A great way to increase your website traffic on the web is link building. It has been said that having a lot of outside links to your web site brings in higher rankings. This is true and false. There are sites out that are a lot like directories of directories. Their called “link exchange networks”. They claim that if your site has a link from them you’ll get the type of link you need for high Google ranking, leading to lots of traffic. Some directories even charge for this. These sites tend to serve no real purpose for the user or the linked. They’re in essence irrelevant, to everybody. Search engines know this so don’t waste your time you do not want anything pointing to your site that has no real value. Google won’t “de-index” you for using them but they don’t place much value on them. In essence (theoretically speaking), you could get one “theme based” quality link that would replace 1000 links in the link exchange networks.
On the other hand sites with high ranking and lots of traffic, is a great link, one that is worth some effort. A site that is well respected and valued lends a lot of confidence in where it is pointing. You want it pointing towards you.
One of the things I like to do is do some Google searches in areas that would make great incoming links to my site. For example lets say I’m working on my camera sales website. I would seek out some photography sites who them selves have fairly high ranking and/or notable in their field. Now they don’t have to have the highest ranking, as they probably wouldn’t waste time with you anyway. Look for sites that are up and coming.
First I would contact them and offer a link exchange. By link exchange I don’t mean a “links page. Ideally you want links pointing to your website from within the “content” of another website. The content of the other web page should be related to the page it links to on your website. A one-paragraph endorsement of your site which includes the link, and visa versa. This type of link has more weight in searches then a mere link on a links page.
Gaining a link from within the content of an outside website to the related content of a web page on your website is called “Theme Based Linking”. Theme based links are the highest quality link you can have. Most sites have junk links pointing to them. You want to avoid building links the way everyone else does. Junk + junk = More Junk.
You need to make link building a part of your everyday site building tasks. Ideally you want to get links not only to your core domain but also to every page of
your website. The idea is to start with your home page and work your way down
to each section and then work down.
Sometimes offering to pay something for the link is money well spent. When you find a good page that you want to place your link on, Contact the webmaster, tell them that you like the content on their page and would like to buy a link from that page to your related content.
Theme based links within the content of your website are, by far, the most powerful link you can get. Other ways of building links include commenting on blogs, posting on forums, and press releases. By getting theme based links to your site, you can effectively dominate your market because most every webmaster that is aware of link building goes for the link exchange networks where their links are listed in a directory type link swapping structure. You will be doing things differently…
Is it worth the work?... Absolutely, it is the single factor that raises your traffic
both from the page you are listed on and from a subsequent rise in rankings. Every theme based link you build grows your PR. The higher your PR the more often the Google spiders stop by to visit. Over time they’ll feed you traffic, more and more. Google is the key to a high ranking website.
by Pat Mosca
Internet Marketing
