Now let's discuss links. This is where Google came in and search engines got a lot smarter. Search engines now look at pages that link to your pages as well as your page's content. They figure that if people link to your page, it must have superior content. The actual algorithm used by the search engines is a carefully guarded secret, but here is a description of the basic premise. To determine ranking the search engine will not only look at the page content, it will also look for other pages with content matching the search phrase and see what pages they link to. The text on which the link to your page is applied is also considered. If you are in the real estate business in Austin, TX and someone links to your site on the phrase "Austin real estate", that would be preferable to "Joe Bob Brokers, Inc.". All links to your site are good, but links to your site from pages that index well for your selected search phrases are better, fewer links to other sites on the page is better, and if the link is on the search phrase, that's even better.
There's a whole industry now devoted to building up links to web sites. You might have received email from these folks. What most of them are doing is paying independent contractors that own their own domains to place links on their sites. Typically these are low value links in that the pages containing your link don't index well for the search phrases you are interested in and there may be quite a number of links on the page. Typically they will say the link is guaranteed to last forever, but they rarely check the links and it is up to you to monitor them and request a substitute if a link, page, or site disappears.
To establish better quality links, I recommend the following:
- Make sure if you are a member of any industry organizations that they provide a link to your site.
- Search Google, Yahoo and Bing using your selected search phrases. Make a list of the top 50 results. Strip out your competitors (I can pretty much guarantee they aren't going to link to you). Take the resulting list and visit each site. See if they have a paid link program allowing you to purchase placement on their site. If not, find an email address you can use to communicate with them and send an email praising their web site and suggesting their visitors might find a link to your site helpful. I recommend specifying where you would like the link placed and the way you would like the link worded.
- Use sites like Yelp, Brownbook, Merchant Circle, Indeed, ZoomInfo, LocalSearch.com, MojoPages, YellowBot, ZipWeb, and HotFrog to ensure your company has a listing and the listing has a link to your website.
Next you will want to be patient. It takes several weeks for the revisions you have made to your web site and the links you have established to be indexed by the search engines.
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