Internet Marketing the Simple Way

What is a Link?

As the name applied, it is a connection from another page of a site or blog post to your site.  That form is called a link.  A lot of links form a link network.  Every page on the Internet has a link network which is made up of the pages that link or point to that page.  These links can come from other pages on your own website which are called internal links and from other websites that link to you which are called external links. Together these links form a link network that is unique to each page.

Why you need a lot of links?

To achieve a top ranking in the major search engines, you need to get a lot of links pointing to your website. Having many links to your site on websites that are relevant to yours will increase your link popularity factor. This will increase your rankings at the search engines including Google, Yahoo, and MSN among others. Then, you’ll have more visibility, and correspondingly more clicks to your site, and if you’re selling anything, this translates to more money in your pocket!

However, not all links are counted by Google.  Some links such as link farms are filtered out.  Your site could be

harmful when your webmaster have a link from a penalized site.   So be careful which sites you link to.

I am not going to get into how Google use algorithm to calculate the page rank at this point.

Quality link means authority and credibility of your site.  It is based on the benefits of your site to the community as a whole. If your site has a high authority or you have links to high authority pages, then you have a higher page rank. For example, the university site such Stanford.edu has a high page ranking because a lot of people go there to get great information.  In reverse, if your site is new or has links to other new sites, your site is ranking zero or none ranking.  The higher the ranking the more popular of your site on search engine and the more traffic to your site.

Types of Link

There are two kinds of link: inbound link and outbound link.

The inbound link is the link from other pages of website to your site and the outbound link is the link that is going out from your site to other sites or blogs.

Authority and Ranking

Authority site means you are providing benefits to the community.  There are a lot of people coming to your site and other blogs or sites link to your site too because you are the expert in a particular subject or niche.  Those people want to learn from your about what you do as a professional.  It is the same thing as people follow you in your Twitter account.

Why is that link so important?  Well!  that the way Google set the page rank.  It is ranking your site or post page based on casting a vote for the other page.  If you have more votes that are cast for a page, Google considers that you have an important page.  And your page’s page Rank is calculated based on the important on each vote.  And it is one of the factors the determines a page’s ranking in the search results.

Watch the YouTube video that explains how important it is of link building.

There are two factors that influent the authority and ranking.

The first factor that influences the rank of a page is the number of incoming links. A good way to think of this is that each link is like a ‘vote of confidence’. If a lot of other websites are linking to and thereby voting for a page then it suggests that the page contains good quality content.

A second factor that influences the rank of a particular page is the authority of the linking pages. For example, the first website is linked to by 3 relatively new bloggers who just enjoyed reading the page. These linking pages do not carry a lot of authority and so the ranking impact of these links will be minimal.

The second website, on the other hand, is linked to by CNN.com, USA.gov, and NASA.gov. These linking pages clearly DO carry a lot of authority. The fact that these high authority sites are linking to this page transfers authority to the page and has a high impact on its rank in the search engines.

How do you get links to your blog or site?

Here are some ways to get links:

• Exchange links with other blogs or sites
• Place your comment on other blogs
• Use Yahoo Answers to get links in your niche
• Use forums related to your blog

Speaking of link exchange (reciprocal link), if you use WordPress blog, there a plugin that you can use to create a link directory (Website directory).  It is called the WordPress Link Directory.

The link exchange may eventually result in your directory ranking higher in the search engines and having a higher PageRank.

How to Install the Plugin

Step 1. Go to “Plugin” tab, Click “Add New” near the “Mange Plugins” label, then enter “WordPress Link Directory” in the space provide and click “Search Plugins” tab.

Step 2.  Make sure the type selected is “ WordPress Link Directory Plugin”.  Click install.

Step 3. Activate the plugin.

Step 4. Create a page by going to the WordPress “Write/Page”.  Enter the “Title” of your link directory.

Step 5. To create your categories, pages, and links in the page area, insert the following:

Step 6. Publish the page.

You will notice in your WordPress Admin Page that a new “WP Link Directory” option is available.  By clicking on that menu you will be able to choose the settings and options you want your Link Directory to have.

Check the “reciprocal link HTML” box for the accuracy of your link title, URL and description.

Create the categories that you want to allow others to link to.

Note: leave the “Permalink” box blank, otherwise it is NOT going to work properly.

What Do You Think?

I love to hear your thoughts about this blog post.  So please leave your comment below.

Related posts:

1. Links: How to Generate Quality Inbound Links
2. Do You Want to Do Link Exchange? Here is How to Exchange Links With Other Websites
3. Page Ranking: Is There a Relationship Between the Page Ranking and the Search Engine Ranking?
4. Keyword Research: Why Keyword Research is Important?
5. Ads: Is Advertising Your Site/Blog Generating Traffic?

6 Responses to “Links: Why Links to Your Site are Important?”