Ways To Get Inbound Links
How many inbound links does your site have? Try this and you will see your links.Type in link:www.yourdomain.com (substituting in your actual domain name) to see how many inbound links you have.You can also try this technique on key competitor and peer web sites to see how they are doing.
You can also enter the same searches at Yahoo.com. You will get slightly different results at Yahoo than at AlltheWeb.com, so you should always check both.
To do better in the search engines you need to bump that the number of links to your site up considerably.
Notice that quantity of links is important but quality also matters. Indeed, a site may have more inbound links than another site but still have a lower PageRank. That's because the other site probably has some very high-quality inbound links (i.e. inbound links from high PageRank pages).
What sites can you get links from?
You should be thinking about things like this: associations you belong to that might link to your sites; vendors that might link to your site; job sites where you post positions; partner sites; client sites; trade publication directories, etc.
The best way to find out sites that might link to you is to look at who links to competitors and peers. For example, search on link:www.competitordomain.com (again, making the obvious substitution) at www.alltheweb.com and you will see all the sites that link to your competitor's site.
Look at each of the inbound links to your competitors and consider if you might be able to get a similar link. If the answer is yes, take the necessary steps to get that inbound link!
In searching for backlink opportunities, it's sometimes better to start with a smaller competitor because it's a smaller list to start from and because you are more likely to be able to get the links they got. A large public company in your business might be listed at www.nasdaq.com as a member firm; you won't get a link like that unless you too are a public company.
How you reach out to potential linking sites is up to you. Taking the time to visit each page and write a customized email solicitation is very effective but sucks up time.
One can use a more efficient approach that sends many emails to webmaster@domainx.com (where domainx is variable), and the email says "I notice you link to Competitor X on this page – URL here. Could you possibly add a link to our site? We are…"
However, that approach is pretty spammy, and, compared to undertaking a more sincere and personalized effort, you are less likely to get many quality inbound links.
Before you start emailing websites, asking for links, create a spreadsheet in which you will record every contact you make.
If you don't keep tabs on who you've been in touch with, you may find yourself going through the same exercise six months from now, and having to start from scratch.
Now, you understand the fundamentals of getting inbound links. There are other clever ways to get inbound links, but will save those techniques for a future article.
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