Getting Links to Your Website

One of the most important things you can do to increase your site's traffic is to acquire links from other websites to your own. These are known as inbound or return links.

Apart from the obvious benefit of attracting people who click on them, inbound links are seen and used by search engines to find and rank your site. The more inbound links you can get, the better (within certain limitations - more on that later).

When contacting the owner of a website to ask for an inbound link, follow these guidelines...

Treat the link request as a business transaction

In most cases simply asking for a link will get you nowhere. You must offer something of value to the other website. For example, you could offer a reciprocal link (i.e. both sites link to each other), money or some other benefit.

If you are lucky you might be able to convince the other party that a link is beneficial to them without offering anything else, but this is very rare.

Make it easy

You must make it easy for the other party to accommodate your link. Provide all the necessary details (URL, title and description). It is often helpful to suggest which page your inbound link should appear on, especially with large websites or directories.

Follow rules

Most serious websites have guidelines for linking and other enquiries. Make sure you follow them. For example, if the site has a word limit on descriptions then stick to it.