SEO and Links

Part 2 from Taylor of The Prairie Patch:

SEO and Links

Links to your blog naturally help in your SEO (search engine optimization) ranking. That’s because when a link to your site is on another site, it not only increases the chance of other people finding your blog (and perhaps becoming followers), but it also gets the search engines to take notice. Their little spyders will see that people are clicking on your site’s link, so they’ll “think” you must have a site of interest.

People linking to your site will come naturally if you write a blog entry that people want to refer to, if you’re having a giveaway, or if you’re just simply interesting! Your blog posts are what get people to return to your site, so make sure you have something interesting to say. Writing repeatedly that you don’t know what to write or you don’t know why anyone would want to read your blog will soon make people not want to even read your postings anymore. So post with confidence! Be interesting. People naturally want to read about other people’s slices of life. (But more on making your blog interesting in a later installment).

The thing about links, though, is if you want them to help you with your SEO ranking, they have to be one way links. It’s all well and good to have reciprocal links to your blogging friends’ blogs, and they in turn link to you, but that doesn’t help with SEO. Linking to each other doesn’t show the search engines that either one of your blogs is interesting. What makes search engines take notice is if you have one way linking; that tells them that website A thinks website B is awesome – so awesome that website A isn’t even requesting a reciprocal link from website B. In other words, the search engines see that there wasn’t any type of link trading going on; thus, your site must be interesting for others to link to you without anything in it for them. Additionally, putting your link on forums and social networks are also one way links.

Many top SEO bloggers offer what is called an a-b-c linking. Blog A links to Blog B, who then links to Blog C, who in turn links back to Blog A. Thus, there are no reciprocal links in that circle; it's all one way linking. If anyone is interested in putting together such a circle, please email me and we’ll make some circles!