Link building is an important aspect of website search engine optimization (SEO) since not all visitors to the site arrive through organic searches; many arrive from other sites or from paid ads through links. Internal links connecting different pages of the site improve navigation for visitors and web spiders. External links from other websites not only bring additional traffic, many search engines will give higher ranking to a site based on the number of its incoming links (‘link popularity’).
Considering the advantages, link building to other sites should be actively pursued once a website is operational (internal linking should be addressed at the website design stage itself). Link building normally takes the form of ‘Link Campaigns’ to persuade other website owners or site managers to link to the site by providing correct information about the site and its contents. This can usually be best achieved by embedding the links in specific keywords or phrases i.e. including the right keywords in the anchor texts of the links. This also increases quality traffic and improves conversions.
Many websites include a ‘Link-To-Us’ function; an HTML link-to-us coding which can be copied and pasted in the webpage source code of the site wanting to link in. The essential point to remember for effective link building, however, is that other websites will consider linking to the site only if they feel that it is worth their while. Hence, firstly, the website content has to be informative and useful and secondly, the linking process should be simple; one that needs the least amount of work for linking to the site.
The aim of SEO is to drive traffic to your website. This can be done in several ways. The traditional way is to get listed with search engines. Search engine optimization means understanding keyword density and providing relevant content. There are two main search engines today: Google and Bing. Both these have their own algorithm based on which they rank your website.
Since link building is a huge part of SEO, it is necessary to create suitable links with other websites. Buying and exchanging links is now a big market.
Driving traffic purely through search engines is no longer an optimal solution. With the phenomenal growth of social sites like Facebook, MySpace and others, it is now necessary to engage ourselves with them. By participating in various forums, it is possible to drive relevant and focused traffic to your website.
Video sites like YouTube have gained importance. It is possible to create a viral marketing campaign using popular videos which are initially hosted on video sites. You can generate a humungous amount of traffic with videos.
In SEO circles it is said that content is king. Search engines love content. Your search engine ranking is likely to get a boost if you provide good quality content on your website. You must remember to use appropriate keyword density to attract search engines. Search engine bots look for any change or additional content when crawling through websites. Static content does not enthuse these bots.
Driving traffic to your website requires thrust from several angles. SEO alone is unlikely to make your site wildly successful. Social sites should be leveraged to boost traffic to your site. In the final analysis, it is the quality and quantity of your content which will determine whether your site attracts traffic. Everything else can only assist in adding to the numbers.
