Frontline Perspectives

Linking is a key component for a powerful Web site.

Linking is an extremely powerful component in developing a rich and relevant Web site. Current research indicates that the Google algorithms put as much or more weight on the quality and number of your inbound links as they do to the quality of your content.

Some things to keep in mind as you develop your linking strategy:

Choose sites that are relevant to the same keywords as your site. When these sites link to you, your site is a more powerful piece. For example, if you’re a medical equipment manufacturer, looking for sites that have content about medical equipment safety, repair, usage, design, etc., would make for strong link choices.

Think about ways to develop rich Web site content that makes other sites want to link to you as a resource or an authority on a topic. That’s the real turbo charge to link development because the links proliferate on their own without needing to make explicit efforts to make it happen.

Make it easy for affiliated companies (distributors, etc.) to link to your site in a professional manner by providing the code to do it (and whatever graphics) in a snippet to their Web production people.

Think about the keywords that you want to gain search engine traction on and specifically brainstorm sites that are relevant to those keywords. Pursue your link strategy in the most focused way with those sites.

Here’s a quick list to use as you develop the list of options for developing inbound links to your Web site:

1. Your distributor Web sites.
2. Your blog.
3. Your Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter accounts.
4. Your trade, industry and community.
5. Your charitable organization Web sites.
6. Your vendor Web sites.
7. Your customer Web sites.
8. Your online postings of press releases.
9. Your industry online directories.
10. Your trade publication Web sites (and supplier directories).

Also, general directories like Device Link for the medical industry and ThomasNet for industrial suppliers will often have sections for free listings (and places your press releases can be posted), along with many opportunities for paid advertising.

Don’t forget to develop intra-site links (between pages) on your Web site. Link to the most relevant page on your Web site for the application- which shouldn’t always be your home page. When developing the content used on these other sites, be sure to use the keywords your site is optimized for.

Lastly, your linking strategy should be reviewed quarterly. Benchmark the amount of visits you get from referred traffic in your analytics package (people who visit that came from a link on another site) and look for improvements to track the success of your efforts.