For many e-businesses, receiving a high search-engine ranking is the Holy Grail of free traffic and increased profitability. However, there's only so much that you can do on your site to improve your placement in the search engines. For many companies, the difference between top rankings and utter obscurity is inbound links.

What are Inbound Links – And Why Do Search Engines Care?

Inbound links are links to a specific page of your website from other pages, both on your domain and from other sites across the internet. Search engines use inbound links to determine how important a web page is. Their reasoning is that, if a page is really great and informative, other sites will be sure to link to it.

Not All Inbound Links are Created Equal

Search engines are smart enough not to rank all inbound links equally. The link from your cousin's personal website is not going to be given the same level of importance as a link from a major newspaper or university. The best links come from sites that are:

• Reputable
• Related to your page's topic

Link Text is also Important

If text that is used in the link reflects your keywords, your page will receive an additional boost for those keywords in the search engines. For example:

Mediocre Link:

For more information about inbound links, click here.

Good link:

Click for more information about inbound links.

Link-Building Strategies

How can you increase the number of inbound links that your business pages receive? Some great ideas include:

• Writing great content. The best way to build reputation and encourage links is to create a lot of content that people will want to link to.
• Joining the conversation. Post on other blogs and forums with useful comments and tips – and use a link back to your site in your signature.
• Write about other experts in your field. The chances are high that the people you write about will link back to your articles.
• Social networking. Writing catchy and informative articles will increase your chances of being featured in social networking sites like Digg, Delicious, and more. That's a big traffic driver, as well as a good source of links.
• Give articles away. Write some useful information for article directories, and include supporting links to your pages. People will spread the word by using those articles in newsletters and on their websites.
• Be helpful. Answer questions on sites like Yahoo!Answers. Include supporting links back to your site.
• Don't forget internal linking. Make sure that you cross-link among the pages of your site wherever it makes sense to do so.

By following these tips, you can dramatically improve your likelihood of ranking well in search engines and driving lots of free traffic. Too much for you to do on your own? Let us help; call 08452 579606.