Website Linking Strategies

Definition
Website Linking Strategies involves getting the address of your website (or key pages of your website) on other
related sites. Website linking aids the marketing of your website; it helps capture traffic from other
sites, improves search engine ranking (on those search engines that factor website links into their
measurement criteria) and increases brand awareness.

Researching link candidates

A successful linking campaign requires the successful identification of potential link partners. Ensure that
candidates for your linking programme are relevant; that they deal with the same kind of traffic as your site.
There is little use in a car parts supplier requesting a link from a wildlife sanctuary website, as the two subject
matters are completely unrelated. Similarly, it is unlikely your competitors will want to link to you. Link with a site
that deals in a similar area (but not the same), e.g. a car parts supplier and a valet service. Likewise, similar
services operating in different geographical areas could benefit from linking as their actual markets do
not compete.

Research carefully, using various search engines, link directories, business directories and links from
subject-related websites, to determine a raw list of potential candidates. Reduce this to a smaller list by
a short review process which will leave you with strong potential link partners.

Attracting sites to link to you

Potential sites need an incentive to link to you. This may be as simple as linking back to their site
(a process called reciprocal linking). Other sites may expect some kind of remuneration, such as a payment
per click or impression. Study these arrangements before discounting them. Often, sites that ‘sell’ links
have the most potential for click-through traffic and the highest search engine ranking. See ‘Website
linking and search engine ranking’ below.

If offering reciprocal links to sites, link to the potential partner first as a ‘goodwill’ gesture. Simply remove
the link later if the candidate does not respond, or responds negatively.

Determining a good link

Firstly, check the relevancy of the subject matter, as above. The more relevant a link partner’s subject matter
to yours, the more likely that traffic on that site will be attracted by the content on yours. Relevancy affects
where you rank on the search engines. See ‘Website linking and search engine ranking’ below.

A site with a high search engine ranking (or PageRank) will pass on a proportion of that PageRank to your site,
depending on the number of links on the page where they place the link. Look for sites with high PageRank,
but few links out – these will pass on a large amount of their PageRank, helping you to quickly build yours.
Also remember, links to well-known and respected sites can increase your brand value through association.

Contacting your link candidates

Whilst it is tempting to generate a templated e-mail to send to link candidates requesting a link, it is important
to consider how the link candidate will read the e-mail. Correspondence should be as personal as possible,
referring to the candidate directly by name rather than as ‘webmaster’. Cite their website address (URL),
the subject matter of their site and the advantages of exchanging links with you. Include a direct link in the
e-mail to the page on your site featuring your link to them. Be polite and not too pushy. Follow up e-mails
within a week, and again a week later. Discard correspondence that does not receive a reply by the
third time of asking.

Website linking and search engine ranking

All search engines rank pages slightly differently. Understand how website linking affects page ranking
across more popular search engines. PageRank is Google’s measure of the importance of a web page.
Google measures this by counting links into a web page. Because Google counts all web pages on the Internet as
separate entities, a website’s homepage might have a reasonably high PageRank, but a page deep within the
site may have a much lower PageRank. Google counts the quality and quantity of links into your web pages.
Essentially, the PageRank of your web page is a sum of all the parts of PageRank passed to you from elsewhere
on the web. Estimate your PageRank by using the Google toolbar, downloadable directly from Google.
Run important pages through this tool before and after embarking on your website linking programme.