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Links pointing to your website is one of the most important pieces of building search engine strength. It is a very major element in achieving higher page rank and better placement on search results.  Link building though is a highly challenging and time consuming job. Experienced SEO Consultants, such as those at SEO Denver can help though, by creating a link building plan utilizing highly specialized tools and methodologies.

Getting your page indexed and placed well on these results pages because you have a number of good relationships in your industry niche is the ultimate sign of strength.Search engies view this favorably.  The downside:  these can be very difficult and time consuming to acquire.

There are a couple of link building strategies and techniques that have emerged that are worth discussing.While there may be value in some of these, many are a waste of time and dollars.Three primary ways exist to develop links.The ‘Organic Links’ topic is a big one that includes link baiting, link trading, blogging, article submission and press releases.  For now, let’s stick to discussing the value of these efforts.

Three major types of link building methodologies are:

• Link submission engines
• Paid link listing
• Organic links

Link Submission Engines:

Generally speaking, these are a complete waste of time and money.  Just to be fair,   I’ve tried several of these for SEO Denver, spent a few dollars to try them out and achieved no appreciable improvement in the number of external links pointing to the main SEO Denver site.Before paying good money for a submission service, be sure to review the guarantees. Many of these systems simply don’t work very well.

If you are tempted to try one of these, a 30-day free trial is insufficient to get a feel for whether or not this will work for your site.Four months is generally required to determine if the process will work for you.   Google has been taking several weeks to catalogue these links and give you proper credit for them.  Yahoo! is quite a bit more liberal about link credit, but extends that policy to your competitors, so even though you get more links that Yahoo! recognizes, that search engine is recognizing a whole bunch for your competitors as well.  In the end though, don’t get your hopes up for using link submission engines.

Paid Links:

Several link farms now charge a modest fee for listing your site among the several thousand others they link to.  Google recognizes some of these, but it will be interesting to see how long they continue to do so.Search engine systems will typically reward sites for organic links over paid ones.  On top of that, the Google egalitarian philosophy holds that all should have an opportunity to compete for business.Excessive purchasing of links gives the purchaser an advantage that the search engines may deem to be ‘unfair’.  Google offers PPC and wants to be the one earning income from search, so it will be very interesting to see if they continue to weight links on paid link farms quite as heavily in the future.  For now, one or two paid links if placed on relevant niche sites probably won’t do too much damage. (Some schools of thought even hold that showing Google that you are willing to pay for a link shows that yours is a serious site and would therefore be rewarded for paying for a few links.)

Organic Links:

Clearly the favorite of the search engines, building links through relationships in a given industry are heavily weighted.Improving search engine strength requires many of these links.   As noted earlier, there are numerous way of building organic links, but all take some time and at their core, involve building relationships with those in your industry or niche community. Blogging can place a link within a comment section of another blog. For an example, please see the Denver SEO Blog.

Search engines recognize links to your site that may be contained in articles you place on other blogs and websites. These can be an excellent source of organic links. Related websites frequently look for content to post on their blogs and sites. These articles expand the content base and add value to the hosting site. Owing to the difficulty of frequently producing original content, blog owners look elsewhere for original content when they run out of ideas or time. Articles submitted to directories can prove helpful in producing more external links to your website. Always include the link to your site before sending your article!

Entrepreneurs must handle everything from making sales to making coffee. The task of acquiring additional links requires more time than many have.Expert assistance is usually available for hire, so it may make sense to go find professional help.Getting help with managing the SEO and link building process may not prove difficult.  Just make sure that the person assigned is either a ’subject matter expert’ – SME – or has the ability to speak intelligently about your company and your industry.

A fundamental task of Search Engine Optimization is acquiring links from other sites.Building links is a unique expertise contained within the SEO field as there are many methodologies to acquiring links.  Check back this week for more on building Organic Links.

As always, if you need an experienced SEO planner who can provide the time an expertise to move your website forward in the search rankings, please contact Denver SEO Consultants via the “Contact Us” tab above.