Improve Your Web Site's Reputation –
Why? And How?

by Bill Treloar

How well you rank in the search engines when someone searches for your products or services is a function of two things: Relevance and Reputation. Relevance has to do with how easily the search engines can tell if your page is relevant to what was searched for. That's addressed through classic search engine optimization techniques for enhancing on-page keyword relevance.

Reputation is measured by your link popularity: the number of quality of web sites that link to you. Search engines view incoming links as "votes" for the quality of your site by the web site that links to you. Obviously, it's important to obtain a good number of inbound links to your site. But not all are created equal, and it's important to understand why.

Here are some concrete strategies for improving your link popularity. Where to look for links, how to evaluate potential links, and – when you request a link – how to specify the link you want.

Outbound Links Don't Count ... Much

Simplistically stated, outbound links don't really impact on your link popularity. However, search engines may treat inbound links from web sites that you link to as less valuable than links from web sites you don't link to. That's because unreciprocated links are generally considered to be unbiased "votes" for your web site. Reciprocal links may just point to you because you agreed to point to them. Such links aren't completely discounted, but they may, in certain search engines, be weighted less heavily.

If a web site is valuable to your visitors to know about, you should link to them, even if they link back to you. It will never hurt you, and you will get some benefit from that inbound link.

A Couple of Other Bad Ideas

Don't sign up for Free For All link sites. These are web sites set up solely for the purpose of selling links to other web sites that need better link popularity. The search engines are aware of this tactic and don't count those links in your favor at all.

Also, beware of the practice of setting up multiple dummy domains just so you can put up web sites that will link to your main web site. The search engines are on the lookout for that trick, too.

So What Are Good Links? And How Do I Get Them?

Actually, there are lots of very valuable link opportunities out there, some of which you may not have thought of. But first, what makes a good link?

What Makes a Good Link?

Source Page PageRank

The page that links to you should have a good Google PageRank. PageRank is Google's measure of your link popularity, on a scale of 0-10. Your site inherits a piece of the PageRank of every page linking to you, so links from pages with high link popularity count more for you.

Not Too Many Links on the Source Page

The portion of the PageRank from each page that links to you that you actually benefit from is based in part on the number of outbound links from that page. A link from a PageRank 4 page that has three outbound links may be more valuable than a link from PageRank 6 page that has 150 outbound links.

Relevant Links

A relevant link is one that's related to your target page's topic and keywords. It's possible to get all the relevance you need from links alone. A recent illustration is the "miserable failure" prank. One or more people created lots of links from many web pages, all of them having the same link text (the text, often blue and underlined, of the link itself) that said miserable failure. They pointed all of these links to the official White House web site biography of President Bill Clinton, and soon afterwards it was the number one ranked site in Google for "miserable failure". All without that phrase ever appearing on the target page itself.

Relevant links exert a powerful influence because you get a double whammy: they help both your reputation (because they're links) and your relevance (because they're related to your page's keywords.

What makes a relevant link? Consider these factors:

If the page title of the page linking to you includes one of your keywords or is clearly related to the subject of your site, that make it a relevant link. Similarly, if the text content of the source page is clearly related to your content, that makes it a relevant link. And finally, if the link text itself contains a keyword for your page, that makes it a relevant link. Think how powerful a link can be if it matches all three factors!

Where Do I Find Good Link Partners?

General Purpose Directories

General purpose directories like the Yahoo! Directory, the Open Directory Project, Zen Search, and Joe Ant are a good start. Not only are such links coming from a web site with decent PageRank, but they're also coming from a page that's all about the topic of your web site.

Vertical Directories

These are directories, but with a focus. Examples might be FindLaw.com for lawyers, MetroNJ.com for New Jersey businesses, your local Chamber of Commerce, ContractorGuide.com for building contractors, or the New Jersey Real Estate Directory. Many of these directories charge a fee for listings, and when they do it's usually quite a bit larger than fees charged by general purpose directories. But if the vertical directory has enviable search engine rankings for your keywords and gets tons of traffic, it may turn out to be a bargain.

Online Press Releases

Online press releases are often picked up by search engines like Google News and Yahoo! News, and links from such press releases certainly count as well as links from any other web site. The nice thing about press releases is that you have control over the title or headline, the text content, and maybe even the link text. What could be better?

Complementary Web Sites

Web sites that are related to yours without competing with you make great link partners, whether or not they request you to link back to them in return. Think about the nature of your business. If you're a florist, for example, chances are you often provide flowers for weddings. Wedding directories are great places for links. But what about local musicians who play at weddings? How about local wedding officiants? Local catering venues that host wedding receptions? The local tuxedo rental store? How about other florists who are too remote to impact on your local clientele? All of these may be willing to link to you, and it may be a value to the visitors on your web site to know about these other resources as well.

How Do I Request These Links?

This isn't as simple as it sounds. For directory listings, look in the directory for an "Add Your Site" link and fill out the forms. For online press releases, search for them, visit them, and find their guidelines. Remember they need press releases, not advertisements, so you'll need to write something newsworthy.

For complementary web sites, you may need a little more creativity. Webmasters are constantly bombarded with form emails asking them to link to someone. Most active webmasters with a large number of client web sites get tons of these requests and treat them pretty much like spam. To get through that defensive wall takes some effort.

If you send an email to a web site asking them to link to you, explain to them why they should. Don't just tell them that they should because you'll link back and that will increase their PageRank. The best prospects for you have an enviable PageRank already, so that argument won't work. Explain why a link from their web site to yours provides extra value to the visitors on their web site. If they ask you for a return link, give it to them. (If their web site isn't good enough to link to from your site, then you shouldn't want a link from them either.) And if they turn you down, link to them anyway if it provides additional value to your site's visitors. If it makes your site better, why not add the link regardless of whether they link to you?

If there's a web site you really want a link from, and you get no response to an email request, call them on the phone! Be prepared to explain clearly and succinctly why it's good for their site to have a link to you. It's harder to say no on the phone than to ignore an email request. Why do you suppose the telemarketing business makes so many phone calls?

What Kind of Link Should I Ask For? Three Rules

• One: don't ask for links to just your home page. Link to the page that's most relevant to the source of the link, and that will vary from one link partner to the next. Link to your optimized pages. You don't have to send all links to the same place.
• Two: Ask your link partner to use one of your keywords in the link itself. And then make sure the link points to the page on your web site that's been optimized for that keyword. Remember, the link doesn't have to reflect the actual address. You don't want a link that says www.marionettes.com/howdy-doody.htm. Much better would be Howdy Doody Marionettes.
• Three: Vary your links. Use different keywords in the links. Point to different pages on your site. Mix them up the way they would occur naturally if you never asked for them in the first place.

Finally, Hang In There!

Building link popularity is a long-term, labor-intensive project. You won't get links from everyone you ask. And even if you could, you don't want to get too many links all at one time. That looks to the search engines like you went out and "bought" a bunch of links. If they think that's what happened, the can simply fail to count those links. After all, bought links aren't true votes for the value of your web site. Spread out your effort. Spend an hour or two a month on this project. You might be able to spend a little more time on it, but don't assign someone to work full-time, 40 hours a week, requesting links for your site. If the links come in too fast, they may not count.

Remember, you're not cheating the search engines if you follow these strategies. You're convincing people that it's valuable for them to link to your site. Those kinds of links are just the kind of "votes" for your site the search engines hope to find with which to gauge your reputation. You're not violating the spirit of the process. You're just speeding it up a bit.

About the Author:
Bill Treloar is president of Rank Magic in East Hanover, New Jersey, a consulting firm specializing in making Internet marketing and search engine optimization more efficient and cost effective, especially for small and very small businesses. He can be reached at (973) 887-0778 or online at RankMagic.com. You'll also find helpful and fun information on Rank Magic's SEO Blog.