The most important page on your site is naturally the home page and as this is the page that is most often pointed to by internal and external links this is the page that carries the most 'linking power'. This is more usually called 'page rank' (Google) or 'Yahoo Web rank' (Yahoo).

Important note: If you are promoting an e-book, guide, tutorial or you are using a similar marketing technique then you should make your links come back to the promotional page and not your home page. As this is the page that you will want to go out and compete for you in the search engines.

The way that linking algorithms is of course a closely guarded secret, however it's known that the more links that you have on a page the less 'linking power' is assigned to each link on the page. Thus a links page with 75 links on it is going to give little benefit in link boost and also a small amount of traffic, it is after all competing with 74 other links.

This is where the front page link swap is such a powerful strategy.

By swapping a link from your homepage with a link from another site of equal or greater linking power you are getting a far bigger return in terms of both the link value and traffic than you would for exchanging links on a buried links page.

The downside is that to find willing and co operative webmasters to do the exchange is very time consuming.

Just as you would in your regular business dealings you should make time to seek out potential front page link swap partners. The traffic rewards will really pay dividends.

Link strategy number two. The One Way Directory Link.

As the power of the link goes up as more and more search engines use it as a method of ranking sites so directories are cashing in on a charge to be listed. What was once a free resource has now become an expensive link gathering exercise.

Still the most important free directory entry is http://www.dmoz.org but these days the waiting list seems to be forever. Seek out directories and place your links at every opportunity. Industry portals are a great linking source.

Link strategy number three. The Strategic Article Link.

This type of link packs the biggest punch of all.

Writing an article on your favourite subject can give you many benefits not least in credibility and giving you recognition as an authority on your chosen subject. It is by far the best way of gaining links and traffic to your site.

The technique is to write an article of five to six hundred words on a subject that you are knowledgeable about. Get several of your trusted friends to proof read and contribute and then refine it into a readable style.

Remember that writing for the web is totally different than writing for other media types. Surfing is a solitary experience for most and it's important that you capture your reader's attention and imagination.

For this type of article don't worry about stuffing it with keywords in your page title and headings, you are not writing for search engines. The aim is to make a highly readable piece that will be distributed throughout all of the websites related to your subject matter in your industry.

So you can't write? It's well worth your while to hunt around and find a good copywriter that you can work with. The return on investment is 1000 times what you would ever get from advertising in your local rag.

About The Author

Tony Cooper is the Internet Marketing manager at http://www.keywordmarketing.com Building web sites that achieve tangible and accountable results.

tony@keywordmarketing.com

This article was posted on September '03

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