Assessing An Inbound Links Value

Writing by Nick Stamoulis Tweet

Obtaining links to your site can be a frustrating business. Your search engine optimization program can produce pages that are, technically speaking, perfect – yet they fail to attract links.

You can get out and start to acquire links through directory submissions, social media and even article directories, however you should also have a healthy percentage of links from other relevant sites. As you start to acquire links from other sites you can assess the search engine optimization value of those links by researching certain factors.

1 – Relevance – The relevance of the page and site that links in to your pages. The more relevant the site or page is, the more value can be placed on that link.

2 – Anchor Text – The anchor text ideally should be your keyword. The closer the anchor text is to that page’s keyword(s) the more value can placed on that link.

3 – Link Placement – Links that appear within content carry more weight than links in a menu. Links a footer may carry even less weight. The content surrounding the link may also be considered when assessing the links weight.

4 – Strength – Strength is the least reliabel part of the equation. A site may display a PageRank of 4, however the real rank at the time may be a 3 or a 5 or any other number. PageRank is a general guide only, however a site with a PR significantly higher than your own should be sort for linking.

These are only some of the factors that can be used. These will provide an overall picture of the strength of any links coming in. Your search engine optimization strategies can then be planned around the value of these incoming links.