How are links important in SEO?
Link anchor text helps your site rank for your important keywords
Ever heard of "Google bombing" or "link bombing"? This is where a webpage is able to rank highly for a search term purely because there are many sites linking to the page using those words in the clickable anchor text. This is how a search for "miserable failure" was once manipulated to show results for pages about President George W. Bush, or for documentary film maker Michael Moore.
It didn't matter that these sites had no mention of "miserable failure" in them, what mattered was that hundreds of other websites thought differently and linked to the sites using that text. Although search engines now employ measures to prevent "link bombing" from manipulating search results to show unrelated content, it's evidence of the search engines' emphasis on anchor text for determining rankings and relevance.
Links bring you PageRank
PageRank, briefly, is the "reputation" of your site, based on the number and quality of sites that are linking to you. It's one of the core ideas behind Google's ranking algorithms, and even though it isn't the only thing that determines your search engine ranking, it's a useful thing to work on building. Of course, the only way to build PageRank is by getting links to your site.
Links bring you traffic!
Beware, however - a lot of affiliates get caught in the "must build PageRank" mentality and thus don't bother to get links from sites that don't "pass on" PageRank; they forget the most important thing (and the reason for building PageRank in the first place) - your goal, first and foremost, is to get traffic to your site! If you can get your links in places where they will receive a lot of click-through traffic and targeted visitors – even if the link doesn't give you PageRank or help your search engine rankings – then all you've done is skipped a few tedious steps and gone right to the finish line. So don't look past blog sites or social networking sites when you're building links: these can deliver lots of good, targeted traffic.
What makes a good link?
Some links are better than others. What makes a good link depends on which of the benefits we discussed above interests you most.
Improving your ranking for keywords
Link that improve your ranking for a specific keyword use your keyword in their anchor text and aren't marked with the "nofollow" attribute.
Improving your PageRank
Links that are good for improving your PageRank come from sites with high PageRank, appear on pages where there aren't too many other links and aren't marked with the "nofollow" attribute.
Good links for getting traffic
Links which get traffic are enticing and interesting or arouse curiosity. One good trick is to leave a thought unfinished, or ask a question that people want to know the answer to - then people have to click through to find out!
Also: Don't be spammy! Remember you're trying to get people to click on your link, and they won't click if it looks like rubbish. Finally, if this link is only being used to garner traffic, it doesn't matter if you apply "nofollow" (or it's automatically applied).
Link anchor text helps your site rank for your important keywords
Ever heard of "Google bombing" or "link bombing"? This is where a webpage is able to rank highly for a search term purely because there are many sites linking to the page using those words in the clickable anchor text. This is how a search for "miserable failure" was once manipulated to show results for pages about President George W. Bush, or for documentary film maker Michael Moore.
It didn't matter that these sites had no mention of "miserable failure" in them, what mattered was that hundreds of other websites thought differently and linked to the sites using that text. Although search engines now employ measures to prevent "link bombing" from manipulating search results to show unrelated content, it's evidence of the search engines' emphasis on anchor text for determining rankings and relevance.
Links bring you PageRank
PageRank, briefly, is the "reputation" of your site, based on the number and quality of sites that are linking to you. It's one of the core ideas behind Google's ranking algorithms, and even though it isn't the only thing that determines your search engine ranking, it's a useful thing to work on building. Of course, the only way to build PageRank is by getting links to your site.
Links bring you traffic!
Beware, however - a lot of affiliates get caught in the "must build PageRank" mentality and thus don't bother to get links from sites that don't "pass on" PageRank; they forget the most important thing (and the reason for building PageRank in the first place) - your goal, first and foremost, is to get traffic to your site! If you can get your links in places where they will receive a lot of click-through traffic and targeted visitors – even if the link doesn't give you PageRank or help your search engine rankings – then all you've done is skipped a few tedious steps and gone right to the finish line. So don't look past blog sites or social networking sites when you're building links: these can deliver lots of good, targeted traffic.
What makes a good link?
Some links are better than others. What makes a good link depends on which of the benefits we discussed above interests you most.
Improving your ranking for keywords
Link that improve your ranking for a specific keyword use your keyword in their anchor text and aren't marked with the "nofollow" attribute.
Improving your PageRank
Links that are good for improving your PageRank come from sites with high PageRank, appear on pages where there aren't too many other links and aren't marked with the "nofollow" attribute.
Good links for getting traffic
Links which get traffic are enticing and interesting or arouse curiosity. One good trick is to leave a thought unfinished, or ask a question that people want to know the answer to - then people have to click through to find out!
Also: Don't be spammy! Remember you're trying to get people to click on your link, and they won't click if it looks like rubbish. Finally, if this link is only being used to garner traffic, it doesn't matter if you apply "nofollow" (or it's automatically applied).
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