When it comes to building links for your small business, I can think of two surefire ways to build great links over a long period of time. And that’s really how you should do it – gradually over a period of time.
Why are links important? Because the search engines analyze links for value. They rank web pages based on a number of factors, but one very important factor is the quantity and quality of your inbound links. Of course, I’d say that on-page ranking factors are more important. But link building shouldn’t be discounted.
As a local small business, you don’t have to put out as much effort or expense as other businesses. Your pool of competition is likely smaller. That’s why you need to be careful about how you go about performing your search engine optimization. Nevertheless, there are three sound link building methods that I’d recommend for most small businesses at the local level:
- Blogging – Blogging is all the rage. But there’s more to blogging than what the hype suggests. Blogs build links. And you can have as many blogs as you want. You can use those blogs to build links back to your main website. Those links will be figured into the search engines’ formulas for ranking web pages.
- Article Marketing – Yes, articles are very important. Even for a local business. You can write articles and distribute them online to promote your business. You should. Use links in your author resource box to build inbound links to your important pages. That’s how you use article marketing for link building.
- Directory Submissions – Some people say directory submissions are not important any more. I disagree. I think you need quite a few directory submissions. But I wouldn’t rely on directory submissions alone. People who say directory submissions aren’t important any more haven’t learned the value of link diversity. They’re beneficial, but not all by themselves.
There are lots of ways to go about link building, but if you stick to these three methods, you can’t go wrong.
