SEO For Dummies Part II: Just Link It

As I wrote in my last blog post, unless you are employing SEO strategies on your website, you are basically invisible online.  (I am still invisible online, so don’t worry if you still are, too.)  SEO for Dummies Part I covered on-page optimization, thanks to the generosity of SEO expert Harry Brooks, President of Search First Marketing.  Because our conversation on SEO got so long, I had to break up the information he shared with me into two posts.  In this second post, I share with you what I learned on the importance of links to and from your website.  I knew they were necessary, but I had no idea that they played such a key role in SEO.   Unlike on-page optimization, which is very technical, creating links is not that hard.

From iQoncept on Flickr

As Harry explained, links are connections from one web site to another.  Keep reading and you’ll see lots of them: They’re the blue underlined words.  Click on one you and go to a new web page or website.  As Harry told me, “It’s the nature of these links and how the search engines view them that connect social media and search engine optimization.”

Google explains it pretty well in their Webmaster Guidelines:  “Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity.”

A link from one web site to another (aka, a backlink) are gold in the SEO world.  Think about it: why would someone provide a link to a web site if it didn’t contain useful or interesting information?  Links drive traffic to your web site and make web pages more likely to appear at the top of a search engine’s results page, which, in turn, pushes more traffic to your website.  It’s a nice little cycle once it gets going.

OK, so you need lots of backlinks.  This is where social media comes into play.  As users share information, it gets shared over and over again in a viral transmission. “Herein lies the key,” said Harry.  “The way to share information online is to link to it. As users view articles, web pages, videos and news stories, they are likely to share them by providing a link for their friends to follow. The more links, the more important Google thinks the page is and the higher it will rank in the search engine.”

Here’s how you build backlinks:

1.      Forums are online communities that cover a range of topics.  Join ones that are specific to your industry, participate in conversations, and share information that includes backlinks.

2.     Blogs have unfortunately been abused a lot of people, so building links through comments left on blogs is not always possible.  If you can comment on a blog, pick a user name that provides keyword context for your website.  So I would leave a comment under user name “MarComm Expert”.

3. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn are the most popular social networking sites, so you might as well focus on those.  If you don’t already have accounts with them, sign up today!  They are great ways to connect with people in your industry, your clients, and prospective clients.  Include backlinks in some, not all, of your posts and tweets.  The people I most enjoy following provide a mix of information, commentary, and witty banter.

4. Online News Releases have democratized public relations.  Write a newsworthy press release sprinkled with backlinks to your website, submit it to an online news release service like PR Web, and it will get distributed and picked up by news services.  PR Web is recognized as an authority, so backlinks from their website can drive a lot of traffic to your website.

5. Articles work a lot like press releases, but they are informative rather than news-y.  Submit them to an online article distribution service like EzineArticles or GoArticles.  As long as what you are writing is relevant and interesting, it will be shared over and over again.

Now that you are no longer an SEO dummy, get crackin’ on SEO for your website.   Don’t forget that Network Solutions offers SEO services, too.  Whether you use them, Search First Marketing, or someone else, just link it. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Search Marketing, social media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.


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