In-bound & Out-bound Links Overview
If you got the general idea from the last page then this next lesson should be pretty simple to pick up. Since you're now somewhat familiar with the technique of placing accurately targeted keywords in certain ways throughout your HTML and within links. It's time to look at their relation to your efforts in more detail. Allowing you another conduit for potential internet marketing streams and boosting your website traffic.
What about that lesson could be applied to other areas of your SEO adventures? If you're already trying to apply the techniques on the links you leave on other websites to link to your own, you're definitely on the right track. Let's take a moment to analyze the benefits of applying better SEO to your inbound and outbound links, and how to get the most from them.
 Inbound Links : Bringing the traffic to you!
Inbound Links are the most beneficial thing any website can utilize to increase traffic. Obviously the more ways your visitors can find your website, the more visitors you can attract. Makes sense right? However this doesn't mean you should go out and plaster the web wherever you can with a link to your website. The technique to remember and adhere to is an age old tried and proven method of design. Quality over quantity is the rule of thumb for inbound links. What is meant by this, is that the websites that provide a link to you should ideally be as relevant to the topic of your website as possible.
This accomplishes the task of further establishing the relavency of your website within a topic category and tells the search engines that your content will be as targeted as possible for their search users. So by submitting your link to numerous irrelavent directories and thinking that your buddy putting a link to your golf website from his poker website is helping your search engine placement position, it's not. Some other things to consider if you want a better search engine rank from inbound links.
DO NOTE SPAM! If you do, enjoy the very short term effects this will have on your traffic because it will ruin your ranking sooner than later. Which could take a very, very, long time to repair.
When you place a link, or someone with a relevant website is willing to link to you, remember the cardinal rule of title relevancy and SEO. Form the link to whatever resource it's pointing to by being accurately descriptive in your HTML anchor tags as well as the text that makes the link.
Example
<a href="http://www.professionalsweb.net/Tools/Articles.aspx" title="Web Design Blog Articles" target="_self">Web Design Blog Articles</a>
If you can get a hundred thousand links on websites directly relavent to your own, then that's awesome! However more often than not, you're not at the point that you can quite pull that off. Especially if you're a beginner or you're starting from scratch. You will be anxious to build your inbound links quickly. However avoid submitting to irrelevant link directories and planting it anywhere that will let you.
When you do submit your website link to a directory, make sure you drill down in the categories to make your URL is placed in the most relevant category. This doesn't mean try to add it to every category remotely close to your topic and more than a couple is not suggested. Pay more attention to the one's with already existing good page rank outlooks and especially The Open Directory Project (www.DMOZ.org) which is of considerable significance to the world of search engine optimization we'll cover in another article. A good software tool to accomplish is Internet Business Promoter™.
Outbound Links : Help the visitor.
We touched on how to optimize HTML tags in the previous page but just for a refresher. Remember search engine optimization is a two way street. Not only do you need to ensure your page can be easily navigated to, but traffic from your website should employ better practices as well.
This means don't be stingy utilizing some of your new found SEO skills for the people you would supply traffic to from your website. Use the same things you know about relavency and use them when you provide an outbound link. By doing this you're helping the search engine spiders do what they're supposed to. So use keywords and accurate descriptors to provide the URL in your content. Also decide whether you want the robot to follow that outbound link or not. This can prove unbeneficial if the content you're linking to is irrelevant to the topic of the content that provided the link.
- Example
<a href="http://www.someothersite.com" title="The Website Topic" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">The Website Topic</a>
So let's outline this lesson real quick.
You now know that when it comes to inbound and outbound links, relevency is the rule to remember.
Quality inbound links are far superior to quantity, so avoid inbound links from websites that are irrelevant to the topic of your content when possible.
When submitting to directories, follow better SEO practices during placement decisions. Choose a listing within a category that's a targeted and relavent listing.
Don't be greedy when it comes to sharing your new SEO skills. Use better practices towards outbound links you provide to other websites.
In case you haven't noticed, each of these lessons have kind of been a progression towards delivery. Since this is a beginner's guide to SEO we're trying to ease you into it. The next page will do as this one and the one before it and pick up where this left off. So with only a couple more pages left to to of the 10 steps to better SEO which will hopefully accomplish some real results. If you find yourself wanting more answers maybe our SEO Services can fill the void. Or continue on whenever you're ready.
Link Check Tip
If you would like to check your own link status you can enter link:yourdomainname.com into the google search bar for example to display links which they have indexed containing your domain name.
Better SEO Introduction | Keywords and Keyphrase | Title Relavency | Dynamic Content | Navigation / Association | Meta Tags Explained | SiteMaps and Robots | HTML Optimization | Inbound & Outbound Links | Link Building | Search Engine Submission
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