There are many ways to improve your website rankings in the search engines. One of the most important methods is through inbound linking. Inbound links are those originating from similar external websites pointing over to your site. With a healthy amount of inbound links, your search engine optimization results will be markedly enhanced.

Let's look at an example of an inbound linking strategy. Say "Bob" has a dental equipment company based in Texas. As part of his efforts to produce a quality website, he has personally contacted over 20 dentists in his home town and asked them to put links on their websites that lead to his company's site. Many of the dentists agree since Bob offers great products and is also including links back to these dentists websites (since they are using his equipment). The end result is Bob has a number of other websites with links over to his website. So he has numerous "inbound links".

How does this example help with search engine rankings? The search engines have algorithms which they use to analyze how high to rank websites. If a particular site has multiple inbound links from other similar (or complimentary) sites, then the engines will give that site a higher ranking. The reasoning is, if the site is linked from other sites it probably has helpful information on that topic (if it didn't, then others would not be linking to it). This does not hold true if you have different type websites linking to yours (for example, if you have your cousins skateboarding sites linking to your denture business). The sites linking "in" must be similar or complimentary in nature for the linking to help your search engine rankings.

To get the most success out of an inbound linking effort, it is best to be as personal as possible when requesting a link. Write a real letter to the target site's owner/webmaster. Explain the two-way benefit that comes with cross linking. Many will not respond, but if done right, many will see the win-win benefit and agree.

As search engines like Google dominate the landscape, inbound linking will continue to be a major part of how high a website ranks.

Paul Kaufman

Paul Kaufman is the owner and lead usability expert for Kaufman Web Design, an Internet solutions provider based in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Paul is also an accomplished trainer and public speaker having taught and spoken on a wide range of web topics throughout the United States.