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SEO 101: Why Are Links Important?

Written by: Troy

Article Overview: Driving increased traffic to a website is one of the main goals of search engine optimization (seo). In order to garner a generally high level of traffic to your web site, your site must be easily discovered by prospective clients and web visitors.

SEO 101: Why Are Links Important?

Driving increased traffic to a website is one of the main goals of search engine optimization (seo). In order to garner a generally high level of traffic to your web site, your site must be easily discovered by prospective clients and web visitors.

Traditional advertising methods help, like printing your URL on print ads, business cards, letterhead and brochures, however an estimated 81% of Internet users say they use search engines to target and find information they deem useful, making search engines the best place you should focus your efforts in attaining enhanced visibility for your site.

Search Engines Now Employ New Search Methods

Unfortunately, over the years, this has become an increasingly tricky proposition. When search engines like Yahoo and Google first came into existence, they freely wandered on the web, crawling sites and publishing links. But, as the number of web pages continued to grow to astronomical proportions, it became necessary for the search engines to create a method by which they would prioritize what they would display.

At the start, most search engines focused mainly on the invisible Meta tags that accompany each web page. Experienced website owners knew to well that loading their keywords into these tags would quickly ramp it up the search engine listings. Sadly however, it also was very easy for unethical businesses to manipulate these tags, usually thru spamming, and as a result lure Web users to sites that didn’t have anything related to the information they were seeking.

Links Are Like Footnotes In Books

During the development and evolution of the Internet, it has become routine for site owners to give credit to other sites for the material or content they publish. Website owners do this by putting a link on their site to the web page of the other site. One could consider links to act like a footnote in a research paper, as a way to reference the work of someone else. Before, there used to be a time when links didn't matter, though at least not like they do today.

A few of the search engines looked at back links for a portion of their algorithms, but it didn't carry the same weight as it does today. Now, in order to be competitive in nearly any online industry, back links are essential. Back links do not only give the search engines a barometer of a site’s popularity, they also aid in determining the topic, and relevance of a site in relation to its targeted keywords. Though the art of seo is, and will always be very important, gathering relevant back links is steadily increasing in importance.

Where To Start Building Links

A lot of individuals would generally ask, what would be a nice spot to start building links? An appropriate venue would be directories. Directories are great way to beef up your inbound links. There are a lot of directories on the web, and it may be tough to find a starting point.As the importance of link density continues to grow, its important not to forget about traditional seo.

seo techniques will always play a part in Search Engine Rankings. As the major players like Google focus more on links, they will always have a part of their algorithm that relies on traditional seo factors. By having a comprehensive seo campaign, you could increase your visibility to prospective customers.

Related Articles
  Link Building Methods Types of Links
  Measure inbound links
  How to Use Link Building Packages Effectively
  What Does Google Look for in Links?
  Key Factors In SEO

Article Tags: advertising methods, astronomical proportions, business cards, evolution of the internet, footnote, google, main goals, meta tags, optimization seo, print ads, prospective clients, search engine listings, search engine optimization, search methods, site search engines, traditional advertising, tricky proposition, unethical businesses, web users, web visitors



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Re: Bad SEO techniques? - There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash
Re: Bad SEO techniques? - [quote="WebBizIdeas.com":1jr37kqx]There are few more techniques which also known as the Bad SEO Techniques or Black Hat SEO Techniques. Such as: - Relying on keyword metatags - Purchase Links (From Spamming or blacklisted sites or doing purchase links on high level for site marketing) - Horde Page Rank: This is one of my favorites, because it's one that most webmasters don't understand yet. This is because it changed over the past year or two. The concept people have in their mind is that page rank is a key part of site rankings and linking to other sites "leaks page rank" from your site. However, the world has changed. - Swap Links: Another oldie, but not goodie. Search engines want links to represent endorsements. Swapped links represent barter, and they are trivial to detect. Don't swap links for the purpose of building page rank. It's a waste of your time - Implement duplicate content - Use Session IDs on your URLs - Use lots of Javascript - Implement your site in Flash[/quote:1jr37kqx] Hi Jeff, Thanks for adding to the list. I have one question, though. How would one implement Session IDs for a URL, and what benefit would come from doing so?


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