Budget for Inbound Links

When all things are equal, the site with a better structure of quality inbound links will out perform its competition in organic search rankings. With the increasing value of quality inbound links to your web site, it is necessary for marketing professionals to consider a line item for inbound linking in their 2006 Internet marketing budgets.

Quality inbound links give your web site credibility in the eyes of the search engines. The assumption is that if other sites around the Internet are linking to your site, your site must therefore hold value.

The science behind securing inbound links is in determining the value or quality of links. When it comes to inbound links, think quality before quantity.

While there are a variety of ways we do this for our clients, one common method is to use the Free Google Tool Bar available for download @ http://toolbar.google.com/ . The PageRank feature will give you an idea of how a web page is viewed in the eyes of Google. Be careful to understand that each page of a web site has its own value, and when looking at web sites, you should drill down to the page where your link would actually be placed before considering it.

As with any part of a search engine's ranking algorhtym, there are numerous factors to consider when improving your inbound link structure. "Value" of the link page, anchor text, landing page are all elements that reflect how much a search engine will value an inbound link.

New web site? Re-designing in 2006? A well formulated inbound link structure is the fastest way for search engines to find new sites and re-index older ones.