Articles

Building Links For Your Business' Website

Posted on Jan. 5, 2012  by William Ogrodnik - Senior SEO Analyst

"Link-building" is a general term used to describe anything and everything web designers do to develop links leading to a web site on the Internet. It is the key technique used to gain backlinks to websites in search engines such as Google, and it's one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization. It is perhaps one of the most important techniques one can utilize in the whole Search Engine Optimization process and I strongly recommend working with an SEO specialist and/or seasoned webmaster in order to build quality links.

There is a wide variety of different link-building techniques used in SEO, and some "Black Hat" techniques, such as buying links off websites like Fiverr, for example, are not approved by Google. Its known that almighty Google punishes web sites severely for buying links with the intention of increasing their Google Page Rank so it's important to avoid buying links, roll up your sleeves and use proper link-building techniques to gain page rank.

Proper link-building is a complex process that involves receiving links from other websites to your own site. Some webmasters feel that having a link to your website on similar websites with high page ranks will encourage Google to raise your website's page rank, and this is one of the reasons why web directories that offer "do-follow" links are so popular.

Not all links are created equally however, and while most professional webmasters know the difference between "do-follow" and "no-follow" links there are still many online developers that don't. To some SEO experts, the difference between do-follow and no-follow links seems insignificant but many feel the opposite. In my honest opinion, I feel the bottom line is do-follow links help your site gain page rank and no-follow links don't do anything except possibly bring visitors to your web site. With that said, leaving a no-follow link with an insightful comment on a popular blog can bring a significant amount of traffic to your business' website–especially if it's about a topic or in an industry that's related to the site on which you've posted your link.

Utilizing numerous outbound do-follow links on your web site is seen as giving away your "Google juice" by many SEO professionals and can cause your web site to lose its page rank. Many sites, including popular wikis, social bookmarking sites, corporate blogs, private blogs, and others across the internet only have no-follow outbound links along their pages. Getting a do-follow link on one of these sites is essentially impossible, and speaking of impossible—another link that everyone wants is a do-follow link on a site with .edu or .gov domain extensions, which are seen as a kind of "Holy Grail" by webmasters. Some are willing to pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to obtain a do-follow link on a website with one of these rarer domain extensions even though it's a very risky process that most SEO specialists can only cautiously recommend.

Link-building is one of the simplest and effective ways for you to reach your desired audience, but it takes a lot of effort and and plenty of time to build high-quality links. It is not as easy as it appears, and many feel that link-building—like Search Engine Optimization in general—is a form of art. Most SEO professionals agree that link-building can be used as a secret weapon against your competition, and at 29 Prime we're always on the lookout for new avenues by which to keep our clients' businesses in the search engine spotlight. Visit our website to stay updated on how we're taking SEO into 2012 and beyond!