Search engine optimization

involves a number of different techniques, but every major measure of the importance of a web-site includes the number of other web-sites that link to you and the importance of those web-sites. SEO types often engage in link building, also called back links. Link building is the process of finding good websites that will publish links to your site. Well placed backlinks combine anchor text that contains keywords and the link will be in a context related to the targeted web-page. Also the general theme of the web-site and your web-site is considered by a good SEO practitioner. The project involves building back links with a measured context sensitive structure that the amateur web-site owner does not have the time or the patience to consider. Experienced SEO professionals develop a skill and an eye much like a professional tax preparation consultant. Simply buying links can leave you swimming backwards in the rankings as your competitors use a more applicable link building strategy. There are a number of ways to get back links and some will be good, while others will be of little value.

Publishing your site to web directories and search engines is an old favorite and as long as the categories are well defined your link will fall in context with web-sites with content similar to yours. This is better and better tracked by the search engine spiders to the point that google has deciided many directories are link farms and will give you little link juice for the presence.

Write articles and then submit them to several article directories. There are many directories that will allow subscribers to publish articles, as long as they submit a link to your website as well. Writing articles on article sites allows you to ensure that information that would be relevant to the posted links to your site is better than directories, although both are of value. Site that already have articles might link you if you send them emails and we still see this sold as a link building strategy but the closing rate is very low on those contacts. Sites that consist of articles with good content sometimes allow comments and if they are relevant and well written you can sometimes slip a link in to the signature.

Make sure that any associations and chambers that you are a member of get the right link data to your site. Many Chambers of Commerce post a directory of their member’s sites. There are many review sites that might not have your website link, and the major search engine local listings are a must. Some people swear by the submission payment to Yahoo Directory. This might be passe.

Paying for links is of little value, do not pay to get links, submit to the Link farming directories or sites that usually charge a fee of $5 or more in order to publish links. These sites will have a high Google ranking, but will not carry a lot weight when it comes to link building. Don’t trade links if you don’t believe the content is related, at least geographically.

Google, Yahoo, Bing and AOL cover more than 99 percent of searches. The old methods of finding phone numbers by dialing 411 and using the yellow pages has been replaced by internet searches. Companies needing to spend their dollars carefully can rely on the expertise of Atlanta SEO for their web-site exposure to searches on the internet.