seo blog

This SEO blog entry shows part of the discussion on reciprocal linking for the http://www.liverpooltales.com Liverpool Tales from the Mersey Mouth website, following a question about swapping links with websites not directly on the same theme, and an implication that off theme inbound links have no value:

Re: What this is describing, is the context of the inbound links to your site. If you can find a site with a similar theme to yours, then an inbound link from that site gives your site an extra boost for the keywords related to that websites theme. So if you can find sites relating in your case to: Liverpool, literature, books, history, The Mersey Beat, The Beatles…. etc, then they will add more context to your site. You are more likely to be found in a google search for related keywords, than if you got any old link. Each link is only a tiny boost in any case. Even more important though, are the keywords found within the links that point at your website. It is the keywords within the links themselves, known as the anchor text, that Google uses more than any other factor when determining what keywords any particular web page ranks for, and its position in the search results for those keywords. In fact, one of the major things we will be discussing at our next Liverpool SEO seminar, is how you should link to your own pages from within your website. You must use keyword rich links to point at your own pages.

But what Google cannot do, or it would lead to chaos as every nasty website on the planet would attempt to bomb their opposition, is allow a link of any kind, from any website, no matter what that outside website contains, to have a negative impact on the websites they link to.

As such, whilst there are some very useless links out there, which give you absolutely nothing, but might waste your time finding, there is no such thing as a bad inbound link. Links from any website on the planet will never have a bad impact on your website. And most importantly, any link from any site can potentailly add weight to your search engine ranking, provided it is a genuine link from a web page within the Google index.

In your case, you should be more worried about how many outside websites you are linking too from your links page. You risk loosing the power you send to those sites, and therefore the benefit in kind you receive from their link in return. Our recommendation in your case is to split your links page into different sections, each link section on a separate page, and create something of a directory of reciprocal links.

But the one thing you should not do, as we have seen websites disappear without a whimper when they do, is stop your linking strategy. You have a nicely powerful website, with a good page rank, which is a direct result of your reciprocal links. As more and more websites appear, to maintain your current ranking, you would need to add a few more inbound links from time to time anyway.

One other problem we come across very regularly, are websites who only swap links with sites completely within their theme. This may seem like a good policy to employ, but it ignores the fact that the most important aspect of an inbound link is the anchor text. A link on any website can have the anchor text you need. By restricting the types of sites you exchange links with, you are putting a limit on the inbound links you receive, and therefore your website will never reach its full search engine ranking.

Conclusion: whilst a link from an on theme website is best, you should swap links with any website that provides a good quality hypertext link, with your chosen anchor text, on a page that has already been indexed by Google.

What are the top SEO tips for marketing your website?

1. Include keyword rich anchor text links to every one of your web pages.
2. Include a keyword rich anchor text link to your home page using the main keywords you wish your website to rank for, rather than a link simply saying ‘home’.
3. Give every single web page a unique and keyword rich title tag.
4. Concentrate on creating useful content on your website, as this is the only way to encourage other webmasters to link to you naturally.
5. Create a page of keyword rich useful content for every key phrase you wish to target.
6. Make sure you target your key phrases in all possible word orders, for example ‘Liverpool SEO’ should also be written ‘SEO Liverpool’ on a different page.
7. Give your web pages keyword rich URL’s as some inbound links will not have specific anchor text but may show that page’s URL as anchor text.
8. Ensure keywords in your internal text links match the keywords targeted in the pages the links point at.
9. Ensure every page has a unique and well written meta description as this will encourage users to click on your web pages rather than your competitors if you appear in the same search results.
10. Keep JavaScript and CSS code in external files to keep your HTML as simple as possible.
11. Give every web page a keyword rich h1 header tag as the first line of on page text.
12. Spread your keywords throughout the text naturally, highlighting them with strong tags several times in the text.
13. Give every image a keyword rich alt description tag.
14. Remember – there is only one way to improve your websites ranking and search engine position: increasing the number and quality of inbound links.