For online marketing, whether faith and family or otherwise, how well your website ranks on the search engine results page (SERP) is important.

Efforts to make your website rank well is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

Links play a crucial role on how well you rank on search engines, particularly with Google.

For links, what matters are what type of links and the visible text of the links (link labels).

Inbound Links

Inbound links are links from other webpages that link to your website.

This is one of the most important factors for Google ranking.

What matters are the number and the quality of inbound links. A high quality inbound link is a link from a high-traffic and influential webpage.

The webpages containing your inbound links should also be relevant to your webpage content and your desired key phrases.

If your website is trying to sell books, you should not have an inbounding link from a skateboarding webpage.

The following are methods to generate inbound links.

Directories:

Submit your website to quality directories. Some quality ones are…

Yahoo! Directory

Open Directory Project

GoGuides

AboutUs.org

Busniess.com

Starting Point Directory

Most of these directories charge a fee for listing. However, an inbound link from these directories alone is often worth the price.

The most important directory is the Yahoo! Directory. If you’re a legitimate business, it’s highly recommended that you are listed on it.

You may also submit your website to smaller, topic-specific directories. Faithadnet, for example, is listed in several faith and family directories.

You should also submit your business to Yellow Pages.

When you’re submitting to quality directories, you must keep two things in mind. One, try to include your key phrases in the description and title. Two, the description of your website must be in a factual, non-promotional manner. For Yahoo! this is especially true.

Google AdWords is the king of online advertising. Their description on Yahoo! is the following:

“Text-based advertising program where participants create their own ads, choose keywords that determine when they will appear, and pay only when someone clicks on the ad.”

Notice it’s purely descriptive. There is absolutely no promotional language.

Articles & Press Releases:

Get your name out there.

If you have useful information and you’re an authority on your subject, submit articles to quality publications and websites.

Issue press releases via PR Newswire for the significant accomplishments and milestones of your organization. Press releases generally rank well themselves and really helps the ranking of your website.

For the articles and press releases, try to include your key phrases in the title, the first sentence, and throughout the article.

Content:

Content is king.

In most cases, content is the most important element of your website. And it’s the most important element for generating inbound links for most websites.

For your target audience, you must have relevant and good content for them.

If you wish to sell dog products, it really helps if you have good, useful, and free information on dog care and dogs in general.

In the online world, good information will always generate links.

Outbound Links

Outbound links is a heavily debated topic in the world of SEO.

Some argue that if your page has no outbound links, it’s a “dead end.”

Others argue that if you have too many outbound links, you will lose (leak) all the power generated by your inbound links (your “link juice”).

There is, however, a sure rule you should follow for outbound links.

You should only link to relevant webpages. Do not link to irrelevant websites, or worse, spam or link farms.

Never sell your outbound links to random websites, and do not trade links (reciprocal links) with irrelevant websites.

Keep in mind that Google’s goal is to find useful websites. Place outbound links with that thought in mind.

Internal Links

Internal links are links on your webpages that link to other webpages on your website.

For example, a link on your “home” page that links to your “contact us” page is an internal link.

Internal links are good.

They increase the number of inbound links to each of your webpages. They keep the visitor on your website. They increase the visibility of your “lesser” pages. They allow your main page to rank higher for a greater variety of key phrases.

And they are good for the user experience. Remember that ultimately, a website that’s good for the viewer is good for SEO.

You want your internal links to be just texts, if possible. Also avoid <frameset> or < iframe>.

Link Labels

Link labels are the visible texts of your link. For every link of your website, if it is within your control, make sure your key phrases are included.

For internal links, outbound links, and inbound links, you should have something like this:

<a href="URL of the Link"> something containing your key phrases </a>.

Final Words

Links are very important to search engines, especially Google.

Generate and manage them. But do so in good taste and always keep relevance and user experience in mind.

For questions and comments regarding this article, online advertising, the Faith & Family audience, or Faithadnet, do not hesitate to contact us at marketing@faithadnet.com.