Internet Marketing

Work for High Quality, In Bound Links to your Site. If you have a high quality site, chances are, many other sites link in to you already. But if you have a new site, or have only recently applied the quality guidelines, you may not have many links coming in to your site. Here's how to work smart to earn high-quality inbound links to your site:

a. PR ? In this instance, PR means good old-fashioned ?Public Relations?. Get online and offline media coverage, and always promote your website. Write press releases and distribute them on search engine friendly news distribution services like PRLeap, PRNewswire, or MarketWire. News sites are often high-quality, high-traffic sites: and it is well worth it to get good press, regardless of its search engine value.

b. Directories ? Submit your high quality site to high-quality directories. The granddaddy of all directories is the Open Directory Project ? and submitting your site here is the best place to start. Be careful with other directories ? check them for quality before you start submitting. You don't want to waste your time submitting to low quality sites.

c. Distribute articles. Often, niche websites are looking for high-quality content from good authors. Offer to write an article, report, or position paper for a website where you want to be featured. Ask for a byline, a short bio, and a link back to your site.

Power Tip

For example, I wrote an article in June 2005 with the unlikely title ?Ancient PowerPoint Secrets?. If you searched for that term in May 2005, Google would have yielded ZERO results. But a month later, Google shows 590 sites with that phrase ? & every single site carries my byline that says something like:

Laura Bergells is a writer and internet marketing consultant from Grand Rapids, Michigan. You can read her blog and hear her podcasts at ?A PowerPoint Blog by Maniactive.? You can also download free PowerPoint templates at www.maniactive.com

This one article took me about an hour to write ? and not only do I continue to receive click-throughs to my http://www.maniactive.com/ site, but the article also significantly boosted inbound links. You can do the same with your area of expertise. After all, high-quality sites are looking to publish high-quality articles about their niche. Write for these sites, and approach them with your quality content...and earn a quality in-bound link back to your own site.

d. Comment on blogs and editorial sites. Subscribe to quality blogs that you enjoy reading and that complement your own site's offerings. Post thoughtful comments, and if appropriate, use the opportunity to link back to a relevant page on your own site.

Bonus: Important Inbound Link Strategy Tip

Use appropriate keywords in your anchor text. Anchor text is the set of word you request for the hyperlinks back to your site. For example: http://www.maniactive.com/powerpoi.htm and "Free PowerPoint Templates" both point to the same page on the same site, but one uses a descriptive keyword phrase to accurately describe the page's content for the user. Search engine spiders also use anchor text as one of the key factors that determines your site's placement at the engines. As you develop your inbound link strategy, brainstorm a set of keyword phrases you will want to use as your anchor text.

Free Online Tool: The Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer - Which sites are pointing to you right now....and what anchor text are they using? Find out by using this free online research tool, the Backlink Anchor Text Analyzer -- and find out what kinds of keyword phrases that sites are using to link back to your site. In some cases, you may be in a strong position to write to the webmasters and request that they use your preferred anchor text to link back to you.

How anchor text can help (or hurt)  - In some cases, a significant amount of inbound links that contain the same anchor text can get your site to the top of the engines for this phrase....even if the inbound links do not reflect your site's content! This might be wonderful if hundreds of sites link to you using positive and appropriate phrases...but beware of the phenomenon called "Google Bombing", where webmasters band together to link to your site using negative keywords. With the growing popularity of blogging and social media, Google Bombing is becoming easier to do, and has the potential to become a public relations nightmare.

For more information, read about the most famous example of Google Bombing for the term "miserable failure."