they might include a link back to your website from there.
Site visitors reading their website content or Blog content then follow their link to your website, they navigate (via links) to other pages that interest them and the process continues. Of course, not every person who finds your site will link to you and very likely they would want a link on your website back to them as well.
These are reciprocal links which are different from links from directories which are often one way links.
Hence in actual fact Links ( the Internet expressway ) spreads much like word of mouth. If you have something worth telling others about (or linking to) then more people will spread the word via their site's, blogs, Twitter, Facebook and whatever else strikes their fancy.
The easiest way to get links is to have something worth linking to. It is you who has to create link-worthy content.
In additional to providing an expressway to navigate through the Internet, links provide a way for a site visitor ( and search engine spiders ) to know what any page is about. At least this is what links should do.Too often links simply say click here. This tells site visitors what to do but does not provide any reason why they should click here.
Often the site visitor will be forced to read content around the link to try and understand where it may direct them to.
Regretfully site visitors skim page content, rapidly trying to locate exactly what interests them or where to go to find it. Hence, adding context to a link ( i.e. link text that briefly describes the content being linked to ) adds value to both your site visitors and search engine spiders.
The search engine spiders use link text to figure out page topic. If site visitors see a link using link text such as "pre-owned vehicles," "used Lexus," "buy Mazda Miata," and "low mileage cars", like visitors search engine spiders get a good idea about what the linked to page is all about (i.e. used cars, possibly with a focus on Lexus and Mazda ).
The more link text used to point to a page the more visitors and search engine spiders can glean about what the linked to page is about.
Both search engine spiders and visitors can then match page links with page content both of which are used by search engine spiders for page relevancy and ranking analysis in the search engine results page.
The site visitor looking to buy a Mazda Miata or Low mileage car knows that clicking that link is likely to get them to the information they want.
There are three basic ways of linking between sites:
One-way
Reciprocal
Multi-way
Let’s take a look at all three types of linking between websites, understand the value that each type of linking adds to the website and then figure out which type of linking your website should engaged in.
Reciprocal linking is a link from website A to website B and a link back from website B to website A. Several people believe that reciprocal linking completely irrelevant but that's true. There is nothing wrong with reciprocal links themselves the problem actually lies in how reciprocal links are executed.
The lowest quality reciprocal links are those found on websites, which have multiple pages specifically designed to house reciprocal links.These resource pages normally display a bunch of barely related links from website A to dozens of other websites.
Each of the websites whose links appear on such resource page, build their own resource page that in turn links back to your website as well as dozens of other barely related websites.
Such low quality reciprocal link pages are usually easy to spot by both search engine spiders and visitors because they generally provide little or no value to visitors of the site. Search engine’s can and do penalize you for having such resource pages on your website.
If ever you find your website is linking to such a website, you would benefit by breaking the link to them immediately and even ask them to remove the link to your website from their resource page.
The link pointed to your website is likely has no value to visitors, but worse still by associating yourself with them (via your link) you can be sending the search engines a signal that you don't care much about the quality of websites you link out to.
There are reciprocal links that can and do pass on a lot of value to your website.High quality reciprocal linking has nothing to do with doing someone a favor in order to get something in return.
These are two links that are made independently of each other simply because you, and the reciprocating website find each other's content valuable to each other’s website visitors.
It's entirely possible that one of the linking parties has no idea the other site is linking to them because each link was given entirely on the basis of the value of the content being linked to. It wasn't pre-arranged or purposeful in any way.
That does not mean you cannot pre-arrange a reciprocal link and still make it valuable. You can. You just need to make sure it looks as natural and non-pre-arranged as possible.
Linking and receiving a link in the midst of good quality content in primary site pages can do the trick. Just be careful about how many of these reciprocal links show up at the same time.
You can have to have three or more site's linking together so there is no direct reciprocating link at all.Three-way link schemes are not all that difficult for search engines spiders to sniff out so these multi-link programs have gotten more complex.
The latest version is link wheels.
This is where networks of websites link to a second level of websites which then link to you. You can get dozens or hundreds of one-way links to your website through these link wheel networks.
Like most linking schemes these link wheels will probably have limited value over the short-term without any real long-term benefits.
On a pure value standpoint, one way links to your website are the most valuable links your site can get. This is, in most circumstances, a link to your website from someone that finds your content valuable, does not ask for a link back, and you do not link back to them on your own.
If you have amazing content, this type of link is not all that rare. The best link marketing is creating a valuable website that is informative, helpful and educational.
Of course this is not proactive marketing, which is why you see a lot of options to purchase one-way links.
Without a doubt, search engines frown on purchased links that are not clearly defined as such, both visually and/or using the nofollow attribute.
Purchase links at your own risk. If you are using a broker that claims to keep their purchased links hidden from the search engines, keep in mind that the search engines can just as easily spend money building sites and purchase links from these same networks. The hidden network is no longer hidden from the search engines and they might not even be aware of it.
Not all purchased links have zero value. Purchased links can have value only so long as such a link flies under search engine radar. This is rarely achieved by purchasing links from a link broker, but it can be achieved when done on a one-on-one basis.
Website links are an important part of a website’s search engine optimization campaign, but not every link will provide your website great value.
To get great links go outside of the box of "get me a link" and think about providing great content value to your site visitors that is worth linking to. Once you’ve done that, then consider ways to get the word of your content out to those that are most likely to link, become customers, and spread the word.
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