By ignoring inbound links, you could be missing valuable networking opportunities on the web.

For most professionals, networking is vital to promote business growth. Clubs, associations, and social events are the starting point of many new business relationships within and across various industries. Partnerships are formed, deals are made, and friendships are formed between business professionals with mutual interests. From an interactive marketing standpoint, inbound linking is very similar to person-to-person networking. Web sites featuring similar interests, services, or products give each other “shout outs” in a sense by featuring relevant URLs to other sites.

The benefits of inbound links (links from other sites to your site) are twofold. Whether your URL is posted on a links page or within an article on a site’s news page, your site gains valuable exposure to a different set of visitors. Better yet, your chances of a qualified lead clicking on your link are great when they are coming from a relevant site.

In addition, inbound linking has a positive effect on search engine optimization. When search engine spiders crawl sites, they take note of its internal and external links. The more inbound links your site receives from other sites, the more popular it becomes with engine spiders. Google in particular highly rates sites that have plenty of inbound links coming from other sources. However, it is important to note that the quality of the sites your link is featured on matters a lot to these spiders. For example, link farms that contain lists and lists of URLs aren’t too popular among the search engines. The key is to establish as many inbound links as possible from high-quality sites. Some linking strategies include:

• Making sure your sister sites link up.If you have separate sites for different services or products you offer, they should all link back to each other. This will make it easier for the spiders to crawl your sites and also expose visitors to the full spectrum of your offerings business.
• Taking advantage of link exchanges and boards.This concept was mentioned briefly in last month’s E-news as an alternative interactive marketing method. Many sites offer the opportunity to exchange or post links for a relatively small fee. To get the best results out of this endeavor, Starkmedia executes heavy research to make sure any sites that offer such opportunities are closely related to your business and popular among search engine spiders.

You might be surprised at the countless web networking opportunities that are available on the web. To find out more, call us at 414.226.2710 or click here.

Next Exit: Your Web Site

Anyone who takes a family road trip this summer will notice countless billboards dotted along the interstate. From fast food restaurants to hotels, businesses utilize this marketing tool because they know that the thousands of people traveling our freeways each day will see it.

In many ways, the web is a lot like our freeway system. Web users travel search engines each day, seeking out information. As a matter of fact, nearly 90% of web users go to search engines first to seek out products, services, and information online.

So Where’s Your Billboard?

Just like fast food chains compete for the prime spots to place their billboards, your competitors on the web fight for the number one spot on Google, Yahoo, and the other search engines. While having an attractive web site that reflects your company’s image is an important part of the web marketing mix, what good is your site if no one can find it? This is where search engine optimization and registration come into play. Sites that are properly optimized as well as registered with leading web directories such as Open Directory Project experience increased search engine rankings and traffic.

Search engine optimization is not a one-time project. Instead, Starkmedia’s approach to search engine optimization is a fusion of research, technology, and long-term monitoring.

Extensive Market Research

To kick off the process one must evaluate their target market, which keywords are most relevant to their product/service, and which keywords their competitors are using. Links are also considered at this stage. The more links to and from a site, the easier it is for search engine “spiders” to find it.

Web Technology

Once keywords are chosen, they must be incorporated into the structure and text of the site. This must be done carefully to avoid saturating the site with keywords. Search engines refer to this as “spamming” and will ban sites guilty of this offense.

Continuous Monitoring

It can take a while for search engine “spiders” to find a newly-optimized site and crawl it for keywords. In some cases, it can take anywhere from a week to one year before a site appears on any given search engine. However, many Starkmedia clients have found that it’s well worth the wait once they see their site’s rankings increase along with a surge in web traffic.

It is important to note that search engine and directory administrators are always changing the technology on their sites in order to stay one step ahead of the “spammers.” This ensures that only quality sites maintain the lead in search engine rankings. In response to search engine changes, Starkmedia maintains and updates sites to make sure they are “search engine friendly.”

For more information about HR Application Tools, call Starkmedia at 414.226.2710 or click here.