In last month’s article we looked at the importance of building links to your website and general information about building links. This month we will look at specific places from which to get links.
Local Directories
Getting listed in Yellow Page directories, online maps and other local directories are among the most important links you can develop to be found in local searches. Most all local directories have free listings and for a fee they offer enhanced or premium listings. Very seldom are the paid listings worthwhile. We always recommend getting the free listings in these directories and building your listings slowly adding a few new listings each month.
Video Hosting Websites
Videos promoting your store on video hosting websites linked back to yours is one of the best forms of advertising that you can do. In addition to helping your current website, each video hosted on a video web host is a separate webpage that will show up in the search results all on its own. We have received some of our highest rankings from videos on these websites.
Photo Sharing Websites
Although not quite as valuable a link as video websites, photo sharing websites can provide jewelers with additional links. Adding photos to these websites are easy to do and including photo sharing websites in your link strategy helps diversify your incoming links. Plus each picture you add is one more webpage that can come up in a search for one of your keywords.
Suppliers Websites
Check with all of your suppliers. Many of them have a list on their website of jewelry stores that carry their line and will list your jewelry store on their website. This is an especially good link to obtain as it is a quality link from an authority site on the same subject as the content on your webpage. If they are willing, have them link to the page on your website that you have created about their product. This type of deep link rather than a link to your home page is more valuable to you.
Popular Local Sites
Do some research to discover the most popular websites for your city. This could range from local business directories, to local shopping networks, to event sites, to blogs. Keep your options open. Links from these websites will help you in local searches, as well as bring customers directly to your website. Many times the area, neighborhood or business district where your store is located will have their own website as well as citywide websites.
Social Media
Social media websites are becoming increasingly popular, and are well known for networking and prospecting for new clients. However, they also have considerable link building value to the website owner if used properly. If you provide real value on these websites and add a link to your website, you will create a very valuable one-way inbound link for your website.
Blogs
Linking to your website from your own blog is obliviously a great way to build high quality links. Whenever you write a post on your blog with information that pertains to the same subject as one of the pages on your website, include a link to that page so your readers can access the additional information (and you gain a high value link). Don’t over do this. If every post on your blog points to a different page on the same website, the search engines will see it as suspicious and devalue the links.
Your Own Article Website
You can create a mini-website on each one of your keywords by writing a few articles on each of the subjects. Then post them on the Internet on a web host different from the one that hosts your main website. A link from these specific topic websites provides you with high quality links to your main website. The resource section at www.Internet4Jewelers.com provides recommendations, and links to several reliable web hosts.
Conclusion
Link building can be a daunting task, and reading all this can be a bit overwhelming. However, the best link building strategy is to go slowly, building a few quality links at a time. Take one section of this article and work on it to build 2 or 3 links to your website. Then a few days or a week later take another section and work on it to build another 2 or 3 links. Continue in this manner until you have a few links from each section described in this report. This will give you a well-rounded diversified link balance.
Once you have accomplished this, begin over and add 2 or 3 more links from each section. Once you go through it once it will be easier the next time. Gradually adding quality links to your website from a variety of sources is by far better than adding many links all at once. Before long, you will have hundreds of valuable links pointing to your website and you will see your search engine position rise, and it will be harder for your competition to edge you out.
For more information on marketing your store on the Internet, getting higher search engine rankings, or using the Internet to keep in touch with your existing customers, visit www.Internet4Jewelers.com.
