Check your website link counts

Companies just entering the world of search engine optimization are often floored when we tell them that just putting up a website–even with all the best on-page optimization– will not get high organic search rankings for highly competitive terms. You must build back links – links from other web pages, preferably high quality ones, back to your website.

You can check your sites’ back link count on Marketleap’s link popularity tool or any number of free online tools.

Most web marketing agencies can help you with an initial back link building campaign and then can outline a plan on how to build more back links over time. Some of our favorites are:

1. Write a blog and back link to it
2. Comment on blog posts with high quality that allow website URLs in the comment post line.
3. Write informative articles and submit them to articles banks such as www.ezinearticles.com and www.buzzle.com .
4. Distribute press releases over reputable wires or through prweb.com. In addition to wire distribution, make sure your local or industry press gets the release. Back links in any online media coverage you get is far more valuable than the wire service link.
5. Create Squidoo lenses.
6. Submit your site to free online directories. We hire interns from our local university to do this.