The Benefits Of Quality Inbound Links

Darren Franks - December 23, 2008

As we all know, the benefits of inbound links to your website are paramount. What’s more important than the “amount” of inbound links? “Quality” inbound links. These quality links can have a positive effect on both your rankings in Google as well as your PageRank. The only catch is getting good links. Of course, the most obvious answer is to just create good content on your website that can inspire people to link to it. Another obvious answer is to merely create a “Link To Us” page.   Unfortunately, it really isn’t as simple as that.

In addition to having that exceptional content that people want to link to, the content on your blog or website should have a point of view; a perspective that’s controversial, funny or that really takes a definitive side of an argument. Anything that separates your content from the rest of the pack is always beneficial. Being original can really get you noticed as an authority in your field and will make attracting those natural links that much easier.

While social media may not be great for getting “link juice” or a “vote” from another site (most links from social media sites like Twitter or Facebook are nofollow), they are a helpful way to get your website or brand noticed and drive some traffic. This is done simply by placing a link to your site in your profile. Also, don’t forget to link your social media profiles together by saying something to the effect of, “Come visit us on Facebook!”. Social bookmark “widgets” are good too and are free and quite easy to implement.

Of course, if you haven’t done so already, submit to directories like DMOZ or the Yahoo! Directory and make sure that you are in the correct categories for each. These directories, as well as a few others, are considered to be the most trusted and links from there are considered highly important. This also goes for any kind of link from an .edu or .gov site. Any links from a relevant site with that kind of domain should help your site’s PageRank and rankings exponentially. To find these types of websites, simply type “site:.edu keyword” on Google. Substitute “keyword” for the most targeted, indicative and descriptive keyword of your site.

Lastly, having fun content like “Top Ten Lists”, contests or free widgets are great for tempting people to link to you. To get inspired, look at the websites of some other websites in your field and see what they are doing. See what kinds of backlinks they have to get an idea of who to target and, above all, write your content for the user, not for the search engines. A human being will be reading your content and you need to write with that in mind. Remember, you can never have too many quality inbound links.