SEO / SEM Blog by Search Circus

Inbound links send people your way

If you’ve talked to a professional SEO firm about improving your Google rankings, then you’ve likely heard that it’s imperative to get as many other sites as possible to link to your Website. Those are called inbound links, and all professional SEO practitioners will tell you that they’re one of the cornerstones of great search rankings. But that doesn’t mean that a site with just a few inbound links can’t outrank a website that boasts lots of inbound links.

Simply having a large number of inbound links does not guarantee that it will rank high for targeted keywords. Why? Because there are several other professional SEO methods that can boost a website’s search engine positioning. If you think your competitor has many more inbound links than you, then there are other ways you can make up that discrepancy. Here are the most important professional SEO techniques:

• Optimizing your pages with targeted keywords
• Making your Website streamlined and structurally sound
• Making your HTML code error-free
• Creating a robots.txt file that allows search engine spiders to visit your website

But there’s more you can do once you start thinking about inbound links. The secret is obtaining quality links. Professional SEO firms will tell you that those are the most valuable links to procure, as they are the inbound links coming from sites that are either popular or sites that have some kind of authority. Think social bookmarking sites, college and university sites, local and national news sites, and popular web directories. Just a few links from these quality, authoritative sites could mean getting a leg up on your competitors in Google, Yahoo and Bing.