Use SEO to Get Your New Site Off to a Good Start - Going for the Links
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You’ve properly set up your internal linking structure for your web site, but what about external links? Many new web sites find this challenging. Everyone knows that Google counts an outgoing link to a site as a “vote” saying that site is relevant. Votes help your site reach a higher position in the SERPs (along with tens of other factors in Google’s algorithm). But how do you get those votes?
If your web site’s goals fit well with keeping a blog, you have one possibility. Of course, blogs aren’t a requirement; you could just make sure to write compelling enough content that others want to link to it or even write about it. That hypothetical plumber I mentioned earlier in a quote from Wall might not get any customers from talking about legendary plumbing disasters, but what if he did an article on five fast ways to keep your plumbing system running smoothly? Or maybe he could write one on the seven hidden signs that your system might be malfunctioning. (I just bet mold is one of them). I’m just pulling these numbers out of thin air, you understand, but I think you get my point.
Staying focused on the blogging theme, if you’re in a professional field you probably frequent web sites related to that field; they might even have their own blogs and/or forums. If not, there are plenty of blog search engines you can use. Michael D. Jensen of Solo SEO recommends finding five fairly popular blogs that are relevant to your site and have been updated within the last couple of days. Then you should read the post and make a comment that contributes to the discussion. Most of the time, comments to blogs offer a field for a URL; that’s where you put the URL for your web site. It will give you and the site some exposure in context, and if you’ve written something intelligent, blog readers will be predisposed to favor your web site (because you’ve just shown you know what you’re talking about).
Social bookmarking sites are another place for you to consider. Post a link to your site and tag it with relevant keywords. Google and other major search engines visit social bookmarking sites regularly, so this is another way to help your site get indexed. Don’t be rude about it though, or the community will brand you a spammer and act accordingly.
And you don’t have to bookmark just your home page; as you build content that you think others might be interested in, you can bookmark those pages as well. From time to time I’ve visited Searchles and bookmarked articles from SEO Chat. They have several groups devoted to search engines and SEO, so when we publish an article I think they’ll find of particular interest, I bookmark it there. Sometimes another member of their community has even visited SEO Chat and independently bookmarked an article for which I didn’t post the link to Searchles. Other social bookmarking communities you should consider include del.icio.us, BlinkList, StumbleUpon, and Furl; there are many more.
Starting a brand new web site can be a daunting challenge. But it isn’t hopeless. It takes a good bit of work and patience, but you can eventually build the traffic and sales figures of your dreams.
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