Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Quick Ways to Get Inbound Links

We all know that inbound linking is one of the biggest factors that influence a page’s search engine ranking. It’s all a part of that game we call “link popularity”. Originally pioneered by Google, it plays an important part in virtually all search engine algorithms, now.

In addition, inbound linking brings directly clicking traffic. Can’t beat that, now, can you?

The thing is, that it can take some real time to build up a significant amount of inbound links. A lot of people don’t realize just how long and steady this process can be. You’re not just shooting for five or six links, here. Ultimately, you’ll want hundreds, even thousands of inbound links. That can take some hours, and some long-term effort. Even still, there are a lot of things that you can do to get started very quickly.

Each one of these suggestions takes less than a half hour to complete. Granted, the results won’t be fancy, but the inbound link will be established, and that’s the bottom line.

  1. Make an informational page on a free two-page website

This one is especially effective for customers of Clickincome, but even still, anyone can go there and sign up for a free two-page informational/brochure website. With the free site established, build a main page and an informational page that reflect the subject matter of your main web page, or talk about the uses of your products. Think inform, not sell, and your pages will be more impactful. Write the text with some good, strong relevant keywords. Link both pages back to your website. Then go and register the site with Google and Yahoo.

  1. Make a blog

There are hundreds of free blog hosts out on the ‘net. Two of the most popular are livejournal.com and blogger.com. You can create a new free account in a matter of minutes. Write a single blog posting that’s relevant to your site’s theme, and add a link to your main website. Blogs hosted at popular sites also get indexed by the search engines often, and that will mean that your main site will also get indexed quickly and often.

  1. Make a Facebook and a Myspace page

Two of the biggest social networking sites today are Facebook and Myspace. You can join both of them for free, and set up a profile webpage with links back to your main site. Each one will take you under a half hour to set up, and you'll have more inbound links!

  1. Make a Squidoo Lens and a Del.icio.us page

Sites like Squidoo and Del.icio.us are called “Social bookmarking” sites. Once you create an account, you create a page of your own. Squidoo calls it a “lens”. Basically, it’s a page where you share your favorite links, and, of course, one of your favorite links has to be your own website. You can also add Amazon.com affiliates, and other stuff to your profile to attract other visitors as well as make a little cash.

  1. Make a YouTube channel

One of the cool things about YouTube is that you don’t even have to make any video clips to create a page there. Simply go to the main page, sign up, and choose a few video clips to add to your profile page (your “channel”), and add a link to your main site. Make the video clips relevant to your website’s theme, and they might even draw traffic.

Remember throughout this process to keep the content relevant. Use things in each spot to attract your audience. Set these up in places where your own audience is going. Get in front of the people who are interested in your products. Also, as you're setting up the inbound link to your main site, remember to use keywords in the link text!

Another important thing to remember is to interlink all the sites and pages you’ve built. Not just to your main site, but back and forth to and from each other as well. That way the entire network shares the love!

Doing these simple things can jump start the inbound linking on your site. You can, of course, go back into each of these sites from time to time and adapt them. Choose new videos for your YouTube channel, add a blog entry, add some more relevant links to your lens or your Del.icio.us page. Update and maintain them, and they’ll serve you well.

Mark is the co-director of http://seotrafficmagnet.com, the search marketing consulting arm of Clickincome (http://clickincome.com). Mark also has other sites and blogs, including MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

No comments:

Post a Comment