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This is the second part to Search Engine Optimization Unmasked for CEOs. Link-building is one of the most important tasks you will do or have done to your site for SEO. Here is some information about building links for search engine optimization.
LINKS TO YOUR SITE
Now that you know how to tell the search engines what you do, let’s talk about how to convince them you’re important.
Links to your site (or “inbound links”) are the most important factor in ranking. The more links you have to your site from other sites, the better your ranking (related sites generate better rankings).
TIP: Think of the Internet as a big election. All the websites in the world are candidates, and all the links to those websites are votes. The more votes (links) a candidate (website) has, the more important it is, and the higher its ranking.
There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious (like auto-generation software). Others are legitimate, but offer limited results (like asking customers and suppliers to list you on their sites, and adding your site to various business directories). You can experiment with these methods, but I’ve always found the best way to generate inbound links is to write helpful articles and let publishers of newsletters and e-zines use them for free – on the proviso that they link back to your site.
People who publish e-Zines and newsletters are always hungry for quality content. And there are websites out there dedicated to giving them just that. If you submit a well written, relevant, helpful article to one of those sites, you can have thousands of newsletter publishers ready to snap it up. Then you just sit back and watch the links multiply!
TIP: This method is beneficial in other ways too. Readers of your article will see that you know what you’re talking about, and because you’re published, they’ll see you as an authority.
It’s impossible to say how much time you’ll need to spend generating links. You just have to keep at it until you have achieved a high ranking. Even then, you’ll still need to dedicate some ongoing time to the task, otherwise your ranking will drop.
Summary
So to cut a long story short, it comes down to this. If you have a lot of the right keyword phrases, used in real sentences, distributed realistically throughout your site, and a lot of links from other relevant sites, you stand a good chance of being ranked highly.
That’s what you’re paying your providers for. And that’s what Search Engine Optimization is all about.
