To really succeed in the online world it is important that you keep good company.  Search engines judge your site, the quality of its content and the relevance of its information according to linkages from other sites.  All good search engine strategies involve the discipline of getting appropriate links from other websites.  How do you go about this for maximum commercial gain?

Search engines are constantly trying to understand technical behaviour in the context of human behaviour.  In doing this they apply certain commonsense assumptions to the makeup of the web and of individual sites.  For instance they take great interest in how your pages are titled, and in the opening paragraph on the home page of your site, as they assume quite rightly that you will take the opportunity to clearly describe your organisation in those spaces.

Similarly they make the assumption that if your website is widely linked from a range of like minded and trusted websites that it must have something relevant and interesting to say on a related topic.  If you search on Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL for any worldwide corporate company, in 99% of cases the company’s official website will be listed at number 1.  Many of these companies have hundreds of official and unofficial websites – how can search engines point you in the direction of their main official site?  The answer is linkages – the official websites of these corporations have more relevant links than any of the other sites and therefore are trusted to contain the most relevant information for the search.

How can you replicate this success for your own business?  There are a number of principles you should consider when seeking to keep good online company:

Be patient – Getting the best links from the right website is a lifetime’s work and should continue for the lifetime of your website.  Always be on the lookout for links from appropriate websites and don’t try to rush the task.

Link from like minded websites – A website for a web agency for instance would wish to pursue links from organisations such as Irish Internet Association, Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce and Industry, UK Web Developers Association, etc.  Without indexing a single word on the web agency website, a search engine may make lots of informed decisions about the type of organisation based on its inbound links.  Get high quality links from highly relevant websites.

Use business directories – Web directories such as Yahoo, Kompass and Golden Pages won’t solve all of your online linkages issues, but it helps to use directories such as these as a foundation.  Ensure that you are categorised well, and linked with clear coherent copy.

Use industry directories – Many actual business types have relevant directories specific to their own business.  For instance those in the wedding industry or fishing industry can enjoy lots of relevant traffic and enhanced search engine performance by being associated with wedding or fishing directories.

Focus on keywords – Try to ensure that the links to your website are rich in the keywords that you wish to perform well on.  Again in the context of a web agency website, links from other sites might read “Find out more about Content Management in Ireland”, “Save 10% on your Broadband in Dublin”.  Avoid bland or generic links, especially links which are just your web address.

Use reciprocal links with caution – Links which are easy to get are valued less by search engines than others.  Ask the following question – “Would I set up this reciprocal link if it wasn’t for enhanced search engine performance?”  If the answer is yes then go for it, don’t go for it otherwise.

Be proactive – Linkages should be part of your search marketing strategy, and should be included along with other forms of online and offline marketing, as part of the overall mix.

This might appear like a slightly obtuse, or overly technical discipline to be called a “web marketing” discipline.  Whilst it is quite technical in its implementation, in essence it is marketing in its purest sense, as you seek to identify customer needs and customer behaviour, and fulfil those needs by bringing customers to your site and providing them with what they want, at whatever cost it is worth.