This week we promised to give you more idea’s on how to build a link strategy for your website. There are different types of links, inbound and outbound links. Inbound links are links to your site from another and outbound links are links you add to your website which link to other websites. Both are important to improving the SEO of your website.

Outbound Links

Outbound links are important for a couple of reasons. They help search engines understand your niche, which is important because your links should be relevant to your business in order to count effectively toward your SEO score. Outbound links also help increase the trust and quality of your website.

To find out what Google thinks are relevant to your site there is a great little Google tool you can use right from the search bar in your browser. Just search for “related:(your domain name).com” in Google. For example below is what is returned for one of our therapist clients:

Try to link with other websites in the same niche as yours and try to link to websites which are already trusted.

Do not sign on with an online service that promises lots of outbound links. If you do there is a possibility that your site could be banned from search engines because you were linked to a bad website.

Use Wikipedia liberally! If you have a word that could use a definition or more explanation you should link to Wikipedia. They are still one of the most trusted domains from Google’s point of view.

Always have outbound links open in a new tab! This method will keep the bounce rate lower.

Inbound Links

Inbound links are probably the most time consuming to cultivate, but ultimately help improve your credibility even faster.

Discussion Forums

Find discussion forums in your niche and start participating in their discussion forums and post a link to your site while you’re solving their problems. Don’t forget to add your bio information and include a link to your website whenever it is available.

Use an RSS Feed

RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, but it’s purpose is to spread your content to anyone who wants to pick it up in a common format. It is commonly used to create Newsletters. You can get hundreds of back links from scrappers looking for content.

We automatically create an RSS Feed for every website we build. You can see other articles we’ve written about RSS Feeds HERE.

Write Quality Content

Yes CONTENT IS KING!!! If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times, the best way to improve the ranking for your website is….

Frequent and Relevant Content

Writing quality content that people want to read will spread your links like wild fire. We make it so easy for our website clients by providing you with an easy to use form (link in the footer of your website). Once you submit an article we get notified and we will add beautiful headers, images & optimize it for your keywords. Then we publish it and it automatically pushes out to your social media sites and your newsletter feed (if you’ve signed up for one).

You should be writing an article relevant to your business at least once a week.

Directory Listings

Don’t forget to claim your directory listings. When you Google the name of your business you will see many places where your business is listed. In many cases you just have to claim it as yours and fill out the relevant information including your hours, website URL and other important information. If you can add photo’s, then make sure you do that too.

My hope is that you leverage the power of your website. Remember that your website is much like your business card; if you don’t hand it out, no one will know about you.