While it is possible to sit back and let others create some inbound links for you, the value of these links means that you should be actively pursuing them. Your site will benefit from having other sites link to it, and getting quality back links takes work. There are some easy things you can do to generate them.

When companies first became aware that having other sites link to their main site would boost their search engine ranking, people, frankly, went a little insane. Free link directories were set up all over the place and companies tried to boost their popularity. This had a short-term good effect for some rankings, but search engines soon became aware of these questionable links and were quick to penalise for them. Unfortunately, some companies still fall for the idea that any link is a valuable link, even when it’s on a page that’s empty of content.

Link swapping was the next technique in vogue, but that swiftly lost its efficacy as well. The reason for this is, as Google so often mentions, search engines are looking for ways to promote sites of genuine value to their users. Ultimately, this is what you want, too, so that your viewers will turn into repeat traffic or paying customers. It’s just that search engines guidelines can be frustrating when all you want to do is boost your site’s PageRank.

When going out and link building, keep your ideal page viewer in mind. Post content that is interesting and relevant, with a link back to your site. This not only gives you a link but will hopefully end up generating links on its own, as others find the content interesting and post it on their own sites. Post content on sites relevant to your industry.

The content you post can be a number of things, and doesn’t always have to be hugely time-consuming to write. You can post articles with an eye to having them syndicated, so that they take on a life of their own. Post comments on industry sites and blogs. Post your own blog’s tags to social media tagging sites. Interact with the internet community and let them know who you are.

It helps to know what not to do. Avoid pages that feature poor quality links, are completely irrelevant to your page, or just list links wholesale. These sites aren’t trusted by search engines and won’t do your ranking any good. New sites are always a risk when link building. Sites that feature a lot of new links in a short period also tend to get booted off the index. Any site that has anchor text that is irrelevant for the pages they link to you should stay well clear of – not only because search engines will hate it, but your viewers will, too, if they enter your site expecting something different.

The quality of content you post is related to the quality of the links you will receive. Your content should be short but interesting, and present your keywords in a natural manner. One of the most frequent mistakes made by companies trying to get inbound links is to stuff their content with keywords and hyperlinks. It’s not just search engines that are suspicious of this kind of content – your human audience is as well, and is less likely to follow a link when they come across it. Talk to us at SEO Consult about the best type of content for your business.

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