How important are links? It depends on your business but
generally for most web sites, links are more important
than search engine ranking. For one thing, some search
engines use links as a criteria in determining your
ranking. More importantly however, appropriate links are
the best way to generate high quality pre-qualified visitors.
For example, if someone is looking for an antique vase
and does not find it on an antiques page, they are more
likely to try a link that says: "Looking for an Antiques
Vase? Try these quality sites." than they are to retry a
search engine. In fact, most users will follow links from
site to site based on a recommendation in order to find
what they are looking for. They will revisit the search
engines only after their leads dry up.
Getting people to link to your site is consequently a high
priority requirement for anyone that is seriously interested
in promoting their business.
Who should you try to get to link to you? In simple terms,
anyone and everyone. In more practical terms however, it
depends on the effort and what you have to give up in return.
Exchanging a banner ad on your site for a link from a high
quality busy site may be extremely valuable for attracting
new visitors. The banner may however, redirect your hard
sought visitor to the banner site and away from yours.
Banners also tend to clutter a web page, increase the load
time and distract your visitors. You can only put up a
limited number and then what do you exchange?
One of the first things people discover when they start
looking for ways to promote their site are link exchange
sites. Simply submit your URL and put their banner on your
site and they will start sending you thousands of visitors.
By making just a few exchanges it should not take long
before your site becomes inundated with visitors.
When was the last time you cruised a link exchange site
looking for somewhere interesting to go? The fact is people
look for sites with search engines or by search lists and
recommendations at related sites. Link exchanges will
produce few if any visitors and if they do they will
probably not be prime candidates for your product or
service. That is not unless you have a link exchange
site yourself.
So link exchanges are a non-starter!
Not necessarily. There is actually a growing value to
having these links to your site. As previously mentioned,
many search engines, especially second generation engines,
are starting to use site popularity as a way to rank your
site. In other words, a site with 100 links to it will
rank higher in the search results than a site with only
5 or six. It is consequently important to establish links
to your site both for the traffic they can generate
directly and for the indirect value of improving your
search engine ranking.
Although Link Exchanges may be of value, it is better
to put your initial efforts into exchanging links with
related sites. Not only will they generate more visitors,
the visitors they do generate will be better qualified.
If you sell camping gear why not exchange links with
campgrounds. What about competitors? Sometimes competing
stores attract more combined customer when located near
each other than when they are not. This is a judgment
call on your part.
Join a Web Ring related to your topic if one is available
or create one if not. Avoid putting too many links on
your home page. Create a link page if you have a lot of
links and put any Link Exchange banners at the bottom if
you do decide to use them.
You can determine your site popularity on many search
engines by entering a special code. Try these searches
replacing "yoururl.com" with the URL of your site.
Steve G. White is the lead software designer at Virtual
Mechanics which develops HTML and Dynamic HTML applications.
Steve also publishes IMS Web Tips, a weekly newsletter of
tips and tricks on web site design and promotion.
Newsletter: http://www.IMSWebTips.htm
Home Page: http://www.VirtualMechanics.com
