Link Building – the Importance of Links
Incoming links to a website is one of the main factors search engines use when determining a site’s ranking in search results. When Website A (the linking site) has a link on its page to Website B, the link on Website A is considered an incoming link to Website B. These incoming links from Website A are essentially a “vote” that says Website B has information on a related topic. The more websites that link to your website for a particular subject, the more the search engines consider your website an authority on that topic.
However, it is not just the quantity of incoming links, but also the quality of the link that is important. For search engine purposes, “quality” can be thought of as having two components – (1) the “relevancy” of the linking site (Website A) to the linked site (Website B), and (2) the “authority” that the search engine gives to the linking site. The more relevant the search engines believe Website A is to Website B, the more weight will be given to the link. Also, the more Website A is perceived by the search engines to be an authority, the more weight will be given to the link.
For example, if a local hardware store has a link on its website to the website for a corporate lawyer, that link will have less weight than a link from a website that discusses the legal implications of starting a new business. If the link instead came from a website such as FindLaw.com, that link would carry even more weight, as FindLaw.com is considered both contextually relevant and also an authority.
Anchor text is also important. Anchor text is the words that are highlight as the link. An example of anchor text is click here. It is better for the anchor text to describe what the link is about. An example of good anchor text would be: Learn more about California real estate law. Search engines give more weight to links that describe what the site is about. Having anchor text that describes what the site is about is beneficial.
A site with a few “high quality” links can rank higher than a site that has a lot of “low quality” links.
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Incoming links to a website is one of the main factors search engines use when determining a site’s ranking in search results. When Website A (the linking site) has a link on its page to Website B, the link on Website A is considered an incoming link to Website B. These incoming links from Website A are essentially a “vote” that says Website B has information on a related topic. The more websites that link to your website for a particular subject, the more the search engines consider your website an authority on that topic.
However, it is not just the quantity of incoming links, but also the quality of the link that is important. For search engine purposes, “quality” can be thought of as having two components – (1) the “relevancy” of the linking site (Website A) to the linked site (Website B), and (2) the “authority” that the search engine gives to the linking site. The more relevant the search engines believe Website A is to Website B, the more weight will be given to the link. Also, the more Website A is perceived by the search engines to be an authority, the more weight will be given to the link.
For example, if a local hardware store has a link on its website to the website for a corporate lawyer, that link will have less weight than a link from a website that discusses the legal implications of starting a new business. If the link instead came from a website such as FindLaw.com, that link would carry even more weight, as FindLaw.com is considered both contextually relevant and also an authority.
Anchor text is also important. Anchor text is the words that are highlight as the link. An example of anchor text is click here. It is better for the anchor text to describe what the link is about. An example of good anchor text would be: Learn more about California real estate law. Search engines give more weight to links that describe what the site is about. Having anchor text that describes what the site is about is beneficial.
A site with a few “high quality” links can rank higher than a site that has a lot of “low quality” links.
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