the Art of Zen

Inbound Linking – How to Get Non-Reciprocal Inbound Links
While the search engines are re-indexing your site, you need to start getting inbound links. While reciprocal links work in the beginning of your journey to the front page, the way to get high rankings and maintain that ranking (along with relevant content of course) is through non-reciprocal inbound links. And to make clear the message ringing through this series, I feel compelled to mention that inbound links need to hold relevance to your content, market and industry to be worth a damned. So how do you get them… or do you make them?

Well it’s a two fold situation. The best way to establish inbound links is to create them yourself; then let some of those links build on themselves. The first thing you need to do is plan your link structure. The best inbound links are text based, and include the text of the link itself and a “title” tag that includes a more in-depth description of the link. The link text and “title” tag text need to be relevant to the content on your site to be effective.

Let’s say you own a candle store and are promoting non-dripping candles.
Ineffective link:
< a href='http://www.mysite.com' title=”visit our candle site” >Visit Us< /a >
Effective link:
< a href=’http://www.mysite.com’ title=”We sell fragrant and non-dripping candles” >Get non-dripping candles at mysite.com< /a >

The above sample is rather basic but makes the point. The link has to be relevant and needs to use keywords associated with your site.

Some directories let you set up your own link structure, but this is better used for other ventures in link building. Take the time to join an industry related forum and make sure you set-up a signature with the above linking structure for your web site link. Set-up a blog and post information about your products, services and/or industry news. Set your posted to be syndicated and join some blog directories so people can add your posts to their blogs. This allows your blog signature (again, with the linking structure above) to be spread to other blogs that get indexed and increase your relevance. Another way to get in-bound links is to submit articles to syndication sites that offer free articles for other sites. Your signature stays with any articles that people pick-up; and gets listed as relevant content linked to your site.

I know we are all busy people and we don’t always have time to write articles or post to forums or blogs, but this is a surefire way to get inbound links that are one-way, and you’ll know they hold relevance to your site.

To finish this series I want to remind you that following these basic practices will help you gain relevance and popularity online; which in turn will increase your rankings on the search engines. But you need to consider the cost of taking the time away from your business to do all this. Is it more profitable to try to do all this yourself, or to hire someone who does this for their living? Either way, I wish you all the best in your journey to the top of the search engines.

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