Internet Marketing

Note: The first four ONSITE factors are critical for search engine ranking: but OFFSITE factors are increasingly important in 2006. The most indispensable OFFSITE factor is inbound links: how many other sites link in to your site? And what is the perceived quality of these sites?

Your best OFFSITE strategy: earn the interest and respect of high quality sites...so that they will link to your site. Notice that focus on the word ?earn? again: if you continually work on your ONSITE factors ? you are already on your way to attracting interest and attention.

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Step Five: OFFSITE Basics

Check the QUANTITY of sites that link to your site. To check to see who is linking to you, Marketleap provides a free online tool that lets you see how many sites each of the top three search engines see as linked in to your site. You can see at a glance how you stack up against your competitors...as well as drill down and find out exactly who is linking to you.

Marketleap provides useful information, and you can use it in a number of creative ways. For example, if you see that a site is linked to your competitors' sites, but not to yours ? you can evaluate whether it is appropriate to pursue the site's webmaster and request that he/she link to your site, as well. If the site has negative things to say about you, you will want to decide how to handle fallout from bad publicity. And if the site says wonderful things about you, it may be worthwhile to write a thank you note and pursue a marketing relationship with the writer.

Bonus Video!