SEO 101

SEO 101: Why Are Links and Link Building Important?
Driving increased traffic to a website is one of the main goals of search engine optimization (New SEO). In order to garner a generally high level of traffic to your web site, your site must be easily discovered by prospective clients and web visitors.

Traditional advertising methods help, like printing your URL on print ads, business cards, letterhead and brochures; however an estimated 81% of Internet users say they use search engines to target and find information they deem useful, making search engines the best place you should focus your efforts in attaining enhanced visibility for your site.


1) Search Engines Now Employ New Search Methods

unfortunately, over the years; this has become an increasingly tricky proposition. When search engines like Yahoo and Google first came into existence, they freely wandered on the web, crawling sites and publishing links. But, as the number of web pages continued to grow to astronomical proportions, it became necessary for the search engines to create a method by which they would prioritize what they would display.

At the start, most search engines focused mainly on the invisible Meta tags that accompany each web page. Experienced website owners knew too well that loading their keywords into these tags would quickly ramp it up the search engine listings. Sadly however, it also was very easy for unethical businesses to manipulate these tags, usually thru spamming, and as a result lure Web users to sites that didn’t have anything related to the information they were seeking.

2) Links Are Like Footnotes in Books

during the development and evolution of the Internet, it has become routine for site owners to give credit to other sites for the material or content they publish. Website owners do this by putting a link on their site to the web page of the other site. One could consider links to act like a footnote in a research paper, as a way to reference the work of someone else. Before, there used to be a time when links didn't matter, though at least not like they do today.

A few of the search engines looked at back links for a portion of their algorithms, but it didn't carry the same weight as it does today. Now, in order to be competitive in nearly any online industry, back links are essential. Back links do not only give the search engines a barometer of a site’s popularity, they also aid in determining the topic, and relevance of a site in relation to its targeted keywords. Though the art of New SEO is, and will always be very important, gathering relevant back links is steadily increasing in importance.

3) Where To Start Building Links

A lot of individuals would generally ask, what would be a nice spot to start building links? An appropriate venue would be directories. Directories are great way to beef up your inbound links. There are a lot of directories on the web, and it may be tough to find a starting point. As the importance of link density continues to grow, it’s important not to forget about traditional New SEO.

New SEO techniques will always play a part in Search Engine Rankings. As the major players like Google focus more on links, they will always have a part of their algorithm that relies on traditional SEO factors. By having a comprehensive New SEO campaign, you could increase your visibility to prospective customers.