Three Things You Must Do Before You Submit To Article Directories

To all writers and non-writers out there, now is the time to start digging up those creative writing skills.With modern communication technology comes the popularity of information-based marketing, which is one of the oldest and most effective techniques in getting targeted prospects to sites and converting them into buyers. This is

One of the services search engine marketing companies provide is Link Building. This is where the firm actively seeks out links by finding websites that are on a similar topic to yours and approaching them on your behalf to ask for links. However as the search engines have become more sophisticated they have been able to distinguish between sites providing good high quality relevant links and other less reliable websites. As a consequence its become increasingly important for search engine marketers & optimisation agencies to learn which links are most valuable.

One of the first things to bear in mind when asking a site for the link is if its relevant. The best way to tell if a search engine would see you link as appropriate is to think like the linking websites target audience. If a reader of the site you are approaching would find your web page useful then so will the search engines.

Its also important to see who else the potential link partner is linking to. A site with a few high quality links is a lot more valuable as a link resource than a site with links to some of the more grubby neighborhoods on the World Wide Web.

The older the site you are approaching to build links with the better. The more established a site is the more valuable its links are. A link from a site thats been around since the early days of the internet can really help a search engine optimization campaign and move a website up the rankings result page.

As well as the age of the link partner its worth looking at which Top Level Domain (TLD) the website is hosted with. .edu & .gov sites are best. Unless its a high quality well established reputable site .biz & .info pages are best avoided. The less desirable domain extensions are more prone to spam so their links offer less trust.

Its always best to try and find links from proper editorial pages rather than directories. While it may be more time consuming and require a personalized email its worth the effort. The search engines view a link from a content site as a better recommendation than a web directory that is full of links.

Another top tip is to avoid sites in foreign languages its easy for the search engine to see these as irrelevant links, so youre better not wasting your time perusing these links.

If you are trying to market and promote your site; a well organized link campaign as part of a varied search engine marketing strategy can provide real tangible results. You can quickly move up through the results of search engines like Yahoo! & Google and drive more traffic to your website.

Kelvin Newman is a search engine marketing consultant at Site Visibility Ltd. Site Visibility is a UK based search engine marketing company that helps clients increase online customer acquisition and retention using search engine optimization, pay per click and online marketing campaign measurement techniques.

You can read his regularly updated blog Site Visibility - Search Engine Marketing