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Why You Should Avoid Link Farming to Increase Your Website Ranking

by: johnarthur on Date: Tue, 28 Dec 2010 Time: 8:00 PM

If you are marketing your business online or are planning to, then your priority is likely to be to get to the top of the search engine rankings. This can be a difficult task, but with sufficient knowledge on online marketing and hard work, it can be done.

A search engine like Google determines a websites ranking on a certain search phrase by taking into account over 200 factors. Primarily this relates to onsite factors (content and structure of the website in question) and offsite factors (what the rest of the internet 'says' about a website). A popular method of offsite optimisation is back linking. A back link is a link on another website that leads to your own. Many website owners become desperate in getting to the top of the search engine rankings and will resort to spamming search engines to artificially increase their rankings. It is vital to not neglect quality and website relevance in order to achieve short term ranking success.

If you are currently doing this, you should stop. This is called link farming and Google considers this a form of spamming. If Google has not penalised you yet, then it is likely they will at some point. Remember that your chances of getting a high ranking depend not only on the number of your back links but also on the quality of these websites and the relevance of their content to your own.

So what should you do?
Building a strong, reputable presence on the internet requires a sophisticated and long term approach to online marketing. Any expert in SEO for Australian businesses will tell you that it is worth the effort, and to avoid cheating or "black hat" methods. Approved SEO techniques will help you establish a high website ranking that can sustain for a long period of time. An ethical SEO company will never deploy 'black hat methods'.

Here are six ethical alternatives to link farming and black hat SEO techniques:

1. Submit to directories. Submit your website or some of your important web pages to search engines, website directories, social bookmarks, etc. Many of these are free of charge.

2. Use ads. Advertise your website in established sites that allow for posting of ads such as ezine advertising.

3. Write and publish quality articles. Write well-written articles about your website or product and publish them on popular article directories. Make sure your articles are written with a conversational tone to make them easy to understand. This will create an impression that you are an expert in your field and will help boost your reputation.

4. Get updated. Always keep updated with search engine algorithms or the systems with which search engines use to rank websites.

5. Monitor your competitors. Try to find out how websites similar to yours that are ranking consistently well on the search engine results relating to your field.

6. Get an SEO specialist. Most businesses are best to rely on a professional SEO company than attempt DIY SEO. The services provided by an SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) specialist will likely prove to be invaluable for your business. Consult with your current web design company if they also provide SEO services.

If you plan on developing your own business website make sure you have one that is not only user-friendly, but also highly optimised for search engines, also known as SEO friendly. If you have more questions about web design and SEO do not hesitate to contact us. We would love to help jumpstart your success in your business.

About the Author

The Web Showroom is a web design company that also provides business SEO for Australia. Our web design and online marketing teams work hard towards client satisfaction.

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