The best scenario is to have inbound one-way links to your site. Those type of links show that you have something that another site found of value to link to you without having to agree to exchange links.
Exchanging links is a good thing, but only if it makes sense for both sites. Certainly competitors won’t want to exchange links. Nor would those who have a gift basket site want to link to an industrial components site. Two different markets there. Many think link exchanges are the end-all-be all to getting high search engine rankings. Not the case. Link exchanges pretty much cancel each other out and have no effect.
In addition, you need to make sure that you are linking to a credible site that is of a quality that earns your recommendation. See, when linking to a site you are basically giving a recommendation to your site visitors about the site you are linking to. Forget about linking to your best friend’s poorly developed site. This is business and you are judged by the company and the links you keep.
Be very leery of linking circles, link farms and pretty much anything that makes it sound like getting a bunch-o-links very quickly is a good thing. It isn’t. When sites participate in such programs including buying links, those links are ignored or in some cases penalized. The search engines are wise to most practices of artificially gaining links specifically to affect search engine rankings and they don’t look rank highly sites that use them.
So we’re back to square one. Create a valuable content rich site worth linking to and the links will happen. I have an article about the Reality of Linking, why not check it out?
At your service,
Judith
Each week I get literally hundreds of e-mails from concerned Netizens about how to handle those they care about (or those who simply don’t care) in regard to issues involving E-mail Etiquette and proper technology use. 30% of those e-mails pertain to business related issues!
What has become clear in my decade long journey of championing this topic is that most folks don’t know what is right, what the guidelines are or how they are being perceived by virtue of how they choose to use e-mail. Online, just as in the off-line world, is not an “anything goes” environment and there are repercussions based on your actions, the words you choose and how you use technology. In business, lack of E-mail Etiquette is called lost opportunity!
I’ve launched a new project today to help get the word out about proper technology use and E-mail Etiquette specifically. It’s called The E-mail Etiquette Revolution!
The concept is simple. Everyone posts the Revolution’s logo on their sites and Blogs and links back to the Revolution site. Visitors Take the Pledge to use technology as a way to learn, grow and thrive; not as an excuse to be lazy or not use the education we received in grade school.
We use the viral nature of the Web to work together to get the word out about this very important topic. Are you up to the challenge? Won’t you join me?
Take The Pledge today then Grab a Logo and let’s start a Revolution!
Happy New Year! New attitude? New habits? The last year brought many changes, unfortunately, when it comes to proper technology use, many still feel online is a free for all. Certainly that is not the case and is simply a misnomer to lend shelter to those who still do not want to make the effort to learn the online rules of the road. Read the rest of this entry »
