Know Thy Links - Search Engine Optimization Guidelines
By Erin Sparks
Remember the good old days? (They weren’t that long ago.) Your company needed a Web site. Someone in-house either knew how to put it together or you had a friend, relative or a friend that had the “know how”. It was simple and easy. You got marketing presence in the virtual world via your new URL. You put that Web address on ads, business cards and brochures and everyone was happy. Your virtual brochure.
Fast forward to 2006: search engines, the Internet and modern Web sites are sophisticated and complex. No longer can you have your husband’s nephew’s daughter’s friend make a Web site for your company—at least not if you want to appear on page one of Google.
Web site experts agree that while the Web world continues to shift and change, core strategies of how to make your Web site search engine friendly are steadfast: keyword-rich text, content-driven architecture and strong link development. The first two are no secret: use words in Web site copy that people key into search engines and map your Web site based on content of your offering. It’s the last tenant that’s a new idea in the world of site development—the links.
Who’s linked to your Web site?
The concept of linking to other Web pages and sites is core to the understanding of the Internet and search engines. Web editors link to internal documents and supportive content of pages. Then we navigate by clicking on the links they create.
Google, AltaVista and other major search engine companies have created sophisticated algorithms that read and review your Web site to decide how high of a placement you deserve. One of the keys to the algorithm is finding out who is linked to your Web site and reviewing to whom you’ve linked your site. The more credible the linkee and linkor, the more credible you read to the search engine.
Quality sites with rich, supportive, themed content enhance “page rank” (the measurement of how Google and other major search engines rank content). Conversely sites with a lack of content, linking pools and link-spamming sites negatively affect its rank. A Web site manager must be vigilant to take advantage of good link resources, while removing poorly ranked links that may have dire effect on content ranking.
How dire can that effect be? Take for example a client that recently requested a link report. The client was truly surprised to see the number of companies that had linked to his Web site. He had never heard of most of the companies and wasn’t aware of how many had linked to his corporate URL. The report showed the page rank value at a very low range—also another surprise. Subsequently, our task was to clean up that inventory of links and get that site on the “straight and narrow.” The client now appears at top positions in major search engines, in no small part due to the removal of negative rated links and the addition of more good content.
What are your Web links?
While it’s important to know which sites have linked to your site, it’s also important for you to link to the right Web sites. These off-site links are valuable to the Web site visitor. They enhance content. They establish credibility and define said site as a resource-rich set of documents.
Search engines are guided by the links that you establish on your site’s pages. Search engines will “read” the content of the sites you have linked to. Search engines have evolved (almost to the point) where they assess a value to those pages, and then attribute a value to your Web site’s internal pages based on that link.
The internal pages of your site are understood in the same fashion. Engines match the word content entered into a search and look for content deeper inside a site. If a Web searcher seeks, “A-grade widgets Indianapolis,” then the widget company should include “A-grade widgets” and “Indianapolis” in the Web site copy of subsequent pages of the site. Engines match the content you provide on any given page to the content deeper inside your site.
A multiple-page theme of information regarding your organization’s services, goals or simply the amount of product you have on your virtual shelves aid in communicating to the search engines that your site is a deep resource of information pertaining to the site’s key concepts.
Are you Cyber-Driftwood?
If you created a Web site in the old days using one of those aforementioned family members, you might be floating in cyberspace like driftwood trying to make it up on the beach. Developing a content-driven link structure might just be the wave that sends you ashore.
This means taking the time to contact (mail, e-mail and telephone) the companies that you don’t want linked and request that they remove the link. The next step is to contact companies that you want to stay linked and say thanks. There are always companies that will increase your search engine scores and those you want to link with. Contact them and arrange the link.
Finding the best links in your genre takes time, but be persistent and select the best. The value of those links will present itself to you quickly as you see the position that your site has on the Search engines quickly change. Make sure that you solicit only quality content sites, but also make sure they are known to the Search engines. Getting links to sites that the Search engines can’t find is an exercise in futility, at least for your search engine audience, the people that want to find you.
It’s certainly not as easy as the good old days, but quality that drives results always takes time. |
