Optimize Your Website with Quality Inbound Links

One of the jobs here at The Digital Orchard is to constantly evaluate which websites are pointing to our clients' websites, and then to offer suggestions to our clients for improving that. Why is this important? Because links are "votes" — a link from a quality website to a page on your website is a vote of confidence, and this is essential to achieving a higher page rank in search engines.

It is highly desirable to have a growing number of quality inbound links.

Another way to think about links are "roadways". If there are no roadways into your online property, then how are people supposed to find you? Links directly target that challenge. You don't want your website to be an island in the vast expanse of the internet.

Quality vs. Quantity

It is not good enough to aim for the most number of incoming links regardless of where they are coming from. Nor is it good enough to always have those links only pointing to the Home page of your website. The ideal approach is to have a diverse array of quality websites pointing to relevant pages inside your website. Each link is a vote. If a page does not have any outside links pointing to it, it's not getting any votes, and therefore it won't achieve a very high page rank.

What Can You Do?

Keep your eyes peeled. If you come across a website that you consider to be a quality website to link to a specific page on your website, then take action. Contact that website and ask them to link to your website. Provide them with the specific page address that you want them to link to. If you have any doubts about the quality of a website, contact us here at The Digital Orchard and we will be happy to evaluate the website for you and let you know if it would be a worthy connection to have in place.

• Do you have a blogging friend? Ask them to interview you, post the interview to their blog, and then link it to your website.
• Is something exciting happening with your business. Spread the news, and have news outlets link their reviews directly to your website.
• Do an audit of community websites, such as your local Chamber of Commerce, to see if they are correctly linking to your website.
• Use social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) to promote specific pages on your website. Did you just post a great new blog post? Promote it and then link to it.

And remember – it's not just about links to your Home page. You want links to inside pages on your website as much as possible. This is the very essense of the World Wide "Web" (where "www" comes from).

We're always here to help you achieve the best from your website. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us here at The Digital Orchard.