How Important are Incoming Links

If you have a Web site, you know that people need to be able to find it. In order for them to do that, you not only have to get the word out there but you also have to make people see that what you have is important when it comes to what they are looking for.

Inbound links can help raise your chances of getting a better ranking in the search engines, but only if they have relevance to your site and if they come from sites that are also high-ranking. Both of these things are important, and which one is more important is arguable. In the past it was believed that the page ranks of inbound links were more important than anything, but many of the larger search engines have since changed their algorithms.

With that being the case, the relevance of the sites that are giving you inbound links and the keywords that they use are becoming more significant than the page rank of the sites that offer the links. One thing is clear, however: getting inbound links to your site from relevant sites is crucial if you want to succeed and see your page rank rise.

One Way Links From an eBay Store

If you are into search engine optimization (SEO) then you know the importance of one way links. Reciprocal linking (or trading links) with relevant websites is still useful but one way linking has become increasingly important to online visibility. Obtaining high quality inbound links to your website without offering a link in return is tough work, and not always free. You have to be willing to set aside a reasonable budget for link building, but it is well worth the money and it is the smartest SEO investment you can make.

Popular ways of obtaining one way links to your website:

• Directory listings – some are free, some you must buy (usually permanent)
• Blog / Forum postings – social media/viral marketing

One way of acquiring backlinks to your site that is often overlooked and hardly ever talked about is from an eBay Store. eBay actually setup their store pages to be quite search engine friendly, which e business marketing specialists can use to their advantage. They let you specify the titles and keywords for all of your category pages. With a basic eBay Store subscription you are allowed to create 5 custom store pages. These pages are automatically built into the navigation of your store and quickly become indexed by the search engines. You can then deep link to pages within your website from the text on these custom pages in your ebay store.

SEO benefits of an eBay Store:

• Ability to specify titles and keywords for category pages
• Search engines love eBay listings
• Deep linking to pages within your website (one way links)
  
• Ability to control the anchor text of these backlinks
  

eBay has some strict policies regarding linking to external websites from listings or store pages. You must only link to outside pages that do not directly offer the same or similar items for sale (example: you can’t link to a product page on your website from your ebay store if the webpage shows a ‘buy now’ button or any prices)

It is wise to limit the outbound links on your ebay store pages to 3 or less per page. This would be about 15 total links from your ebay store to different pages on your website. A smart thing to do would be to link to the homepage on your website with about 5 of those links and with the remaining 10 link to different pages within your site (i.e. category pages or informational pages).

When you figure that a basic eBay Store will cost you $15.95 per month you can imagine what a great investment it is – not to mention you will probably sell your items as well. 15 one way inbound links for under twenty bucks? you can’t beat that.

The whole point of everything mentioned above is to improve search engine rankings and ultimately the online exposure of your business. The more keyword-rich backlinks you have pointing to your website the higher you will rank. Spend the extra time on your link building… it could be the single most important factor in search engine optimization.

Advanced Link Building

Many webmasters realize that ranking on the top spots in the search engines for their keywords will result in many potential clients coming to their website. The higher you rank, the more customers that find you, the more money you make. With that in mind, every good webmaster knows that you have to participate in quality link building campaigns to start ranking for your highly trafficked and highly profitable terms.

If you look around the web for ways to build links, a lot of people tell you the obvious that you have already heard. Submit to directories, write articles, and exchange links, which has been repeated since 1999. So how can you build some strong links after you have already done the directories and simple stuff?

1.) Social Media
Social media sites are becoming insanely popular in the last two years, and many have some excellent pagerank on them. You can submit your websites to the most popular ones by visiting SocialMarker.com or by using Google to find your own social media websites to submit to.

2.) Pligg Sites
Pligg is an open source script that runs many of the social news websites. You can do a google search for “powered by pligg” and find over 1 MILLION places to add your link to, although it will take a bit of time.

3.) Buying links underground
A great way to build some links (if you are careful) is by joining webmaster forums like Digitalpoint.com and buying strong links directly from sellers, which reduces the risk that Google will find you. You should only do this if you know what you are doing though.

4.) Profile Links
Many websites that you can sign up for a free profile allow you to enter your homepage in your profile. The good thing about 90% of these websites is that they do not even know what link building is or how it will benefit them. You can use this to your advantage by joining hundreds of these websites and getting that good link from your profile, and then you can even promote your profiles with social media sites like I listed above.

These four areas you can spend countless hours building some excellent links if you have the time and effort to do so. So get on out there and start building some links to improve your search engine rankings.

Looking for Links?

If you’re looking for links, you’re not alone. There are all kinds of ways to boost link popularity, though. You just have to look for them.

How many links you need for a good ranking, depends on how many your competitors have. If they only have a few, you only need a few. If they have hundreds…well, you’re going to need to do some serious link building. It’s also not just the number of links that you have. They need to go to sites that are popular and that are of good quality. Otherwise they are mostly pointless.

Directory listings are a great way to get links, so that should be your first stop. Next, work on getting reciprocal links from complementary sites that aren’t competitors. You should also create a testimonials page where you recommend products and services and you may get links to the sites that you like. You can also publish articles and make sure that they have your bio and link information so that people can find you. Discussion forums, affiliate programs, and contests are also all great ways to get more links.

Link Trading- What You Need to Know

If you plan on trading links, there are some things that you should know. You’ll probably start seeing some link trading offers in your inbox once your Website has been established for a while. There are some advantages to trading links with others.

Basically, you put a link to their site on your Webpage and they put a link to your Website on their page. It takes a little bit of time to do that, but it’s really not difficult. Some people wonder what the point is, but you get free advertising by trading links, and that can be a great thing, provided the site that wants to trade with you is a good one. You can also put a lot more links on your site that way, and search engines like links, as long as they are legitimate. With that being the case, the more the merrier.

Just make sure you pay attention to the sites that you’re linking to. If they don’t represent the kinds of values that you have or they would be detrimental to your site or your customer base, you don’t have to trade links