Web Traffic it is ALL ABOUT LINKS

Your website can achieve higher prominence at a faster rate if it manages to secure a link on the pages of a website that ranks very well in search engine results. Additionally, having your links displayed in every nook and cranny of cyberspace will only serve your business well.  The more exposure your links can get, the higher the chances that people will visit your website.  This, of course, will result in a greater volume of traffic.

But what exactly are links and how do they work? – Let’s Discuss:

1. What Are Links And Why Are They Important?

Links are texts or images on the web that serve as routes to a website or a particular web page.  You have encountered links numerous times in your online adventures. 

The text www.directinfomarketing/turbomembership, for example, is a link. 

The text “click me” is a hyperlink, as clicking on it will bring you to another website.  The link of this one is hyperlinked on the words “click me,” which are technically known as anchor texts. A clickable image is also a link as pressing the mouse button once the cursor is over such an image will also bring you to another website.

But, why are links important?
It’s because links, ultimately, are what your potential visitor will click on so that they will be brought to your web pages.  If your website appears in search engine results, it will appear in the form of a link.  If your website is advertised in other online venues, it will also appear in the form of a link. 

We must remember that there are only two ways by which a potential visitor can load up our website:

• By manually typing our URL on the address bars of their browsers; or

• By clicking on a link to bring them to our site.

To expect our would-be visitors to manually type our website’s URL would be wishful thinking.  URL addresses, generally speaking, aren’t really easy to remember.  And they are prone to common human errors in spelling and in recalling.  Additionally, marketing our website by informing people of our URL address alone, though it is the norm for offline advertising, can be quite problematic with online promotional campaigns.  Online users won’t have the patience to memorize nor to write down our address.  They’d just surf to other ads and websites.

Providing a link is the most convenient option you can give them, as all they have to do is to click on it and voila!  They’ll be transported to our website in a flash! It goes without saying that you should strive to get your links to appear in as many places as possible.  This is essential for two reasons:

As we have mentioned above, more places for your links will mean more visibility and more visibility will mean a higher probability of people clicking on your links and visiting your website. Also, the more websites that display your links, the higher your page rank will be with the different search engines on the net.

2. What Is Link Popularity?

In your quest for places where you can display your links, you will encounter the term “link popularity” a lot.  Link popularity, basically, is the number of websites linking to your pages. If you already have a website, you can check out your link popularity by using the free tool below:

http://www.linkpopularity.com

All you have to do is type in your website’s URL and submit it.

So, how many websites display your link?  If there are only a few websites that link to yours, take it as your cue to intensify your efforts to garner more exposure for your website.  If a lot of linking websites appear, pat yourself on the back as you’re doing a great job, though most certainly you can always increase such a number.

The goal should be to increase your link popularity.  And to do this, you must be able to convince more websites to link to your pages. This is easier said than done, of course.  For starters, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.  Webmasters of more popular websites will want something in exchange.  Rarely will you be able to convince webmasters to display your link free of charge.

“But I could always offer my website to link to theirs,” you might say.  Don’t.  This is a common mistake that can be fatal for both interlinking websites.  Reciprocal linking will merit you a negative score with Google, which is the online world’s largest search engine.  A good 75% of web users rely on Google for their searches and if your website has a poor page rank because of reciprocal links, you’ll fail to tap such a rich source of visitors. You have to aim for inbound links, or those links which refer visitors to your website without having to refer people back to the website of origin. 

3. Direct Links

Direct links, of course, refer to your website’s links that will appear on other sites.  There are quite a number of ways to get direct links, but not all of them are good for your online business.  See below:

• Link farms.  These are websites especially made to collect links of other sites belonging to particular categories.  Link farms, however, do not sit well with Google, so try to stay away from them.

• Requesting for inbound links.  This is the traditional approach.  It involves having to ask selected webmasters to display your link on their pages.  Again, there is no such thing as a free lunch.  A great majority of these webmasters will expect to get something in return from you.  It may be money, which will make this approach more of an advertisement.  Or it may be in the form of some free goods or services you can offer.  There are those rare times, however, when you will get inbound links for free.

• Paying for inbound links.  No need for requests with this method.  There are a lot of websites out there that are devoting valuable real estate on their pages for paid advertisements.  You could rent this space to display a link to your own website.  This would be easier, of course, but you will have to spend for it.

• Triangular linking.  This would require a partnership with two or more webmasters.  Remember that reciprocal linking is prohibited by Google.  That is, if A links to B and B links back to A, both A and B would be penalized by the search engine giant.  Triangular linking is a great way around this.  This involves A linking to B and B linking to C and C linking back to A.  In which case, all parties gain boosts in traffic without having to suffer the scorn of Google.  The problem with the approach depends on how easy or difficult it would be for you to find linking partners.

• Distributing content.  This is, by far, the surest, most powerful way to acquire direct links.  It involves coming up with premium, unique, and highly informative content and allowing other people to use it on their websites with the condition that they include a link to your own website.

4. Back Links

Back links are clandestine strategies that will allow you use the popularity of well-established websites to your advantage.  These well-established websites, after all, are garnering thousands, if not millions, of visitors each day.  If you manage to expose your link through their channels, you’ll have the chance to win some of their visitors.

Even when your website does gets indexed, the existence of back links, especially from those aforementioned well-established websites, will only increase your own website’s page rank.  So this makes back links a win-win scenario.

There are some proven ways that will allow you to score those back links and win web traffic quite effectively and expediently.

• The best back linking strategy, as many Internet marketers will attest to, is article marketing.  This involves writing an article relevant to the subject catered to by your website and submitting it to the many article directories on the World Wide Web. 

• Forum marketing is likewise an excellent strategy to get some back links.  This involves the use of your signature box to display your link and the active participation in forums related to the subject of your website.

• You could try Google Answers.  Google Answers is a service that allows any registered Google member to ask a question for a fee.  The Google research team will then study the answers and present them as comprehensively as possible.  It is important to note that the pages created by Google Answers queries appear very prominently in relevant search engine inquiries.  The best thing about Google Answers is that it provides a forum where anyone can place their comments pertaining to the question that has been asked.  This means that you can search for questions that are relevant to the subject of your business, post a useful comment, and include a link to your website.  Every time an online user stumbles onto the well-positioned Google Answers page, your link will appear and you’ll have a greater chance of winning more visitors. 

• Blogs.  You don’t always have to find back links on your website.  Sometimes, you can actually make websites that can become the repository of your links.  The easiest way to do this is through web logs, or blogs.  Search engines love blogs.  Blogs always appear in the first few pages of every SERP.  Blogs are also very easy to update, as all you have to do is write your entries and click a button to publish them.

• Writing testimonials.  Testimonials and other third party recommendations are essential for any online business.  Sales pages that contain testimonials generally have a higher conversion rate than sales pages devoid of the same.  You can use this need to your advantage by writing testimonials for other Internet marketers.  By way of practice, the marketers who receive your testimonials will include your name and a link to your website below the said testimonials they publish.  This will benefit both parties.  Your name and your website’s link will add credence to the testimonials you have written and that are displayed to sell other marketers’ products.  And the inclusion of your website’s link will fetch for you some fresh traffic that will be advantageous for your online business.

A discussion on each of of the topics above and further explanations can be found on the Web Traffic Explained Ebook. It is a very good investment at a price that is a bargain compared to the immeasurable knowledge it promises to share.

 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 pm and is filed under eBooks & Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.