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Three linking tips

John Murray

The internet is built around links. Any page on the internet can link to any other page. Paying attention to how you use links is a vital component of search engine optimisation.

Consistent links

Home page file names begin with the word index, so that when you type in a domain name such as www.mybusiness.com, visitors are directed to the home page. There are many different ways to link to the home page from any other page on your website. If your domain name is mybusiness.com and the home page is index.html, then all the following link text will take visitors to the home page:

index.html
www.mybusiness.com
http://www.mybusiness.com
www.mybusiness,com/index.html
http://mybusiness.com/index.html

Whilst it makes no difference to your visitors which form you use, it is clearer for search engines if all links are consistent and you stick to one format. The easiest form is www.mybusines.com. This also means that if you change the name of your home page to index.php, or index.htm, using simply your domain name as a link ensures that the link always points back to your home page.

The link format to other internal pages should also be consistent.

Not all links are on websites

Not everyone finds your site from either search engines or links from another website. It’s a good move to include direct links to your website in the signature on all emails and newsletters.

Quality links

You can pay for links on directory sites, but free links from sites with a high page rank are better. It is helpful if the text surrounding a link to your site is related to the content and keywords for your site. Quality links are more important than the quantity of links.

Although there are many components to a successful linking strategy, implementing these tips should increase your site visitors.

John is every inch the wordsmith and loves a game of Scrabble above all else. With experience writing for newspapers, John’s time at university was spent studying Creative Writing – something which comes across in his love of the pun.

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