SEO - Links Or How To Save $3,000

By Bob Reece

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - I've come to almost hate that acronym. Why? SEO seems to consume my business day, is the most frustrating part of a Webmaster's duties, is confusing at times and is slow with rewards. What can you do about it? Well, you could hire a company to do SEO for you. I found one such company on the web (through a search) that was willing to do this for me on an annual basis for only $3,000. Yes, that price is correct and it's a recurring annual rate. WOW!!! You might say to yourself, "Is it worth it?" This might also cause a light bulb to suddenly turn on - SEO is time consuming. SEO also requires one to continually investigate, read and understand the changes taking place with search engines on how they factor websites rankings. But, you can save yourself quite a bit of money ($3,000) by learning how to acquire SEO. Once you understand the basics of SEO and start implementing them, then the rewards are sweet.

In this article I'll discuss one of the most important elements included in SEO - links*.

Your ultimate goal is to have your website listed within the first three pages of a search engines search results. For every page after three it becomes very unlikely that someone will click on your website, let alone even look at it. People are less patient - we all lead busy lives and most of us don't have the time, or want to take the time to click through page after page of search results. Can you picture doing this?

Something I've noticed with search results is redundancy. By the 10th page, if not sooner, I see some websites repeated and in some cases repeated several times. So, imagine yourself as you advance each new page of your search results and you see some of the same websites pop up again and again. Will you stop the search at this point? I do.

What can you do to see your website listed within those first three pages? One contributing factor to accomplish this is you want links TO your website from other websites. Why? Because the primary search engines, specifically Google, include links to a website as part of their factoring the rank listing for search results. Not just any link. This is important -- the kind of link the search engines care about is a link from a highly rated website (it should be listed in the first three pages).

When I mention links, I'm referring to "hot links." A hot link allows one to click on the link (can be text or graphic) to be taken to that website. Any other kind of link won't cut it. How do you get links to your website? It's really easy -- just a little time consuming.

Your goal is to get a list of websites (again, within the first three pages) with relevant subject matter to yours. Conduct your own search using several of your keywords for your website. Visit the websites and look at the links they have posted, (make a note of those because you might want to visit them, too) understand what products they're selling, check to see if they have a policy on how they link to other sites, etc. Finally, ask yourself, "Would I want my website linked from this one?"

Once you decide which websites you prefer to link to yours, you'll need to contact the website directly. Check to see if there is a "contact" section on the website you like or if there is an email address for the Webmaster.

Now, write them a letter or email. Tell them how much you like their site and why. Make specific references to the things you like. Mention your website and how theirs and yours relate - again, offer specifics here. Conclude your note with asking them to add your website to their links and offer the same for them (we're all in this together). I recommend you do a follow-up letter if you do not hear from them in one week.

You can verify links to your website. For Google: type in the search box - link:intlbusiness-inet.com. Replace intlbusiness-inet.com with your URL. You'll then receive a list of websites that link back to yours. Pretty cool! For a general link research go to linkpopularity.com and follow the directions.

Once you start building a good number of hot links, you'll soon see your website ranking improve on many of the search engines. Once you do, don't stop your practice of SEO. You must stay on top of that. Good luck.

*--There are many factors that contribute to SEO and this is always evolving. For the purposes of this article I will focus on just one factor - links.

About the author:
Bob Reece is owner of International Business-INet and Webmaster of http://www.intlbusiness-inet.com a clutter-free, pop-up ad free website devoted to helping small business websites succeed. He is Webmaster for Eric von Schmidt's art at http://www.vonsworks.com Mr. Reece also serves as President of a non-profit organization.

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