How many inbound links do you have?

Chapter 27 started discussing the three primary factors the search engines look for when ranking different websites. Here they are again.

1. The quantity of unique relevant content.
2. The newness or freshness of that content.
3. The link structure surrounding the website.

The third factor is extremely important. Basically, Google considers an inbound link from a related content website to be a vote of confidence in your website. The more votes you have, the better your website is presumed to be.

Now, there are a lot of inbound links that don’t mean much. Untargeted web directories that do not present related content are a good example. “Link farms” are another. As a result, Google gives you credit for some links but not others.

Google also looks at a second level to see how many links are pointing to the websites that are linking to you. So, if I had an inbound link from a website that had five inbound links itself, it would count for less than a different inbound link coming from a website that had 100 inbound links.

This methodology forms the foundation of the Google PageRank score. PageRank is a score Google calculates to reflect the relevance and importance of any particular website. The range is between 0 and ten where ten is the highest score.

The Google PageRank score is calculated on a logarithmic curve so most websites have a score of three or lower. A PageRank of four is definitely above average. Predictably, Google has a PageRank of 10. Yahoo has a 9.

You can easily check your PageRank by installing the Google Toolbar on your browser or by using one of the many Google PageRank Checkers on the internet. Just search for “google pagerank checker” on Google to find one. You can also see the inbound links Google gives you credit for by entering:

link:www.WebsiteName.com

Back to inbound links. A link from a PR7 (an abbreviation for a website with a PageRank score of 7) is far more valuable than a link from a PR2. In fact, you could probably have 1,000 inbound links from PR2 websites and still rank lower than a competitor that has just one link from a PR7.

The number and quality of your inbound links determines your PageRank score. Once you start getting inbound links from PR5+ websites, your PageRank score goes up quickly. But for now, let’s take a look at some inbound links you can easily create all by yourself.

Basically, we’re looking for other related content websites to link to your website. There are a bunch of places where you can build a free website all by yourself and use it as a “feeder” website to link to your primary “hub” website. You also have full control over the content.

Right off the top of my head, I can think of a few places where you can build a feeder site to prop up your hub site.

1. WordPress.com
2. Blogger.com
3. Squidoo.com
4. Weebly.com
5. Webs.com
6. Sites by Google
7. Geocities by Yahoo
8. Angelfire by Lycos

In each case, you can build a site for yourself without paying a penny. You can then load it with related content and include a bunch of links to the precision-optimized pages on your primary hub website.

You can even optimize the links. Google looks at the anchor text (the words carrying the link) as an indication of what the target website is about. If you anchor the link to the words \”internet marketing services,” the target website ranks higher for those words. This is the same as the “click here” links we discussed in the last chapter.

This is an incredibly powerful SEO strategy. Not only are you creating one-way inbound links to your primary website but you can put those links on the exact keywords you’re trying to target.

Following this strategy, a lot of successful internet marketers build their businesses on a “three-blog-network.” They build their primary hub website and then build two other blogs; one on WordPress.com and the other on Blogger.com, building each to a PageRank 4 or higher. The result is a powerful SEO triangle they can use to quickly build impressive rankings for new precision-optimized blog posts or new pages.

Please note: you do not need to do this to be successful online. Building three blogs is obviously a lot more work than building just one. A strategy like this is more important for advanced affiliate marketers who make 100% of their income online. My objective here is to show you what’s possible and how the game is played.

If this strategy fits your intentions, allocate some time to build two or three feeder websites using the platforms listed above. Load them all with related content and link them all to your primary website. Also, make sure they all link to each other, creating a virtual net for the search engine spiders.

Obviously, these feeder sites all begin with a PageRank of 0, so the inbound links won’t mean much at the beginning. But it’s a start and you can continue to build them up as time goes on. Add content and keep them fresh. The point is these are all things you control yourself. You don’t have to ask anybody’s permission.

There are many other strategies for building a robust link structure around your website and we’ll be discussing many of them in the coming chapters.

Author Bio: Patrick is the author of \”Marketing Shortcuts for the Self-Employed\” (2011, Wiley) and a regular speaker for Bloomberg TV. Watch his video about SEO inbound links on YouTube.

Category: Business
Keywords: patrick,schwerdtfeger,seo,inbound,links