What the Heck is SEO #5: The Power of Links

You've probably received an email recently with the title "Link Exchange Request". Or one from a company in India offering "Link Building Services". You probably deleted them, right?

The fact is, the world wide web was designed to be hyperlinked. Links are the power behind the web. So you should incorporate a systematic and regular linking strategy into your website (and you probably should look at some of those link exchange requests). Why?

If you've had your website up for a while, you know how difficult it is to get visitors or "traffic" to your site. You either have to advertise, or you have to have really good placement in the major search engines. In other words, when people go to Google or Bing and type in "Florida beach vacation rental" or whatever, you want them to find your page listed in the search results, right? Of course you do because this is the best way to get free visitors to your website.

So how does Google know that your site is about "Florida beach vacation rentals (or whatever)?" It knows by what you do both "on page" and "off page." The earlier posts in this series covered 'On-Page' SEO in great detail. But that was kid stuff.

Today, you're graduating to 'Off-Page' Search Engine Optimization!

The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. Anyone can do it. And even if you've already done it, there's nothing to stop some snazzy upstart competitor from coming along and doing the same thing. That's why when you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links.

"The problem with 'On-Page' search engine optimization is it's relatively easy. When you get serious about SEO, you have to start talking about 'Off-Page' factors such as links."

Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website. For instance, if I have a link on my site pointing to yours, and my linked text says San Francisco Real Estate, then I'm providing third-party verification that your site is indeed about San Francisco Real Estate.

Imagine the power of 50 sites pointing to yours with the same or similar linked text! No, don't imagine it. I'll show you the power. Right now!

You are familiar with Adobe Acrobat Reader, right? It's the free software that allows you to read pdf files. What would you search for to find the Adobe Acrobat site to download their software? Being a relatively normal human, you'd probably go to Google and type in "Adobe Acrobat Reader" or something like that right? And the site would be either number one in the search results or very close to it.

Proof of the Power of Links to Your Site:

Now try this: Go to Google or Bing and in the search box, type in "click here", and search for that keyword phrase. I guarantee you that Adobe Acrobat Reader will be on the first page if not one of the top results if you search for "click here" (it has been for years)! 

I hope you try this because this is a very powerful eye opener. Go ahead, I'll wait...

Interesting, huh? Clearly, the Adobe page has absolutely nothing to do with the words "click here"!

So why is it on the first page of the search results, you ask?

On nearly every page on the internet that has a pdf file to be downloaded, you will find the following instructions: "To download your copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, click here." The text "click here" is hyperlinked directly to Adobe Acrobat Reader download page on literally millions of web pages. Because the external links say the page is about "click here," that's what Google and Bing assume it's about!

"Google and Bing consider other web pages powerful indicators of the content of your website!"

Imagine the power of 50 or 100 (or 1,000) links from other web pages with your website's keywords all pointing to your site!

I just wanted to show you how powerful linking is so you will be eager to link and be linked to. As you can see, "off-page" links can actually be more powerful than "on-page" strategies. So when another webmaster sends you a link request, consider it carefully. It may be a great opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines.

But don’t go out and start building links just yet – there are several pitfalls and best practices you should be aware of before implementing your own link-building strategy, which is why you need to subscribe to this blog and make sure you don't miss my next few posts about keyword research and link building!

Special thanks to David McRee for his assistance with this post. David wrote the original version of this article for his own website several years ago, and was one of my first mentors in the often baffling field of SEO. David was into SEO long before SEO was cool, and is known throughout Florida as The Beach Hunter, for his blogs about Florida's beaches.

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Jeff Copeland is a real estate broker and property manager in St Petersburg, Florida, and broker/owner of Copeland Morgan LLC. You can find him on Bigger Pockets under @Jeff Copeland.