Search engines like Google use algorithms which rank sites in order of "importance", based on how often other websites link to them, and the quality of these links. There are several ways to increase the number of links to your website.

You can swap links with other websites. If you decide to do this, make sure the sites you choose are targeting a similar audience, but are not direct competition. For example, if your site is for a web design firm, you might try asking hosting companies to link to your site. If you’re a florist, a wedding catering service might be happy to swap links with you. When you’ve chosen sites you might like to swap with, write a polite, well-punctuated and grammatically correct email to the webmaster, explaining why it would be valuable for them to have a link to their site on yours. Be sure to specify what anchor text you would like for your link, as good keyword-rich anchor text is an important factor for search engines.

You can also pay to get your link on other sites. You could approach individual companies and ask for a paid link. There are also many link services available which will submit your site to various link farm pages. These are not always worth your money, because Google ranks pages according to the relevance of the link. If the link to your we design site is on a page with links to catering companies, sock retailers, pet shops and ostrich farms, Google won’t think much of the link. Also bear in mind that pages are ranked higher if they are the only site that a web page is linked to. The more links on a page, the less valuable the links. If you are really serious about search engine optimisation, there are firms which offer a link-building service.

Forums and message boards are good places to post your links. Don’t spam them, though; just pop a link to your site in your post signature (the bit of text that appears at the end of every post) and your profile. You could also write articles and submit them to sites which might find them useful to post; then, insert your name and a link to your site at the end of your article.

You could try joining email lists and newsgroups about link building. You might find people on relevant forums who would be happy to swap links with you. Also, you can submit your link to sites which announce new or interesting websites (but only if your site is new and interesting – make sure you have regularly updating content which is going to be valuable for human visitors as well as search engine spiders). Offer content on your site which people will want to read and link to on their blogs and websites. You could also offer a free service or piece of software to encourage linking.

The most important thing to remember is that links will bring you human and electronic traffic. Avoid links that no human being would ever click; this is part of the reason that link farms are a waste of time. If you offer enough interesting, useful and keyword-rich content on your site, you won’t have to ask for links – people will link to you of their own volition, and you will build a good reputation as well as high search engine rankings.

Author: Natalie Catchpole

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