Incoming Links: Key to a Killer Google PageRank

Incoming links AKA backlinks, inbound links, inlinks, inward links are the most important thing when it comes to getting your website on page one in Google’s search results. The number of incoming links that a website has is one of the key factors for establishing its place in a search engine result page.

Your website, in the eyes of Google, is constantly in the middle of a contest it’s like Mean Girls, popularity and importance are all that matter.

Popularity

Incoming links are like getting a vote of confidence from another site and Google’s algorithms pay attention to these votes. So compare Site A that has ten incoming links to competing Site B that has five… Site A will do a lot better on a results page.

Importance

However it’s not all about popularity Google likes sites that are important and relevant and it gives greater weight to those.

If we go back to the example above and say that both our competing sites are computer retailers but our competitor, Site B, has five incoming links from apple.com, microsoft.com, dell.com, hp.com and intel.com it will rank higher. Links from reputable, established, high-traffic sites will have more weight and score better than a multitude of links from low quality sites, which in this example is all that Site A has.

How can I check my links?

Easy try this tool Backlink Checker, just punch in your web address and you can see who has linked to your site.

Methods for Linking

Reciprocal Links

Is when two websites share mutual links establishing traffic between the two sites. This is where you need to look through your contacts and see who you can set up this arrangement with.

Resource Links

These are usually a special category of links that is seen as a resource for the user when they visit a site. Media on Mars has a page dedicated to this on this blog. We add other sites that we like or projects that we’ve worked on to this page because we think our readers might find it interesting.

Blog Comments

Many blogs ask you to leave a website link when you post a comment and this works very well as an incoming link. If you make thoughtful, relevant or funny replies your link has a very high likelihood of getting clicked on by readers.

Register with Some Sites

Only register with quality non-spammy sites if you are link-building. Google can penalise users of link farms and other artificial schemes designed to inflate PageRank.

Here are a few sites that may help you get started:

• www.dmoz.org
• www.truelocal.com.au
• www.hotfrog.com.au
• www.street-directory.com.au
• www.aussieweb.com.au
• www.aussielocal.com.au
• www.localbusinessguide.com.au
• www.local.com.au
• www.raveaboutit.com.au
• www.startlocal.com.au
• www.perthperth.com
• www.business.com.au
• www.comeonaussie.com

A Mug Shot of: Orla

You can find out more about the work that Media on Mars does at our website www.mediaonmars.com.au, please contact us if you have a project in mind.