As important as it is for your website to have internal SEO to ensure proper structures and content, it’s equally important for it to have external resources (local business directories, industry related websites, and social media pages) that link back to your site. Not only do you want as many sites to link back to you as possible, but you need to make sure that the links come from reputable locations, and as for business directories you want to make sure they all refer to the exact same business name, address, and phone number (also known as NAP listings).
Local Listings
How many times in the past have you done a search for a business on Google and found business directories like Yelp, Google Places, Merchant Circle, or Yahoo Local, and decided to check out the reviews to decide who you wanted to go with? These highly reputable business directories can not only provide direct traffic from their website to yours, but if you have the exact same business name, address, and phone number (NAP listings) on all the major directories then it boosts your chances of getting higher ranks for local searches if you serve the local area.
Backlinks
Getting backlinks from reputable industry related websites that point to your site as a respected resource can be a very time consuming and lengthy process, but the long term value it can provide in getting you to the top of the search results (and keeping you there) makes this part of SEO the one thing that needs to be done continuously. There needs to be a focused balance on the words that are used to link to your site along with which pages they should link into. It’s not good SEO practice to only link to the front page, but these backlinks also need to deep link to the specific page for which it is describing both within it’s link text (also known as anchor text), and the subject matter of the content from where it’s linking from.
Social Media Sharing
Social networking plays a very large part in how people refer websites, web pages, images, and articles that they deem worthy of sharing with those they know, so you don’t want to lose opportunities to make sharing as easy as possible. You can not only gain links to your site from social profiles for the written content that they may find within your main site and blog, but you can also have informative videos as well as infographics that can create a large network of backlinks to your site.
Find out how Penner Web Design can help you develop a large network of links to your site through external SEO. Call today or fill out the simple Quote form for a free estimate.