Newsletter August 2015

Inbound Links are Still Important

Over the years, obtaining links that point to YOUR site has always been an important and ongoing aspect of SEO. Google has made various public statements about links, as well as not so public statements. Inbound links can indicate how important, relevant and popular a website is in Google search and are also known as backlinks / back links, incoming links, inward links.

Google gives more credit to websites with a high number of related links and is an important factor in Google rankings. In general, you need as many RELATED web sites linking to your site as possible.

Let’s attempt to define ‘related’. If you have a roofing company web site, you should start with requesting links from your material suppliers, distributors, etc.. Roofing associations are also a great source for inbound links. If you have other UNrelated sites linking to you, it will not help you. For example, if you are a weekend fisherman, requesting a link from the local Fishing Blog to your roofing company web site is a waste of your time and effort.

Next I would request links from your local Chamber of Commerce organization(s). It may not be exactly a roofing company, but it relates to the business community, therefore Google values these inbound links.

Brain-storm and come up with as many related businesses as possible. Now the question, ‘How many inbound links do I need?’  There is no clear answer to this, except to say, ‘More than your competitors!’ One way to get an rough idea how many inbound links you (and your competition) have is to do a Google search for ‘link: www.YourWebSiteURL.com‘. A better tool can be found here www.LXRMarketplace.com. (BTW, did you just notice that a created a link from RWD’s Newsletter to LXRMarketing, related to web tools. This is GOOD for LXR, and they did not even have to ask me.)

Sometimes requesting these types of links can be beneficial, sometimes a complete waste of time. That is why you want to request these inbound links in a

natural / timely manner. Don’t suddenly go wild and send out 125 emails to ‘webmaster@relatedwebsite.com’; If Google sees that this past month your site has 45 new links, when the last 3 years you have averaged 1 per month … that is a Google red flag. Not good.

BTW, one of the very first things I do when a site is launched is to place a link onhttp://www.richswebdesign.com/clients.shtml to your new site. Google knows this page, they spider it often and is a quick way for new sites to get into Google.

If you need my assistance in this entire process, simply let me know.