Even if a site is optimized for keywords and content it will not necessarily rank well. Search engine ranking is a popularity contest. One item that can make a site more popular then another is the inbound links it is receiving from other sites. This is where the importance of being linked to comes in.

Links can be separated into two categories; internal and external.

Internal links – Links pointing to pages within the same domain

www.domainabc.com/about.html (links to) www.domainabc.com/company.html

subdomain1.domainabc.com/specials.html (links to) www.domainabc.com/featured.html

External links – Links pointing to an entirely different domain

www.domainabc.com/links.html (links to) www.domainxyz.com

www.domainxyz.com/articles.html (links to) www.domain123.com

Site link value varies depending on keyword relevance and ranking among other factors. Because relevance is an important factor a site that is about home gardens linking to a web security site would have less linking value then a networking security site with similar search engine ranking would. Again, there are many factors that make a link’s value.

There are other factors that increase the relevance of links. The following are ways to give more detail to what a link is pointing to, and in return they give additional weight to the relevance of the link.

Keep in mind this information implies to internal and external links.

A – Link Text

<a href=’http://www.domainABC.com/links.html’ title=’Discount Affordable Shoes’> Buy Affordable Shoes</a>

Instead of having the link text say ‘Click here’, specifying something more detailed in the link text will give the link more relevance.

B – Title Attribute

<a href=’http://www.domainABC.com/links.html’ title=’Discount Affordable Shoes’>

The title attribute can be used as an alternative for link text in case the link is an image or there is no way of getting around the non-specific text ‘click here’.

C – Page Name

<a href=’http://domainABC.com/shoe_pricing.html’ title=’Compare Shoe Prices’>Compare And Save</a>”

Characters such as ‘-‘ and ‘_’ are treated as spaces by search engines. So the page this link is pointing to would be seen as ‘Shoe Pricing’. This gives the page a little more relevance.

Make sure not to be too redundant with the keywords used in a page. Using the same phrase or keywords excessively can flag the page as spam.

The above are more or less link enhancements. They alone will not make a site shoot up to the top ranking of a search, but they are important and should be used when possible.

In Summary:

• Both external and internal links improve a site’s rank
• Relevance is a factor that plays in a links value to another site
• Adding keywords in the title attribute, file name and link text improves relevance