Underrated.co.uk – Search Engine Optimisation

Much like networking in the real world, it’s important to make your presence known on the net. Whilst it’s no substiture for earned inbound links, link exchanges can play a meaningful role in any website promotion process. Exchange links with website in the same niche as yours, or in related topics can really benefit your site in terms of search engine ranking. The below tips link should give you a basic understanding of link exchanges can benefit you:

1) Exchange links with sites in the same niche as yours

Google and co like to be about to present relevant content to visitors. What better way to prove to them that your site is relevant then to be linked to by a series of sites in the same niche as yours.

2) Attempt to exchange links with authority sites

Of course this won’t be achieved overnight. In fact, if you have a new or not so popular site, approaching a site with high in the raking for your keywords of choice will likely not even gain a reply. If you can build your site popularity over time though, this may eventually appear to your to-do list.

3) Scan the top 30 or 40 listings in google for keyword terms you wish to rank well for. These sites may be worth approaching

Similiar to the previous point, but if you’re approaching sites on the top 30 or 40 it may allow you to get a foot in the door ranking wise. From here at least you have a base to build from.

4) Try to exchange links with sites of similiar popularity to your own (check out alexa and extreme tracking if available)

Whilst you’re attempting to work on SEO do not simply discount sites on SEO value alone. It may be useful to you in the short term to approach sites of similiar worth as it should filter some visitors your way. SEO work is a long term project so it occasionally helps to feel that you are moving forward in a short term sense too.

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I would suggest that site wide link exchanges are not always the way to go. If a link is sitewide it is not naturally occuring (like a link within an article for instance. Excessive sitewide links may could against you with google and co. I would instead suggest that you either go the route of exchanging links on index pages, or set up a link partner page.

Without a shadow of a doubt backlinks are the primary factor in how your site ranks in search engine listings. If you don’t have authority websites and/or a mass of lesser quality inbound links pointing towards your site, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to achieve a high ranking for any keyword that is in the least bit competitive.

How do search engines rank sites?

Think about it like this. Search engines like google are designed in such a way that they aim to provide the surfer with links that are most relevant to them. If you throw up a website in ten minutes and nobody links to you, it’s unlikely that you’re offering anything of value to the masses, hence you will likely not rank well. Should you have great quality content and optimise keywords/title tags and so on, , this is helpful in terms of on site claity, but again if this content is not being linked to, it won’t rank well. Onsite optimisation is very important, but it’s only part of the puzzle.

Offsite elements form a core role in any marketting strategy. Google, and search engines like them are very friendly towards pages that are linked to from authority sources. By authority sources I mean sites that  are effectively the “go to” website for that particular subject. If you cannot snare authority links or agree upon a link exchange, all is not lost. Sites such as digg.com are a great way to introduce people to your content and gain backlinks as are directory submissions. I’ll go into these areas much more at a later date. Remember: if your content does not draw attention, then nobody is going to want to link to it, or plug it.

Backlink Factors

So you think you have quality content and the potential to gain quality backlinks. Well in this case, you’ll want to make the most of that situation and gain maximum benefit from the inbound links. Of course many people will organically link to your site. As such you have little control over optimisation in these cases, but in other cases you do. These elements all factor in:

Anchor Text

This refer to the text of the link to you site. If you wish to rank well for the term “SEO backlink Strategy” you’d need to be linked to as something resembling that keyword phrase. Should you wish to be be searchable via your company name. You may wan tot be linked to as this. Consider what will result in the most relevant and quality traffic heading your way. I would advise you not to use the exact same anchor text all of the time, as google and co, may frown upon this.

Text surrounding Link

Search engines are designed to give prefered treatment to websites that have grown popular by organic methods. For this reason links to your site that are embedded within documents/articles are deemed to be more natural (than link exchanges for example) and as such are a sought after commodity. It’s important to have a diverse SEO strategy and you won’t go far wrong if this forms a part of it.

Age of Link / Site (sitewide not important)

If a five year old authority site links to a page on your website, google, yahoo and co and going to pass on some of that authroity to your site. If a five day old site links to yours it probably won’t have any positive impact at all. The longer your link remains on a site the better as it gains more trust. Of course its also important if you are in a niche, for the in bound links to be in topics relating to your site. If you run an acne site, it’ll benefit you to appear on a medical site, but not so much if the link is on a site unrelated to the subject matter. 

Number of Links

If a hundred sites link to your site with anchor text “construction companies in wales”, then it is likely that your site actually relates to that subject matter, hence you should rank reasonably well. It’s not simply a numbers game though. It would benefit you just as much to be linked to via a few popular sites in your niche, as it would be be linked to from a multitude of unpopular websites. It’s not simply a matter of choosing where you are linked to though. You need to devise strategies to get your website recognised. We’ll save that topic for another day.