WHY LINKS TO MY WEBSITE IS IMPORTANT
Evolving search engines make it harder and harder to get top search engine rankings.
The search engines prefer websites that have a large number of quality, one way links pointing to them. It is basically the principle of "if they like you, so do I" that applies. Because of this, it's absolutely critical that you consistently try to get other websites to link to you, WITHOUT you linking back to them. People must like YOU and you must not need to love them back, then you MUST be really great!
Yes, reciprocal linking is becoming less and less valuable. Submitting your website to website directories is an excellent way to get, quality, one-way links pointing to your website. You see, many of the website directories online have a high amount of page rank and have been online for several years.
These are 2 of the most important criteria for determining what a good link is, vs what a bad link is. These two criteria are:
- The age of the website linking to you
- The Page Rank of the website linking to you
With that said, many of these directories have both a high Page Rank AND are old websites, giving them more authority and power in the search engines.
Not only that, but there are literally thousands of website directories on the internet that are absolutely free for you to submit your website to! While it does take time to find these directories and then manually fill out all of the required criteria to submit your website, it is an excellent way to help increase your search engine rankings.
But a word of caution here. The search engines are a lot smarter than a lot of people think. You sticking your links in any old link exchange is not always going to do you good. If the link coming to you is from a "bad place" as determined by the search engine you will also be considered bad. Sort of punished for the company you keep!