Link Building

PageRank, relevance and are you trustworthy?

Steer clear of websites offering themselves to you. There's something not right there. Instead seek out potential partners, target them, woo them, strike...

Darwin and natural selection

PageRank is an important part of Google's ranking algorithm - some would say the most important aspect. The higher your PageRank, the higher your site will be ranked. The PageRank within your website is increased by pages from other sites linking to it, and the higher the PageRank of those pages the better it is for the recipient site - i.e. you. So in your hunt for in-bound links a handful of links from sites with a PageRanking of five or above is going to be of far more intrinsic value to you than hunting around for hundreds of low PageRanked sites. Be selective with your links - ten good ones are better than a hundred naff ones.

Yes, but what's the connection?

With in-bound links, obviously a high PageRank is important, but that's not the only contributory factor. There needs to be a relevance between the content on the website that's linking to you and your own site. It's not much good having a website with a PageRank of seven linking to you if you sell T-shirts and the referring site is a hotel directory. There's no connection, there's no relationship, basically there's no point...

Here's an idea for you

Believe it or not, there are websites out there who actively want links to your website. Type in one of your keywords or phrases and then type 'add URL'. For example when I was looking to promote my book The Bloke's Guide To Pregnancy I typed: 'pregnancy "add URL"'. I was then presented with numerous websites that had some connection to pregnancy and accepted URL submissions. Priceless.

This is a time consuming exercise. Some sites will want reciprocal links in exchange, some will want to charge you and some just don't work. Ignore all except those sites that allow you to add your URL with no strings attached - your perseverance will be rewarded. Within 72 hours the number of in-bound links will begin to rise, and if any of those linking sites have a high PageRank you could notice an increase to your own rank the next time the Googlebot pays a visit. You can repeat the exercise by searching for the keyword 'add link' and the keyword 'guestbook' to ensure you capture all of the sites out there offering you a chance to market your site.


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