After the content, the second most significant thing for a good ranking is to have many links of quality which lead to your site.
Indeed, the majority of the search engines (Google at the head) use the structure of the Web to order the results of research. To be more precise, a research by keywords on Google passes by the 3 following stages:
- the Net surfer types his keywords and launches search
- Google seeks in its index which pages correspond best to these keywords (according to several criteria but which depend only on each page separately)
- Google orders these results according to their PageRank and displays them.
Why search engines do attach so much importance to the link? Quite simply to illustrate the fact that if a site A establishes a link towards a site B, it is because A "thinks" that B is an interesting site, which deserves to be visited. This link must thus make increase the popularity of the site B.
Moreover, if site A is a site of reference, i.e. a popular site, then a link from A towards B will all the more have importance.
After these first explanations, we propose you to study the following points:
- What's a Quality Link?
- Getting Many Links
- The Optimal Link Format
- The DMOZ Directory (Open Directory)
- The Yahoo directory!
We explained you that it is of primary importance to have sites which link to your's. If your little brother, who has just published the first pages of his site, put a link towards your site, unfortunately that will not undoubtedly have little influence on the popularity of your site. On the contrary, if Yahoo!decides to put a link towards your site from their homepage, then your site will quickly be propelled at the top of the results!
In fact, a quality link is a link from a page having a strong popularity, i.e. good PageRank in the case of Google.
This said, there are two other significant criteria: the number of links and the context of the linking page. More precisely, the format of the link must comply with some rules to be optimal.
Here are several techniques for getting many links:
First, let us repeat once more, have a site with real content, i.e. of value-added. Indeed, how do you want that a webmaster put a link towards a site without interest? On the contrary, if your site is an interesting content for its visitors (not a competition but rather a complementarity), then it will put a link towards your site without even having being asked to!
Second, suggest other webmasters to exchange links. Target sites treating of the same subject as you, if possible reference sites (having good PageRank). It is worth taking enough time to visit a site before sending an email. Then, be convincing, serious and cordial. Personalize to the maximum the email. Take care to explain in which form you propose to make the exchange of links (see our councils on this subject). Keep a trace of the emails which you send and do not harass the webmasters until they answer you!
Third, submit your site to directories. We particularly recommend you Yahoo!and DMOZ. If you have money, submit to Looksmart or other directories. If you don't, you may have time (hopefully!) to submit to a large number of small directories. Lastly, take time to find specialized directories (on your topic or your local area) and to submit your site there. Prepare several descriptions your site (of different lengths), as well as lists of keywords.
