12 Steps to a Successful Website - OurChurch.Com

Exchanging links has the added benefit of improving your rankings in search engines. Most search engines now consider a link on one site to another to be an endorsement or vote for that website.

But before you go on a quest to build up your links, it's important to note that the sheer number of links is not as important as the quality of the sites doing the linking. A prominent site with high search rankings that links to your site carries a lot more weight than a tiny unknown site that links to yours. Furthermore, a website that has completely unrelated content that links to yours - even a very prominent site - may be given no weight at all. Finally, it is important to note that simply putting a link on your website doesn't help your search rankings at all if the other site doesn't link back to you.

Linking Instructions

Before you begin exchanging links, it's important to carefully consider exactly how you want others to link to yours site. A text link will help your search rankings for the keywords in the link. For example, OurChurch.Com will help our search ranking for people who search for "OurChurch.Com" but that's not very useful because anyone searching for "OurChurch.Com" already knows who we are. On the other hand, Christian web host helps OurChurch.Com's rankings for "Christian web host" which is one of our targeted keyword phrases.

If you ask people to link to your website using a graphic, the keywords in the ALT attribute will get a boost in search rankings. Therefore, it's important to give a link exchange partner the exact HTML for the graphic & link. It's also a good idea to give other sites more than one size graphic to choose from or the option of using a text link if they are not intersted in putting your big banner on their site.

Selecting Link Candidates

Give careful thought to the sites with which you try to exchange links. The websites you select should already rank fairly well in the search engines, and the people who run them should have a good reputation. Thoroughly check to be sure the content of the sites are appropriate, especially any ads that may be running on the sites. Remember, you will be recommending these sites to your visitors, and they will hold you responsible if you take them to a bad site.

Exchange links primarily with sites that have a similar subject matter but are not direct competitors. Our sample Children's Ministry site should offer links on topics that appeal to parents, children and teachers. The links could be to sites providing teaching strategies, classroom decorating ideas, and tips for dealing with preschoolers. Exchanging links with websites that do not have the same subject matter but do have a similar demographic profile can also be worthwhile. In addition to other children's ministry websites, our sample site might also exchange links with home schooling sites or sites for Christian moms.

If you have more than one site, don't forget to add your own site links!

Contacting Link Candidates

Send an email letting the webmaster know what you like about their website and how you feel it would benefit your visitors. Ask if it would be OK for you to place a link to their site on your website. Describe your site visitor demographic and how the link will drive quality traffic to them. Then provide your own URL and explain that you would be happy to share your link in return. Some webmasters require the other site place a link on their site, while others ask but say it's not mandatory. Decide which approach you would like to use and be sure to let the other webmaster know.

Most site owners will be delighted to permit you to link to them and to offer a reciprocal link. If you repeat these steps with equally good sites, your links page will become an excellent resource instead of a hodge-podge of irrelevant links. But don't expect people to jump on the chance to share links with you unless your site is as excellent as you can make it - no typographical errors, no glaring design mistakes, and useful, original, current content.

Placing Links

At OurChurch.Com, one of the most common mistakes we see our webmasters make is the addition of link after link on the homepage. Often these links are in the form of dazzling or animated HTML that draws the eye away from the main content.

Let's look at it from your site visitor's perspective. Sally Surfer visits your site. She reads the main paragraph, gets to line 3, and becomes distracted by something blinking towards the bottom of the page. She looks and - why, there's a site that promises wealth and security! She wants to check it out! Next thing you know, poof! Sally is gone.

A better solution would be to have a separate links page as the last item in your navigation menu. That way Sally can go to your site, check out all your great content, and visit your thoughtfully included links page at the end. "How nice," says Sally.

Monitoring Links

Dead links can really frustrate your visitors. It's important that you check the links on your website regularly to be sure they are all working. It's also a good idea to check the sites you've exchanged links with on a regular basis to be sure your link is still there. Some webmasters will either "forget" to put your link on their site, put it on a page that is not accessible from the rest of their website, or delete after a month or two hoping you'll never notice.

Beware of link farms that participate in link stuffing. These are sites that link to other sites for all the wrong reasons. Their sole motivation is to increase their link popularity score. They don't care if the site listings are relevant and they'll include everything from mortgage companies to porn sites. Don't fall prey to their tactics by promising a certain number of links in exchange for a certain number of listings. It will hurt you in the long run and the search engines could ban you.

The Ultimate links

Of course, the best links are those you don't have to ask for. If other webmasters find your site useful they'll link to you on your own or they'll ask you if you want to exchange links. For that reason you should have linking instructions on your links page including how someone should contact you if they want to exchange links and the exact HTML you would like other webmasters to use.

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