Business Website Promotion Priorities

If you are promoting your own website, you should avoid using overly aggressive link building tactics. Search engines are continually enhancing their search algorithms to neutralise the perceived value of such link building techniques, (to the extent that they are just not worth investing time and money in).

If you provide great content, you will realise that many webmasters will link to your own business website “naturally”. This is because they think it fascinating, compelling, exciting or informative. So the more you focus on the importance and relevancy of your content - the greater the ‘buzz’ your website has about it. Links acquired naturally will ultimately result in better rankings. Whereas embarking on artificial link building strategies, is a delicate line between manipulation (bordering upon ‘black hat’), versus the real business need to market and promote your site responsibly.

Think about how much time you have to promote your own company website. Now consider that traditional link building is a full-time activity. You just can not afford to waste all your precious time linking, when it should be spent creating brilliant content for your visitors. If your website has contains highly relevant and compelling content, you are more likely to earn much higher value links. Search engines know what Webmasters are doing, and have set in place measures to dampen down the effectiveness of over manipulation through link acquisition. For instance, search engine algorithms will recognise a ‘shallow page’, based on the absence of actual content or the large number of outbound links – in other words a typical ‘useful resources’ links page. Whereas a 'natural link' is more likely to be an ‘inline link’, in the middle of a relevant paragraph, within an interesting article.

You should think about the nature of your website content, and how easy it is to scale its quantity and quality. If you have a fairly stable six-page brochure website, the difference between content and links, will mean that you will struggle to achieve high rankings. There is no point acquiring thousands of inbound links for such a small amount of content. Indeed, your website could even be penalised by a search engine, if you exchange links with hundreds or thousands of ‘off topic’ websites, which usually have shallow content and poor reputation. Remember to avoid any automated procedure to artificially secure links. These might include signing up to link farms, implementing automated scripts, employing a seo company you have never met, or buying links. These can all get your site banned!

If you are serious about online marketing, you will need to make a judgement regarding whether your content is likely to be linked too, (because you have made it brilliant, exciting and compelling). For example, have you ever read an article where another Webmaster has created a link within it, (to reference an authority source such Wikipedia)? They are just trying to be helpful to their users. Do not forget that you do get extra points for adding ‘outbound links’ towards authority websites. The sheer complexity of ranking factors means that you should not get too worked up about linking outbound elsewhere. Some webmasters simply cannot get inspired enough to focus on content, and instead use the easy option of churning out endless links.

So how do you know how much content you will need for higher ranking positions? A simple rule of thumb, is to evaluate the top 10 competitors in your target market, for the popular search phrases you believe your clients to choose. Make a list of the number of 'cached pages' on each competitor’s site, (by using the search operator site:my-competitors-website.com). Then check the whois databases to see how old each domain is. Remember that the older domain is, the more 'natural links' it will have acquired, outside of the control of the Webmaster. Of course the number of pages is just one small aspect. The quality, relevancy and uniqueness of each article is all far more influential than overall volume of web pages...

Many webmasters struggle to work out how to consistently produce compelling content. They spin news stories, produce blogs, write entertaining guides and articles, create calculators to solve common problems, or create interactive multimedia videos. It can certainly be difficult for 'me-too' businesses, to develop expert guides and exclusive content. Churning out articles takes commitment, will power, discipline and a genuine passion for your chosen subject. So what can you write about? Get creative about your work! The following should give you a few ideas:-

• Write an expert 'how to' guide in your market sector.
• Identify divisive or continuous issues for a blog post.
• Ask your customers for ideas on typical needs and requirements.
• Publish  an interview with a trusted supplier to highlight supply chain issues.
• Write a case study on an event or achievement.
• Produce your own unique online survey, which allows you to publish an innovative news story and interpret the results.
• Write a Review of a Product or a Company.
• Go into detail in your own forum, by answering frequently asked questions.
• Produce a short 'how to' video, and accompany it with the textual script. You will find that speaking to camera, produces much shorter and informal language than a formal written guide.

If you wish to entice or ‘bait’ inbound links with this type of quality content, make sure there is social network bookmarking tags on every page. Tools such as the addthis.com provide bespoke graphical widget. Similarly, make it easy for other webmasters to physically link to your website, by publishing an easy to copy 'linking back code', in a ‘copy and paste’ format.

As with all aspects of Internet marketing, employing a realistic link building strategy, is a balance between over zealousness to obtain links, and the importance of creating a buzz' about your website content.

Links are one of the founding factors search engines used to compare and rank websites. The greater the quantity and quality of external or ‘inbound’ links pointing to a website, the higher its search engine ranking. In practice, webmaster's have traditionally swapped or 'exchanged links'. Each link represents a ‘vote’. The more links a website has, the greater its 'link popularity'. This basic ranking principle, encourages webmasters to try and artificially inflate their own websites link popularity. Traditionally, this has been achieved by swapping links with like minded webmasters. Likewise, many webmasters also post comments in related blogs and forums, submitting their own articles (with embedded links in), exchanging content and syndicating text for RSS feeds. This behaviour has become systemic and out of control. To combat this manipulation, search engines are increasingly classifying these types of practices as unethical, over manipulative and against their own published guidelines.

Good luck with your website promotion!