How To Get Inbound Links: Why Are Links Important?

All too often, search engine optimization experts will encourage webmasters to get inbound links. But they do not always explain the methods that one should use to go about making this happen, as well as the reasons why links are so important.

In this article series, we discuss the importance of links and explore many methods for obtaining them.

What Are Links?

A link, short for hyperlink, is a reference to another location. In practice, links are generally textual elements on which you can click to be redirected to another web page or external website.

In the example below, we’ve shown a typical link as well as the corresponding HTML code.

Velvet Blues Home Page

<a href="http://www.VelvetBlues.com">Velvet Blues Home Page</a>

Inbound Links - Why You Need Them

Inbound linking occurs when another website places a hyperlink on their website which points to yours. As we mentioned in our articles How To Improve and Maintain Your Google Pagerank and Free SEO: Ways To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking, inbound links are used by search engines to determine the quality of your website. And by having a good amount of relevant inbound links, you will be able to realize a lot of traffic from search engines, namely Google.

Not All Links Are Created Equal

In light of the great benefits that inbound links can give, many webmasters often rush to acquire a great number of links. However, not all links are created equal. When determining the rank of your website, search engines also consider the quality of the websites from which you are getting links.

It is also important to know that not all links are even noticed by search engines. These junk links include:

• No-Follow links. Sometimes webmasters want to link to a website but don’t want to risk losing any pagerank. So they basically enable users to click on your link but restrict search engines from following it.
• Encrypted links. Another tactic used to prevent spam and avoid passing on pagerank is to encrypt links or use redirects. When search engines look at these links, they are not able to ascertain the location of the link.
• Javascript links. Some link rotation scripts employ javascript to loop through links. This is another link that search engines are unable to follow.

What’s Next?

Now that you know what inbound links are and why you need them, we will tell you how to get them. Stay tuned for the next part of our How To Get Inbound Links series: Content Is King.