Internet Marketing Nashua NH – Getting Started Guide 8

The previous article in this series was about on-page SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This article will focus on the other aspect of SEO, namely off-page SEO. Combining these two aspects of SEO will almost guarantee a high ranking in the search engines for your web page.

Off-page SEO is highly dependent upon one thing – links from other websites to your web page. Generally, the more links you get, the higher your search engine ranking. But there are several conditions to that. These conditions mostly revolve around one main characteristic – the natural appearance of these links.

What do the search engines consider naturally appearing links?

Here are three criteria:

1. They must be from different IP addresses
2. They must have varied anchor texts
3. They must appear gradually over time.

So the most important thing to do to increase the ranking of a web page would be to create links back to it that fulfill these three criteria. Here’s how to do it.

To make backlinks come from various IP addresses, post links to different websites that are of the same topic or niche as your web page. One good way to do that would be to search on Google for the main keyword of your niche + blogs or + forums or + news etc.

 For example, if your web page is on keeping betta fish, search for Betta fish keeping blog or Betta fish keeping forum. Then visit the websites that are listed in the first and second results page and look for places you could leave a comment, ask a question or post an entry. Usually blogs, forums and news portals allow you to leave your name, email and website with your comment. By inserting your website URL, you will gain a backlink from that blog or forum to your web page or website.

Another thing to do is to create these websites yourself. Search engines have high regard for certain web 2.0 properties like Squidoo, Hubpages Wetpaint, Weebly, LiveJournal etc. Likewise, they also rank certain social bookmarking sites very highly, like Digg, Delicious, Technorati, Stumbleupon and so on.

 By creating your own websites on these web 2.0 properties and leaving entries on these social bookmarking sites, you will be getting backlinks from varied IP addresses. However, you must abide by the rules of these web 2.0 properties because most of them frown upon too many backlinks in one website you create and you might find your website suspended.

One more thing most people do to create backlinks from various IP addresses is to write articles and post them in different article directories. The top article directories that the search engines favor are EzineArticles, GoArticles, Articlesbase and Buzzle.

Next, you need to vary your anchor texts. The best anchor text would be the one containing the keyword you are trying to rank for. Suppose you want to have your web page appear on page one of Google for the term ‘Betta fish diseases’ then you would use the this term to hyperlink back to your web page. But if this is overdone and there are no other anchor texts used, this throws up a red flag to the search engines. So vary anchor texts by including some generic ones like ‘Click Here’.

Finally, create these links over time. If a few hundred backlinks are done all of a sudden, it does not appear natural. But building links over time will result in a gradual increase in search engine rankings for your web page or website.