Link building is the process of getting links to your website onto other websites to increase traffic to your site. It goes hand in hand with your search engine optimization.

OK, you have built an amazing website with all the bells and whistles, and designed it to reflect the keywords you would like searched by using the latest and greatest Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Now it’s time to get people coming to your site and one of the most effective ways of doing this is Link Building.

The more links you have to your website, the more doorways are available for search engines to find your site. If those sites that contain your links are trustworthy and reputable, the higher the ranking your site will receive. Basically, every website out there that has a link to your site acts like a vote of confidence for your site. It indicates that someone has found your content relevant enough to put a link to your content. As a result, search engines with not only find your site faster, but will also rank it higher in their search results if the referring site is reputable.

Be careful though. If you have too many links on a single site, or on a website that may not be relevant in content to your site, search engines may consider this spam and you could end up getting your web site banned.

Well, you may be asking how do I build links to my website? Well, Turton Consulting has a number of suggestions:

1. Trusted Links
   Get inbound links from quality sites. Get your site listed on sites that rank high on search engines. Those sites are being indexed regularly because search engines trust the content on those sites. If your website gets listed on those sites, then your site becomes trusted too.
   
   Contact other prominent companies with high ranking to see if they will post a link to your website on their site. In exchange post a link on your site. In fact post their link first to show that you are serious.
   
   Remember, go for quality and not quantity. It’s not always the number of links you have out there, but the quality of the websites that have those links.
   
   
2. Online Communities Sites
   Write an article or a top 10 list and get it posted on online community sites such as Ezine. The more relevant articles you have out on the Internet, the more likely it will be indexed. The more likely someone will link to that article too. Remember to make sure your article is easy to understand and relevant.
   
   
3. Social Media Sites
   Social media sites such as Facebook and Stumble Upon are great ways to increase exposure to your website and are a game changer in link building. Create your own group or business profile. Send out requests to all your contacts and have them join your group so that you can build relationships. Continually build your contacts and relationships. In time you will have a whole network of people that can help increase exposure to your website.
   
   
4. Local Business Directories
   Contact your local Chamber of Commerce or the better business bureau. Get your site added to their business directory with a clickable link. Google also has it’s own business directory. Add your business there to help generate traffic.
   
   
5. Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising
   There are other ways to build links other than contacting webmasters of sites and writing articles on forums and blogs. One common method is to pay search engines for a link on their results page based off of certain keyword searches. You’ve probably noticed when you perform a search on Google and you notice there are ads along the right hand side of the page, or results in a pink at the top of the page. Those are paid advertisements. Whenever someone clicks on those ads, Google charges the advertiser money. Hence the term Pay Per Click Advertising.
   
   This is a fairly effective way of getting your link at the top of Google’s search results. You can set up your campaign online and specify your geographical location to target your local area. The fees vary depending on the popularity of the search term. To find more about PPC advertising, click here.
   
   
6. Blogs
   Leave comments on blogs you visit. You’re there already, why not leave a quick note with a link to your site. It’s easy and doesn’t take much time.
   
   
7. Link Building Companies
   Another method of building links is to have someone do it for you. There are hundreds of companies out there that are willing to put links to your website on various server farms that they own. For a monthly fee of course. These companies can definitely create links for you, but make sure they are quality links.
   
   Be wary of companies that claim they work for Google and can guarantee you that your site will be ranked in the top ten. If they claim this, they are lying. Google’s search engine formula is a well kept secret. They are not going to sell their secrets to some company to hijack their search results. Google wants their search results to be relevant, trustworthy and directly relevant to the search term being searched for. That is key to their business.
   
   

As the tips above point out, link building is key to marketing your business. Just make sure you get your links on trustworthy sites.

Remember Turton Consulting can help you with your link building and search engine optimization strategies. Contact us for a free estimate.

Happy Link Building!